Interview with Joseph F. Borriello, WWII veteran. CCSU Veterans History Project

what was your rent during World War two I like rice rank was sergeant and during the Korean War my highest rank was first with debit conflicts and ones water you were to serve during World War two I served at Morocco Algeria Tunisia Sicily Italy France Germany and Austria during the Korean War my division was sent to Germany ironically back to a city of Augsburg which my division took during World War two back in the city I was coming here with yes I so redrafted know I had listed I had listed that September of 1942 right here in Meriden over on dexter rabbit on each side yeah well at that point the or the warrant was in full swing you know the Japanese had already bombed Pearl Harbor and Germany had declared war in the United States so it sort of Italy so we were both sides the war in Europe was going on and it weren't a Pacific and a lot of my friends were signing up because we were in a you know very patriotic I think the country came together as a result of that attack at Pearl Harbor and a lot of my friends were signing up and so I went to is there any reason why you chose the army yes because I had some previous training back in 1940 they had what they call CMTC camps civilian military training camp there was a summer deal and I had gone to see empty seat and I had taken the infantry training up at Fort Devens Massachusetts so I was familiar with the process do you recall your first days in service yeah that they put me out of trade he had buried I went up to Fort Devens and the first few days of course you spent getting your uniforms and getting your shots and then every day they'd it would make everybody fallout subside she would stand up and call off your last name and you had to answer with your first name and if you called off your name that meant you were on a shipping list to go to someplace and I think it was probably the third or fourth day when I finally called my name and they put me on a train and ship me off to camp Cross South Carolina for basic training but I think because I had been through the camtc that part of a she'd be quite familiar to me so I was not a whole new regiment for me it was very good of course it didn't hurt that one of the sergeant's up at Fort Devens was my cousin John so I had somebody to talk to once in a while up there yeah tell me about your your boot camp and basic training experiences well okay now I did my basic training at Camp Cross South Carolina it was strictly infantry training we had our time with the phys ed we had our time with the rifles we had a tie with the fire courageous I think I fired just about everything there is to fire I'm an expert rifle but I also had training with the 45 caliber pistol the Thompson submachine gun a Browning automatic rifle grenades pretty much know basically we've had our share of forced marches and that goes with it which was part of the physical training I'm sure but the credit experience yeah I enjoyed it yes I did yeah can you um describe with your drill instructors for my gym instructor was really a I would say yeah I had always pictured it a drill instructor being somewhat tough one of those people hollering at you every 20 seconds and the sergeant whiting was my drill instructor and just the opposite in fact I had a little trouble with some of the areas of the obstacle course and Sergeant white he came down and he says I'll see you after lunch after supper and we'd go back out and he'd show me how to do things to the army way you know you know if they say there are three ways to do things you got the right way the wrong way the army white and I found it to be very helpful and really a one of the nicest sergeants I ever met yeah how did you get through your basic training very well yeah I joined it I I put on a lot of weight yeah they are the army shop yeah yeah yeah but no I I went through I I could have stayed there another it's eight weeks it would have been fine with me yeah it wasn't to be the thing that I didn't object to is back then when you finished your basic training you were supposed to get a 30-day furlough and I never got my 30 days Furlow because when I went to asked for my furlough they said we can't give you a furlough at this time because you're being sent to communication school and I said well where is that they'll let us know happen it was still a camp crop on the other side of the camp yeah so the following week after I finished basic training I started school now you mentioned to me earlier that you were you were enlisted during World War two that's you're an officer here in Korea yes did you have to go through any officer training no none I got a direct Commission yeah yeah I don't relate to him see yes or no about a 90-day wonder I know I got a direct image yeah yeah so you may think you were in world war ii in Korea no no oh during a wartime yeah yes but both yes I I was in the service during both words yeah yes now you mentioned this briefly earlier but where exactly did you go oh yeah during World War two yeah you start with World War two okay when what when I finished my schooling I went to communication school at Camp drop following basic and when I finished that that was shipped to Fort Knox Kentucky and assigned to the 8th Armored Division and I thought that would be my permanent home I was in Fort Knox I think three days we shipped out to Camp Campbell down on the Kentucky Tennessee border and from there I went to Fort Dix which was a port of embarkation whereas Lillet on a boat and off we went to I landed at Casablanca Morocco North Africa from day there we I thought I was assigned to the 10th Engineer combat battalion which is part of the 3rd Infantry Division and now our training there was getting used to the new materials as a communication person we're getting new radios so we had to learn to use the new radios they change the coding at us so we had to learn new codes but what was going on in the war at the time the British were chasing general Rommel the German general he was retreating back across Egypt at Libya into Tunisia and here the 3rd division is sitting in Morocco so they decided to call up the 3rd division and head for Tunisia so that we can bottle up the German army between the British coming in from Libya and us coming over through Algeria which we did well what a peculiar note when we got to Tredici and we had the Germans bottled up in Tunisia our general Truscott assigned one of the company of infantry to what prisoner-of-war compound that they established over there in the first three days we had 38,000 German prisoners and we didn't have enough so he had to sign a whole battalion because he did the company was enough to container all of us but go ahead from there of course we went on to we my division led the invasion of Sicily we went to Palermo at the time General Patton was our corps commander general Truscott was our division commander we got to precede it before Montgomery which didn't make him happy and then from there it was Salerno in Italy and absolutely cetera Bentley until what we got to about to casino when we were stalemated we tried to take the mountain the British tried it the French tried it they pulled us off the casino front to send us back to Naples where we loaded the boat it made it and run behind and realize that through what to recap known as the Enzio beachhead and the third division was the only American division to make that initial landing so we ended up on a beachhead for four months which I like to refer to as four months on hell because the Germans have all the high ground they could see everything we were doing down there we finally broke on them that was a January of 44 and and we finally broke out of the Fangio beachhead at bate 25th think it was and fought our way up at captured rope on June 4th and of course it was overshadowed by nomadic landing at Normandy two days later they pulled us on a roll after a short stay back to Naples we lowered the boats that made the landing of southern France and now we've got the Normandy landing in the north and now we're landing in the south so we're kind of getting injuries between us so from here it was up the the the valleys through a video best isolobal all the way up to Strasbourg and the Rhine River we ended up when a German made the big counter-attacks for the Battle of the Bulge up Andy Ardennes we were something that and what was known as a Colbert pocket and in Alsace and we finally push the Germans back over to ride River and we crossed the ride into Germany we captured dirt burg Munich Salzburg Austria he had birches garden in Austria and at the end of the war now what happened was after the war I I went to school and when 1940 died I guess there was a local unit where my cousin child who had been that sergeant up there was now a captain with the local Guard unit and he was looking for a first sergeant and he asked me if I would be interested I said though you gave me a direct Commission and I'll be interested so I guess he wrote a letter to somebody because the next thing I know I was offered a direct Commission with that unit which was the 43rd division and shortly after in 1950 we were activated said to can't Pickett in Virginia when we under got some training and then we were shipped over to Augsburg Germany