FATHERLESS KID BECOMES WWII VETERAN
Robert B. Wiley, Lt.Col., USAF, Ret.
Robert B. Wiley (“Bob”), a decorated WWII veteran, was born in a small eastern Colorado town on the brink of the Great Depression. He lost his father when he was nine and grew up with his widowed mother in Sioux City, Iowa.
After one year at Iowa State Teachers College, he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. After completing his combat tour in the Pacific, as a navigator on a B-24, he went through pilot training and elected to continue serving his country as a career military officer, retiring in 1964.
In September 1945, he married Maxine Anderson, who he called “Mickey,” and with whom he had attended church since they were sub-teens. They raised four children: Diana, born in Texas; Debi, in Washington; Dennis, in Colorado; and Dan, in Massachusetts. They have five grandchildren.
Robert B. Wiley, Nov 2011
Sadly, after 62½ years of marriage, Mickey passed away in 2008, and she never got to know her two great-grandsons, both of whom are fourth generation native-born Colorado Wiley males.
Bob, who is blessed with good health, jokes that he still has all his original “equipment’ except his tonsils, one wisdom tooth and about 12 centimeters of his colon. He is thankful that his body does not have “implants,” neither metal nor plastic.
He enjoys independent living at Garden Plaza, a beautiful retirement residence in Aurora, Colorado.