First Soldier On Omaha Beach Describes The Horror Of D-Day | Remember WW2

I was the first man on Omaha Beach looked down down that Beach the water was red flapping up against the sand no tell us how many got killed out in that ocean and uh and there was dead bodies everywhere the cell had hid in my Foxhole and knocked this kid's head Plumb off I couldn't even tell what he looked like I had my pistol loaded with a hammer back and my hand on that trigger on that M1 and there was three of them I knew I could get two of them but I didn't know about that other there was one during that winter when everything was so cold it was raining sleeting and snowing going into battle and there's been a company of some kind already fought there and I guess we was doing that to happen and I've seen men wounded men wounded soldiers set down by a tree and freeze to death nobody there to help them you know just absolutely freeze to death be icicles hanging on them you know that's well when you're 18 19 years old that's kind of hard to take but and there was a German behind it and he had his machine his rifle pointing right at my belly and the Germans said caught him I guess and they had they had put rope around the back of their head into their mouth and Drug them to death I left them all over they weren't wounded nowhere but they drug them until they killed them that's the thing about the SS strippers I hollered that in the second time and he didn't move and I episode 45 pistol and I shot him and his head fell off I went down to see what I've done and I shot Hitler this is the purple heart with a cluster from being wounded twice it ain't hard to remember it's hard to tell it hello my name's William Norman Parker but I go by the name of Bill I'm Bill Parker everybody knows me by that name I'm a veteran of course in the Infantry 116th Infantry where I was raised is in Oklahoma down in the mountains and I think the way I was raised in the mountains in the creeks and hunting and things I think that was part of the reason I made it through the war I think it I already knew how to shoot I already knew how to get through the woods and me and my brother played cowboy and Indian and I'd hiding and you'd find me but I learned a lot of things anyway and it worked out good in the army we did not have any electricity we didn't have any telephones we didn't have any gas we burnt wood wood in the fireplace wood in the kitchen stove we use cold oil lamps I used to tell that uh daddy gave me a 22 with one shell and tell me to get a squirrel anyway I don't think it's quite that bad though I think probably had more than one cell but that's the way I told it and anyway there was times that we didn't have any meat other than squirrels and rabbits I was a daughter called for the Army when I was in high school and my dad went down and got me deferred for a month so I could finish school and I never was very smart but anyway why I was 18. and I had a good girlfriend we wanted to get married but I told her that we wouldn't until I got back and I knew that I already had a call to the Army and if I was either going to France or to Japan and I didn't want her to be a widow at 19. so we didn't get married well when I got on the got on the big ship and uh New York City and I didn't want to go I went over and looked over the side of that ship and I could see that the shore was right there well like I had swam along a lot of times at four and I just thought to myself I'm gonna get off of this thing going far enough but I looked at that water and it was full of ice and dirty as you could see so I decided better stay on that ship and they sent me on to on to England I don't know exactly where but we were close to a big prison called them in the Moors that called it and we had to March around that big prison and we took training there for The Invasion we got on land and crafts and we had a they had a beach they call slapped in the sand and they reattacted it and uh every time I got in one of those Landing crafts I got seasick I wasn't no sailor I got 66 going across the ocean they put me on KPS but I'd I'd be sick but the morning of the invasion they give us all the sack so we didn't have to put our heads over sides you know I never got a bit sick I can't tell you the difference but I never got sick first night we were there we didn't we hadn't even got we just got off of them ship and was taking us somewhere and they had an air raid all of this air raiding Forest irons went off they took us down into a basement and when they dropped them bombs you could hear them going when they had what they called a buzz bomb and her I guess it had a motor on it because as long as you could hear that motor he was all right but when it quit you knew that thing was coming down and when their moms hit you can nearly see them walls come in they shook the whole thing made him dust everywhere that's the way they broke me in on first night I was in England I was assigned to the 29th division the 116th Infantry as a replacement I was in the marketing section had a fact I was leading the wire cutters we had what they called a Mangalore torpedo that was about six foot long and about three inches or something like that around it had amateol in each end and dynamite in the middle a hammer tool there's a lot stouter than Dynamite so when we set it off why it blew the water that's the way we cut the water anyway why that's what I trained for in England was uh was to blow the wire well June the 5th we were heard there was when we were