Woody and Luel Harris stick to the comical when they tell their stories about golf, which they played together every day until well into their 80s.
"Well, he's older than me," Woody likes to say, falsely.
"He hit me a couple of times with his golf ball," Luel says, a claim that Woody does not dispute.
"It was just one of those slices," Woody explains. "We didn't know where the ball was going half the time."
The Harris brothers, born and raised in Sylacauga, can tell World War II stories, too. They were there, all the way through the war's final months in the Pacific.
Woody Harris, 97, was on an aircraft carrier, a Navy radio man. Luel, 93, was a gunner on a B-29. They were both at Okinawa, the war's last major battle, where 12,000 Americans died and 36,000 were wounded. Their older brother, James Willard Harris, fought at Okinawa, too. He was an Army cook who died about six years ago.
Woody lives at the Bill Nichols State Veterans Home in Alexander City. He uses a wheelchair but has a nimble mind and a sharp wit. Luel lives in Montgomery, a few blocks from the back entrance to Gunter Air Force annex, where he enlisted in the Army Air Corps 75 years ago. "I pulled guard duty on that gate. It still looks the same," Luel said.
Woody was one of 3,000 men on the U.S.S. Shangri-La, an aircraft carrier that launched bombing missions along the coast of Okinawa.
The island was a last stand for the Japanese. Woody remembers the kamikazes, planes turned into missiles, hurtling into ships on suicide dives.
"All you could do was look up and hope they didn't hit you," Woody said. "They sunk a lot of ships. Our sister ship was bombed real bad but they didn't sink her. She finally got back to Pearl Harbor. We never got hit. We got splashed a little, but they didn't hit us."
Luel was stationed at Tinian Island, a major air base after U.S. forces wrested it from the Japanese. He flew with a 10-man crew in a B-29 Superfortress.
"I was the right gunner and I relieved the flight engineer," Luel said. "He had to have a little relief and I'd go up. I was in the back and you'd have to crawl through the tunnel to get to the front of the aircraft."
The tunnel connected the front and rear pressurized cabins on the 100-foot-long plane, passing over the bomb bay. The B-29 was a brand new aircraft and had its mechanical hiccups, Luel said.
"We had to work the bugs out of it because they wanted it right away," Luel said. "We lost I don't know how many, but I remember seeing two go down. They had to work it out. It turned out to be a good airplane."
The brothers are relaxed as can be as they swap stories on an afternoon visit with Luel's sons, Jeff and Jimmy, and Jeff's wife, Glenda, in Alex City.
They are quick to follow up on each other's recollections, like when Woody mentions "the great typhoon" that hammered Okinawa.
"Yeah, God, I was on the island when that typhoon hit," Luel said. "Those B-29s would hold 10,000 gallons of fuel and they were tied down, but it took two of them and set them out there in the bay. That's how strong it was. As a matter of fact, there were several ships blew up onto the beach."
"We had a heavy cruiser in our fleet and it was so rough that it broke the bow of that cruiser," Woody said.
Two years before Okinawa, Woody was a radio man on a troop ship at Guadalcanal Island. That was during another major campaign.
Woody recalls some the setbacks there, like the Japanese sinking an Australian heavy cruiser, the Canberra, and the U.S.S. Juneau, a light cruiser. Most of the Juneau's 700-man crew died, including five brothers from Iowa, memorialized in a movie, "The Fighting Sullivans." He recalled Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan dying in an attack on the U.S.S. San Francisco.
Like at Okinawa, the Allies prevailed at Guadalcanal. But they knew they were up against a formidable foe, Woody said.
"Actually, the Japanese are better sailors," Woody said. "We were all young. We had never had any experience. The Japanese were well trained."
At Okinawa, the fighting raged for almost three months before the Allies prevailed in June 1945.
"That was a bloody mess," Luel said. "The Army and Marine Corps paid a tremendous price."
The island became a staging area for what was expected to be a massive invasion of Japan.
"As far as the eye could see there were ships out at sea, and I think every place on the island there were troops," Luel said. "I've never seen as many troops in my life. They were serious about going.
"If the atom bomb did not work we were gonna burn 'em completely down with incendiary bombs. Burn every town and city in Japan to the ground. That was their plan, had they not surrendered after the atom bombs were dropped."
Luel was back at the Tinian Island base when the B-29 Enola Gay departed there for Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, carrying an atomic bomb, "Little Boy." The blast killed an estimated 70,000 people immediately. Luel said the crews at Tinian didn't know what was coming. The U.S. military had developed the bomb in secret. He remembered the Enola Gay commander, Col. Paul Tibbets.
