Taylor and Jalen Holmes love history. That’s why, when Willis Hallowell, a veteran of the Korean War, gave the brothers a pair of military uniforms – his own and his brother’s – the unique gift was a perfect fit.
“My dad’s dad – my grandfather – was in World War II,” Taylor said.
According to Greg Holmes, Taylor and Jalen’s father, the boys’ late grandfather, Cpl. Glenwood W. Holmes, a United States Army veteran, drove a supply truck in France and Germany during the war.
Greg Holmes and his oldest brother, Master Sgt. Terry Holmes (Ret.), followed their father into the Armed Forces. From 1983-1984, Greg Holmes was an Airman First Class in the Air Force, working as a jet mechanic.
Terry Holmes also joined the Air Force, working as a Nuclear Missile Technician in Wichita, Kan. and Great Falls, Mont. for 26 years.
The boys’ heritage peaked their interest in history generally and World War II specifically – at least for Taylor. Taylor, 11, reads and watches documentaries on The History Channel and The Military Channel about D-Day and The Holocaust.
A straight-A student at Bristol Consolidated School, Taylor is currently enrolled in a Social Studies class but most of his education is “self-study,” his mother, Kendall Holmes, said.
Jalen Holmes, nine, another exemplary student, enjoys military history, too, although his area of expertise is aircraft, tanks and other weaponry – the technology of war.
The boys met Willis Hallowell, a friend of their grandmother, Arlene Holmes, at Moody’s Diner in Waldoboro. Hallowell invited the boys to visit his house and, when they came over, he gave Taylor his uniform from the Korean War. Later, on another visit to the house, Hallowell gave Jalen his brother’s uniform from the Vietnam War.
“They’re both in pristine shape,” Greg Holmes said. “For some veteran to give an 11-year-old his Korean War uniform… It totally blows me away.”
Hallowell, 79, of Waldoboro, served in the 45th Infantry Division, 180th Infantry Regiment from 1952-1953. He talked about his experience in the Korean War in a Dec. 28 interview with The Lincoln County News.
Sleeping conditions in Korea were anything but restful. “We got cold winters over there just like here,” Hallowell said. Despite the warmth of parkas, “goose-feather” sleeping bags and insulated Mickey Mouse boots, “You could get up in the morning and have frost all around where you breathe.”
Hallowell’s uniform boasts a number of medals, including one distinguishing Hallowell as a sharpshooter with an M-1 rifle. “I’m an old-time deer hunter,” Hallowell explained. “We had an M-1 and that took the exact same shell as a .30-06 [rifle].”
Hallowell also carried a M-1 carbine during the war. “When you went to sleep at night you huddled with that thing in your arms,” he said.
“War is a hell of a thing,” Hallowell said. “We lost a lot of men over there.”
Willis Hallowell’s late brother, Staff Sgt. Roger Hallowell, was the wearer of the second uniform. Staff Sgt. Hallowell fought in the infantry in the Vietnam War and returned to the U.S. with post-traumatic stress disorder. He spent time at Togus, the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs hospital in Augusta and died in his mid-thirties.
Combat in Vietnam was “too much for a lot of guys over in that cussed place,” Willis Hallowell said. “Vietnam was a hell of a place – hot as hell.”
As for the uniforms, Hallowell’s gift to the Holmes brothers, “I’d never lose enough weight now to get into them,” he said. “I took a 32 waist.” Of the Holmes brothers, he said, “Quite characters they are – smart kids, too.”
“I think that was probably the happiest thing that Willis could do,” Greg Holmes said. The boys, with the help of their parents and Ed Strausberg, a Vietnam War veteran and historian from Bristol Mills, plan to build shadow boxes to display the uniforms.
Taylor, the WWII historian, hasn’t cemented his career plans yet, but he’s discussed the possibility of military service with his father.
“I like the idea – if he wants to be a pilot – of him flying it behind a computer screen,” Greg Holmes said.