supposed to land it on June the 5th and we were all ready we had everything then they had ready to put us on a ship and uh I don't think that we we got on it we got on sometime that day because they they water was rough that they wouldn't they wouldn't land and um we stayed all night on that ship the next morning they fed his means for breakfast I thought that was kind of peculiar got time to go why we went over the sides and went down netting that looked like rope ladders but a lot of them sometimes the OverWatch was so rough that we'd be a way out of workmanship and then we'd be against it but anyway I went down that had to get in the landing craft first because I was in the water cutting section I was a leader of the wire cutters and uh that's the reason that I know what the cross said across the beach first I got off of the boat first with five men behind me we'd all turned carrying what they call them Bangalore torpedias and when I went across the beach hearing it I was loaded had it my back my rifle enough rations for three days and when I got to the sand going across the beach there was this machine gun hitting the ground right in front of me kicking up dirt right about three foot in front of me and I couldn't go back I had to go forward there wasn't no place else to go but he never did raise it high enough to hit me and uh when we got across the sand then why there wasn't anything to get behind except where the water had washed up against the shore and left about a foot and we kind of got down behind that and the field boxes were shooting at us and we had nothing to come out with all we had was an M1 rifle a few hand grenades and we threw the hand grenades trying to throw them into the pill boxes but little holes you had to throw through we didn't get many of them in there so anyway why we were pretty well hung up we fought the Germans on the bank and we had them whipped but we couldn't go on a counterfeel boxes the boat that I landed on the and landing craft there was me and five men got off of it and a shell hit it and and killed the rest of them we were the only five that got off of it a lot of us didn't land where we were supposed to and like we were one of them but anyway why it wasn't anything to get behind before this water had lapped up against it had about a foot and we were down behind that laying on our bellies in a water shooting that they soldiers on the bank and uh that's just the way it happened we come we were what we didn't kill we run off and I'm not going to tell you I killed any because I don't talk about that but I will tell you this I was a good soldier and I could hit what I shot at and I shot a boy stepped full of ammunition and I still don't know I'm not going to tell you I shot any of them but you you know what I did or not we as soon as we got across to the Waterway we uh I stuck my what my Bangalore torpedo Under The Wire next man come along stuck his in the end of mine pushed it on until we got it under all of the water and then the last man Set It Off and it that had amateurs so much doubting Dynamite that made it Blow straight up and cut the water and we had wire cutters in it any of it we didn't get blowed we were supposed to cut and if we didn't get it cut we were supposed to fall on it let the soldiers walk on us but that wasn't going to happen we're smarter than that but anyway we got the wire cut and there wasn't nobody behind us we looked we hadn't even looked back till we got it cut and then we looked back and uh land and craft we is on got blowed up as soon as we got off of it killed all the sailors and all the soldiers that were still on it I think it was I think I've read what it was 33 soldiers plus the Navy got blowed up that day and I guess that are going on all day on the beach you know I heard later then I didn't know who knocked him out but I heard later that a man on the battleship headed to battleships said he had orders to shoot away over our heads not close to us but he saw we were hung up and he ordered the battleships in close to shore and they shot directly over our head sales went over eight feet over our heads shooting at the pill boxes and they knocked him out after the battleships knocked the pill boxes out why we had already fought the Germans on the bank pretty well so we went on and fighting and we went inland I don't know how far a mile or to inland before dark come and uh when uh when it started getting dark why by that time I had 20 or 30 men following me I don't know why I was a private but they were following me they were some out of the first division some of the other divisions and it got all kind of got mixed up on Landing you know anyway why don't come why they wanted to know where was what I was going to do and I said I'm going to stay right here to Daylight and we did and we weren't I don't know we was in the Hedgehog country but in daylight comes in why I was about out of ammunition and arrest them too and I went back to the ocean I knew all those dead men had ammunition now I'm not going to tell you I got it off of the dead man but I got ammunition and my mind won't even let me remember where I got it I pretty sure I got it off of them but I can't remember taking it anyway I got the ammunition looked at the beach that's the first time I'd seen it and there was dead men everywhere 116th Century lost 96 of the percent of their soldiers that morning all on that Beach and anyway I got an ammunition I saw some down in a little further down where they were gathering up their