now October Germany happened to be a town at the 3rd division I was in took back at World War two it was an easy tank because Augsburg was a hospital talent and the Germans had a lot of wounded in the hospital and they didn't want the town bobdor or shelled with artillery so they kind of gave up fast and moved out of town so it was a kind of an easy take so what was that all experience like anyhow it you he guess I I'm glad I had the experience I would never want to do it again because there were times what it was yeah I lost an awful lot of good friends a lot of good friends I think I'd mentioned you'd be fewer I wrote a story when I came back for my kids but I I kind of left out the gauri things well I did mention in my book one of their first I saw was the fella that taught me how to use the my detector and he ended up getting killed with the with a testified which I used to call bouncing Betties and that was in Tunisia but after that it was I lost so many friends well what was a close friend of mine the Germans were shelling our area with their 88 and most of us ran for our foxholes and when to accept Makani he didn't get to a foxhole so we went look at why he did it and he was in his pup tent he was laying there they were shaken up trying to wake him up well it finally got in there we found out why it looked like he started to get up and a hunk of shrapnel came through the side that took the back was head up and so he went way back it looked like he was asleep he was dead I lost to my radio operators with a shell burst and took out five guys all it was but to have now to be my radio operators and when it was one of my top operators George wires III go have a nod but I was in the hospital not because I was ruled and it was because I had pneumonia on Anzio and they shipped me down to the beach Hospital and on February 29th the Germans bombed it and I think I felt badly about is we lost a quite a few nurses and that bombing raid and there was no reason for it those those Hospital tents not on the beach and were well marked and the Germans do exactly where they were yeah what about Korea I never got to Korea well I think we were sent to Germany over to Augsburg and we were over there until May of 1952 and when we got back home they may have shipped back home at the summer of 52 and I got the release from active duty yeah now what exactly was your specific job Simon while you were I during Terry where to why I was in charge of the communications once the radio we were undergoing so much we use very little telephone all our communication between the companies and a battalion up to regiment after division was all done by radio and so we had we had excellent radios that are called SDI 245 and they were good for about 6070 miles we had good radios and it was all done with Morse code we did very little clear text messaging and so I was in charge of the communication which what happened was I mentioned I lost two mabye radio operators so while we're on Anzio for four months I had to trade two new ones and they're mentioned in my book also Berger viola and they became two by two two new operators so I had to teach him Morse code using an oscillator yeah but they became good operators yeah you mentioned you received a lot of indirect fire Oh direct fire yeah yeah yeah just about every place we were one of the things that while we're at Anzio was they were firing one of the big railroad guns from enrolled diving into the beachhead and the shell was so big we could hear it sometime to go it over our head and it down toward the beach I think they were trying to knock out the boats that word out of it I suppose I shouldn't call them boats today because some ships but they seemed like they were most of them were aimed they are but if you could picture listen like us being downtown Meriden and the germ is meeting up by West Peak and they're up there with their binoculars they they can see everything every part of that beach they know and ahead bracket it and any time they do so at nighttime during the day we get y'all you pretty much had this thing undercover in a wooded area or you know we'd you know come expose yourself anywhere at nighttime you're a little free to move around almost every night like clockwork the genu 88 the junker bombers would come over and drop me people out anti-personnel and that it's like almost like a hand grenade except when it's the ground it throws a lot of shrapnel and that was a lousy but every place we went general Kesselring was the german general a charge of the whole operation all the way up through Sicily in Italy and he made us pay for every inch of ground we took because Italy is full of hills and mountains and every time we take one he'd be fortifying the next one up of the line and they always had a new line of defense and I can't remember all of them but there was the vulture no line which was a divider will turn a river to augusto line there was a Hitler line it was always another line of defense Eddie can you make us fake he even tried to get to about the casino highway 6 and Rome took us right between two mounds mount logo on one side of the road and rotondo on the other side make it was now German both sides the gap in between of us called McDonnell gap which meant we had to go through Dino gap to get it to where about the casino was and they held a hole i ground on both sides of us that it again the 88 millimeter weapon that the Germans had was a fantastic weapon that he used it for everything they used it for artillery they used it for any aircraft it was quite a weapon it was very effective weapon did you see any combat if you're talking about nose to nose with some Germans no but in a combat area I spent five hundred and twenty eight days in combat I most of the time under direct artillery fire or bombings you name it we had occasion to capture some Germans but not that way a lot of our when we got to Tunisia for example the Germans had already mined a lot of the area so our job as engineers was the clean the mines on the area we lost quite a few fellows who take it out the mines so yeah but we were just about all the time under direct fire from new Germans then you mentioned some of the casualties yeah word were there a lot I don't know the exact figures I suppose I could find them out fast enough but the third division I was in had the most killed in action of any us division and had the who did an action of the Eddy division over there we also had the most Medal of Honor winners anchors 30 seminal and most time in combat actually the division had spent five hundred and thirty days in combat and I missed the first three days so I was with her May and 531 so I have 528 that's only about a couple of your most memorable experiences gosh I had so many of them one of the things we we moved into nürnberg Germany on April 20th 1945 and captured the center town called Adolf Hitler Plaza flats ironically that was Hitler's birthday and be a big show of taking down the German flag and running up the American flag in the center of the plaza at the time general Iron Mike O'Daniel was our division commander and so I had a little ceremony there on that day when we went down for the ceremony our battalion commander a Colonel Patrick asked general O'Daniel for permission to blow the swastika off the dirt burg Stadium it was a huge swastika it had a wreath around it was made out of bronze my guess it was pretty close to 25 feet in circumference it was huge so the general oh daniel said to patrick they could do that after the ceremony what ceremony well they wanted a ceremony to five of our guys divisions were getting the Medal of Honor and they had a quite a ceremony inside the ignorant burg Stadium to award the Medal of Honor to the five and right after this ceremony was over let me back up just a little bit we're getting ready for this ceremony I went with Colonel Patrick and instead of going directly to it we went to my Division Headquarters and picked up Colonel Ralph Smith now Colonel Smith was familiar to all of us because he was our division chaplain he was a Catholic priest and so now it's Colonel Smith turtle Patrick and I we go down to the river birch stadium and when I did know at the time as Colonel Patrick was getting an award at that ceremony so Colonel Smith and I were kind of off to the side but Colonel Patrick told him where to stand he had a camera and he told him where to stand to get some good pictures of blowing that the swastika out so it was our group that set the charge ready to blow the swastika after the ceremony was over and if the troops had left the stadium we blueness the swastika off and that charge was quite a charge I have a picture that some place so that going off anyway wouldn't you know with the shrapnel flag through the air who gets hit but Colonel Smith with the shrapnel and claims are really injured and he's always laying on the pavement there decided to table stadium and fortunately there was an ambulance nearby we got the end which they got off the hospital I didn't know how badly hurt he was until after the war I got a letter from Colonel Patrick oh gosh I'm going to get some uh cement two years and because I had written to nobody said whatever happened father Smith and he said he pulled through and he was quite severely injured but he did pull through