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Bill Pool enlisted in the Army in 1941 and, after basic training, was off to the heart of the ground offensive in Europe.

"The rest of France, across Germany, and Salzburg, Austria, when the war was over," Bill recalls

Like so many families across the Ozarks, Bill's family was in the military. Bill's father served in the Civil War.

"The things I've heard them say, they thought very highly of him," Carolyn said.

Bill's father, Charles Parker Pool, was born in 1844. Doing the math, Charles was 80 when Bill was born. This January, Bill will turn 100.

He is the only son of a Civil War soldier still living.

"My grandfather served in the Civil War," Carolyn would often tell her school teachers. "And the teacher would go, 'Now honey. There is no way that your grandfather served in the Civil War.' And I tried to tell them, 'Yes, he did.'"

The Pool family is featured in Tim Pletkovich's book Civil War Fathers: Sons of the Civil War in WWII.

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