9th Ward Veteran Interviews - Gerry Poulsen

Spotlight on Brother Gerry Poulsen

This Spotlight is on Brother Gerry Poulsen. I found out that he is really funny and we had a good time interviewing him. We loved his sense of humor. We were surprised to learn that Brother Poulsen served in three branches of the service: the Navy for 2 years, the Army for 4 years, and the Air Force for 30 years. He worked for the Air Force as a civilian. He served for 30 years in Civil Service for the U.S. Air Force. He is a retired reservist.

He served in World War II from 1944 to 1945 which took him to France, Germany, and England. He was both enlisted and drafted. He enlisted first then was released and then his number came up and he got drafted. We learned what it means to be drafted. There is a draft board in each area where they take all the names and put them in a file. Then depending on your age and deferments, they would call you up at a certain time. A deferment could be something like an employer saying we need him and we can’t do without him so he can’t serve at this time.

Brother Poulsen was both an officer and an enlisted man. He retired as a major in the Air Force. One of his duties was to be a Tail Gunner on a B-17 Airplane. He sat in the cone area at the back of the airplane and was responsible for shooting all enemy planes coming from the back. There was a lot of team work on the plane between all the gunners. They had an intercom system between the pilot and all the crew. One point of interest is the fact that the average lifespan of a Tail Gunner was 13 minutes, yet he served on 23 missions. Obviously his life was spared.

Brother Poulsen said, “Wars are caused by many things; there is a conflict that you are trying to resolve.” He felt like his life was protected all the way through his assignments. He said, “I felt the Lord had an influence on me and where I went.” For instance, when he first arrived in Europe, he had a pain in his side so he went to the flight surgeon and asked if the doctor could give him something for it. The flight surgeon told him to report at a hospital at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. Brother Poulsen stayed at the hospital for one week then an ambulance came and picked him up and took him to another hospital where he was assigned to a bed. Then two or three days later he had surgery for appendicitis. After the surgery the doctor came in and told him, “Well, your appendix might have bothered you some day.” Because he had to recover from an unnecessary surgery, that kept him out of battle for the first six weeks of the war.

Brother Poulsen really enjoyed meeting and associating with other people. He felt good about that. He said, “People are nice.” He already had feelings of love for country and knew what his values were long before he went into the service. His service showed him that you can find certain values in some people that made common people better. Through seeing those values you know how you want to be approached and how you should be approached and how you should approach others. Because of his standards others noticed, “You’re different from other people; what’s the problem.” He would tell them, “There’s no problem. I can live my life the way I want and I don’t have to do what others do just to prove it.” He said that being a member of the Church directs who you associate with. Religion is a lifestyle. It’s the way you live. He said, “I never found any body I hated. I may not like things that people do, but I still like them. I learned tolerance for others. I learned that we should talk less and listen more closely.”

Brother Poulsen began his service in 1944 and married his wife, Joy Poulsen, on January 23, 1947. They had a courtship through the mail. Sister Poulsen remembers that they met at Fish Lake and ate watermelon. He spit out the seeds which she found interesting because she had been taught to eat the seeds. When he went into the service, Sister Poulsen was impressed with his letters because he was such a nice writer. When she went to BYU she put his picture up and was proud to show people, “This is my service man!” Sister Poulsen said that Brother Poulsen’s service was worth it. She said, “We had to do it [to preserve our freedom].”