One evening, a nurse interrupted a discussion he was having with other amputees in the officer’s mess[1] concerning what would be one of the most shocking phone calls of his young life.[2]

The nurse said, “Captain Larimore, there’s a call for you.”

Phil wheeled over to the nurses’ station and picked up the phone. His face paled, and his jaw dropped. Then he fumbled the phone, which fell to the floor.

The nurse picked up the receiver and placed it in his trembling hands.

“Are you okay, sir?”

Phil nodded and quickly put the phone to his ear. “What did you say? Who is this again?”

He heard a voice repeat: “Phil, this is Ross.”[3]

He almost dropped the phone a second time. His closest buddy, Ross Calvert, was alive! “Is that really you, Ross?”

“It’s me, Daddy-O!”

Tears tumbled down Phil’s cheeks. His best friend was alive and recovering from malnutrition and severe pneumonia at an army hospital in Nashville. Ross said he had been liberated by American troops while in a POW hospital in Germany.

They were now only about 250 miles from each other. Being the “healthier” of the two, Phil promised to visit as soon as possible.[4]

[1] A mess (also called a mess deck aboard a ship) is an area where military personnel socialize and eat.

[2] Larimore, At First Light, 278

[3] Ross Calvert and Phil had been friends since Phil was in Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, at the end of 1942. They had fought together from Anzio, to the liberation of Rome, then through France. Phil thought Ross had been killed in the Battle of the Colmar Pocket in early 1945.

[4] Larimore, Ibid.

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