"He was a good pilot," Luel said. "He had already been bombing in Europe when they assigned him that job."
Three days later, another B-29, Bockscar, took off from Tinian to deliver a second atomic blow. The crew dropped it on Nagasaki after weather diverted them from their first target. The plane did not have enough fuel to return to Tinian and flew to Okinawa. On Aug. 15, 1945, the Japanese surrendered.
The surrender ceremony came on Sept. 2 on the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Luel was aboard one of 800 planes that flew over the Missouri that day.
"I had a good seat and looked right down where they were signing," Luel said. "I could see the ceremonies going down there. (Gen. Douglas) McArthur was in charge."
Woody said the Shangri-La was anchored in Tokyo Bay. Later, he and some other crew members went ashore in Tokyo.
"And I didn't get back till the next day," Woody said. "I woke up on the island and I was under a mosquito net. And there was a Japanese sitting there fanning me with a fan."
Woody said when he and the others got back to the ship they had to report for punishment. The executive officer told them they would be restricted from going ashore when the ship returned to the States.
One of Woody's jobs on the Shangri-La was to copy news from a San Francisco radio station, KFS, and produce a newspaper from those reports on a mimeograph machine. He said the crew was always eager for the reports, especially the sports.
"I delivered it all over the ship," Woody said. "My first stop was the officers' quarters. And I always got a fresh egg sandwich."
Luel said the Navy offered more of those reminders from home than the Air Corps.
"And your food was much better than ours, Woody," Luel said.
"Well, we were a big ship," Woody said. "We had a crew of 3,000. And we had good food. And we furnished food to the smaller ships. And we had ice cream we furnished to the smaller ships."
After the war, Woody transferred to the Air Force and continued his career as a radio operator until 1962, serving in multiple locations, including in war-torn Europe.
Luel stayed in the Air Force and was assigned to a special squadron that flew the president and other VIPs. This was before Air Force One.
He flew with President Eisenhower, Gen. Omar Bradley and Secretary of State Foster Dulles, not to mention legendary troops entertainer Bob Hope.
"I wanted to keep flying," Luel said. "And I was assigned to the squadron that was being formed at the time to carry the president and all the dignitaries. I was fortunate, I guess."
"He had a good job," Woody said.
"I deserved it," Luel said.
Both men are proud to note they were never assigned KP duty.
"I was up in the radio room. I was a privileged character," Woody jokes.
But there were humbling accommodations, too. On the Shangri-La, Woody said he didn't have a bunk until he made the rank of chief. He slept on the deck with a life jacket under his head.
How was that, Woody was asked.
"Hard," he said.
After he got out of the service, Luel moved to Montgomery, went to work for the U.S. Postal Service and worked a second job as an accountant.
Woody also had a second career, eventually retiring from the Alabama Department of Public Health.
Jimmy Harris said he thinks his father, Luel, and his Uncle Woody remain mentally sharp because they've stayed busy and engaged. He said his father still takes walks and attends Auburn football games.
"Both of them have worked hard all their life," Jimmy said. "Both of them read a lot. They continue to socialize with people and read."
The family is blessed to have both men remain vital, he said.
"They've been best friends for eons," Jimmy said. "There's a very special bond between my father and Uncle Woody."
Asked how his war experiences shaped his life, Woody said this: "Well, you learn a lot. And you sort of have a positive rather than a negative outlook. I think it makes you grow up."
"I grew up, I'll tell you that," Luel said.
Woody brings up a story Jimmy says he first heard when he was a kid, listening to the men talk while pretending to watch TV.
"I've got a little tale I'd like to tell you," Woody says. He recounts one night when he was off duty on Guadalcanal Island and was called in to relieve another radio man who had fallen ill.
"The chief handed me an urgent message to send to a ship that was up north," Woody said.
But a Japanese radio operator blocked the message, firing off a signal that Woody said was so loud it almost blew his earphones off, indicating he had to be close by. Woody tried several more times but was interrupted each time. Woody tried again several times but couldn't get past the interruptions from the enemy operator.
"Then he paused just for a second," Woody said. "And when he did, I sent a plain message that I could have been court-martialed for. And I said, 'Tojo eats (expletive).'"
Woody said he didn't get in trouble, and, more importantly, got his urgent message through after cueing the ship's operator to switch frequencies.