1943 Willys MB - This \"long, lost jeep was rediscovered recently in the barn\" by my young friend George and me. Imagine our surprise! That\'s the photo storyline, anyway. The honest-to-goodness story is that my Dad, who had just been discharged from the Army Air Corps/ USAF in the summer of 1946, purchased this jeep about that same time at a sealed-bid auction in Atlanta. He bid on two, and won the bid on this one. He (and a friend, I suppose), drove \'to town\', purchased a battery at Sears, and then he drove this jeep all the way home, which is approximately 125 miles. It served as our truck, tractor, and all-around farm & fun vehicle for many years. I learned to drive on it at about age 7. I\'ve plowed behind it. We pulled the disk harrow with it. It got us to town when nothing else would make it through the snow. Dad pulled us on a sled through the snowy pastures, and was often called upon to help out the neighbors, including our friendly \'bootlegger\' who asked Dad to pack down the snow on his long driveway so his \'customers\' could get in & out! Dad (with permission of course, having been commander of half a dozen or so camps throughout the \'30\'s) hauled enough lumber from the dismantling Whetstone CCC Camp in our nearby mountains to add on two new rooms to our ancestral home, replace the entire roof\'s decking, and build a 20\' X 30\' workshop, all on a small Sears trailer pulled behind. He said \"sometimes the front end (of the jeep) felt pretty light\". I\'ll bet it did! I never realized nor fully appreciated the scope & volume of the lumber hauled until our most recent renovation of our old home, during which more of it was exposed, (and kept for the most part, as it is still excellent wood). Kid\'s picnics, hauling sand out of the creek in wash tubs, picking up rocks or limbs in the pasture, learning how to cut firewood with Dad, and bringing it back from the woods in the winter are all some of the happy memories this jeep has provided us. It\'s part of the family. It was mentioned in Dad\'s funeral, as it and his horse were likely transporting him through heavenly green pastures now, and as recently as a family get-together at which several cousins recalled how they looked so forward to Pop\'s letting them drive the jeep around the. She\'s been in the barn too long, and deserves a good \'makeover\' in order to \'come out\', be seen proudly as she used to look, and to both be admired in parades and historical events, as well as serve as an accurate and loving tribute to this great nation, all veterans, and especially to the one my sisters & I call \"World\'s Greatest Dad\"!
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Here are some pictures of me and my buddy Kevin Lavin's jeep at the Camp Clark Battle in Nevada Mo. You can see we had a great time. I'm in picture IMG000200-20100116-0740. This is a '43 Willys jeep that Kevin and I restored. We were towing a 1945 WWII style Jeep trailer that weekend. Man did that trailer come in handy. Kevin is a new jeep driver, and doesn't have alot of time driving a stick shift. I'll send you some pictures of my Jeep when I get the engine back from the engine rebuilders. The engine has all it parts from Kaiser-Willys in it. More photo's to come. - Scott Wilke
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