AJ Dome: Pair of Manhattan WWII veterans, friends share birthday

Apr. 26—Jim Sharp, 98, said he's lucky to be alive after some of the things he's encountered.

Meanwhile, his 103-year-old best friend, Leland "Mo" Moshier, said he doesn't know why he's "still here."

"I think 95 is the perfect age to go," Moshier said. "Anything over that ain't worth it. Everything I liked to do when I was 95, I can't do now. I could still dance at 95."

Where Moshier is more of a realist, his buddy Sharp is a storyteller who lives up to his name. The two friends and World War II veterans each celebrated birthdays on Monday. Prior to their birthdays, the pair recalled their experiences and lives following the war.

"I was a farm kid, down by White City in Morris County," Sharp said. "We had to register for active service at 18. ... I was running the farm. I had two brothers who'd already gone, one in the Navy and one in the Air Force. So, when (the Selective Service people) found that out they said, 'Oh we're not going to take you, we need you to stay right there on the farm and grow crops for the soldiers and civilians that are supporting the war effort.'"

Sharp got a year-long deferment, but he said several months later other local families began receiving notices that their loved ones were wounded or dead, and it affected him.

"I told my dad I didn't want a deferment anymore," Sharp said. "He said, 'Well, I guess we'll have to sell out. Can't run the farm and a business in town.' We auctioned all our stuff. Then I went to Fort Leavenworth, and then Fort McClellan, Alabama, for training. That was 1944."

Moshier, a Manhattan native, said he was among the first group of young men drafted for one year of mandatory military service. He said he left Manhattan on Feb. 1, 1941, for basic training in North Carolina.

"Consequently, Dec. 7 rolled around, so that one year ended up five years," Moshier said. "Our outfit was attached to (Gen. George) Patton's 15th Army. We got up (to Bastogne, France) just as the Air Force took over (in 1945)."

Moshier said he did not see any direct action in the war. Sharp, however, was a combat infantryman — something he said he "would not recommend" — who fought at the Battle of the Bulge, one of the deadliest and most decisive battles of WWII.

"I was lucky to get out alive," Sharp said. "So many men didn't."

After the six-week-long Battle of the Bulge, Sharp served as a sergeant of the guard at the Four Power International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, from 1945 to 1946. Also known as the Nuremberg Trials, it was where Nazi party officials and high-ranking military officers were indicted and convicted of crimes against humanity. Like Moshier, who was told his service would be short, Sharp was told the trials would last three months.

"It ended up lasting about a year," Sharp said. "I found it quite interesting, to be in conversation regarding those guys. In fact, I got nine autographs from them."

Sharp said he also volunteered early on to be a paratrooper "because being an infantryman seemed too dangerous."

"I got rejected on account of my right foot," Sharp said. "I injured it playing football. The examining doctor said, 'I could redline you or let you go, but I'm tempted to redline you because here's why: You come down from the sky in your parachute and a load of equipment on your back that's probably 100 to 200 pounds, and you come down on that foot, it's going to reinjure it.' ... That's how I ended up in the infantry."

Sharp kept a journal of his war experiences, which he later compiled and published as "Diary of a Combat Infantryman" in 2010. He earned several medals for his service, including the Combat Infantry Badge and the Bronze Star. Sharp now keeps some of his remaining war memorabilia on display in the basement of his Manhattan home. Some items he's kept over the years include a Nazi flag signed by soldiers from his company, one of his original diaries, and a Mauser pocket pistol. In 1984, Sharp and his family traveled through Europe visiting some of the battle sites he fought at.

"I was glad we went," Sharp said. "After 40 years or whatever it was, you'd think you'd remember those places where you were on patrol or getting shot at ... now everything had changed. It was all rebuilt."

Moshier said he didn't keep any souvenirs from the war. After returning to the U.S., he married a woman he met in North Carolina named Kay. She moved to Manhattan with him and worked for Kansas Farm Bureau as a secretary for many years, while Moshier worked in construction. They both retired in 1986.

Sharp also worked for Kansas Farm Bureau, starting in 1950 in the billing department. As computers became more commonplace, Sharp received training from IBM to be a programmer and eventually retired from Farm Bureau as a manager of information systems. He was also an adjunct professor at K-State in the College of Business and was a network systems consultant after retirement. He still visits his farmland in Morris County once a week.

Moshier and Sharp's friendship grew through their Farm Bureau connections, starting in the 1950s. They started talking about their individual war experiences. The men and their wives formed an informal club with a few other married couples they knew from work, and enjoyed nights out with dinner and dancing through the 1960s and '70s. Moshier said they always "had almost too much fun" and that his wife loved to dance as much as he did.

Moshier said he was only partially joking about not understanding why he's a centenarian.

"Why should I live this long, when other people don't even live to be 50?" Moshier said. "That's not right."

Sharp said if he had to "do it all over again," he wouldn't change a thing.

"I've had a good life," Sharp said. "I think if you hang kind of loose in life, you'll get along a lot better."

The two men spent quite a bit of time reminiscing on various times during their friendship that's stretched over eight decades.

"We've had a lot of good times over the years," Sharp said repeatedly.

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