Andrew Simpson

Andrew Simpson didn’t have to go off to war. Simspon was 28 years old when he received his draft notice. He had a wife and four children. Friends told him if anyone could have - should have - appealed to the draft board, it was him.

He didn’t.

Frances Busby remembers her husband’s belief that he needed to help protect the family he loved - and his reply to those who told him he ought to stay home.

“He said, ‘Who has more reason (to fight) than I have?”’ Busby says.

Simpson’s sister, Irene Raines, 67, remembers him receiving his draft notice and saying, “My country needs me and I’m gonna go.”

Busby eventually accepted the fact that her husband was leaving. “I didn’t want him to go,” she says. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t.”

Simpson is remembered as a sturdy, hard-working man. He had his own logging business and loved to hunt and trap.

“He was very much an outdoorsman,” Raines says. “And he was liked by everyone.”

Simpson left Otis Orchards in June of 1944. He went through basic training at Camp Blanding, Fla.

Before departing for Europe as a member of the 10th Mountain Infantry, 5th Army Unit, he returned home to visit his wife and a new addition to the family - a fifth child, Joe.

Busby says her husband scored high on an intelligence test and was offered an opportunity to go through officer training. He refused, saying, “I don’t want to be a 90-day wonder.”

“I don’t know why he felt that way,” Busby says. “I’ll never know why.”

So, as a private, Simpson went to Italy. On April 14, 1945, his unit was fighting near a centuries-old landmark, the Castle Floriano, in the mountains of northern Italy.

Simpson was in a foxhole and was felled by an Axis grenade. He died a little more than a year after joining the service.

Simpson was awarded the Purple Heart, and relatives believe he was also awarded the European Theater Medal.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

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