thank you all for coming now for many many years I lived in the community and nobody knew that I've been in the service until Private Ryan came out that's not his name but that's what they put to it a good story it isn't all true he was in the 501 general canards unit but he got dropped in the wrong place and came to our unit and stayed and so when reporters started coming that's when this thing came out and everybody said well why didn't you talk about it did it you know hurt you to talk I said no I said everybody that came back that I knew especially around where I live we all build our own houses we all got married we were too busy to talk about it all we wanted to talk about what we were doing until later this gentleman called me and said he had been interviewing veterans and using in his classes and would I sit for an interview there are a few things to say one I am did nothing special our unit did something special and I was privileged to have been a part of that unit all the way through from the start to the finish I'm a symbol of those who can't be here today secondly none of us consider themself as heroes because we volunteered for this we trained for this and we got paid for it and I consider policemen firemen EMT in the same category we're all the same bravery beyond compare I can't imagine going into a burning building the way firemen do I'm not sure I would have the courage to do that a policeman 3 o'clock in the morning stops a car with a bunch of grungy people and he's taking his life in his hands I don't think I could do that I did what I was trained to do it went against all the things we were raised with we got medals for killing people back here that puts you in jail for that so that's that's a big change now people have asked me how did it feel seeing people die well I wrote my mother a letter and I still have the letter now told her it didn't seem to bother me in the least and it didn't after seeing a couple of people killed it doesn't bother you well how about seeing your buddies I said you know what unless you're especially close to somebody it doesn't bother you and if you can't accept it and do that way you don't blow on that kind of a unit now I grew up listening to tales of veterans from World War one and some of my neighbors had been gassed and I heard them at night trying to breathe we lost more people over there to disease in the trenches and they did but fighting this country became extremely isolationist and I was one of the worst we were never going to go over there and pull their chestnuts out of the fire again we had a notion on each side to heck with him I was in a defense industry there was about 300 and some people in a manufacturing side and I was in the tool die side we had about a hundred and fifty I had a deferment I wasn't going to go Pearl Harbor didn't change me at least and the people around me felt the same as I did the manufacturers we're not interested in doing world work we're coming out of the depression things were picking up never doing about 10% world work and they're very happy the government actually had to threaten with some of these industrialists with jail to make him get on board now we should have gone into this a long time before we did but we would have been a mistake because we didn't have anything we'd like all countries after World War one was over we went down to practically nothing but after a while we listened to father Coughlin talking about burning up the draft boards and Hitler ranting and raving we get down to theater weekends that's where we got our news but really started to change me was they came out with a regulation that they were drafting men up to age 35 with three children and Here I am a young man with no family to worry about how would I feel the rest of my life so I determined I was going to go ed Johnson you only to company Johnson to land engineering he blew a fuse had meat all up in the penthouse to talked about it and I said well head I'm just an apprentice it really doesn't matter and he said Jim these contracts we have are all cost plus and for every hour you're here I get five dollars clear and I was making sixty cents an hour he said I don't give a damn for sleeping the right bed that was actually the way people felt the only way there were two things I was interested in when I was five years old a classmate of my mother's from living in Bedford Indiana invited the family over the city Dam and the County Fair was on and I saw a parachute jump and I thought someday I'd like to do that but I was more interested in submarines I'd read about professor Beebe going down the Marianas Trench 42,000 feet in the bass escape read about Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and everything Monson the made to escape capital or disabled subs so I signed up then I said to the guy how soon am I going he said well they're working on a sub you'll be on be about six months you go home and we'll call you well that tend to sit very well I couldn't get back in Hampstead let me back for six months after that so I went across the hall and signed up for parachute troops I had already signed up for the Navy but that didn't bother me I didn't even think about it well I went to Fort Harrison Indiana they got a group of us together five or six of us and sent us to a place called Toccoa Georgia and we got on the train and the conductor looked at that and said Tokyo you guys are going the wrong way he never heard of