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The first and most urgent situation facing the family was the fate of Carl Birdwhistell, May Lois's boyfriend and fellow member of Sand Spring Baptist Church.
Having registered for the draft in the fall of 1941 (Mary Lois was one of the 'draft registration' workers for Anderson County, Carl was drafted in early 1942 and was among the first group of men from the county to be sent to Camp Benjamin Harrison in Indiana for induction, February 2, 1942. Before he left, he stored his automobile where Mary Lois could have access to it.
After a few days at Camp Harrison, Carl moved by train to Morris Field, near Charlotte, North Carolina, for basic training. Probably because of his experience in the grocery business, he was assigned to the 1127th Quartermasters of the newly formed Army Air Corps.
He soon found out that he was to be shipped overseas in the near future. "Desperate times call for desperate measures," as someone once wrote, so Carl and Mary Lois hatched a plan. In May she recruited her cousin, Edyth Mae, and her husband, Marvin Edwards, to drive her, along with sisters Kitty and Martha, to 'visit' Carl at Morris Field. It was quite a visit. Unbeknownst to any of the family, Carl and Mary Lois planned to marry, which they did, May 9, 1942, at a Baptist pastor's home in nearby York, South Carolina. Mrs. Moffett found out about the marriage by overhearing the news on a Lawrenceburg 'party line,' phone conversation. Initially upset, "Mom" later took pleasure in having such a fine young man as a son-in-law.
Meanwhile, the other family members, like everyone on the home front, pitched in to aid the war effort. Georgia, the youngest, became the Director of the Rationing Board for Anderson County, supervising the process by which citizens were given coupons to purchase 'rationed' commodities such as tires, sugar, gasoline, etc. Martha helped out there, along with Mrs. Moffett herself and Bro. M. D. Morton, the beloved pastor of Sand Spring.
Carl Birdwhistell received an unexpected furlough in June, 1942, during which he was officially welcomed into the family. In August his outfit was trucked to Waycross, Georgia, where they joined the 41st Air Service Group. In September they moved to Fort Dix, New Jersey, to be prepared for overseas deployment. During the fall, Mary Lois bravely took a train BY HERSELF to New Jersey to spend a few days with Carl before he 'shipped out.' She recalled that Jesse Thomas took her to the train station at Frankfort and encouraged the conductor on the 'George Washington' to take good care of her.
On December 12, 1942, Carl's outfit left Fort Dix, on the USS Uruguay, bound for North Africa, the 'first front' of the war in Europe. They arrived at Casablanca, Morocco, on Christmas Eve, to a welcome of German bombardment. More bombs fell on December 31.
Meanwhile on the home front, Sand Spring, along with other churches, displayed a 'service flag' which held a star for each man from the church who was in the service.