Service

In 1943, aspiring musician Clifford Brunzell posed in uniform by his family garage in Minneapolis as he entered military service that would take him far from home. He was sent not to an orchestra or special services but to the tank corps, where the noise was hard on his hearing, and he later became a pilot. When a band needed a drummer, he took the role despite never having played percussion. Brunzell called military service one of the five major educations of his life and remembered the constant risk and sobering reality of being in a world war. Fort Snelling had long been a place where soldiers arrived to serve, train, and deploy, and during World War II more than 300,000 members of the military passed through there, while more than 304,500 Minnesotans served in the war.

Minnesota · United States