the place I hadn't either Jarrell Bradley was very much interested in what happened to Crete the Germans took that Island but they paid a terrible price and Hitler was never interested in paratroopers after that but he thought that was some changes maybe it could fit in with the army well the old army was not thrilled they were not interested in having this they tried to stop it we've Bradley got to Roosevelt Roosevelt was Navy and he listened but he wasn't too thrilled about it either but he he gave him the go-ahead he said I want a unit that's never been fielded one that's better than anything that anybody's ever had and he picked a guy named Colonel Robert sink / the 27th West Point to run it and he told him you can have any personnel you want you can have any material you want anything you want done the only person can countermanded is Roosevelt they didn't want old army men in to intimidate or bother what was going on they wanted new people 6,500 people signed up we went up to this place that had been a World War one cabinet later a three scene camp up in the mountains and they really put us through the wringer from July 15th to the first of December we did what curls sync thought up and called airborne basic prior to that if you're going to be a paratrooper you went to Fort Benning for four weeks and you came out of paratrooper you'd send six or eight guys to one regiment and dozens of another but he had another feeling he wanted unit cohesion and when you did it the way they were doing you didn't have that and besides that they were losing 25 percent of these people in the third stage over there they had a lot of money in them and that was not going very well so we did that attrition before we got there but in that time July to December 1st we went from 6,500 a 1650 then we went to Camp McCall for further training and a Fort Bragg for further training and then camp shanks where we got a ship called a Samaria that was a British cruise ship now that's my company going up the mountain that mountain that that was the three-mile one-way trip six six miles round trip and we're expected to do that in company formation in 45 to 50 minutes we did that four and five times a week for those three or four months we were there and that took a lot of guys out probably a lot of good guys that would been combat guys because we got into combat we didn't run that much we could have done without it but it did it did toughen you up and in 105 degree heat in the summer we ran it when it was sleet and rain toward default we still ran it and sometimes we ran carrying our weapons and that was really something that's our luggage they're lined up ready to go on a 136 mile march the Japanese held the world record for force March 118 miles the first battalion of our regiment went all the way on a train to Fort Benning the commander of the 2nd battalion said to Colonel sink I would like my men to beat the Japanese so they went from Atlanta from Tekoa to Atlanta a hundred and 120 miles or so they held the record for about two weeks and then we went we took the train down to Atlanta and then went from Atlanta to Fort Benning 136 miles we still hold the world record it will never be beaten because the army says it will never let that happen again they were too hard on the people it's sleet and rain 28° mud up your ankles the field kitchens couldn't stay light it because of the wind in the rain so they fed us peanut butter and cheese sandwiches the whole time we were out there that's on the march right there now that it's a mock-up of fuselage and we all had to go up and jump out of that there was a pulley on a cable and then you slid down the cable to the end of it one time there were some new guys came in on a weekend and if some of the guys took him down to the parade field and said one of the things you have to do jump out of that thing up there they didn't tell him he had to get a hold of pulling they jumped out about 40 feet up well Colonel sink had something to say about that and that didn't happen again that's the two hundred and fifty foot jump towers you can lay flat on the ground they put you in a harness and then pull you up there and then you say that this Tucker's say one two three pull and you pull your ripcord and drop 20 feet well that worked all right until cable broke one time they stopped that now that the plans they had were c-47s that should have been in a junkyard ten years before they had oil spewing down the sides of the plains the engine sounds like they were coming out of the shoes Lodge but we didn't care we had to our first five shoots we had to pack ourselves and you know you stopped to think about that you've never had been seen a parachute before and you go in there and that guy tells you how to do it and then we put that thing on there saying you know is this thing gonna work or not but they did there were some accidents there were some British guys that came in they made their three jumps and then they decided they didn't want to jump anymore so one of our guys named Lance Edmond he was paid $25 to make the two jumps for them now he had made three jumps himself and then he decides he didn't want to be a paratrooper so he refused to jump they threw him out I don't know whatever happened to him but we went through some pretty tough times down there Karl sink got us out on the hillside one time and he said to understand you guys are not happy no you don't like the food no you think I'm