734 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eaa4856ea7c32aacc8d27b8500d0eed0.mp4 920015fcb30faa508b43f6c0d6590840 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/87e00da6f0a4bc43f5548cceb740eac5.pdf f56c9b4555f99a57fc045a7f6e43829f PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Robert Daryll Burton (00:21:22) Childhood (Grand Rapids, MI) - Born Jan 21, 1959 - Burton JHS 9th Grade - Central HS Grad '76 - Cub Scout, Boy Scout, YMCA, Rocket Football, Camp - ROTC in HS - Played HS Basketball, Football, Baseball - Entered Military in August 76 BCT Ft Knox KY, MOS-MP (9:06) - Sister Y Brother O - Father -Nurse Mother - GM - Ft McCollum Alabama MP Training - Ft Bliss TX, Guard duty - White Sands Missile Range, NM - Visited Trinity Site, Roswell - Highest Rank E-4 (15:30) - Ft Benning, GA Patrol (18:02) - ETS 1979 - (Kelvinator) Worked for appliance Co until 1984 - C & O RR - State of Michigan DMT motor pool 1985-90 - State Forestry Dept. Park Maintenance (21:22) - Never Married, Plenty of GF - Diabetic - Lives in Veterans Home (7mos) - Thankful for Veterans Service - Plans to reenter civilian life   � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Burton, Robert Darrell (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Burton, Robert Darrell Description An account of the resource Robert Darrell Burton is a Grand Rapids native and a resident at the Coit Street VA Facility. Burton spent the majority of his army service (1976-79) as a military policeman at a base in New Mexico. Burton did not see any combat during his term of service. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Veterans United States. Army Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-05-15 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BurtonR Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b55a06a79c48764895194966f6c51d25.mp4 5f8358ccd98fca9026bae209605819d8 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/985fcc774fa359475507d10b15a66d50.pdf 52ca806670e6a7ea5d1b3e0587ae46a7 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Michael Burton (01:02:14) (00:14) Pre-enlistment: • He was born in Detroit and grew up in Trenton, MI • Went to Grand Valley State College for in 1965 for one year • His Father worked for Ford Motor and his mother stayed home to raise children • Father paid for one year of college, and he thought GI bill would be a good way o pay for the remaining 3 years • Chose Marines because they were offering a 2 year enlistment, and the Army had a ready reserve obligations (03:49) Enlistment/Training: • Went to San Diego, CA for basic training • Was met at the airport by a sergeant who embodies what their training would be like • For 8 weeks they experienced extreme physical training, rifle training, sleep deprivation, and a lot of screaming. • Went through 2 more sessions of training after boot camp, where they went through more weapons training • First deployment was in Hawaii with the 127th Regiment for 8 months • Spent time conducting mock war exercises on islands and on boats • Sometimes they would hike with their equipment for days around an island • Had the weekends for downtime • He was on the tennis team with 5 other guys, but was kicked off the team when a captain decided he wanted to join • Could have missed the whole war if he had remained on the team • The 127th was disbanded and they were assigned to go to Vietnam as replacement troops • Went to California to get additional training like learning to use the new M16, endurance training, and more sleep deprivation training • Training proved to be useful because it helped them to adapt to their duties in Vietnam (10:40) Deployment to Vietnam: • First was sent to Okinawa for a short layover, but avoided being sent to Vietnam for a week by skipping morning formation • Went to Vietnam on a commercial airliner (PANAM) • Spent time in Dong Ha and Kontum • Found a way to be in the 3rd Marine Division, Golf Company, 2nd battalion, 9th Marine regiment. Did so to be with friend from Grand Valley • 9th Marine unit was known as the “Walking Dead” because they were almost wiped out in the DMZ • They were stationed about 500 yards south of the DMZ • Did not see the Vietcong, but did see the North Vietnamese regular army troops �• His friend thought he was crazy for coming to his unit • He was kept from walking point by the fact that his friend had arranged for someone one who owed him to take his place • Terrain reminded him of the upper peninsula of Michigan: hilly, many trees, lush, but had valleys and meadows • Never saw any of the local population • Normally walked all day and stayed in different spots every night • He knew that they were meant to engage the enemy when they found them or when they were fired upon, but other than that he knew nothing about their missions (19:15) Living Conditions/Food: • Very hot during the day especially when caring your equipment • They would carry rifles, packs, helmets, flak jackets, several ammunition magazines, 8 grenades, and sometimes