Writing for this blog can sometimes be depressing as well as inspiring. Take a look at this very grainy photo of Johnny Wojcik. Talk about a good looking young man huh? Well not only did this kid have looks, he was also a gifted athlete for Amsterdam High School, a star pitcher on the baseball team and a good enough running back in football that after he graduated from AHS in 1939, he won the starting fullback position on the Clarkson College grid squad. That’s right, Wojcik was also smart enough to get into Clarkson, which even back then was noted for its crackerjack engineering program.
If there was a definition for “bright future” in the dictionary, Johnny Wojcik’s picture would be included with it. But then on that day of infamy in December of 1941, those Japanese planes left their carriers in the Pacific Ocean and within hours, the futures of hundreds of thousands of John Wojcik’s from across this country were not as bright anymore…