Born in Tioga, a small town in North Texas, Gerald moved with his family to South Texas near Pearsall. There he helped his father farm corn and watermelons with five mules. In 1937 the family moved to Waldo, Arkansas where his father built a sawmill. There, Gerald worked at a service station before and after school each day and ran a paper route. He finished high school in 1940 and joined the U.S. Army in July that year. He was sent to Fort Ord and assigned to Company A, Thirteenth Engineers, Seventh Infantry Division. While on the West Coast he helped map the Pacific shoreline from California to Washington, noting places that Japanese forces might use for landing sites. He was sent to Camp Van Dorn near Centerville, Mississippi as first sergeant of Headquarters Company. Arriving overseas on October 11, 1944, he entered Europe at LaHavre, France. By then he belonged to the 324^th Engineers, Ninety-Ninth Infantry Division. As the Allies advanced towards Germany, Gerald's unit built floating pontoon bridges and strengthened other bridge structures. Commissioned a second lieutenant, he was near Elsenborn when the Battle of the Bulge began. Later, he helped liberate two concentration camps. Throughout his service in Europe, Gerald kept a Bible his sister sent him. It was held with a metal plate "that you wore over your heart," he recalls. He returned home and was discharged in the early fall of 1945. He attended Southern State College in Magnolia, Arkansas, and later worked for Bovaird Supply Company, where he retired in 1993.