Robert Joyce
7/3/1928 - 10/3/2022

 Robert Joyce, Jr. is the older of two children, born July 3, 1928 to Robert Joyce, Sr. and Lela Joyce in Galveston, Texas. Living on the farm was difficult. There was no running water, no electricity and no mail delivery. Most of our food came from the farm such as corn, peas, sugar cane, peanuts, vegetables, chickens, cows, goats and hogs. I recall my first job was working as a sharecropper when school was out for one dollar a day and one meal. The time of day was from sun rise to sunset. I did that just one summer. The next summer one of my cousin's and I sawed pulp wood in the forest, that kind of wood is used to make paper. I completed school, but only because my grandmother insistence I finally graduated from high school on May 16, 1947. 

 

I longed wanted to become an industrial engineer, but knowing that was impossible because of segregation and discrimination in colleges, I volunteered for the United States Army, took basic training at For Six New Jersey and went overseas and was assigned to the 24th Infantry Regiment, 512th M.P. Battalion. 

 

I served in the military for three years and heard that a pot of gold was discovered in California at the end of a rainbow so I moved to California, where I worked at Convair and was surprised the company paid so much for doing so little. Later, I went to North Island as a sheet metal mechanic and retired as a supervisor after twenty-five years. 

Life Member of Buffalo Soldiers 

San Diego Chapter.