too hard on you yes now he talked very little and he never raised his voice but he just stepped there and said well I'm going to tell you something it's gonna get a hell of a lot worse before it gets any better then several weeks later he called us out there again and he said I want to tell you fellas I had a congressman come to see me one of you people sent a note to his mother how terrible I was treating you I'm gonna tell you the next congressman that comes to me the guy that made that happen it's going to wish he wasn't born well that's the way it went anyway we're all hopped up we finally get our wings my gosh we were walking on air because work really something now and really we hadn't done something that was something you've never been done before anyway we got on that's Camp McCall there that's when we did a lot of experimental our our regiment with the experimental regiment everything new weapons the equipment was tried on us as a result that we had quite a few injuries and some things we kept some things we got rid of one time the group of Gloucester wanted to see a parachute jump in our company was chosen for that and it was raining pouring down rain we flew around for about two hours we had our machine guns and mortars everything 35 mile an hour wind finally the pilot said we're going to land no no we're not going to land not with this lowered they said not you can't go with a load like this and there's no landing age that to feel none and you can't see a half a mile ahead of you so we jumped sergeants Arbor went out with his rifle across his reserve and he must have tumbled because it wrapped up in his suspension lines and he got killed he fell flat in a plowed field and it actually pushed down about four or five inches deep lieutenant dowdy went over and was like that first guy to be there he was pretty upset then to make it worse we had to walk 15 miles home in the rain so that's introduction to that sort of thing yeah that's the Samaria we've made 4,000 people in peacetime we had 5,000 people on board you can imagine what it was like there was not enough room to put everybody inside so per half the guys were on deck sweeping on deck and half we're in hammocks down at the bottom they had to feeding lines and the first day I was on KP and we went down in the hold and there was some big wooden barrels where the heads knocked out full of Brian in this engine and I mean from India he had a brawny sort of a guy with hair all up and down his arms he was a chief cook he reached down there and pulled a big piece of meat up with horse meat he said this is what you're gonna eat and one of the guys said what's got maggots on it he said well it's like meeting it might that's what they hate then I didn't eat for the 10 days of the crossing the worst part was they had to dish pans and everybody washed your medkit in those pants and every so often they put some more Clorox and as a result everybody got the run surgeons met with that slice well we got into Liverpool they put us on a train it was about 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning we got off at a little place dark couldn't see anything at all guys had been there to get the camp ahead to sergeant somebody asked him where we were and he said it's hunger burden is strictly from hunger well we found out what he meant that was England on a ration of time people in this country thought they had a hard time too rationing they didn't know what ration it was these people got three or four ounces of meat once a month if you happen to have the meat in that's actually the way it was it was just terrible now a little they put us in split us up in several little towns and my battalion 750 men was put in Ramsbury raspberry was a town of 1500 people with nine pose up on top of the hill into the air force with 2,000 people you can imagine what that was like and we had a little book how we're supposed to act don't brag about what you got at home these people don't have anything trim was respect well there were some clashes and differences in things the first few weeks but we all got in and want most wonderful time of our lives for the time we were there we all got to be old people I had four houses an apartment apiece I could walked into without knocking I had one house where I had a room I had clothes if I came in late on a Sunday night I could just screw in and go to bed stead of going into the barracks it was that manager and all these people are interacted with our parents the letters were going back and forth and the folks at home were scented thing towards of the people here didn't have it and it was just wonderful we had quite a few dry runs we'd get up clear out for the plane starting to get in the plane be called off because pattner somebody else had overrun the thing and finally the time came we went to the marshalling area not ten days and we're all hopped up and everybody's gonna kill every German there is sharpening and I was sharpening bayonets getting in fights and then we had this weather crisis we're supposed to go on the 4th they were delayed to the start at 11:30 p.m. on the fifth the weather wasn't too good over in France but it was good enough for us to go we got in two planes and looked down and I saw all those ships down there are five thousand ships and I knew they were depending on us we got over the channel and planes are flying the serials of nine planes and only the lead plane had a navigator we ran