rocket or mortar rounds • Total kit weighed around 35 lbs • They carried water and found water that they could use purification tablets to make potable • They carries and had delivered canned sea rations; some where better than others, and some were older than he was • Got three meals a day and received 4 cigarettes with every meal • He was able to trade those cigarettes for better meals and other goods. • Used heat tabs to heat their opened canned foods • People would carry pictures of girlfriends, Tabasco sauce, and supplemental weapons • The weapons would be anything from a shot gun, snub-nosed 38, or even one Native American soldier carried a tomahawk • M16 were normally used when things got harry (25:16) Combat: • In the field for two to three weeks before getting injured • A typical day on patrol was filled with boredom with moments of panic and chaos • Never saw Vietnamese enemy up close, only from a distance • Engagement with the enemy usually took the form of shooting at one another from a distance • His unit was able to call in air support, and both sides used mortars to bombard the other • The US used 81mm mortar shells, but the Vietnamese used 82mm which meant that the Vietnamese could use the US ammo, but the US could not us the 82mm • His friend Rob was wounded the day before he was during a mortar battle • Their group went from 54 to 15 after the casualties were taken away • Rob had shrapnel fragments all along the front side of his body • Rob survived his wounds and was sent to the Great Lakes Naval Hospital • He was wounded by mortar shrapnel the next day at midnight (29:48) Injuries: • His left leg, buttocks, and back were injured. He also had two broken ribs, a broken leg, and a chest wound that collapsed his right lung �• He ran to his hole after being wounded, but someone was already using it • His hair had caught fire after the mortar round hit (30:54) Military Discipline/Experience: • No shoe shine or other petty duties were maintained, and only performance in the field really mattered to NCOs and officers • In order to get their men’s loyalty during combat the NCOs and officers knew they had to treat them with less discipline than was normal outside of the front lines • In the field there was more camaraderie between the officers and their men than anywhere else he had seen • Officers normally had more experience than himself, but then again he was not their long • The Normal tour of duty in Vietnam was 13 months (33:01) Injuries continued: • Corpsman (medic) assessed his wounds and described them as a million dollar wound that would get him out of the war • The corpsman treated his wounds and flipped him over to prevent blood from flooding his good lung • He was loaded onto a helicopter, and was transported to a battalion aid station (MASH) • He was then sent to a hospital ship where he spent a few weeks before being sent back to the US on a hospital plane • He spent his time recovering at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital in Illinois, just north of Chicago. • He was at Great Lakes for several months until his enlistment was up • He could not get reassured that he would not lose his left leg, but he thought it was a small price to pay not to go back to Vietnam • All his wounds healed properly, but he did have to use a colostomy bag for a while • He felt that he had good medical care at every step • He was in a room that fit 80 men, and would watch Jeopardy on the one TV in the room • He was reunited with Ron and another friend, both were from Grand Valley • Spent a couple of weeks in casual company before he was released from the hospital, but when he was fully recovered his enlistment was up (38:27) Life After Service: • Stayed busy during the summer, and went back to Grand Valley in the fall • GI Bill helped him get his bachelor degree in Sociology with an English minor • Worked for the State of Michigan as a caseworker for the Welfare Department (39:19) Lessons Learned: • He learned to be less fearful than those who did not experience the war • Counselors at the VA normally tried to help them unlearn some of the things they learned during their service in Vietnam • They learned to get angry quick which was good for combat, but terrible for the work place �• He learned to not form close attachments to others, and to set limits on how far to trust others • In Vietnam everyone was doing their own time, and so it was hard to create close relationships with other soldiers (43:25) Views on the War: • He was outspoken about his opposition to the war in Vietnam • He had a letter published in Time Magazine that supported Carter’s decision to give amnesty to those who dodged the draft by going to Canada • The Kenneth Burns documentary inspired him to talk about his experience • He believes in necessary wars like WWII, but opposes optional wars like Vietnam and the second Iraq War • Why they went to Vietnam was questionable, as was the reasons for going into Iraq • He did experience moments of being treated like a killer