it was okay that was quite an experience I was with Colonel Patrick in Strasbourg we got a funny request we got a funny request from the French underground to go to a well in town and there were some things in the bottom of the well that they wanted back that they Enid there because they didn't want the Germans to find it so we cited the water out of the well and the objects that we took out looked like hunks of coal like anthracite coal about the size of a big potato and I could remember Colonel Patrick saying why would they want the pieces of coal and if they were 14 up there 42 these pieces are called ahem so he turned over 13 of the kept one so we could find out what was going on here and find out there was a place to put a cap in there to explore it was a small bomb exactly what it was and it was made up to look like a haka coal what we found out that the underground was doing is when the German trains would go by they throw a piece of this coal up into the coal car and sooner or later the fireman was shinola huh not to call into the firebox that it would blow up and that's how they were blowing up two German trains it was quite a thing just before we got there 20 miles before Strasbourg part of the old national ID was for let's see and it was occupied by German troops and when the infantry got there they tried to dislodge him and they were they were they were in there much as much in this fort was below ground and they called up division artillery were there 155 howitzers and they shelled interest it had to be a shell bounced off and it didn't affect the Germans at all so then we asked for so air support and they said over a couple of Fighters with some couple of 500-pound bombs they dropped it but because the bombs were hitting exactly as they thought they were didn't do it affected and that one of the one of the Colonel's got a bright idea if you go try psychological warfare he totally got a loudspeaker told the Germans if they didn't come out we had a secret weapon we were going to use and they ignored it they did come out so general Daniels told Colonel Patrick insure problemau the Germans bypass I'm the re fitori bypass and went on sort and now we're how we going to get him out you'll find a picture of it in there we got to hold a toll of a German half track the captured half track and we loaded it with three thousand pounds of TNT and sent the and up put across the moat of this fort and ran it up unfortunately it kind of got off the because we just put it in here and let it run up to the entrance of the fort but it kind of tipped over it didn't get right up against the door anyway or use some mortar shelter to blow it and blow it did when that thing went off we blew a hole was side of the fort from about six by six feet by ten feet and the next night that the Germans gave up if I'm not mistaken I think it was the three three German officers hiked over 73 list had been my style and surrendered so we finally got them out of there were you ever a prisoner of war no no no were you awarded any medals or citations let me see now I hope and yeah I do have another Good Conduct Medal I have the Victory Medal I have our alpha has the Presidential Unit Citation twice we're a twice awarded the karate gear by the French governor once for combat in southern France and again for combat in the Colbert pocket if you'll notice that on my uniform that rope that I wear around my left arm is called a flourish here and because of being awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government I've been titled to wear that so I do have that metal on there I've forgotten some of the others one of the peculiar things about I was wounded by shrapnel on Anzio now at the time I'm on Anzio we didn't know it at the time of course but Hitler gave artist Kessel rate to make sure that they drove us off the beachhead and they threw everything at us believe me at the time Allen Anzio my brother is on the other side of Italy he's a b-17 pilot and they were making runs from Italy up over Germany it back and what I get when I got wounded it was it by it actually it was my right foot and it's torrid atop my foot off like I think it did more damage to my combat boots than it did to me but what I had it I went to the aid station and they the doctor was a captain Clark Van Orden who's quite a good friend of mine when you're a combat you know sometimes we've been together so long the rank I guess kind of blurred a little bit you know because here was that and I spent a lot of time with captain Van Horn who was our battalion doctor here and a medical group there the so captain Van Doren just says you know here's your title to a Purple Heart and I said what good is that gonna do me and he said will to give you a five points I said that's a joke you know most of us have enough points they had the an assistant where you have you had so many points for everyone so many points for every month overseas there's so many points for every balance there yeah and after you got so many points you were supposed to be rotate at all well you know crack my old the mission had boards what four points that in unnecessary they gonna rotate us home so that was a joke so I said so they still said telegrams he said yeah he said don't be a telegram sent to your house that I said then forget it I you know when the last thing my mother needs at this point it's a telegram coming to our house I'm when the beachhead our brothers flying b-17 bombers forget it interesting enough it was never entered into the company lag so it didn't show up on my service right but just recently I wrote to the commanding general of the 3rd Infantry Division because I know that there's a record of my being wounded in the medical records of the 10th Engineer Battalion of the third division and the third division is stationed now in Fort Stewart so he passed it out to somebody and I would you believe I got a letter because I said if they can find it I just can't believe that they destroyed the medical records of the battalion there they are some place and I told him that the word returned it too I got a letter just a week before last from somebody down there and the records department said they went through white by army records and there's nothing at my record I knew that and I told him there was nothing there because one of the peculiar things that after that after we took nerve Berg our first sergeant was sent home and they made me first sergeant but by that time they had frozen all the reich so I didn't get the strikes to go with it but I was a company first sergeant for abandoned until I was shipped home in September and I knew what was in my records because I had access to all I was a first sergeant and so I do it wasn't there but I am but just recently something it said why don't you try to get your Purple Heart so I I put the point where I said so what you know oh the only thing I found out that if you if you did have a purple right you get preferential treatment up at the VA so I know that's why I wrote it for to it but I don't seem to be getting anyplace I so I'm at the point now where do I write back and tell him I know that that's not in my record but it's in the medical records of the boots had it and I is there because captain man or do it was very good friend of mine and I corresponded with him after the war I should have asked him to write an affidavit or something but I did register and he went died on me a soda curdle pathway Colonel Patrick died three years ago the last radio operator I trade burger lived with st. Louis and we did see him he died last last year no 2008 he just died I did know it was funny because like that we sent Christmas guide to each other I did get a Christmas card from Berger my go gee that's odd so in January I called thousand Virginie answered his wife Virginia that's a genius is a job or hello colleague and I said I did get a Christmas card is something wrong but she's an old joke she said I didn't tell you tell me what as a virtual died last November but I'd just lived you know we still correspond but well how did you stay in touch with your family when you were when you're shipped overseas strictly letters yeah only letters and of course you know yet the only vehicle back there that will it condense the thing yeah we can write back and forth that it was free you write it as long as you want it sometimes we didn't have a chance to write sometimes we'd be off the light for a while we had more but chance to write but one of the things you're going to find talking about correspondence when I was in Casablanca North Africa I got a letter Bob forward a letter to week from my draft board they were gonna drop it I was already in Africa and so I went to the camp and I told I have to go home he said why I say hello if my draft board they want me to report to the draft board so I could get drafted you should get out of it then he had a good laugh at it but I did to get it they would let me go home would be drafted but what happened is we ended general if you'll read about it when you read it but it's a good story general Truscott didn't think that the infantry moved over a ground fast enough so while we're been training in casablanca just outside of casablanca dear robot we had these marches very frequent loaded full pack rifle or works at the time it was