Military author Stan Richardson visits Evergreen

On Tuesday of last week, I finally got to meet someone that I’ve wanted to meet face-to-face for a long time, World War II combat veteran and military author Stan Richardson.

In 2005, Richardson published one of the best personal accounts I’ve ever read of WWII, a book titled “Growing Up in a Foxhole, 1944-1946: A Foot Soldier Looks Back.”

I was working at the newspaper in Monroeville at the time, and we heard about Richardson’s book through the grapevine. I eventually got my hands on a copy the book, read it from cover to cover and reviewed the book for the paper.

During that time, I began to correspond with Richardson, who is now 85, and we’ve been e-mailing each other regularly, back and forth for almost six years. Keep in mind that we’d never met in person.

On Tuesday of last week, Richardson and his wife, Chat, were on their way down I-65, and we all met up at the McDonald’s at Exit 96 for a cup of coffee. I enjoyed finally getting to meet Stan for the first time, and look forward to seeing him and his wife the next time they find themselves in our neck of the woods.

For those of you who haven’t had a chance to read Richardson’s book, I highly recommend it, especially to veterans and individuals interested in first hand accounts of World War II. The back of his book sums up it up nicely:

“From harrowing to hilarious, Richardson’s account takes you through the rigors and ribaldry of basic training to the battlegrounds where one day you’re hiding behind a tree, holding your breath, to avoid some German soldiers close by, and the next day you’re rounding up K-rations to give to hungry German children rummaging through the garbage bins.

"You’ll experience with him (Richardson) those painful moments when he saw his buddies killed before his eyes, and you’ll feel the poignancy of a bunch of GIs singing ‘Lili Marlene’ along with German soldiers across the Saar River at the end of the fighting. All in all, ‘Growing Up in a Foxhole’ is a darned good read from one darned good solider reliving World War II.”

Richardson’s book is dedicated to “all the veterans who fought on the front lines in WWII and especially to those who gave up their lives so that we could live free.”

If you’re interested in reading and owning a copy of “Growing Up in a Foxhole,” you can purchase copies of the book online. They are available through both Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. I assure you that you won’t be disappointed.

Stan, who grew up in Cambridge, Mass., was just 18 years old when he joined the Army during World War II. After the war, Stan worked for the Atomic Energy Commission at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is now commonly referred to as MIT. Later, he moved to Montgomery, where he worked for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Stan eventually retired from the EPA, and now lives in the town of New Site, which is in Tallapoosa County, not far from Alexander City.