Oklahoma WWII vet set to turn 100 years old this month
CHANDLER, Okla. (KFOR) — A WWII veteran right here in Oklahoma has a very important date on the calendar coming up in just under two weeks. We’re talking about his birthday because he’s about to hit triple digits!
“What’s it like being able to sit here like this with your father at this age?” KFOR asked veteran Raymond Wright’s daughter Peggy Crouch.
“Awesome,” she said. “It’s awesome.”
Wright and his two daughters said they were grateful to be sitting and smiling together in their Chandler, Oklahoma, home. The moment was even more sweet with just less than two weeks until Wright turns 100 years old.
“It’s wonderful, not many people have their parents this long and even though we lost mom young, we have him,” said his daughter, Rhonda Manuel.
An Oklahoman born and raised, Wright grew up in Lincoln County just north of Chandler where he is now. One of 14 total siblings, his father was a sharecropper on their farm. He grew up through the Depression with no electricity until the late 1930s.
“My mother and dad, they canned everything that we grew in the garden,” he said.
They also sold products from livestock. He was eventually drafted to the Army in 1945. He did some training in the states as a medic before going over to Germany and working in the ICU at a hospital there.
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“It was a pleasure that I could help that many patients,” he said. “I didn’t gripe about what was going on or anything. I did my job.”
He was discharged and came home to marry a woman he called his sweetheart. They went to school together at a young age. She died in 1972. He remarried, but his second wife passed recently as well. He and his first wife had 3 daughters, two of them are still here today. The oldest daughter died in 2020.
But even through all the trials and tribulations over his near century of life, Wright said he’s more than thankful, as are his daughters, to be sitting together today.
“I had a wonderful life,” he said. “I did hard work, I did easy work. I took care of my family. I never needed anything. I worked hard to get it.”
“He took care of us when we were little and now we’re taking care of him and it’s a privilege,” his daughter Rhonda said as her and her sister Peggy sat on the couch with their father.
“So, they’re paying me back now,” Wright said as they all laughed.
Wright is just one of about 119,550 WWII veterans left of the 16.1 million that served in the war, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Peggy and Rhonda said they plan to have a private dinner with some family and friends before opening their doors to the public for a big birthday bash.
Happy early birthday Raymond Wright!
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