normal for infantry troops to move about three and a half miles an hour that wasn't fast enough he lent us do five miles the first hour and four miles every hour so we'd walk and trot trot they call this the Truscott trap and it sounded like a dance when it was killing it but well the damned we did blow on the sand and blow and walking over to Sandy areas everything my watch stopped Hank it was full of sad so I packed it up and set at home and my mother took her down to colony street Michael's jewelry store was out of colony street and when she went to pick up the watch the jeweler said to her whose watch is this mrs. poor Ella what she said my son well I don't know how low he thought mom's son was but he said if I were you mrs. Borriello I'd make him take his watch off before he placed in the sandbox so my mother made sure she told me to take my watch off when I played the sandbox or whatever when when you're overseas most of the time and I meet both the time over sea rations see you've heard of them people have a square meals we had round meals can and at the time of day with Street you got three you were you got three cans how am I gonna wear this what was the beef stew one was ash and I hate the other with pork and beans and along with it you've got a can that had biscuits it had a couple of pieces I had candy it had a packet to you could make some lemonade out of it was terrible oh and another thing if her instant like it's good coffee and it and you know what some of the crackers I run around soda crack like that they had some of them so you're issued three cans and you got those three different meal plus three things that was John's even day's ration which one sounds appetizing for breakfast you know but we heated about the best we can and very often if we stopped long enough the our cooks would put an immersion heater in a big 50 gallon the GI can and in heat the water up to boiling and put a bunch of the cans in there so that we'd have a a hot meal so you'd open up the can I still think I have my p38 IG I can't open her you ever see whether those oh I'll go dig it out for you I'll show you they called p38 which is kind of a joke because the p38 was a German pistol died millimeter pistol but we all carried it in fact most of us carried on it chain with our dog tags in fact we had to open up the can so we had a who can opener the once in a while we did get when we issued c-ration and that was c-ration around kids we had K rash and how krad came in a box about Elana know six or seven inches long love that and again it had a little different things in it like to do it again to a little coffee lemonade there was also one called D ration we didn't get D ration too much it was if we had to go on outpost do it a year which like at Anzio most of us did we take a deer Asher because we wouldn't be come back to where we could get a meal on D ration it was like a concentrated chocolate bar only I think it was something like 600 calories or something like that so it was great but it was enough to sustain you when we could get off the line although I would say while we're at Anzio we were on Anzio for four months we were buying down the Germans had it fit down but one of our cooks was kind of an enterprising fellow what he would do is if we would overrun a position we try to scrape up things like German rifles German bayonet German helmets what we considered a bunch of junk but he put it in a barracks bag and go down to the ship's down in the harbor that were unloading supplies and he swapped this this German stuff for a 50-pound bag of flour or 50-pound bag of sugar you know the guys that it shipped and so once in a while they'd bake cake or bake some bread so sometimes we had a pretty good meal when we're off to like we had gonna be able to be what they call Class A rations to I could hear every day what Christmas we even had turkey dinner which was surprising but it was okay yeah they got it to us hot it was alright yeah I don't know where it was baited cooked or whatever but we got it there gave me pop yeah yeah yeah you bet hey man did you feel like you were well supplied over there oh yes yes yes I went in I was 127 pounds I came out a hundred ninety yeah yeah I think I could I can honestly say we always had enough ammo we always had it wasn't the greatest food at sea rations we all considered lousy rations but eight that's what we had one of the early things that I did was one of the best things I ever did as I captured a an Italian officer in the three men for men with Julia John viola and I and we over random and he gave up and I got his pistol it was a died millimeter beretta pistol I I don't have much use for a Beretta pistol but one of the fellas over there had a a Coleman stove which was about this big around and about this tight and you put gasoline in he did pumping up like a blowtorch you do they line it I swapped my brother a pistol for that coal wood stove and you know I carried that pole was told would be for the rest of the war and it was the best thing I ever did because sometimes I go through Sicily sometimes we go by fires and that helped myself to zucchini squash tomatoes and then I'd put it my mess kit to put in some Syrian with it mixed it together and he got my little stove going I had some pretty good meals I kept out and well we did have to get into a pup debt that little Cobra store would heat up that puffed at about five minutes it was you know a good war III kept that stove for a long time yeah did you feel any pressure or stress when you're overseas always yeah yeah it was always that that yeah some guys broke under it they did I've seen guys laying in their foxhole with their leg up in the air hoping to get hit the light so they could be shipped out fellow yeah it's a fearful time you know your you get shelter the daytime you get loud that night you got you know just shot out yes eighty eight's coming at you yeah very stressful time yes after a while you get kind of a Bude that right my book that first time the Harper Redmond got killed in Tunisia you know I would he was only three feet from me and yeah I had trouble sleeping the next two or three nights because every time I close my eyes I saw him get killed all over again after a while for some security reason you kind of get immune to it and one of the things that you don't realize that that war has a smell to it this allows you smell going through summit of thousand a heat of summer when their bodies are leg via the street or a side of road or whatever and that would that awful heat their bloated up to do you know and it in his smell is a bad bad man well but it like like so much else it's it's it becomes a way of life so you get a kind of immune to it you know with the shelling starts you rent me a foxhole give you just bury in your head and afraid you know when they came over here India facts Oh and hope that one doesn't land right on top of it yet but you know everybody prays a defects the opposite yeah yeah with your any special is he we do for big luck no attack no though how did people entertain themselves really that much every payday gambling got got to be the big thing I think rap games and poker date but there's two things that happen under way through underway through Algeria one of the guys I'm trying to remember the name of the town but stagger them miss tagging of Algeria he bought a monkey and the guided bought the buck he was a guided tour our ammo truck ice amo it wasn't just a rifle bullets or things like that it was also our minds because we also did a lot of mine leg especially it places like NCOs or work so we deemed a monkey he did they'd bulky ammo ammo was a source of quite a bit of entertainment because we didn't stop in certain areas I have one of the things that gave us a good lapis as well a one night II the Germans were shelling it and all of a sudden sergeant robbers I'm hit im hit good and so we kind of blocked out and tried to see where he was hit he wasn't hit at all what had happened was there was a shelling animal got so scared she grabbed him by his leg and duck the splitter was hanging on for dear life but he thought he'd been hit by shrapnel one of the people who visited it with us every once a while was a noted collie was Ernie Pyle I don't know if you ever heard of any pile great war correspondent he wrote several books one of the books called brave men it was written by Ernie Pyle and he talks about the 10th Engineer Battalion our group in his book ray bet but our deep I was visiting us on Anzio and ammo liked sliced peaches and we used to get these number 10 cans you know like a gallon sized can of sliced peaches we seemed to get a lot of sliced peaches mo loved them and ernie pyle went through two lied with us or got his food and he put the top of his rescue doubt and now we had to stay away from each other we say we spin out like five feet for each other so for Shelia it doesn't take out a whole bunch of people so he's sitting there and we can see mo come up with go up the tree up so we made sure that somebody over here is talking to - so he's attention and directed over there and down comes the monkey over on this side and eats all of his features so when he finishes so the rest of us were making a we don't see a thing and when he goes to pick up the trainer's nothing in it and it is looking