wounded and I walked down there and I've seen a man from my company I tried to talk to him but they had his head all wrapped up he couldn't talk so then I went back to our units took a ammunition back and on the way back I went by the pill box looked in it the German that was shooting the machine gun at me he had been killed but he was just laying on top of the machine gun and everything else was in it and on the wall they had numbers and I guess in feet of all across that beach and the reason I think that machine gun didn't hit me he was shooting with him numbers and every time he shot they need lowered and that's the reason that he didn't shoot me he wasn't aiming at me he was he was just shooting the numbers that's my guess now I don't know I think that's as good as we'll find I don't know what maybe the Navy might have shot of it sure I'll show that one of them doors because this Navy man brought his ships in close and I give him a whole lot of credit for letting us move on but uh and after we got that done when we were Inland I don't know how many miles but just a mile or two not much you know started down the hedgeville I see a little place in it and I looked went by that little place and it was a German soldier on walking on the other side I could have punched him in the air with my rifle but I let him go uh I did throw a grenade over the fence I lay over the Hedgerow but it was just white phosphorus I just imagine that it scared him that is the first actually first live German Soldier I'd seen I saw so many pill boxes that was knocked out but they wasn't alive but anyway why I let him go and uh this morning and we went on down I thought it was going north I don't know where it was or not but I went back to a falcon Road they called him and I went up that road they've been a they'd had some big fights there a lot of dead Americans a lot of dead Germans all burned out equipment and stuff but I went on up to the up that road and I comes in a little town of beerville Samir France and they was a captain or lieutenant or something there and then I walked up with these 20 or 30 men following me why he said Sergeant put you in in that hole we're fixing to take this down I said all right but I'm not a sergeant I'm a private like the rest of these men he said you're a sergeant now from that day on I was a sergeant where he fought all took that town that was that is very real Samir France we took it went on a we didn't take it exactly all of it uh 11583 of the 29th division and went through it first but they just went through the middle we cleaned it up on each side went on and and fought her away into sat low another Big Town anyway why just before we got to say it low though we all got back with our regular divisions I got back with the 29th and anyway we went on start getting six at low and began fighting all across the Hedge Road country and you just fought from one Hedgerow to the other one it was like kind of like attacking but after every Hedgerow you know but anyway why we were kind of had him on the move and we fought all the way across France somewhere over there in France why these are sunken roads were in the fields were Farmers would use them for roads you know I guess that's the reason they got sunk I need to use them for years but anyway why the shell head in that sunken Road and a piece of it hit me in the foot that's where I was wounded first went in just above soul in my boots but we were fixing to attack and we did so I didn't go see nothing bad I could tell it was bleeding but it didn't didn't stop to see anything because Wiz attacking two weeks later then I my foot has swelled up till I couldn't get my boot off anyway I had to go back to evacuation got back there and it was in a tent and they was two officers I guess they were doctors they're supposed to be in uh one of them was Lieutenant I don't know what the others anymore or not or not but anyway why he looked at my foot and he said we're going to have to take it off it's just it's goddamn green in it well you could heard me Plum over here you ain't taking my foot off I was pretty bad about crossing the onion I had to throw that a little bit of that in but uh anyway why a captain heard it he come and looked at it and he said no so get you a bucket of hot water filled it for the Epsom salt and you soak that foot till it comes to head and that's what they did and then they took it out from the top and I still got my foot but as that Captain walked off he turned around and looked at them through the lieutenants and he said that's what my grandma would have done so I still got my foot that's where I got wounded first but I went to the hospital went to England for the sent me back to England for a little bit to the hospital looked down down that Beach the water was red flapping up against the sand no tell us how many got killed out in that ocean and uh and there was dead bodies everywhere 116th infantry I was in Lost 96 percent of their men that morning we lost a lot of men that day not only us but but Omaha Beach was had more casualties I read that just a few days ago we had 10 times more casualties than than the one next to us had ladies again claimed they lost 400 men and we lost 10 times that many men that's what I read to him and they were bodies everywhere I was I was the first man off of the landing craft and I was the first man all the way across the water all the way across the sand and I never looked back and I I know that I was the first on Omaha Beach because we were the