45 Years Later, It’s His Turn to Salute the Soldierettes

--Tech. Sgt. Miles McCue said he was “about as far down in the doldrums as you can get” on Christmas Day, 1942, aboard a troop train on his way to war in Europe. But his spirits picked up when the train rolled to a brief stop in Grand Junction, Colo. A group of young women from the St. Theresa Soldierettes met the train to cheer the men on and provide them with fruit, cookies, brownies and other snacks. McCue, now 70, returned to Grand Junction to thank the women who had brightened his lonely soldier’s Christmas “and reminded me for years of what we were fighting for.” “It was so long ago,” said Irene Hannigan, one of the women who greeted troop trains. “We wanted to cheer the fellas up. They were fighting for us. I don’t think you kids understand. We were in a war.” In all, about 40 people, including city officials and World War II veterans, turned out to meet McCue, of Mount Lebanon, Pa. McCue served with the Army Air Corps as a gunner on a B-24 bomber, flying missions over Germany from England. He was shot down on Dec. 1, 1943, and spent the remaining 17 months of the war in a German prisoner of war camp.