by others because he served in Vietnam • He would have liked to challenge those views, but he did not get the chance • He was not trusted by others on the Grand Valley campus for a while after they left the military • Some in the Veterans club felt they should work to get the hippies off the campus • He thinks that the draft would make the population increase their opposition to the war in Iraq • He does not like the idea of a draft, but he also does not like the way things are going now • He would tell those going to war that their actions will stay with them for the rest of their lives, and that they need to act as individuals and not succumb to mob mentality • He also thinks that anyone coming back from war should seek some kind of counseling � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Burton, Michael (Interview outline, video, and papers), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Burton, Michael Description An account of the resource Michael Burton was born in Detroit and enlisted in 1966 after finishing one year at Grand Valley State College. He spent 8 months in Hawaii as part of the 127th Marine Infantry Regiment, and for a short while was part of their bases tennis team. He was then sent to Vietnam via Okinawa. He spent time in Dong Ha and Kontum, but eventually found his way to his new location near the DMZ as part of the 3rd Marine Division, Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine regiment. He was able to find a friend from college that was with the same unit, and spent his entire time in the field with him. He never saw the enemy, and the engagements he was involved in were from a distance. He talked about the C-rations they got during their time in Vietnam, and how the cigarettes they received were good for bartering. He also talked about the supplemental weapons the soldiers would carry, and what kind of equipment they would bring with them while on duty. He was in the field for two to three weeks before he was wounded by a mortar round. He had several injuries, as did his friend, and he was sent back to the US. Along the way he was treated at a battalion aid station, a hospital boat, and eventually at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital. He spent the rest of his service at the Hospital, and was reunited with his friends from college. He had been a vocal opponent of the war once he was discharged, and has some opinions about the war in Iraq. He also talks about how soldiers who experience war need to seek professional help when they return to civilian life, and that mob mentality needs to be avoided by all soldiers. Personal narrative appended to interview outline. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Marine Corps Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-10-16 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BurtonM Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f7e708a2e3f662e12bf71e211d4e7458.mp4 fd573348048fb960824eb9b58a09d94a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b25f158643fe937df1cf21cf7572b8cd.pdf b9e7722afb81510153ead61da28e679e PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Carolyn Burkholder for Joe Burkholder World War II Total Time: 34:00 Childhood (00:12) • • • • • • • Born in Miami, Oklahoma in 1932. Father owned a grocery store. Was taught by her father to shoot. Her father owned a lake property and they spent much of their time there. Was young enough to not remember the events in the world during the 1930s leading up to World War II. Graduated High School in 1950. Joe was the name of her husband, who was a participant in World War II. He was born in 1924. Husband’s Service (20:45) • • The first time Joe talked to her about the service was after he choked her in her sleep. He was a medic in the Battle of the Bulge, and was on Omaha Beach. Post-Service (22:30) • During the 1950s, they would do different things for fun, such as going to Joplin, Missouri, to have a drink, as Oklahoma was a dry state. • Moved to Midland, MI to find a job at Dow Corning. • Joe, her husband, developed Parkinson’s Disease. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Burkholder, Carolyn (Interview outline and video), 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Burkholder, Carolyn Description An account of the resource Carolyn Burkholder was born in Miami, Oklahoma in 1932. Her husband served in World War II, specifically in the Battle of the Bulge, and landing on Omaha Beach. Her father was a grocer, and she moved to Michigan after the war to get a job at Dow Corning. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2006-05-30 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BurkholderC Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4abb390c255635845dc8ded63b876a48.mp4 af4b5eadf6560ca12815584c5e476277 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7bd922f47c2c41b1e2f59f95811f1535.pdf 83b6fe1d39e0557428512a6c975d4c68 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans‟ History Project Interviewee‟s Name: Frederick Burgess Name of War: World War II Length of Interview: (01:33:57) (02:49) “Let‟s start with your name and where and when were you born.” (02:52) “Oh, my name is Fred Burguess, or Fredrick. We all ended up with a nickname. I was born in 1926. I still live in the same house where I was born.” (03:09) “And where is that house?” (03:11) “Out on 100 Street just a half mile east of the 131 expressway.