all around like this and of course Amma was up there and so he did say anything he got up but he went back into the lion again and got some more peaches as he put it down beside him he said looking around for here comes and well write down the tree again we already found particularly who saw the monkey does preach it but we got a good lap so the the all the way along but we got kind of kick on an animal was the source of entertainment for us because he's always doing supple wacky peculiar enough he do the sound of that mo truck he could be saddled to sleep someplace and if he heard that truck start up it cou he drug now an NCO r CP Ted command post had a tree right beside it and the branch came out over the the roadway it was a roadway it was two ruts look and underside going out and he'd used to drive down to the beach to pick up his supplies that come back as soon as amber would hear that truck he to run up the tree and I don't on that branch you in a truck and by John self-doubt and he'd ride along with that guy down to the beach and come back in it or one day he heard the truck start up the guys came through Emma were ran up to up please a tree ran out on a branch Amina died he had already gone by he missed when he fell under the back wheels of the truck ever got killed on Anzio and it was a sin time because we hated so you know he was a source of entertainment for us for quite a while but forever got killed and not by fire he got run over by the OL ammo truck you said yes no in T was a workhorse pilot Oh Ernie Pyle after left the European theater he went to the Pacific Theater and if I remember the story right Ernie amount was a very very popular man if you go back at India the history of back World War two you can find early piles name crop up but he was in a jeep I as I understand it somebody took a shot at RIT and they got out of the Jeep behind us old wall and they were behind us so well for quite a while Ernie said I think he's probably gone by now the driver tried to thud oh no no no we wait till after dike beats and I'm gonna take a peek he peeked over to wall it was a sniper got a right polygon right there and killed him on Okinawa in the Pacific the nice guy nice guy yeah we ran into him quite often were there once once I saw them yes well we have our division took Palermo Palermo's the capital of Sicily we landed Licata down the south of Sicily went straight up to cut Sicily and a half right up to the northern coast it took the city of Palermo what happened there's General Patton's was court commander and apparently he drew kind of an imaginary line anything call it a blue line for some reason about several miles south of Palermo and sent word out through from Corps to division not to go beyond that line because he wanted to make a grand entrance into Palermo was his tanks he did and he made his grand interest into Palermo and when he got there one of the put a battalion of our division infantry was already in town had taken the town it was sitting there and Patton got really upset that but what happened I guess by the time the word got from court down to Division two the regiment's the battalion after the company they were already you know but he pulled us off the line we're off the line for over a week just about a week I get and sent back to the west coast to a town called Trapani and while we're at Trapani Bob Hope and his crew showed up and we did see what a Bob Hope show that was the only time I saw that he had a Bob Hope the Frances Langford and cherry Colonna were the entertainers yeah that's what he put on his show for us and I think the band if I'm not mistaken was Les Brown yeah it was quite a show yeah did you get any of the equal you were in the service there's many times as I went looking for a furlough I've never got one I never had a furlough I never had so much it's a three-day pass no never but today I enlisted to let that I was discharged not like zero your combat deployments where did you travel while you were in service who to do that was about all of it because well well not quite all of it as I said the boat took us from the United States I went from camp for devan's camp cloth Fort Knox Camp camo Fort Dix overseas and after all that traveling our outfit also took breeches garden which is that Hitler hideaway and uh and if you watch the movie Band of Brothers they gave credit to mounted first airborne and I gotta tell ya that was wrong and wondered first airborne did not take purchase card we did in fact the second one in to purchase guide was the first French infantry division the hundred first airboard commit third but they gave him credit at that Steven Spielberg of that movie anyway that's beside the point we we were in a weird Austrian T when the war ended and I was there until September and they moved me up to the coast they had a bunch of these little camps along the coast of France and what what was called Lucky Strike and had philip morris and things like that and then every once in a while we get our you name to be called up and we were shipped across the english channel into England in a town of Southampton where we were waiting to load the boat and peculiarly enough our group was supposed to come home on the Queen Mary and it and while we were waiting there for the Queen to come back from one of the other runs we got a notification that we were being taken up and to make room for a group of wax that were on their way home which was not thrilled us very much anyway they said but we don't have to wait for the Queen they got a boat leaving the next day so we load the boat I'm not sure I think it was a liberty ship and went up and down and up or down and up and down but we sailed before they the Queen Mary got back and the funny part of it is we're out for about eight or nine days out at the Atlantic and there came to Queen Mary what rights they had red bias I think they made the trip in four days I think it took us 14 to get from England to New Jersey but I got home in October that I say home I got back at on United States soil late October and and then I forget it we're we're dicks I think I was yeah Fort Dix and and then was put on a put on a troop trade for Bayer and shipped up back up to Fort Devens and then a process for discharge and I if I'm not mistaken I was discharged November 1st 1945 November 1st 1945 so I you know outside that little bit of going into Eagle ended but that's about it he told me a couple funny story that meant that either take a few Betty numerous events yeah I when we arrived in Strasbourg there was a the Germans had a concentration camp on the outskirts of town and we liberated the concentration camp the concentration camp had a number of Italian soldiers what happened when we went into Italy even in Sicily the Italian under Mussolini and under the Germans under Hitler were for the excess power but the but once we started the war on Italian territory the Italians came up and I think the Germans knew they were so they they took a lot of but sent him to the role powa and made him work and the German factories making munitions and things like that so that this particularly concentration camp had a lot of Italian soldiers and it had a number of Polish women on the other side of camp well what the camp was liberated they over there who opposed somehow one of the guys ended up with the accordion and then they're having like a dance now I mentioned those two operators radio operators that I trade was was John viola from Brooklyn New York the other was Virgil Berger out of st. Louis and John wildin spoke fluent Italian so once the camp he went over to camp he could converse with these guys at the camp and a having a dance I I couldn't go because it was my turn on the radio we took couple hours so we took time out when we switched the three of us so when he got back he said to take it over and I was free he said why don't you go over to dance I said I yeah I can't be pulling a chocolate go to ask somebody a dad he says you don't have to he said just go walk over put your arm around one of the girls to take her out turn to the dance floor well okay I did so I go over there and then does a girl standing there by the pot-bellied stove like I followed I go over to put my arm around her shoulder and next thing you know my arm was back her up up behind my back and she's got me behind the back and that gonna see the dimensions she threw me out the door I mean she literally threw me out the door and I landed there in a buck out there but I went back to camp and I hit a guy I got out into violas case I get huge I call him an eight I said you did that to me he swore up and down he did but to this day I still think he set me up but he swore up and down he didn't he everybody I don't know I really don't I think he set me up what were some of the pranks that you and others would pull on one another other than the Polish girls not too much of that we were a very close outfit what it is it I don't know there's something about being with these guys day after day in it and a stressful combat situation it's almost like you get protective of each other you know a different kind of a bond I don't ever remember really yes I do Emmons Feaster and I and Evers how el murfi sir was one of my sergeants Evans was a corporal you know I can't remember where we were when we but