In 1954, after learning of a new automobile plant being built by General Motors in Arlington, Texas, the couple relocated to Dallas, TX. John worked for a short time with his father and brother, Budd, in Big Spring, TX, constructing Oil Rigs. to move all of their furniture and belongings. The move to Texas, though, was not going to be cheap. In 1953, John was honorably discharged from the Navy Reserves, and wanting to start a family, the young couple decided to move to Texas where there was promise of more plentiful work. It was there that he gave his life to Christ. In the spring of 1952, John attended a revival meeting at a small Baptist church in Chickalah, Arkansas. They were married on Jand soon began carving out a life together. It was also about this time that he met a beautiful Arkansas girl named Reva Swopes. Bill, was able to enter mechanics school at Arkansas Tech College. He enlisted in the Naval Reserve, and taking advantage of the G.I.
After being discharged from the Navy, John joined his family, who had moved during the war to Russellville, Arkansas. Risking his own life, John commandeered a machine gun and was able to penetrate the defenses and eliminate the enemy, saving the lives of the 30 or so remaining servicemen.
Caught in crossfire, several of the servicemen on the ship had lost their lives. supply ship which had been ambushed by Japanese holdouts. While on one mission, John happened upon a patrol of servicemen from a U.S. Like so many men of this Greatest Generation, he was very reluctant to talk about his experiences of war.In recent years, John finally related a few of the stories to his family. It was there that John was seriously wounded in combat multiple times. After the surrender of Japan in 1945, his team was tasked with the job of rooting out any remaining enemy combatants on the Islands of the South Pacific. Unofficially though, he was a member of a special operations team which took part in dangerous covert missions. Officially, he served with the rank of seaman first class. John began his service in the United States Navy, where he served proudly in the Pacific theatre. As WW2 entered its final year, like so many young men of this generation, he convinced his mother to sign enlistment papers attesting that he was of legal age, though he was actually only fifteen. One important trait that was instilled in John at his young age was a love of his country and a desire to serve that country. An older train engineer took John under his wing, teaching him mechanical skills and on occasion allowing him to be a conductor. At the age of 14, John took a job working on the Texas- Mexico Railroad which ran from Corpus Christi, TX to Monterey, Mexico. As America went to war, thousands of young men were called away to serve, leaving many jobs here at home vacant. At the age of 7, Johns parents divorced, leaving him to be raised by his mother and many times, his older siblings. His father, who was in oil rig construction, led the family from town to town across Southeast Texas as they followed the oil boom of the late 1920s. John Roy Coley was born on Septemin Haynesville, Louisiana, the youngest child of Joe Coley and Nora Dunham Coley.
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