On February 10, 1946, my grandfather was honorably discharged from the United States Army. Robert Collins received a Veterans Administration Certificate of Eligibility, which allowed for him to receive benefits, under title III of Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, on December 2, 1959. After he readjusted to life after the war, my grandfather worked as a salesman for an insurance and later Broadaway meatpacking company.
Robert Collins and his work vehicle when he worked for a meatpacking company.
Children
His first child, Judy Collins, was born in 1945, when Artie was 21, and his next child, Peggy Collins, was born in 1947, shortly after he returned from Japan. Their next child, Donnie, was born in September of 1948, and Robyn Collins Luff was born in 1965, nearly two decades after their first child was born. Robyn was unplanned, yet my grandparents embraced having another child, and they eventually moved to Jonesboro, Arkansas, in 1974, in order to protect Robyn from the growing bad neighborhoods in West Helena, and Robert took a job as an assistant grocery store manager until his retirement in 1994 due to an injury at work.
Not only was Robert Collins a veteran, but his son Don Collins is as well. According to my Uncle Don, whom my mother called on May 12, 2021, he enlisted in the army in December, 1966, and served until July, 1981, eventually working his way up until he was a Chief Warrant Officer (CW2). The central place Don fought was in Vietnam, but he stated that he was also stationed in Okinawa, Japan, and the Philippines throughout his service. Other than this, he only stated that it was very traumatizing and hard to talk about, as he served in the demilitarized zone in Vietnam.
After such injury, which resulted in my seventy-year-old Grandfather having a concussion, my Grandmother claimed she started seeing signs of his Alzheimer's, but unfortunately, he wasn't diagnosed until 2002. Robyn claims that her mother stated, however, that she started seeing signs of memory loss up to 10 years before his diagnosis. I do not remember much about my Pawdee, but I do remember having tea parties with him and throwing my favorite red ball back and forth with him until he couldn't anymore. My Grandfather passed away when I was four, on July 24, 2007, of heart disease and Alzheimer's disease. He is buried in Marked Tree Cemetery, in Marked Tree, Arkansas, and just recently Artie passed away, living not even a mile away for the last few years of her life.