Americans have always faced great challenges, but none greater than the trials and tribulations World War II brought to Americans between 1941 and 1945. Ray Carter was one of many brave Americans who would go to war during this time to save his country.
Ray Carter was born October 15, 1928 in Jacksonville, Arkansas. A midwife had performed his birth, so no records had been kept of his birth date except a little page in the back of a bible his mother had (Carter Interview). This fact, led to what many Americans did during this time, they lied about their age to get enlisted and in 1944 at the age of only 16 he joined the United States Navy. Ray had dropped out of school two years earlier in the seventh grade and began to work odd jobs until he thought he should volunteer to serve and protect his country.
Before he joined the navy, Ray witnessed some of the events and reasons that led us to war in 1941. At the tender age of 13, Ray listened to the radio in horror after it was learned the Japanese had surprised attacked us at Pearl Harbor. Ray said at that moment, he knew one day he would join the many other U.S. Servicemen protecting his country (Carter Interview). He like many other Americans wondered why did the Japanese do this, the Japanese anger focused on the embargos in which the U.S. had slapped on U.S. exports to Japan (Prang 5). During the early part of the war, the U.S. supplied Great Britain and other nations which the Japanese objected vociferously to supplying Great Britain who was at war with its allies, Germany and Italy (Prang 9). Ultimately, Japan considered the Americans huge naval expansion program aimed directly at them .
(Prang 9). Ray had joined the Navy Feb 26, 1944, late in the war, but he was immediately shipped off to sea on the U.S.S. Boxer, an aircraft carrier stationed in the Pacific Ocean (Carter Interview). He was an MP on the ship and made sure the sailors went to sleep and were awake on time.
