Bodine, 95, of Minot, served in the military from Oct. 1, 1942, to Oct. 1, 1945.

One of 18 children (10 boys and eight girls) of Frank and Elizabeth Bodine, the family resided on a farm southeast of Voltaire. Elizabeth Bodine was named North Dakota State Mother of the Year, the same year she received the national title in 1968. She also received North Dakota’s highest honor, the Rough Rider Award, in 1979.

Eight Bodine sons and one daughter served in the U.S. military during three wartimes – Francis, Paul and Jenette during World War II; Chuck, John and Mark during the Korean War; and Robert, Jerry and Dale during the Vietnam War.

Paul Bodine graduated from high school in 1942 and then attended Minot State.

Submitted Photo This photo of Paul Bodine wearing his flight jacket was taken in the early 1940s.

“But I no sooner got there and the draft board came. Everybody 18 years and older had to sign up for the draft. A recruiter said to me, ‘I don’t think you should let yourself get drafted.’ I think he looked at me being just a young farm kid,” Bodine said.

The recruiter told him, “Why don’t you enlist? But you’re only 18 so your folks have to sign.”

“I said, ‘Well, they’re clear out on a farm by Voltaire.’ He said ‘I’ll take you out there.’ He took me out to the farm and I know there was a blizzard because we couldn’t get in the yard. It was October 1. The roads were all plugged. Anyway, I found the folks and they signed the papers. So I enlisted October 1, 1942,” Bodine said.

He thought he would be able to stay in school. Instead, he and a number of other young men at Minot State were pulled into the draft. He was sent to basic training for three months.

Bodine recalled when his dad put him on the train to go to Fort Snelling in Minnesota: “That’s when the train stopped in Voltaire. I got on and I was the only one in that whole car between Voltaire and Minneapolis. I was just 18 years old and I don’t remember being out of the state until then. I got on toward evening and it took all night to get to Minneapolis and then we went to Fort Snelling.”

When he got there, he said, he remembers, “They gave you a butch haircut and your military clothes.” He said he never saw the clothes he wore there again but was given a uniform, a jacket and military fatigues.

“The day we finished (basic training) the master sergeant said, ‘Fall out. You’re not going; you’re being transferred.’ They transferred me to the Air Corps because that’s what I had enlisted in,” Bodine said.

Bodine was sent to George Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee. The two years of required college were trimmed down to six months of brief and specialized training, including weather, code, aircraft identification, English and history.

Bodine then was sent to a year of cadet training (primary, basic and advanced). Indicating a photo of a plane in an album with other photos from his military service, he said, “That’s the first one you fly – the PT-17. They’re Stearman Primary Trainers,” he said. The PT-17 was the first military plane he flew.

Bodine’s military occupation was to ferry planes around the country.

“I was located mainly in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. Hurricanes would come through there so they’d have us fly these airplanes farther north to get out of the hurricanes until the storm was over and then you’d fly them back. Or for different reasons the military would want airplanes sent to different bases around the country,” Bodine said. If they did not make a return flight with a plane, they took the train back to their base.

“Once I graduated it was mainly flying training planes to different bases,” Bodine said. He ended up flying the B-25.

He said they had no idea why they were being transferred “so you never knew what was coming next.”

He remembered: “We had to ferry 25 of those little PT-17s from South Carolina to California. There was 25 of us and we flew over there. There was no communication between airplanes because there was no radios so you just communicated with hand signals or you’d flap the wings. We left the planes there in California and then went back to South Carolina by train. When we got back, that’s when they sent us to the glider base in North Carolina. (They were there for initial glider training.) We were training there when they dropped that atomic bomb. Everything stopped – all the training,” he said.

He said they found out the atomic bomb had been dropped “like everybody else. On the radio.”

He said they were told: “Sign up for a year and we’ll tell you what your assignment will be or else take an immediate release.” He said 99% of them took immediate release and went home.

“But they didn’t give us a discharge. They just kept us in the Reserves,” he said. He left the military with the rank of second lieutenant.

Bodine returned home to North Dakota and returned to college, first at Minot State and then transferred to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, graduating from there with a degree in economics.

“Roosevelt had signed that GI Bill in 1944 so when we got back, everybody went back to school,” he said. “Without the GI Bill, we wouldn’t have been able to go to college.”

Bodine stayed in the Reserves for five years until 1945.

Bodine was the comptroller for Reiten Television for 30 years.

Sports have always been an important part of Bodine’s life. He and his siblings as well as many of his children have been involved in sports over the years.

Bodine and his wife, Deborah, had 12 children. Deborah died in June 2010. He also has 27 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

Until he was drafted into the Army, Bodine said, “Our whole life was living on the farm. We didn’t have much exposure to the outside. Going into the military took us to the rest of the country. It made you grow up fast.”

(Prairie Profile is a weekly feature profiling interesting people in our region. We welcome suggestions from our readers. Call Regional Editor Eloise Ogden at 857-1944 or call 1-800-735-3229. You also can send email suggestions to eogden@minotdailynews.com.)