When we arrived at the Wadsworth Old Soldiers Home that summer day in 1958, we were met by a Mrs. Lenora Crow from the home's resident information office. Wadsworth, which was originally built in 1885 as a home for aging Civil War veterans on Leavenworth's south side, was a collection of classic Georgian and Romanesque Revival buildings that sprawled over some 640 acres of well-manicured, tree-covered grounds. A few years later, Wadsworth was renamed the Dwight D. Eisenhower VA Medical Center.

Mrs. Crow, a bespectacled woman in her mid-fifties with gray hair pushed into a tight bun, ushered us onto the broad veranda of one of the buildings and arranged some wooden chairs into a small semicircle.

"I will bring Captain Battles out," Mrs. Crow said. She motioned for me to sit.

A few m...

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