Lilmar Taylor-Williams writes the column, "Through the Rear View Mirror" for the The News-Journal. Below she recounts her memories of living in Raeford, NC during WWII:

Raeford was a sleepy little town that was jerked into the reality of world affairs when the convoys from Fort Benning began to pass through town with young men newly trained to go to war. Fort Bragg was their next stop on their way overseas. "The convoy is coming!" echoed down Stewart Street and my friends Micky, L. S. Brock and I raced to the corner on Central and Stewart to be there as the huge trucks lumbered around the corner at Graham’s Gulf. People who traveled through our town seemed to know Raeford by two things. The Gulf station on the corner had two white deer on top of the portico and the streets were very wide. They didn’t know that this was a plan of the founding fathers. Main Street was to be wide enough to turn a team of horses and wagon, or more likely mules, without a stop.

The faces of the young men seemed to be jerked from the monotony of the long trek by the children who jumped up and down yelling and waving. By the time the third or fourth truck, open backed with benches for the young men to sit on, had rumbled by, there was a gathering of both young and old yelling thanks to the young men. Mrs. Johnson and Agnes Mae watched from a spot where they leaned on the black wrought iron fence that enclosed their yard. Even their parrot, Polly, seemed to want to be a part of the excitement and yelled, "Here Kitty, Here Kitty," imitating the way Agnes Mae called the cats for supper. Miss Bert and Miss Reba Roberts came to their porch with their lipstick and rouge in place as if they slept in it and just reapplied a new layer every morning.

We jumped up and down waving, trying to elicit a smile or maybe even a wave from the weary travelers. Aunt Arah Stuart might even stop her piano lessons long enough for her young student to take part in the revelry. Mrs. Ruth MacDonald, down the street, came from her kitchen, and seemed to be wiping a tear from her eye with the corner of her apron. As I looked down the street to count the still coming trucks, Mr. Neil A McDonald nodded in greeting from his Esso Station as he looked up from filling the tank on Mrs. Edna. McNeill’s Oldsmobile. As the last truck went by, two WW I veterans who had stood at attention throughout, broke their stance, took their hands from covering their heart, and walked off, perhaps re-telling each other stories from their days in fox holes of old.

I felt as it we had been more a part of making our country safe by giving encouragement in our own simple way to these men than another way called the War Bond Stamp Program. I had bought little pink stamps and put into a stamp book to save to buy War Bonds. Everyone, parents, teachers, preachers and Sunday School teachers, told children of wartime how they were helping to win the war by saving stamps to buy bonds. Some adult must have come up with this idea! I knew that the jumping, waving and yelling had done a lot more for our men going to war than any little pink stamp licked onto a page in a small folding booklet.

Another thing that was hard for me to understand about wartime was why some nights I would sleep in the bedroom of my parents and for a few days and nights, a young soldier and his young wife would stay with us and sleep in my bedroom. "Why didn’t they stay at their own house or at Fort Bragg?" My mother and daddy explained to me that these were men that were going off to war and they and their wives were borrowing my bedroom so they could be together to say their last “good-byes”. Now, this made no sense to me either. Everyone knows you say “good-bye” when your friend goes to the door to walk out to go home. I never said “good-bye” to anyone in my bedroom. Oh well, I just hoped they didn’t lie down on my bed and squish my dolls.

My Mamommy and Granddaddy, Mr. and Mrs. H. L. Gatlin, Sr. always had some nice soldiers and their wives staying in the little apartment attached to their garage. The men seemed to want to say something to the cute little girl who stood on the back stoop, waiting impatiently, until she saw the couple come out the door. I was that little girl and as soon as I saw to their apartment door crack open, I’d rush down the steps and hurry to greet them, upon getting closer though, I’d slow, trying to determine what my reception would be. The wives almost always knelt to touch my curls. That broke the ice and we three were immediate friends.

Now that I look back on the actions of these young wives, I know they must have been wondering if she and her young soldier would ever have a darling little girl or their own. The young warrior’s heart soon melted and they too, engaged me in conversation. Some of them talked funny. I learned that they were "Yankees". That could not be! Yankees were the bad men that marched through this area long ago during the “Silver War” and signed their name in the Bible at Bethel Church. I knew this was a bad thing those soldiers had done and they were "Yankees". Well, that just could not be true about my new friends. These were definitely nice people. Somebody just had to be wrong about “Yankees”.

War is hard to understand at any age. But, I knew that in some small way, we were bringing happiness to these couples. And, their smiles told me that I was helping to lift them into the beauty of a pre-school child’s life. The world where these young men were headed would not be beautiful, but I had no idea of that. Even the newsreels that came at the start of every movie at Mr. McIntire’s theater, thankfully made no impression on me. But, I knew there was a war, so I just continued to collect scrap metal, try not to wear out my shoes, not ask for cake or pie that had to be made with sugar, not even think of touching the Ration Book… and keep sticking those little pink stamps in those little blue booklets… whatever that was supposed to be for!

When the war is over, I will ask those soldiers, or my Uncle Neil Senter, who is a soldier, what in the world they did with all those little pink stamps when they were trying to fight a war.