into a heavy cloud bank well the first thing these guys thought of us to scatter out because we're flying almost propeller to tail in fact one plane did chop off part of another plane's tail well then they're lost and on the ground they had pathfinders and a pathfinder hat was called to Eureka it was just transmitter and then the plane was a receiver called Rebecca and the Pathfinders jumped an hour ahead and then it was clear their signal to the whatever Sarah was supposed to come in there well what happened when they scattered around they lost that and pathfinders had no security Wow I was it was an awful thing they were supposed to put the lights out and do the signalling and yet they had nobody around to protect him and Captain lilamon did put out an order we will keep no prisoners shoot all prisoners we can't fool with prisoners and that was right because they hadn't they had a job to do well as the ridges all of that the Air Force thought that they had for the amount of time they flew they thought they were in the right place but they weren't they scattered us all over that peninsula some guys dropped 30 miles away I happened to drop on drop Dylan's 8d which was where I was supposed to be the only problem was there was a contingent of SS troops Hitler's the SS troops and the contingent of tankers and we dropped right on top of them in history books that's called the slaughterhouse because that's what it was all of our people in my battalion didn't jump there was 535 out of 750 jump the rest came in across the seat a couple of days later but in 33 days of fighting at 535 we lost 75 captured a 93 killed now the sea forces they had it even worse than we did they'd been cooped up on those ships for a week the seas were high big storms came in waves were at six to eight feet high they were seasick they were dropped too far out deep water they dropped him over over their heads many of them the floating tanks they had was supposed to be 37 them 26 of them got swamped and they didn't get him in well anyway John Taylor had told us going in give us three days a hard fighting will pull you out there's worse shock troops we're not supposed to be in there after that wherever there's a hard spot to go we're going to break it up and stabilize and go someplace else but they had nobody else to put in now the German High Command all of them Hitler on down said we're going to let these guys get in on the land surround them and annihilate him Ramos said no if you let him on the land you lost the war it turned out he was right the main objective for my unit my battalion was to bridges that the Germans had built a few months before we came across the new river one of them was a pedestrian bridge in one of vehicle bridge and that was the funnel reinforcements down to the beach forces it was imperative that we keep that from happening well what happened we did get a patrol across there there was a plan that my lieutenant came up with we had two rubber boats we're supposed to put a couple of surprising those boats time together and I was to swim underwater and take them across they didn't want to use paddles because they thought that would alert the enemy well as usually happens when you go to combat the plans the first thing it something happens to solve Rosenfield and war Nelson were supposed to bring the boats this all rolling field got captured and Warner Nelson when the guys went by was sitting on the bundle and somebody said aren't you coming I said no I'm waiting for Seoul to come down and help me well the next thing they found Nelson dead the boats didn't get there so that changed everything we did get a patrol across but it was so bad they had to bring him back they couldn't come back on top of the bridge so they came back hanging it from the superstructure one guy had been shot and they took a piece of a barn door and put him on and shoved him underneath one of the superstructure and didn't bring him back but we did finally after three days we had lost all of our communications equipment and division thought that we'd been annihilated so they ordered the bridges destroyed well we heard the fighter bombers coming and we figured out what was going on and chaplain McGann and his sergeant members named them anyway they were up on the sergeant was letting smoke go chaplain McGee had cerise panel so he was waving they didn't pay attention to that it came down across there with guns blazing he dropped the bombs and we're sitting down there they straddled the two of them up there never hit him but they did hit the bridges knocked him out those bridges really angered the French people because that that city down there Karen tan their livelihood was other countries and they had to have the canals to get out to the sea so they were very glad to see that happen after that happened of course then we went wherever we needed and then the next big thing was bloody gully and that was one of the bloodiest places you ever saw we came out of that big whack out in the middle of a field about four or five in the morning they came in and told us there's a counter-attack coming to take retake Tarrant and you guys are going we walked several miles into KarenT and bombs were dropping the Germans were in their journey paratroopers 60 unit we're in there we took that said you back that was the linchpin for that campaign if we had lost that city we would have lost France been really rough so when Normandy was over now I won't