Bushong's goal was to buy a farm, but not the variety that was chosen for him.

Curtis Charles Bushong was born on March 7, 1926, in San Francisco, California, into a family that also included two daughters, Erolyn and Muriel. He spent part of his youth in Indiana, but later returned to Los Angeles, California, where he lived with his mother, Mrs. H. P. Quentin. Curtis graduated from junior high school in Los Angeles, and came to Santa Cruz to live with the A. R. Slater family in order to study agriculture. He enrolled in Santa Cruz High School, majored in agriculture and excelled in the school's lightweight athletic programs. After his graduation in February 1944, Curtis planned to study agriculture at Washington State College, but the war brought those plans to a halt.

In March 1944, Curtis Bushong joined the US Marine Corps and began his basic training in San Francisco. On May 29, the marines sent him to Camp Pendleton, California, where he completed his school-of-infantry training. He was then given special instruction at a Japanese language school in San Diego.

Bushong was deployed to the South Pacific on December 14, 1944, and joined Company F, 2nd Battalion of the First Marine Division serving in Guadalcanal. He spent his nineteenth birthday on that island in jungle training exercises. In April 1945, Bushong boarded the USS Middleton and sailed for Okinawa, landing there on Easter Sunday.

On April 23, 1945 his company began moving south to assist the 10th Army and on May 11, 1945, during bitter fighting near Shuri, Private Curtis Charles Bushong was killed in action. His remains were later interred in the National Cemetery in Honolulu, Hawaii.

(ABMC, SCHSC Pg. 7, SCSn May 27, 1945 6:4;July 3, 1945 5:4; SCR June 1, 1945)