Letters: Chance encounter with Truman a highlight in man's life

Harry S. Truman recently was extolled as a great leader in ceremonies commissioning the Navy ship, the USS Harry S. Truman. President Clinton and others spoke laudatory words during the event, televised nationally.

I had a happy chance meeting with Truman in the 1940s, which resulted in my getting tickets for the World Series between the St. Louis Browns, the champions of the American League, and the St. Louis Cardinals, champs of the National League.

Another Army sergeant and I were traveling by train from Lexington, Va., where we had completed an Army training course at Washington and Lee University, to our home base in Illinois, stopping over in St. Louis. We knew the World Series would begin in St. Louis the next day.

At breakfast we saw then-Sen. Truman. After breakfast, in our Army sergeant's uniforms, the two of us burst into Truman's compartment. He was seated across the table with his speechwriter.

We blurted out: "Sen. Truman, can you get us tickets to the World Series?" Truman laughed and said, "I wondered what you guys were up to." Laughingly, the left-handed Truman grabbed a note paper and wrote: "H.B. Deal, 12th and Olive. These boys are in St. Louis one day. Can you get them tickets for the game?"

When the train stopped in St. Louis, we grabbed a cab and rushed to 12th and Olive. We discovered that Deal was a bigtime war contractor.

The walls of his office were covered with E awards. We told Deal's receptionist that we had a message from Truman. Deal burst out of the office, looked at the uniformed sergeants, and apparently though it might be something important.

He read the notes, and said we could pick up tickets in the morning. We did. We got tickets in the 14th row, behind third base. The game had been sold out for weeks, and tickets were being scalped at $50.

Shortly after our arrival at our home base in Illinois, we were dispatched for duty at Third Railroad Service in Tehran, Iran. I did not get the opportunity to write and thank Truman until my arrival in Tehran.

He sent me a letter acknowledging mine. In his handwriting, he penned: "I hope you come back all in one piece." I still have the yellowed note and letter.

Orville Goplen

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