Edgar Goddard was born in Oklahoma, he was the Son of Victor and Isabelle Goddard.  He was the second of three children.  His father own a farm where the General Motors plant sat, he mention about walking to school for miles.  When he was two years old he decided to hold his breathe, his mother became upset, he wouldn't breath his dad turned him upside down and dunked him in a  rain barrel, he decided he would breathe and never held his breath like that again.
                                                
      When he got old enough to help on the farm it was his job to milk the cow. One morning the cow decided to step her foot in the milk dad out of response, hit the cow and knocked it down his hand swelled like a half of a baseball.... sounds like someone had a temper. He attended Capital Hill High School where he learned the trade of Carpentry, he won several awards for his excellence. Mothers family moved here from Tipton and went to church where they Goddards attended.  One Sunday morning Dad decided he wasn't going to church but my uncle did, he came home and told my dad you missed it, there was the prettiest girl at church this morning, Dad didn't miss the next service, he met mom..... they married later in a little Nazarene church on SW 29th in Oklahoma City.  There was only 5 people at their wedding, they really didn't tell anyone they were getting married.  

      Not long after they married Dad was drafted in to the United States Army, 86th Infantry Division the youngest division.  Dad got his draft notice on mothers 19th birthday he said she cried all day.  I loved seeing and hearing the stories of how much he loved her and that he went into depression having to leave her behind, she was expecting their first child, Danny.  Many telegrams were sent back and forth to one another, he would start them out,  To my Dearest Darling.   Dad was a soldier that loved his Country and what it stood for.  He didn't mind fighting for his freedom, mine and yours.  He had a Model T Ford when he was drafted, he gave it to his parents when he went into the service for them to help with my mother and brother.  He said he got $90.00 a month to serve over seas.

       Dad saw a lot of death, and destruction for he told of it many times that held in his memories till the day  he passed away.  He saw the place where  Silent night was written in Austria, he saw the Holocaust Camps, death chambers could be smelled for miles. Dad said if it wasn't for his mother in-law Clidie Brandstatt  praying for him he would have came home from war in a flagged draped coffin.  He got to see Castles, and was one of the first Americans to set in a German fighter jet.  He was with General Patton, and was close enough to touch the pearl handles of his guns in his holsters, but said he didn't  dare.  During his boot camp, and when he was stationed in the US, mother traveled on a train,  every place that they would let her follow him.  When my brother was born they let him come home and he helped in the delivery of  Danny, he was so proud of him.  Dad told of a time when he and his company was moving at night in a convoy, and he heard that there was a Japanese plane seen in the area.  He told his commanding officer about it and that  they should turn their lights off, the officer said, "no he isn't around its Ok...about that time dad and the other men heard a engine of a jet coming towards them, dad said he jumped out of the jeep and the bullets went in front of the radiator, God was good to him.  Dad told of times in the fox holes and they would be ran over by army tanks and the ground would shake and the fear they had. He said he wasn't sure he would come home alive.  He was suppose to be in the invasion of Japan, but was delivered when he heard that they surrendered after the Atomic Bomb.   When he came home he signed up again for another 4 years of army reserves.  He loved his Country, his Flag, and the Freedom he fought for.     I found after he passed away a little bible with a medal front that he carried his his pocked, he was covered by the most powerful force on the face of this earth.... God's Word.

     Dad paid a great price for my freedom, even though I was born so long after his days of war, but not only my freedom but those around me, but I feel very blessed to have a dad during that time of the US history to be in one of the greatest Wars known to man.  He was  a BlackHawk till the day he died.