tell you about the Normandy Normandy was not like others fighting it was the most barbaric fighting that we'd ever been in to ever expected to be into and never had anything like it and the reason was all of those six parachute Germans were told that we're going to kill all prisoners and we'd been told the same thing about then the Germans reinforced that by having a noncom at the back of each unit that if he saw a soldier that he didn't think was doing as much as he should he was to shoot him so they had a great incentive to do that we had guys in every unit we would like to shoot prisoners they got a thrill out of it now when this starts and someone was really barbaric he goes around the battlefield quickly and then of course everybody's doing it some of the commander's you know then with the guys there were bad as anybody else some like winners would not tolerate it my commander wouldn't either that doesn't mean it didn't happen in my company but he didn't know a lot about a lot of it did you've been idea two guys in our unit got a couple of German prisoners and they didn't know what to do with him so they tied him standing up to a tree and then wounded around the barbed wire and then dropped a grenade their walked away and when the other guys said my god what do you think is going to happen any of us now they get caught so the unwrapped didn't let him lay there was an aid station getting ready to take people back to England to the hospital and they were streaming Germans their unconscious and several people in our unit caster engine some of the guys went into a barn and found four paratroopers strip naked hanging from a beam not a war wound on him they'd been slipped they're going up to the sternum their intestines lying and rounding from them their genitals stuffed in their mouths that's the kind of thing that went on that didn't happen at any other time that I was in the world but it was really pretty terrible you know when I wrote to my mother and said it didn't seem to bother me it really didn't it didn't touch me in the least you just get used to that sort of thing so we went back to France back where we were or Ning I'm sorry I went back to England we did more training we had more dry runs and finally we're going to go to Market Garden and Holland and they said no more night jokes they found out what that did to you it's scattered you you couldn't see and it was a mess we did a parade ground jump in Holland we jumped in about 800 feet contrasted at 450 in Normandy on a Sunday afternoon bright sunny day we did run in an awfully heavy flak but we got through that all right we hit the ground and every person in Holland wanted to help us they picked up guns on the battlefield went with us young kids 15 and 16 picked up a rifle my mom one of them was an interpreter for our unit he was with us for quite a while he got killed there was some girls 15 16 year old girls that on their own initiative took bicycles and wrote him to german checkpoints and talked their way through and said they had cattle over there to take care of her we're going to visit a relative they came back and told us where all the Germans were and where all the guns and things were and quite a few of those girls got shot one young girl about four or five years and what she lost a leg in about four or five years ago she was in her 80s somebody asked her if she thought what she did for us was worth losing her leg and she said yes and I'd do it again they still feel that way over there and incidentally Doug and I have been in them not only invited but I think commanded to go and so incepting November two weeks were going back to Holland for ten days and I mean you can't believe when you go back there there's people were getting up in age come up and say I was five years six years old when you came and they hug you and cry and said you gave us back our freedom I mean that's pretty humbling we had about 70 days our unit did it at Holland it was miserable it was a Montgomery thought this up we were to jump on iron holding and then there was a road of us 60 miles long went from there up to the Rhine River the briefs we're gonna put all most of their airborne people across the river it was going to be a battalion of Polish jump with him ten thousand at all we did the first 30 miles 82nd airborne did the rest up to the Rhine River we were to keep a corridor open a mile and a half wide on each side of the road this is all through enemy territory now the Germans when we had convoys going taking people and supplies up bringing dead and injured back on one little road tanks ten-foot-wide trying to go up the same Road Germans would hit hit us at two or three spots convoys would stop everybody gets out the convoy while we're fighting the Germans they starting cooking they're going to the toilet we're talking to each other time you get that straightened up and get the convoy moved again you've lost three or four hours it looks pretty bad well there's one bridge across the mall wall river that had to be taken the British sent a commando unit over but instead of dropping on the bridge as they should have done they dropped them six miles away the Germans immediately saw what was up in there Murray enforced it that bridge could not be taken so we knew at that point this was a failure if it had been worked correctly and taken to gutting that bridge taking they were going to go up and turn right and go down in the Saar the heart of German