alternatehistory.com

"Walt thought of the whole business not as war but as adventure. Assigned to Camp Scott, the Red Cross Ambulance Training Facility on Chicago's South Side, he wrote to friend Virginia Baker that he was 'having a good time' and had 'met lots of old friend and made new ones already.' In the midst of learning how to drive and repair ambulances and trucks, Walt contracted influenza in the horrific global epidemic. Moved home to recuperate, his mother, although ill herself, nursed Walt and his sister Ruth through the fever and delirium..."

http://www.waltdisney.org/blog/over-there-walt-disneys-world-war-i-adventure

(As the site notes, after Walt recovered, he was sent to a new training base in Connecticut where he met the even younger Ray Kroc--I'm sure there are some what-ifs in that...)

Suppose Walt had died? Sure, there would still be animated cartoons, but somehow I can't imagine Fleischerland or Max Fleischer World...
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