first to land it ain't hard to remember it's hard to tell it but anyway that's that's the way the invasion went we didn't try to leave anything behind us that could well I could get out and start shooting at us you know we had to nearly go into each house to make sure they didn't and one of the one of the deals I went in was just getting dark you could still see this was a kind of an auditorium type deal windows down on the end and I went into that to see if there was any anybody in it of course I carried that 45 pistol all the time and when I went into a house that's what I used because he as many places was tight you couldn't hardly use a rifle you know but I went into this Auditorium and I seen a big man down in the window it was getting getting dark but you can still see the outline of him good and I hollered at him and told him put up his hands and turn around and uh I didn't figure he could understand me but they knew what I was talking about then we didn't have no trouble with that it's one more to give up you know but this fellow didn't move pretty good size I hollered that in the second time and he didn't move and I opened my old 45 pistol and I shot him and his head fell off well I thought that's kind of unusual but uh I went down to see what I'd done and I shot Hitler it was a chalk bust ahead but I shot his head off after that way my man every time they got a chance there's this Sergeant Parker first shot Hitler that is one of the things that went on that was kind of give us a laugh you know but we go in them houses and and we went into one one morning Soldier right behind me and just got into that and there was a kitchen table turned over our table I can see a kitchen table but and there was a German behind it and he had his machine his rifle pointing right at my belly and uh I had there's been a bit of raining that night and sleeting and snowing and I always cleaned my rifle at night when we quit wiped it off and sales out but I feel like it worked you know well we went into this house and there's so many of us in there didn't have room for nothing and I didn't clean it and this German had this Rifle right on me and I had mine on him and I pulled the trigger and it just snapped for only time it ever happened to me and the soldier right behind me shot him and he was behind that table and the soldier right behind me shot him and killed him of course he saved my life right there and that boy got killed that day I never did even get to thank him for what he'd done he well he got shot you know the soldier that shot the other yeah we were attacked him you know and he's in my platoon and and he he got killed that bothers me but I it wasn't my fault either but uh but he saved my life and then God he didn't get killed right at that time but he lived for the day was over but it wasn't like a movie somebody got shot you just left them and went on with you well you didn't have time to do nothing else and I don't know how many asked me about if I was afraid I wasn't afraid I don't know why but uh I imagine this because we're training we've been trained to do what we're doing and I expect that as a reason you know from Minnesota rifle on me now and that'd scare me but it didn't then when we done something to stop it you know there was a lot of peculiar things happened you know and there was a lot of things you didn't want to tell one of them though is not a well as bad as the rest of them but give you an idea about this incest Troopers there was a division next to us I think it was the second division they called said they had two men missing they had them out on patrol and they've been gone too long and wondered if we'd seen any and they didn't of course our officer said we'll send a patrol out to see if they're down front of us anywhere you know and I can't imagine anybody's saying just two men out for patrol but I always took at least five and uh anyway I went out in front of us the way it's about a mile and a half or two and I found them and the Germans said caught him I guess and they had they had put rope around the back of their head into their mouth and Drug them to death I left them all over they weren't wounded nowhere but they drug them until they killed them that's the thing about the SS strippers by the old German Soldier he was just he was just like we were but if you got to find the SS you knew it hmm I usually got Replacements at night when we fight and quit you know and we'd come in behind the Hedge Rose why they'd bring me my Replacements because I lost so many men a day and anyway this particular DIY I got a replacement that he looked like he was a 15 16 year old kid I guess he was older than that but he didn't look it anyway I I didn't really didn't know what to do with him so I finally told him I said and I had a fox over there for spend the night in and I told him I said you just be my Runner stay with me and uh we're going to attack in the morning so you need to rest you could lay down in my Foxhole and try to get some sleep and uh he did and the next morning then they attacked it and we happened to be in the reserve so the two other platoons went before I did but they were supposed to send a runner back to tell me when to move up and they didn't do that so I went up to see why they hadn't done it or and they had to had to take the fight across the road I guess and I still wasn't a reason they couldn't have told me but they didn't anyway when I got back why a cell had hid in my Foxhole and knocked this kid's head from us I couldn't