Tildon McGee was born and raised in Mississippi, and was subsequently ordained as a Baptist minister. In 1941 he entered military service as a U. S. Army Chaplain, and after parachute training was assigned to the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, he parachuted with the men of his regiment inland of Utah beach and well beyond enemy lines. After earning the Distinguished Service Cross in the first four days of the Normandy Invasion, he was captured in Holland on September 28, 1944, and held as a prisoner of war until May 1945. Returning home to Mississippi, he married Mary Emma Bullock, a native of nearby Brandon, Mississippi, in 1946. The couple then moved to California where McGee enrolled in graduate studies at the University of California. Upon retirement, and their children now married and living on their own, the couple returned to Brandon where they had a small farm, producing vegetables in such abundance that they gave them away to family, friends, and strangers.