industrial and it'll be over by Christmas but when they couldn't take that bridge it was over in the meantime Montgomery didn't send his troops up fast enough they were to barely be relieved over there the second day and that didn't happen and then the worst part we didn't have enough tactical air support there were dirty little aircrafts they had unlimited amount of guns on the high ground across the river firing at us the Germans had started their armor down toward the Saar and they came back and we're sitting ducks and where in the heck is this tactical error it wasn't there we still argue about that today the worst part was in order to get this operation going they had to take all the supplies fuel and everything away from Patton to stop him and he'd been going 20-25 miles a day and there he said he wasn't very happy this was a political decision that Eisenhower had to do he didn't want to the Montgomery had dogged him for weeks about it and find that he was giving it the okay to do it that's all these things happened we're still arguing about it today we went back tomorrow Milan France turned in all of our crew served weapons and all of our extra clothing the rumor is we're going to go to the States and get a furlough and go to then and go to Guam and get ready jump on Japan instead sergeant came in through the barracks four o'clock in the morning to get up get up it's been a breakthrough you're going and I swore a little bit and said no that's another one of the Army's things we don't have any winter clothing we don't have an ammunition or weapons have been turned in but it wasn't long big semi trucks with open sides came they put us in standing up so tight you couldn't sit down we started out in the dark we didn't know where the heck were going drizzly rain Chuck sliding off the road it was a mess lights on you're going through enemy territory lights on you know something's going on this was the last gasp in Germany they had decided to make a big push through the Ardennes and they wanted to get the hat work for all of our suppliers were coming in had been able to do that the course of the war would have been entirely different well we got off dumped us off in a muddy field and there's people coming back crying coming towards us they looked like they'd been through a meat grinder they asked us where we're going said we're going up to fight they said no no they they'll kill all they're killing everybody what had happened was that was a quiet sector up there nobody expected them coming through there had done it once before but they didn't expect them do it again in a hundred and six regiment in the 28 were up there 106 had never been in combat but just put them up along the river in the 28 had been beaten up so bad they were no longer viable outfit just to let that 28 get a little rest in the 106 to get an idea what was like to live in a combat area and they got hit they were reporting back to intelligence that they were hearing movements of trucks and tanks bossom across the river intelligence said you know you guys are on a quiet spot there's nobody over there you're jumping they're probably playing records which they did at times now I have said I still believe that every officer in both of those units was derelict in his duty and tell Jim is also derelict and the reason I say this they never put a patrol across senator I really see what was there if you had to put one patrol over there and seeing that yes this was a movement of tanks and trucks despite the weather they could have come over and saturation bombing out and broken broken it up intelligence was wrong they should have been old I think Fort Marshall they should have told them to go over and take a look but they didn't do that either no the Army media woman that interviewed me about this and I told her how I felt she didn't want to talk about it I've talked to high-ranking officers they don't want to talk about it either but that's my opinion and I still feel that had they sent somebody over there we would not have had the Battle of the Bulge we lost 80,000 people killed wounded and missing in that action now there's another thing I don't first airborne gets all the glory for that and yes we deserve it they put us in a roughly 20-mile circumference irregular line around this town of Bastogne and the reason they did that there were seven roads the three railroads going through there and the Germans in order to get that rope had through they had to have that and we were told to stay there forever well in getting there and getting around there there's units from quite a few other regiments and divisions tanks infantry Special Forces all of that in there with us and they were put under the command at 101st airborne and they fought just as well as we did and yet they got no glory whatsoever now when the siege was broken when Patton came in it was putting in all the papers we found later that they came and rescued us that was not true at all we did not need to be rescued as long as planes could fly and drop supplies we could have stayed it would have been miserable because it was been hard to get enough supplies to be where we should be what Patton did he was actively engaged in combat he disengaged a whole army and turned it 90 degrees and came over I'm ready just yesterday about 200 miles and broke the siege what that did was allowed to take out dead and injured and bring in supplies which made it a lot easier but we really didn't