even tell what he looked like I couldn't seen him the night he come in I didn't know what he looked like but he he was just young could have been 18 but he sure didn't look it and I haven't got over that yet I still remember that and but it wasn't nothing I could do about it that is one of the things when I was looking for the as a platoon why I run out of the Germans and across the edge roll and I think maybe they was having a mail call or something because they were down in a bunch and they had the rifles sitting we called him stack when they put three or four of them together and there was a machine gun sitting there and uh I saw this as I went across the Suburban field and up at the end there's always a gate where the farmers went through they were just there were no Gates they've just openings in the hedgerows anyway when I looked through there there was a whole bunch of them in a wad down there I think having a male call Maybe but anyways machine gun sitting there and when this about the time I seen them was this thriller with the machine gun he saw him and he was running to get behind it and I knew I should have shot him but I didn't I had a Streaker wanting to run so I run too going down the Hedge Road about the time I got started good while he'd got on his machine gun and he was cutting the brush right up the side of me and these hedgerows was pretty high but I was running down it and I jumped that Hedgehog sideways and when I got it up there he shot by M1 rifle that I had took from a soldier that night that looked Nearly New or give him a bar because he was a big fella but I mostly mostly give it to him to get that new M1 and this machine gun had shot at all the pieces shot the right into well I had going down that Hedgerow and I jumped it I don't know how I could jump it but I did hit on the other side and running and I was dragging my pack behind me I told it they they shot the straps off of it but I don't think that could happen so anyway I unhooked my belt and let it all fall run clear on back to our lines and went over to get my platoon and going to move them up across the road and this kid that I'd left in it was in my Foxhole with his head blown off when I come across a number of times dead Americans and German boats uh it was a real cold winter and it was ice and snow everywhere and uh that was the worst thing I ever seen we had Americans that was wounded sitting down by a tree and freezing to death and that was nobody to help them you know and that was part of it and then I don't know going to some of these battles where we had to go through with it already fought one you know why we saw lots of dead bearing Americans and Germans votes we were cut off in a farmhouse and Germans was on both sides of us and I went back and looked at it out of the door those farm houses they had their at their barns built on them right together you know and they had Livestock in it I think what got us really got us in trouble I went up back there and I found a cow that had been sealed and hit or something and broke her back legs down and and um instead of me taking my knife and cutting her throat where I shot her I think that's what brought him on but uh of course they heard that shots you know I don't know if that's anything to do with it but I feel like it did but I shot the old cow to get her out of her misery you know went back up there then and I looked at wooden door that had a bloody hole in it like a latch went through it a nurse said one of our Sherman tanks with a barrel right on that hole and it just in my mind I said it's going to shoot and I jumped behind the car rock wall that was there and it blew that door off and I come to find out why the Germans had captured it and they would they were using it but after he blew the door off they didn't do nothing I guess it backed it on out of there and then that same deal why me and another sergeant was standing looking at across spread our lines figuring out a way we could get out of there that night and get around them you know and we had one about figured out and go ahead I had two of the best men I had watching that hole so it wouldn't doesn't come in at it they let a German come in there and shoot at us I thought and the bullets hit right between us we sent it to spark when it hit the gravel you know and they never did see these Germans that come in but anyway that's what that was about and in a way why after it got good and dark the end of my We Begin slipping out of those two of us at a time we'd figured out a way a thing to get around him and and we did that's the way we got out of the farmhouse and we had to talk the next morning take it back and we were in in Belgium taking Belgium and we fought all the way across Belgium I don't know somewhere another they got in the head I was ending and I have got an end in blood usually every night I had to take a patrol across the River to find out where the Germans was but I could tell them where the Germans was I've seen them shooting them guns I knew where they were but to satisfy that higher Bunch why we had to cross usually as a river we'd park behind we went across the river in the ab one of these times when I come back with my foot I guess it was before I got back to the company why this officer said uh so glad you're back we're going on patrol tonight I said you could have waited till I got back to the company at least to tell me anyway I had to take them on patrol and I hardly ever had an officer with me when I went on patrol I always had