we bless the retina lied anyway he got a hold of a couple of bottles of cognac and so the three of us are in the tent because somebody else was on the radio and Feaster and I may believe we were taking a drink we did we tipped the bottle but we did drink any but Emma said no we were to adapt and he take a swallow well pretty soon Evans is looted and valleys getting silly and of course they're not expense and finally he says I think I'll go back to my bunk and he started to stand up and he fell over he couldn't walk so feasted I had to carry and put him put him to bed that's the only time I remember every pull something on somebody and we got poor Evans drunk the we did really do that does what the estranged things happened I mentioned Feaster we were in Sicily pathway between pole arable and receive it and we were just about settle down for the night and freeze to had to go to the toilet and he's squatting over a writes with his pants down and the Jura started shall we get them and I gotta tell you it was a sight watching Feaster try to run for his slacks all was his pants not around his knees and he's trying to hold the pants and try to run and the guy who was the guy duty that night was Willie weeks who stuttered and with the shelling really gets all excited he's trying to holler he sees his thing going Mike it was Feaster and he's trying to holler hall and he can't get it out he go and I'm hollered at Willie I said it's a fact so Willie never mind your own stuff and fee do it he'll it turns out to be a comedic kind of a situation but it wasn't all that funny it's a time but we're being shelled you know that's for everyone so I we have kind of incidents like that but we did weren't much for doing pranks on each other though if you think of your own your fellow officers and your fellow soldiers the I would say that that we would have followed Colonel Patrick anywhere he was a soldier soldier one thing that he did we got a Duke we got a brand new captain in from North Africa when we were in southern France I don't know what happened to our captain we had got we got to do we did and I guess he didn't know how things were done interpret our outfit so when it came to the child lied the captain goes up to the child light it goes up to the end of life which apparently in his outfit the officers got treated that way they got to the front of line Colonel Patrick saw it he turned a major hey do business go get him and sort of major rat down and told my captor come back critter wants to see you and so the colonel said to him captain and this outfit officers don't eat and so all the enlisted men defeated he said you could get on the backend allied but you don't get into frontal eye so he never pull that again but that was Patrick I think we'd have followed him anywhere he was really really a great officer I company command it was kind of a jerk I thought sergeant summers and I got a little bit of trouble in France we had pulled it to an area in woods and when we looked up the mountainside beside it is his castle on the top of the hill and the company commander who we kind of thought was kind of a jerk he got us all together and he said nobody is to leave the area we may pull out and a minutes notice okay so sergeant summers and I went up through the woods up to the castle knock on the back door guy answers the door I speak I write I read French so I like the answer I said could we would you show us around your castle he said I'd be delighted no we're talking French okay so he invites us in solfege of summers and I go inside the castle and he takes us to the living room and who's sitting in the living room the captain and another captain and another captain purely officers are up there they're telling us we're not leave the area they're sent up there to camp I didn't know now what do you do you know we were told not to leave the area now we're caught early these refreshments and these officers from your outfit I said yeah and I said they're they told us a little while ago we were not to come up here and our clock and he said oh I got you into trouble I said hey they have to I think we got away with a little bit because they heard me speaking French so that came it a little bit handy while we're in France so we kind of got off the hook a little bit but that was a dope dope we thought you were going to get busted the only time I did get into trouble was for seeing with chickens but I didn't think that was too bad I didn't think I stole them I thought it was liberating it but really you know and that was and that was in Italy and we got I got two chickens and we have to be cleaned it and the crank for the 3/4 ton truck is about this law so it's great to put two chickens on there's it's got the thing you know and we had to stick there and we were sitting there my buddy and I he was from Hartford chappie chappie Leone Chapman and so we're sitting without two chickens and here comes the First Sergeant were this Italian guy and it didn't we look at his chickens and we had he won a 200 lira for his two chickens so we had to come up 200 lira which meant two dollars other little bit which was cheap enough a we had chicken dinner we didn't have Dec right yeah yeah keep it up but what once when we were yeah I mentioned my cousin John Carroll John ended up as a first lieutenant in the 500 third MP battalion at the Third Army now the Third Army was under Patton going across they were in Luxembourg and we were just south of them and we were off the line for 10 days and a little town called pote a mousou which is near D&C France and I was doubted town one day and I got talking to one of the sergeant's from our own division MP company and he said we picked up a couple of guys now the third division dentist in 7th army area third obvious here first time he's up there and so he said we gotta take him right up to third I mean headquarters tomorrow to deliver a couple of prisoners and I said oh can I write up with you mr. Schurz all right with us they did so I went back and I got a hold of sorry two tables our first sergeant and I said that the Davis I said cover for me for a couple of days Willie I said why I said I want to run up to 3rd army headquarters I said to visit my cousin he said you can't do that I said why not he says the MPS will pick you up you can't go from 3rd 7th army area to 3rd IV don't go right away no I said hey I'd like to go see if I said you just cover for me so the next morning I went down I met the sergeant and they had a 3/4 ton tractor we filed in aqua go we drove up to look at the bird and I go into third army headquarters and the MPA asked for my cousin's job they said oh geez you just missed him he left yesterday to go someplace he had to go for it we got a couple of days he wouldn't wait I said right I really can't wait you know I don't know where we're going to be went back on the line because I didn't know how long we were gonna be off the line and so I said I better not so I got a hold of the side so I said when are you going back he said tomorrow morning so I say that evening they put me up might suffer their breakfast wheel of the truck and I come back so what I saw sergeant Davis I said I'm back it's a little good the next day my cousin Jean and I had left word would with them up there where I was and it was where I was stationed because the chod shows up well that this is something else they got MP out of front under helmets you know the Arab an MP across the front of the Jeep is as big signed as the military police you know so John and his driver pull into the yard where we're in town and the first first he runs into a sergeant Davis my first sergeant and he said Davis goes up to Jeep and he salutes and he said can I help you sir he said yeah I'm looking for sergeant boreal Davis's porello Raylan you sure you got the right outfit Davis thinks I got into trouble and good police are looking for me for going into third IV area I didn't tell him what I had done at all so now he's figured marie-louise disease he said to nobody on her outfit by that day beside you sure you got you he said I ought to know I'm the first I don't ready of the outfit and he said well you know he said to us attentively their battalion tenth Corps he said no he says I haven't slept well by this time I have to look out the window and I and I see John out there and I'll do what I said don't look I run down and out out of the thing but of course my just not Davis has read to faith because but John don't worry what was happening yeah he said he says I understand sergeant so he let Davis off the hook I had to explain the signs of Davis later that I roamed with the MPS that's right but so we had a nice visit John stayed two days with us they're portable so we have no room for a bear so I talked to a French family down the street and they put him up for the night it got a nice bed room to herself and all the comforts all he saw there was the best many and ever since he was overseas so I ran into John twice over there once added multiple so France and again in Munich I ran into a roadblock with the Jeep there was a night I didn't see the day I'm thinking I wrote in to us demolish the Jeep and thank God it was a Jeep that we had captured for the Germans so it was we did have any record of it but I demolished in chief and I'd end up in the hospital