need to be rescued our mission was to stay there to the last man that's exactly what they told us people have asked how it was well tell you how it was the first 10 days planes couldn't fly because of the weather so there was no snow supply whatever you had when you went in was what you had I had 3 K rations for 10 days that's one day's meals some guys had nothing at one point the Germans were butchering pigs a little village called recalling about 200 yards from us and we could see him doing this and went a little pig about 35 pounds got away came almost to us and turned around started back started the D but ran out and grabbed it shot it then laid it down and snow and cut it up and the guys ate it raw except me I didn't need it for two reasons I don't eat raw meat and the other is at that point I think every pig in the world could have had trichinosis and I wasn't going to get into that nobody got sick but that's the way things went there was a decision by division to send an H company patrol out through our port to be down toward four and see what they could find out about the German dispositions around a boy this lieutenant said it stout out and a machine gun opened up and he got hit on the breastbone and went down he's seen him back out again he got hit again he sent him out the third time he didn't get up then they decided to send all of the patrol out in groups of two or three they got out toward Foy quite a ways and how members deep snow it's about over knee-deep at that point and one of the medics that was left with us started taking his pack off and I asked him what he was doing he said well I'm a medic it's my job to go get him and I said well you can't do that you'll get killed he said well I'm going and he did he went out it this is amid the firefight machines gonna going shells coming down he got a man on his shoulder and shuffled back went down several times and he got him back that's the way people did things they remember this was the worst winter in 50 years and it went down as low as 20 below zero now we had you know your shiver when you get cold the body's trying to keep warm we had so little food that we put shivering you're in the first stage of hypothermia but there's nothing you can do about it we went in was nothing but a raincoat and our jumpsuit now after the planes command after they got fuel and ammunition and then they came in and dropped overcoats and galoshes but but that time everybody had frozen feet in frozen hands there nothing to do but now if you went in got hit and went in to aid station and your feet are black they cut them off one guy had gangrene her up to his knees and they told him in but I have to cut him off they said no I said well you're gonna die said that I'm gonna die I'm not going home without my legs and he ran up and down the makeshift hospital and believe it or not he's still got his legs when he went home they said they'd never seen anything like that though they captured her medical detachment now we had some small first-aid stuff but they ran out of anesthetic the first thing after that aid station got taken there were many amputations and other operations with no anesthetic just four guys holding a guy down do it now people say you know how can you do it well you do what you have to do and that's all there is to it and one of the guys I talk to later it had that happen he said that was the most painful thing that ever happened to me and he said fortunately I have passed out well that's purchased God and that's the last City we took yeah and the last thing we took was the Hitler's hide up on top of the hill now we felt that since we've gone all through the war that all of us should get a chance to go up and look at that thing but that's the one thing I would never forgive winters for he only let eat company grew up there I never got up there until he and I went up a couple years ago we got to see it now that's not too high it looks like if it's about 6500 foot elevation but I'll tell you what what scared me the most was taking the bus right up there there's no guardrails anyplace it's a corkscrew road and that guy was going around there man I'm telling you I thought I was back in the war zone now the elevators they talk about ours though you know elevator 1012 guys when you get 50 people in it a little bit and it's 600 feet up in solid rock they actually activated solid rock now of course we got in there they've shut it down nobody can do up but you had to walk up if you wanted to go up some of the most beautiful country in the world and you just can't imagine that people could in a place like that do what they did when the war ended they came up with this everybody thought you're gonna go home when you got it susan flores or when you went into war whether you were drafted or you were listed you signed up for the duration at six months but they came up with a system of points how long you've been overseas how many decorations you had a few other things and you came up to this magic figure of 85 points you got to go home early well I was one of those north most of our unit was the guys down in Nice stayed in that paradise all through the war they raised a big stink because they didn't get to go home right away well it sat down there and enjoyed life but they found out that also anybody been in the guard house with a garden when you're in combat the guardhouse went when a combats over they go back to the guardhouse and that doesn't