"It was a 12-gauge shotgun and it kicked like a mule. "I was 6 years old when I killed my first squirrel," Lyda said. "On the firing range, I only missed one out of 100 shots, hitting the bull's-eye." "I squirrel hunted and coon hunted all my life," Israel said. They kept hitting bull's-eyes, winning numerous medals for marksmanship. Lyda and Israel stood out during rifle practice. They said we possibly should have one or two more." "I didn't want to go and fight, but I went on," Israel said. ![]() "I just felt I needed to go to war and help. "When Mark Rhodes, my cousin, got killed at Pearl Harbor everybody in my area wanted to get in the service and go and do something," Lyda said. Though they were drafted, neither man thought of not serving. The 808th's reunion will be held here this year and the 82-year-old Lyda insists that Israel, 84, paralyzed and unable to attend past reunions, will be at this one. Today, only two of those men survive - George "Buck" Lyda of Edneyville and Foy Israel of Hoopers Creek. George Patton's Third Army in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Austria. ![]() During World War II, they served with Gen. Sixteen of the men in the bus were selected by the Army to serve in the 808th Tank Destroyer Battalion. It was headed down the mountain for Camp Croft in Spartanburg County, S.C. The bus was full of young men recently drafted into the Army when it pulled out of the Hendersonville station in December 1942.
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