Sometimes, Making a Mistake Can Be the Best Thing You Ever Do…

Around here, we appreciate the efforts of volunteers, from the USO to Soldier’s Angels and beyond. Here’s the story of another angel, in a different war, in an America most of us never knew, and those who did know it probably remember it only dimly.

Not that the spirit hasn’t remained. It’s just sometimes quiescent as the “cool people” denigrate such things as being so naive and unsophisticated.

But, just like the Army National Guard recruiting song from the 80’s – “When We Were Needed, We Were There” so too it is with the thousands of points of light that are the volunteers who step up to support the troops. With their own time, money, and effort, with no expectation of reward or remuneration.

Welcome to North Platte, Nebraska, a slightly-larger-than-a-whistle-top on the Union Pacific’s great east-west trunk line to California. It’s December 17, 1941, and rumor has it that Company D of an infantry unit of the Nebraska National Guard would be passing through from their mobilization station in Arkansas, headed to the west coast.

The commander of the unit, Captain Denver Wilson, had a sister, Rae Wilson, living in North Platte. Rae, remembering that the North Platte Station had run a canteen for troop trains during WWI, wrote a letter to the local paper, and proposed that they do so again, to take care of their Nebraska troops.

Over 500 people got together to bring treats and good cheer. To troops from Company D of an infantry unit of the Kansas National Guard.

The next day, Rae proposed they just re-establish a canteen like they had in WWI.

And they did.

And by the time the war was over, over 6 million of the 16 million men and women who served in that war had passed through the North Platte Canteen.

Run by volunteers.

Started by mistake.

Keep that in mind next time you make a goof. It may be the germ of the best idea you’ll ever have.

Here’s to the Angels, one and all, throughout the years. Especially during this holiday season.

Photo Courtesy of Lincoln County Historical Museum