about five or six men but anyway everybody this also went that time and we went across the little either in every other in a rubber craft and then we went up make contact with the Germans where we got up our ways and and I was leading it not that time machine gun hit the bushes right over my head and I got down and crawled back or where to stop before that though why I heard this machine gun when he pulled his labor back made it put a Shelby and why I heard that and I knew it was a machine gun so I stopped and this officer with me said what are we stopping for I said there's a machine gun right in front of us him being an officer why I said what are we going to do now he said I guess we'll just ignore it well I said how do you ignore machine gun but anyway I made a move go on that thing cut the brush right over our heads I crawled back to where he was at I said you still want to ignore it he said let's get out of here all I said take those men and go on then I'll stay here see it there's nobody following us and uh I did I stayed a little while and then I farted three or four shots and went over the bank of that River went down it because I've done that at home you know time and again got on our landing craft and went back to but anyway why we all got back that's another thing I took a lot of patrols and I never did lose a man I always brought everyone of them back off the lieutenant secretary and suspiciously they didn't last very long I don't know exactly the way they trained him or what but seemed like they couldn't keep her heads down and first thing we know that is wounded we'd have a different one I know we got one lieutenant in one time I think he was the first lieutenant he was he was good looking enough he ought to be a movie star and a nice fellow and he got shot in the mouth bullet went in one side and come out the other course was sent him back to the hospital and a couple three months later he come back to the company he had two of the poorest dimples you've ever seen didn't hurt his looks a bit and I thought that was kind of unusual he must have had his mouth wide open when that cell went through didn't hurt his tongue or his teeth or nothing but things like that happened and you wondered how they could have happened you know another thing like that that happened was taken to town and we had what they call dive bombers I don't know the American people could tell you what kind of ship they were but they bombed up the house right in front of us and tore it plumbed down right down to the floor we got up there and there was a kitchen table sitting there with the busted eggs on it and never broke an egg and we looked in the basement and it did Kill nine people in the basement the concussion but it never broke an egg in that table I've never figured out how that happened but that was civilians in the in the basement a concussion I guess went down you know but I can't understand why it didn't break them eggs I guess it was in it was in Belgium I was going on patrol and a shell hits close to me and it hit me in the left shoulder was a just a big pass the metal flat it broke all the hide but it didn't go in very deep I went back there well I didn't goes in with his five minutes about three days later I had to go back to see about it I got to where I couldn't use that shoulder anyway I went into the hospital [Music] this nurse looked at it and I said well it don't matter much she said it looks like hamburger meat anyway while she passed it up good three days whatever they sent me back to the front I had to pick patch on my shoulder that is when during the during the battle of the buzz when the Germans decided to take Belgium back you know and they were leading me in bed so they sent me back to the front but it finally got well I told this nurse it didn't match much she said it will when you get old and it does I can tell it one of the time of course this this was doing the worst winter they ever had in 44. I don't think there's still claim it was the worst winner that ever had in Europe live with ice and snow everywhere and we or some regiment got in trouble and they were sending us over to help it just the daylight and there was ice and snow on the road and uh going down this road and all at once here come a bunch of Tanks and I had my men in the column Matisse and I said call him the ones on each side of the road and that call him on the side while they all went to the other side of the road and them tanks got there was German tanks I don't know how many of them those five or six timer tanks and they went by us and never did know we were Americans they went right through the middle of this we got they got going I had my radio man to call Battalion and tell him it was tanks are coming I didn't know how that ever walked out but we had we didn't have anything to knock a tank out with we'd call after call for artillery you know but uh well we tried to we tried to stay away from them I know one time why we were in a kind of a hell of town but it was uh had some kind of a the streets were really wide I don't know how to explain it but uh they was a German tank come down in that shooting at us either I guess we called artillery on it and it knocked a knock the tread off of it it couldn't go nowhere but it said there was them Germans ended shooting machine guns at us right in the middle of us if we hadn't called in on it I think the thing would have left you know but uh we are in that particular deal we let we let them come in there with some kind of machinery