1945

A year of transitions. JJL begins in Charlottesville, Virginia, at the School of Military Government at the University of Virginia. He graduates on February 10 with a rating of “Superior” and transfers to the Civil Affairs Training School at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, studying Japanese language, area, and economy.

Japan Surrenders

President Truman announced by radio at 7:00 p.m. that Japan had accepted surrender terms. (August 14)

JJL’s classmates leave by train for the West Coast. But JJL is too ill to join them. His stomach — the ulcer that has troubled him since the early 1930s — has worsened under the strain of training. He enters Percy Jones General Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Retired from Service

The diagnosis is definitive: active duodenal ulcer, a service-incurred disability. On November 14:

Board found that I was permanently incapacitated from active military duty by reason of duodenal ulcer and that such disability was a result of incidence of the service.

He receives orders relieving him from active duty, with terminal leave through March 1946. In December, he drives back to Texas and discusses returning to the International Boundary Commission. He settles in San Antonio by year’s end.