Dr. Vaughn D. Bornet of Ashland, OR, attended UGA in 1940-41 and is member of UGA’s Greatest Generation. When asked to respond for our series, he responded:
“I have to confess being uneasy about being in a “greatest generation” category. Still, it was not I who invented it.
“I am to be 92 on October 10. I came to UGA for a full year graduate program in History, second graduate year, on a full ride scholarship (all expenses) in 1940-41, living in the Graduate Dorm across from the campus. It was built illegally on federal money for Sigma Nu and seized by somebody and became university property without being lived in. We Ph. D. candidates were happy there.
“The scholarship, arranged by Coulter after reading my MA thesis from Emory on Colonial Georgia, was for $550, which paid (believe me, now) for all tuition, room and board, driving back and forth from Miami Beach twice, and whatever. I spent far less than a hundred dollars in addition for anything all nine months.”
“I was slightly active with my fraternity, Sigma Chi, and had a girlfriend, Margaret Walker, an Ed major. I worked with E. Merton Coulter and Meritt Pound and lived during daylight at the Library, researching Civil War mostly, but Colonial Georgia, too. I joined the YMCA where I worked, repeat, worked with barbells, taught seriously by the Southeast champion weightlifter. I became very strong and healthy that winter of 1941. (I became “strongest man for his weight class” in the Seventh Naval District, shortly–see below).
I wished to avoid the Army, so signed up with the Marines’ Officer Training Corps at Quantico (sure death was in store for that class of second lieutenants, unless wounded, at Guadalcanal). They didn’t swear me in. Bad Mistake! In summer I was eagerly recruited by Naval Intelligence (Cable and Radio Censorship) in distant Miami Beach as a Yeoman First Class. The Marines were furious but helpless. Hooray! I went on active duty immediately, not to emerge until New Years Day, 1946, as lieutenant, and a former powerful figure, Fleet Air Barracks Officer, NAS Alameda. This “hero” never shot a gun. I retired from the Naval Reserve as full Commander in 1964.
That’s about it, except I adored my year at UGA, a beautiful place, and regret that sixty years in the Far West has kept me from ever revisiting.
My good wife Beth from Susanville, California, joined me in producing a now enlarging Bornet family tree.
As for my career as Research Historian, I immodestly offer sketches in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World, or fairly recent long essays on History News Network (see Google), or Google me if that bored and glance as some of my books and/or articles/review essays.
VAUGHN DAVIS BORNET Emory ‘39, ‘40G; Georgia 1940-41; Stanford Ph.D. 1951