what happened I went by that when I hit the roadblock I went through be forward and the windshield wipers right up here on the top of a Jeep would and it cut my forehead and blood poured out my face so when I get to the hospital II mean I got good blood but that's all it's abstractions on my forehead so John's off it was a beautiful I called him up from the hospital I said John come and get me out of the hospital take me back so he did what did you want did you know I wish I had I really do but I did - no but when I wrote my much as I can remember I did have to go back and do a little research especially for dates because they're a little bit elusive some dates stand out like that February 29th because it was that odd day in February you know and in 44 where they bombed the hospital but they know I wish I had a really did well how did you and you know very well again for World War two once I got home and disjointed a service I came home now it's November and it really a peculiar thing happened my uncle was living with us at the time and he had he said there was a store downtown at Behrend for sale and he said I'm thinking about buying and he says I think we could make some money he said I like it you know what you're doing business with me and I said no no that's nice I feel Jack but I said I really want to go back to school now you gotta understand it I was grew up during the Depression my father lost a job my mother had a part-time job once in a while and you know there was no chance in hell that I was going to go to college there was nobody at all in the family in fact we were danger of losing the house so for a few years we lived with Uncle Jack whoo-hoo that time it lost his right and because he had a very large appointment and rented the house so we wouldn't lose the house would use the rent money to pay the mortgage tried to think until they kind of blew over but anyway now here it is then we move back into our house and Uncle Jack moved over in with us and he wants to find his missus wants me to go in business I want to go to school so he's okay she said but then I've got to ask your brother back now Vic was working up in Boston at the time at the bluff the Navy ID so he called my brother Vic who was the b-17 pilot I mentioned earlier and Vic said yeah I said I'm Kodama and so he came down went into business with Uncle Jack I went over to Wesleyan in Middletown and CSEC about going to school under the GI Bill and the fella said ok I have taken that reduces ya by ok I had taken a college course into the school high school so I took the entrance exam and it was little January baby I got a letter from Wesleyan that said congratulations you are hereby accepted into our freshman class in September well it's January you know now I'm thinking you know I really don't want to go looking for a job if I get a job I like I may never get to school and I didn't want to wait mom said why don't you take a ride up to do Britney said usually the first two years are pretty much the same but if you want to later you could transfer okay so I drove up to do Britton and I wanted to see the what the dean there who was a charge of Veterans affair and he since school started yesterday he said can you come tomorrow morning ready to bring a pen and a notebook and he said what I'll do did tonight I'll set up your classes for tomorrow stop here like 7:30 tomorrow morning I'll have everything ready for your classes are going to start at 8 o'clock and that's all ok so I did I said just like that now I'm up well haven't the other two years I liked it so I stayed I enjoy teaching yeah so that's how come I ended up at Teachers College kind of a fluke because I was going to be a freshman but I am but it would add that weight whatever it is nine months I didn't wet away so I even though I started in 46 actually I graduated in 49 so it looks like I I spent three years in college but it was a little more davi yes yes yep no sound like you made a lot of close relationships in your service yes yes yes oh yeah though I graduate I graduated from Teachers College I think it was a 16th of June in 1949 and on the 25th of June we got married and my wife was a secretary in international silver your child and so she took two weeks vacation thought she took the week before she got married because if she was having some showers somewhere her girlfriends were giving her a shower here wedding shop and then we so we had a a week of her vacation I had a contract with city of Merida to teach but it was for September you know now here it is June so we get married that we got a week so we decided we'd go up to Niagara Falls and go into Canada maybe cut across Canada cut back into the United States visit Chicago and I'd come back home so we did we went up to the cross over to border to Canada drove across got to Chicago now in Chicago the sergeant daily who I was very close with in the service and we visited with him and he said he was in contact with Berger you had been mentioned here Virgil used to st. Louis well the next thing you know we drove south the st. Louis and for some reason I could get the car turned around they've kept going west and west and west and I called ahead to last Reno Nevada sergeant summers so when I got some wood going up to the castle Oh he lived in Reno as luck would have it his parents owned a motel so we stayed at the motel and visited with sergeant summers of his wife and then I called ahead to Evan's Evan's why we got drunk and we've stayed at Evans house in California he lived in Napa California two weeks I helped to pay this house and he took us around to different places of interest in California it was a nice two weeks we finally left there drove south through the Kings Canyon down from Sequoia National Park into needles into the Grand Canyon there's a scent I went to Grand Canyon to make a long story short well he got back in Marin the day before Labor Day in September now we got married June 25th we were gone all of July all of August valid September and we get back into marriage without my wife at this point doesn't know she has a job she supposed to be gone for two weeks back in June and that was September she walked in they never sent a word to her she sat down at her desk but you have got to have a sore throat why were out in that for California the evidence gave up their bedrooms for us and they moved to another bedroom and right next to us was their two kids the youngest one David Kaye now in the mumps and during the middle of night he was fussing so he wanted a drink of water so my wife got up with good job David with drinking water trying to get him back to sleep again wouldn't you know she caught the mumps from him and it didn't show up what - he got all so she goes back to work one day and she comes Anderson here says you've got mom's go home so she went home for another two weeks under bumps but thanks time to teaching would you believe my first year salary as a teacher I'm not talking about a month or a week I'm talking about a year salary $2,400 hmm they mention at $2,400 that was a year's salary we got it twice a month for 10 months yeah so you went on to be a teacher yes yes I'm very fortunate though I'm gonna talk for five years and then I got my first principal ship and for the next 35 years I was principal I ended up being the principal of severed just seven different schools of merit and started I was the smallest one which only ten room school Eli Whitney up on Broad Street and then I moved from there to a 50 groups cooled down beyond Sherman Avenue trouble school which is now as apartments in it it's right next entire house down here and then I I just moved to Ben Franklin school over West Main Street which was a 17-2 room schoolhouse with a cafeteria and a gymnasium which we didn't have a trouble or whiffy and then it was funny two o'clock in the morning the phone rang I picking up a little grant their super intelligence congratulations I said for what charge he said you just been named a new principal hooker they were building hooker school over a over looked over automatic outlet and he said you put you're gonna be the new principal or the brand-new hooker school I said George I didn't even apply for it he said yeah I know that but you're gonna go anyway so I ended up opening hooker well while it was a hooker I was only there two years John Connor I got sick at junior high school I'm sorry at Judy high school and so every once while I was called out to go and put out the fire dollar that junior high school back in those days they had no assistant principal and it was so just the principal as it turned out Conroy didn't come back to school anyway he wanted to move me into the junior high school back in those days when you got your masters you had to have a master's degree to be principal and they separated Elementary administration from secondary administration Elementary administration covered kindergarten through grade eight secondary coverage 7 through 12 most people had one or the other neither had of elementary administration certificate certification or you had secondary well the junior high school had seven eight nine which means if you had secondary or five but if you had elementary you're already covered to eight I guess I was one of the freaks in town I was the only one in town that dual