Page 59 - Sorghum

Dr. E. W. Branyon’s Bio
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cause she was wearing high heels and I was the tallest.
We hit it off from that point on. I wore a tux and took Mary to a KA party at Red Moun- tain Country Club in Birmingham, probably the most exclusive club in Alabama. Its members included the “Big Mule’s” who owned the steel mills, and many Birmingham leaders from Mountain Brook, the richest city per capita in Alabama.
I wasn’t much of a partier or a dancer. I knew what I wanted: a woman just like Mary, and to go to medical school.
I never had a hankering to get in the fight. I didn’t want to be cannon fodder, think- ing I could serve my country better in other ways. If I did get sent to fight I wanted to be in the Navy rather than the Infantry.
In those days things often worked out just the opposite of what you wanted. Take my KA brother Dick Bliss, who would turn out to be my best friend. He wanted to fight and joined the Marines, but they sent him to the University of North Carolina to finish his college so that he’d be a better trained officer. When finished he was sent to an invasion ship bound for Japan when America dropped the atom bombs and the war ended. He did wear a Marine, flattop hair