The son of a cotton farmer, Wallace was born in a log cabin in Sprnghill, Louisiana, the son of a cotton farmer. "We had plenty to eat, but didn't have any money," he recalls. Dillon heard Governor Huey P. Long speak on the commissary porch of International Paper Company, where his father worked. He finished high school, and went to work for that company at age seventeen. Drafted on December 13, 1944, he took basic training at Camp Joseph T. Robertson near Little Rock. Dillon sailed from San Francisco on June 1, 1945 to the Philippines, where he joined a field artillery unit in the Forty-Third Infantry Division. When Japan surrendered, Dillon sailed into Yokohama for the occupation, and was transferred to the First Cavalry Division. He helped patrol for hidden Japanese weapons, but soon went to work in battalion headquarters as a clerk. He recalls how the Japanese civilians "were very cordial and very nice to us." He also closely watched a bulletin board where lists of soldiers scheduled to rotate home were posted. "My name appeared on the bulletin board and that was a moment I remember very well," he says. He even remembers hearing "Sentimental Journey," the music piped on the ship's loudspeaker as he boarded for the trip home. Dillon was discharged at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, and rode a crowded bus "all the way to Shreveport, standing up most of the way." Reaching Springhill around 10 p.m., he walked four miles to his grandmother's home. Enrolling at Centenary College on the GI Bill, he earned a degree in business. He worked in data processing at City Services Products, Texas Eastern Gas Transmission, and then at Caddo Door and Veneer, where he learned computer programming. After employment at LSU-Shreveport, he later went into consulting and contract programming before retiring. He now works part-time at Broadmoor Library.