certification I did my masters in elementary I did my sixth year in secondary administration so I had both because a peculiar thing happened my primary emphasis in Teachers College was elementary education but I had a minor in French and I had a minor in history so I was certified to teach great through 12 for a French in history well when I started teaching after three years you apply for tenure and catcher we got one to call like a temporary then we got our permanent certificates they don't do that anymore but whatever copied by permanent just copied the whole thing so I ended up with a permanent certificate for a K through eight elementary and seven to twelve on the same certificate for secondary so I was covered in there so then I got my masters in elementary and my sixth year in secondary so I was covered for both so I ended up at a junior high school principal but it was during my 10 years I mentioned before they changed to a middle school and I did not care for for the middle school I stayed with it for five years but I talked doc doctor Macbeth that said George first chance you get you get me back the elementary school that's where I belong he's okay and they were in building Pulaski school that's I'm up at supper park and he said he went Pulaski school and I said yeah so I got Pulaski cool in 1972 and I stayed there until I retired at 89 yeah I so uh how is your military experience influence your thinking about war or about the military in general I think right now I enjoyed by some my state but in fact when I was recalled for Korea that was 52 52 so it interrupted by teaching a little bit but by that time don't forget I had over three years during World War two and now I got two more years of Korean War I've got five years in I've got one year teaching in you know and I'm thinking you know a bad life III I enjoyed the real eteri life I will admit in the second the Korean War I had a pretty cushy job I was commandant of the leaders school they found out that I had certified as a teacher and so they gave me that job so I ran that the leader school the leader school was intended for leadership courses for the top three grade nine cops so I had snaps are just tech sergeants of master sergeants and bike Lance's so I ran to school I had two other officers who were under me I was a guy to write up to lesson plans of you know the different things that we were to cover in school so I really had a good job when we finally got overseas and I was made communications officer for the third Battalion which puts me up battalion headquarters so again I had a a fairly comfortable job was the god that I was trained for it treat occasions no I joined the military if I wasn't I was married at the time does that mean all the difference I think she was my wife was not fond of this pick it up move and pick it up and move it so the other part didn't throw me either so we decided that you're back to teaching so I did and I got sorry I did my views on some of the war now is more political I don't it's just my feeling we never should have got our nose in the Iraq in Afghanistan I think that was a it never should have happened there's people have been fighting each other those Sunni so they have been signing there for a thousand years and a thousand years after we've left there nobody still fight each other you know don't business via there there but who are there said and so far as cost us about over four thousand guys yep I take a very dim view of it outside it are you a member of any innovators organizations yes right now I'm very involved with a group of veterans most of them World War two matches we formed an organization we call antique veterans because onesimus find our antiques when 9/11 happened they move the guide of Merida's know the only ivory on East Main Street is no longer if I they're gone that's an empty building and I used to hold company L of the 102nd regiment and it was already do military funerals so we decided to start doing military funerals so we do have a uniform we have khaki uniform we wear our ribbons were entitled to that we wear our passion of the service unit we are without our left shoulder and we got an antique veteran patch for the right shoulder we have the flags for every branch of the service including where it should buried in our guard and you know Coast Guard the whole works I mean Navy Air Force were eight with everything we have we owed five grand m1 rifles for our firing squad we haven't for three Bugler's that take turns and we have a guys that do to flank foley with the casket just to let you know how things are going so far this year we've done 55 funerals and since 9/11 as of today because today a seriously we have a meeting that's Marty and they keep track of it as of today we've done 888 funerals military funerals so we did a whole Schmeer we do everything from start to finish and read not only do the flag flag really we have a flag flying up from the different flags and whatever the guy that we're doing a funeral for whichever branch his service he said we tailor what we do to them if it's a navy guy we have the bell rang it but every day we have the bayonet the rifle of the helmet on you know we have and and our Bugler's know all the service arms so when we Blair chill off it's always done to the service on to the gang we're Marian said so that that is right now it kind of keeps us occupied so how is your service experiences affected your life that's a that's a tough when the answer yeah good yeah I was a candid you know one of the things I think people don't understand waterside fought by my band there fought by kids most of us most of us we're 18 19 year old kids oh sorry to Feaster he was a little older he was married he Anna kid I might say a little older he was probably he would probably 25 but we were 82 19 you know but at the time you know a bunch of kids over there most of the guys hi Algar I would were they well John Riedel was a little bit older but the rest I'll be no more like me I'm when I was 18 I had my right my 19th birthday the dollar camp crop I had my 20th birthday in Italy my 21st birthday was a good where France yeah I guess so yeah the second one it was just a little interruption I think if I had ended up teaching I probably would have stayed with that with the military but the incidents I still it's not a great deal for if somebody is married and it was racially if you're trying to bring up a family it's it's not a good deal and I think you know I was watching a television last week that showed a picture of one of the ships returning they've been gone for six months you know and their wives and their babies in there and my kind of life is this you know you're the some of these guys hadn't even seen the kid and he was born while they were gone and you know the father's not that helpful to bring him out there one of their lives do for six months my husband's you know I well I don't know proved was there anything you would like to add that we ha you want to spend a week here oh god I as I say I use a lot of experiences a lot of heartache a lot of Tears scared yeah I was scared that's getting a lot of times and I think anybody says they weren't scared combat is you know but I'm glad I went through and I think it but I wouldn't rather do it it yet yes I'm very fortunate to be here I I'm very fortunate we were in the town have you ever heard of Audie Murphy that's implanted that's yeah I guess we're too far away from World War two Audie Murphy was the most decorated soldier of World War two that every decoration there is he wrote a book after he got out called to Helen back and became a movie about Audie Murphy good good movie and honey were for use in our division in the Khobar pocket the observers were counter-attacked they had a two-prong attack what was up here in the Ardennes that one was through Alsace well the one up here became known as the Battle of the Bulge the one down here was the cold wire pocket that's where we were snow up to here but what happened was they were pulling back in the Audie Murphy climbed up on a burning tank got that a 50 caliber machine gun and it was whoa and now the German was meant to make a long story short he broke up the whole attack single-handedly and it would call for our chili support and I guess they didn't want a fire because the wavers call it was where he was and but he got the Congressional Medal of Honor for that to most decorated soldier of World War two Audie Murphy third division the second most decorated soldier was the captain Maurice Brett nicknamed footsie footsie Brett and he was the second most decorated soldier World War so they were both in our division do you remember a guy named james arness tell him it's your show Gunsmoke turn it's Cheryl okay James Arness who was Matt Dillon as sheriff at Gunsmoke was it the third division he was wounded on Anzio and said hope so we had some very important people okay thank you very much

Channel: ccsuvhp

Views: 6,583

Rating: 4.8000002 out of 5

Keywords: World War II (Event), Central Connecticut State University (Organization), Veteran (Profession), Veterans History Project Of The Library Of Congress American Folklife Center, Interview, United States Army (Armed Force)

Id: Lg7i6Nk9R4A

Length: 112min 39sec (6759 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 22 2013