Irven Thomas Kuykendall disappeared three and a half years ago at the age of 79. In spite of his age he had a LinkedIn, and the details of his accomplishments, as told by Kuykendall himself, are touching:
When I went into the ophans home, 1-3-1942, I wasn’t made to go to school.. I had rather helped with the care of the livestock, cows, horses, mules, hogs goats, chickens. All except the horses and mules, were slaughted for food. Left there in 1-31-1953. Went into the Army. In those years, a person only had to be in excellent [health] and make a score of 31 on the entrance test. Today, a person has to be in excellent health and a high school graduate. I stayed in the Militery, intil 12-8-61. In 1986, while I was a patient at the V A Hospital, I took the test for GED and passed it on 2nd try.
R.I.P. Irven, wherever you are.
[EDIT: Kuykendall was also active on Ancestry’s message boards.]
The Charley Project Blog 
He sounded like an interesting and intelligent guy who overcame a lot of hardship. My dad grew up during the Depression and was a Korean vet as well. In that era, despite the risks, military enlistment tended to be the best option for improving one’s life and having a chance to travel when one was from a poor background (and it’s terrible that economic mobility in the U.S. hasn’t progressed the way that it should have. Too many still have a “let them use bootstraps” mentality towards the poor).