and put that tread back on it and got that tank out we didn't shoot a German while I was doing that we wanted that thing out of the middle of us and they took it out uh the old Tiger tank was had the 90 millimeter gun on it they had to knock a hole in anything I went into a basement one time see if there's any Germans in it about the time I got in there I I heard racket behind me and they had a bunch of old mattresses standing up against the wall I don't know two or three of them and they were some German Soldier coming into it and I got under their mattresses back there and they had they had put their what they would have called it Whiskey they put called it slops they had their snobs in there and they'd all come in there to get them a drink of it and they caught one and I crawled under behind their mattresses I had my pistol loaded with a hammer back and my hand on that trigger on that M1 and there was three of them I knew I could get two of them but I didn't know about that other but they got their drink and left and I was just pretty close to them dancing but I let them go well that it's not hard to shoot a fell in him over shooting at you it's kind of hard to shoot a fella and him walking off I don't think I'd had anything to do with it but I didn't take a shot at him I was glad they got out of there is what I've done we took German prisoners and say when the war was just about over I guess they knew that I know one time I I was on patrol and they run on I run onto a whole column of and every one of them throwed their hands up and give up they wasn't in a way we could even pulled her way out of them you know but they was ready to quit and uh we had him throw the rifles away and told him to go on that away they'd find somebody that could take them and I don't know whether you could explain it or not but uh they had me at Fort at Camp sassy Arkansas and it wasn't going to discharge me until the next day or I didn't know this when but anyway why I stayed on out there and kept sassy and that next morning before I woke up a rap time I woke up they were calling me to come to the orderly room and I couldn't figure out what in the world calling me for you know I went up there and understood my Mother and Daddy we live about probably 40 miles from Fort Smith but uh boy that was across the river from us that was there in Camp Chaffee and he had seen that my name was on the list to be there that morning I know you come over and talk with mom and dad today I was in there I never was surprised in my life and tickled to death to see him you know but anyway why dad asked me said when can you go home I said right now I wasn't discharge but I closed my stuff in the back of his pickup and come home with him stayed all night of course I had to go back the next day then and got discharged they never missed me but I was yeah I See Your Mother and Daddy after two years and it was well do you knew he was home I'm going to tell you a little story I was up at a cafe the other day between here and Skiatook and there was a little girl come up to me I was eating she come up to me with a a little platter with some toys on it and you're practically sitting on the thing that little right there that and right right there yeah anyway she had that on there and she didn't she was bashful she didn't tell me nothing and I reached over and picked that toy up looked at it and she run and uh I didn't know what she give it to me or what you know but when I started paying my ticket well I asked the man up there and I think this little girl belonged to him and I said did that little girl intend for me to have this and she said he said yes she did she wanted a soldier to have it she said and she took it and gave it to me and I told him I said I've got medals recognition everywhere and that means more to me than all the rest of them put together that a little American Girl would notice us being a veteran you know and after he told me that then I wrote her a letter had him come to find out it was I don't know whether he owns the place or just running it or what but it was his daughter I went out when I eat in there I asked him all the time how the little girl is she said she's doing just fine first thing I I want him to think that I'm I'm an honorable man I'm not I never never drink I never smoked I never drink to never stole nothing I've I've been an American that's what I wanted to think and he is an American I'd like for him to remember just just want to sacrifice that the United States has made a liberating other countries and keeping them now World War II had to be fought we didn't have no choice but all these others we've had we've had a choice but World War II we had to fight it I want them to know that that it was something that just had to be done I didn't want to go and I sure wouldn't have volunteered but I've done my part when I was asked God bless you and thank you for all your time Mr Parker it's been such an honor

Channel: Remember WWII with Rishi Sharma

Views: 307,066

Keywords: Combat Memories, Combat Reflections., Courageous Soldiers, D-Day footage, Military Experiences, Omaha Beach, Remember WWII with Rishi Sharma, Veteran Memories, WWII Chronicles, WWII Veterans Interviews, WWII remembrance project, WWII veterans, battlefield stories, heroic deeds, heroic valor, heroic war tales, historical accounts, honor veterans, veteran interviews, war diaries, wartime reflections

Id: NQaNFrfA-l4

Length: 65min 30sec (3930 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2023