Military Service and the War

John Jackson Ledbetter Jr. graduated from Texas A&M in 1925 — an institution that was, at the time, a military college. His yearbook page in The Longhorn listed him as a 2nd Lieutenant in Battery C, Artillery. On May 29, 1925, four days after commencement, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Field Artillery Reserve.

For the next fifteen years, the Army was a two-week obligation each summer. Between 1926 and 1940, JJL completed nine fourteen-day reserve training periods, mostly at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and Camp Bullis, Texas. In March 1932, during one of these periods, he drove to Camp Bullis and took command of Battery B, 1st Battalion:

Up at 5:30 a.m. and drove to Camp Bullis. Left camp at 8:00 with Battalion of F.A. I was acting as Commander of Btry B 1st Bn. After an R.S.O.P. problem on the route we went into camp for the night near Camp Stanley. Put the battery into position after dark. Slept on a cot in a pup tent tonite and to have frozen. (March 30, 1932)

He was promoted steadily through the reserve ranks: First Lieutenant in 1930, Captain in 1936. But until January 1941, the Army remained a sideline to his real work at the International Boundary Commission.

Called to Active Duty

JJL spent the second half of 1940 campaigning for a military assignment. He wrote to the Quartermaster General, the Judge Advocate General, Congressman Thomason, and Brigadier General Hartman. He turned down a civilian engineering appointment by telegram, telling the War Department he was waiting for a commission. On December 7, 1940, a radiogram arrived from Washington: orders were being requested for extended active duty.²

On January 2, 1941, the formal orders came through by radio at Fort Bliss. JJL loaded the family into the car and drove from El Paso to Washington, arriving at 2:00 a.m. on January 8. He reported to the Office of the Quartermaster General that morning and was assigned to Labor Relations. Ten days later, new orders sent him to Fort Sam Houston as Assistant to the Zone Construction Quartermaster for the Eighth Zone.²

His first assignment: Chief of Legal and Labor Relations, handling contracts, disputes, and labor relations for military construction across Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. Promoted to Major in September 1941.²

On December 7, 1941:²

Japan attacked Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaiian Islands, and Manila, in the Philippines today. Secretary of War ordered all military personnel in uniform.

Across the Wartime South

In January 1942, JJL received orders for the Lower Mississippi Valley Division in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The family rented a house on Confederate Avenue, inside the Vicksburg Battlefield. His work was labor relations — investigating complaints at Camp Livingston, reviewing the classification of workers at Camp Claiborne, mediating disputes at military construction sites across four states.²

Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in October 1942. Transferred to Dallas in November, where he directed labor relations for the entire Southwestern Division of the Corps of Engineers, then took charge of contract renegotiation — recovering excessive profits from wartime contractors under the 6th Supplemental National Defense Appropriation Act. In one conference, a contractor agreed to refund $100,000.²

In May 1944, JJL took his first command: the Baton Rouge Engineer Depot, responsible for all engineer supplies in the region. But the stomach trouble was worsening — he entered the Station Hospital at Harding Field for gastrointestinal observation in August. Four reassignments followed in rapid succession: Camp Claiborne, Columbus, Albany. At Albany, he volunteered for Civil Affairs training and was assigned to the School of Military Government at the University of Virginia.²

Preparing for Japan

He arrived in Charlottesville at 2:00 a.m. on New Year’s Eve, 1944.²

Preparing for Japan

JJL graduated from the School of Military Government on February 10, 1945, with a rating of “Superior” and transferred to the Civil Affairs Training School at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he studied Japanese language, area, and economy in preparation for the military occupation of Japan.³

On August 14, 1945, in Ann Arbor:³

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

His classmates left by train for the West Coast. JJL was too ill to join them. The ulcer had worsened under the strain of training. He was admitted to Percy Jones General Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Retired for Disability

On November 14, 1945, a medical board delivered its verdict:³

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.

Promoted to Colonel in December 1945, he was placed on terminal leave through March 24, 1946. He entered the Army as a Captain and left as a Colonel.

After the War

JJL drove back to Texas. He tried law school at SMU on the GI Bill, then took a position as Executive Secretary of the Texas Society of Professional Engineers in Austin — $7,500 a year, plus $284.37 a month in VA retirement pay.³

The ulcer returned in 1948, and again in 1951, when surgeons at Brooke Army Hospital removed most of his stomach.