Joy Neal Kidney shares her family's story from WWII

History and everything in between, including your stories. There's some of our favorites. Send them to our American stories.com Up next, a listener story from Joy Neal Kidney, and she listens on who in Des Moines, a great Heritage Signal. Joy is the keeper of her family's stories, and today she shares one with us. Take it away. Joy, An Iowa waitress, became an officer in Texas. It was the only formal gown my mother ever owned. She bought it for the opening of the Officers Club at the Marfa Army Air Base in Texas. Doris had just become an officer's wife by marrying Warren Neal, an Iowa farmer who during his pilot's wings. Doris Wilson had been a waitress in Perry, Iowa, at the McDonald Drugstore, which had a soda fountain and a restaurant area. In fact, she was serving Sunday dinner there when the announcement of the attack on Pearl harbor interrupted the background music playing on WHO Radio. She remembered thinking that all of her brothers were liable to be drafted. One by one, the five Wilson brothers left home to serve. Doris brother Dale Wilson and Warren Neal were both Iowa farmers. Enlisted as air cadets in 1942. They were awarded their silver wings and became officers on the same day. A year later, Dale at Roswell, New Mexico, Warren at Marfa, Texas. A few months later, Doris was working at Bishop's Cafeteria in downtown Des Moines. Her brother Dale stopped by in his uniform to see her there while at home on furlough. He was sent to North Carolina next for B25 combat training. Warren was retained at Marfa as an instructor for advanced cadets. He and Doris had dated off and on since high school and were writing to each other during the war. Doris even wore pilot's wings on her coat. With four brothers already in the service and calls for women to enlist to help with the cause, Doris collected recommendations from teachers and had begun the process to apply for the Waves, the World War II women's branch of the Naval Reserve.