change their time at all and then they found out much to their sorrow that they had to stay over an additional time make up for good time for each day a bad time they had so there was quite a bit of how about all that sort of thing that took quite a while to get everybody out now we've come to get out of the service people talk about a people in Vietnam were treated yes they were treated badly but remember our industry was going full blast anybody wanted a job at that time good habit when we came back and there was no rationing when we came back there was rationing you couldn't buy our car you couldn't buy lumber to build a house and we're all trying to do it and I said well how we're going to get lumber they said well you know have an allotment well how do you get an allotment oh they gave them out when the war started well we're going to go to get when we can't get one now that's what we're up against then all the industries were winding down laying people off now remember when all the guys went there women went in factories and you know what despite Whittle a lot of the guys said the women did its good or better job we did in all these factories first time in their life these women had independence they were making decisions for the house the kids they were doing the financing taking the mortgages when the guys came back that caused a lot of problem they didn't want to give up that independence they didn't they shouldn't have the guys I worked with told me you guys ruined everything you came back we had all the women hello liquor and now you come back and spoil it well that's exactly what they told us and the law said they had to take this back now when it was over well you can see what time has done to me but my wife looks like I do and I still love her the same as she was and she's 93 now and we still live her on her own well this band of brothers show was really all I can tell you I know there are a lot of mistakes in it a lot of things that are not the small things that are not right and so much thought were big things and I said another thing you had a sex scene wrong I said you shouldn't have put that in and I said I don't think it happened who the hell the middle combats going to be having sex with a girl and what what howling and girl from Holland is going to be smiling with a guy on top of her in the middle of combat well I've seen it several times I think they must have taken it out because there wasn't there now what he got for you upset with me he said when we did that for dramatic effect I said but that's wrong that's not a dramatic effect that's stupid anyway the band of brothers guys a guy named Adele died he's the black ops guy he's been more combat than both people ever thought of being he he's been in those places it still is going where something goes wrong your company country doesn't know you he's tough well they hired him to run this thing for these guys to get him ready for this film to be the actors some of them hate him to this day because they were so hard on them but he made him and he made him famous and I have told these guys we've met a host all of them several times and I love all them I think they're wonderful I said you know and I see her and look at that you guys looking good with a couple of weeks training as we did it six months and it's true they do now there are things that are wrong for instance I can understand why the towing they have to do they're bunched up you never bunch up in combat once helping kill a whole bunch of guys when you're walking in a column right out spread it out I can see why you do that I'm very happy to have done it and I will tell you this people come up and say thank me for my sacrifice I do not consider anything we did as a sacrifice and neither do any of the people who I was with can you imagine at the time when we went in there most people and well out in the Midwest many people had never seen a plane I didn't know anybody been up in plane we read about all those world was once battles all of the big cathedrals all those wonderful cities and we got to go over and see all of that in a way that tourists can never see it even today because we got to talk to the people live through it and to me that was priceless so I had to be able to come and talk to people and tell them a little bit of what a sight I consider that just absolutely fabulous see we had a mandatory insurance policy we had to take through the government 650 a months it just deducted from your pay ten thousand dollars and I used to tell the guys and I used to send a letter to my mother and dad and I said if I get killed I want to buy a farm now when we'd go into a firefight and come out of it somebody said what happened to so-and-so oh he bought the farm that's where that started well yes I did I went out to UD and I took the exams and they told my wife I did some the highest it ever had I went in and they had a teacher she had a comprehensive writing thing we're supposed to do and I did it and she got up in front of the class and said I want to read this and it was mine she said that's the best one that's been turned in here for a long time but I will tell you it's not good enough I thought what the hell would you lady my IQ was up where I was offered to go into West Point I wasn't interested that either I - mr. Warren if you signed up three of us my company were offered that but you had to sign up for seven years and you missed the war so we didn't sign up
