Armstrong Grimes

Armstrong Grimes (b 1922) is the son of Merle Grimes and Edna Semphroch. He grew up in Washington, DC.

Grimes was a poor student who barely completed high school, which he spent smoking cigarettes, playing football, and trying to pick up girls rather than studying. He would most likely have dropped out had it not been for pressure from his father. After his graduation he found it difficult to find steady work.

Then in 1940 he was conscripted into the United States Army. He was training in Ohio when Jake Featherston launched Operation Blackbeard on June 22, 1941. Grimes took part in Abner Dowling's failed attempt to defend the state against the Confederate invaders.

After Ohio fell, Grimes and his platoon, which included Yossel Reisen, Jr., were transferred to Utah to put down the Mormon resistance movement. In Utah, Grimes made sergeant and found himself commanding his platoon despite his youth. Hyrum Rush passed through Grimes' platoon's line on both his visits to Philadelphia. During the earlier visit, he submitted Rush to the indignity of a strip search to make sure he was not concealing a people bomb.

After the Mormons surrendered in 1943, Grimes was transferred to Canada to deal with the Canadian rebellion. He was disappointed that he would not be fighting the Confederates. Grimes's platoon destroyed Pomeroy's Diner in Rosenfeld, Manitoba. Afterward, Grimes bandaged the wounded hand of Alec Pomeroy, the only survivor of the diner, and gave him a chocolate bar. Young Pomeroy was ungrateful.

Grimes was wounded in Canada. After several weeks recuperating in a US Army hospital in upstate New York, he was sent to Tennesse, where he took part in General Irving Morrell's campaign against Atlanta, Georgia.