‟ (03:17) “In Grand Rapids, Michigan.” (03:19) “No. Kent County.” (03:21) “Kent County. Okay.” (03:22) “I‟m just one mile north of the Kent County line. It‟s a buyer and sender address.” (03:25) “Ah. Okay. I was going to talk about your schooling but I think that your early family life. You lived on a farm. And tell us about Tell us about the number of your family and what was your family doing?” (03:40) “Well, there were thirteen of us, five girls and eight boys. And of course we were on the farm and everyone had their tasks. As the older ones got old enough to work out they‟d pick up, even in their teens, in their early teens, they‟d pick up a job here and there, but our main source of living came from the farm.” (04:11) “And what did you…” (04:14) “We had dairy cattle and there was about six acres of muck and we raised produce and my dad brought that into Grand Rapids to the wholesale market.” (04:29) “And what kind of foods were you growing?” �(04:31) “Well, we, on the highland we‟d raise hay, and corn, oats and wheat. Wheat was our cash crop on the highland but the rest was to feed our livestock.” (04:43) “I see.” (04:45) “And then on the muck why, we‟d raise some onions, celery, sweet corn, and tomatoes and maybe some cabbage or whatever.” (05:01) “Even during the depression and of course this was a difficult time for, you know, American families. (05:07) Did your family eat? I mean did you have problems with eating or was it so poor that you went without?” (05:15) “Oh, no. We never went without. The fact is my mother; she could make a good meal out of most anything. We actually, she used to make dandelion greens. We lived off the land. A lot of our meat came from wild game. And we always butchered a couple of hogs, but, nope, we never went hungry. We could have all we wanted but we‟d better eat, finish everything on our plate.” (05:52) “Which was good training for the fact that you actually got into the navy, because they had those same kinds of requirements. You didn‟t have as much of a problem as others, perhaps. What was your early schooling like?” (06:03) “Oh, I was in the one room school, out in the country school. Eight grades. And we had to, of course, walk back and forth to school, three-quarters of a mile but we enjoyed our schooling because not only were we a good sized family, but a neighborhood was united. You know when you grew up with another kid; he was just about like a brother or your sister. And so, and then when we got through the eighth grade, I went into Kellogg into high school, which was seven and a half miles from where we lived.” (06:51) “How did you get to school?” (06:53) “They had a bus. Yeah. They would. It was when the busses were out. ” (06:57) “Now. When you first entered high school, there was a monumental event that happened, Pearl Harbor. Where were you and what was your reaction to Pearl Harbor?” �(07:13) “Well, it was, I was home. It was on a Sunday and I remember I was just a kid yet and we were playing out in the yard but probably our usual ballgame or so. And I heard about Pearl Harbor and aw, shoot, that little country, they can‟t bother us, ya know, although we did have men over in Europe already. But I was fourteen and the draft age was twenty-one at that time and I thought it will never affect me.” (07:47) “I know this is difficult to go that far back, especially when you‟re fourteen. I remember when I was fourteen, I wasn‟t thinking about world event and things like that but your family was affected because you had older brothers. Was there any discussion in the family that you can recall? About, well now what? What‟s going to happen to the brothers now? Are they going to get drafted?” (08:09) “Yeah, to a certain extent. But we weren‟t a family that worried about things. We were a, I‟ll put it this way. We had a strong belief and we believed that the Lord‟s will will be done.” (08:32) “Okay. Do you remember when your older brother was drafted?” (08:40) Oh, yes. Yes.” (08:43) Well what happened?”” (08:46) “We just a. Yeah, it‟s a sad time.” (08:52) “But I had three of them that were drafted and I had a couple others that were 4-F. One had had spinal meningitis and so his reflexes were just a little bit slow. So they, they…you wouldn‟t know it, but he was 4-F.” (09:03) “A lot of people don‟t realize that that was a tough thing to hear. It was, you wanted to go and if you found out you couldn‟t, 4-F was a very embarrassing thing.” (09:13) “It was for some people, yes.” (09:18) “Three older brothers, in many ways the backbone to this farm are now gone. What effect did that have on your father and your farm?” �(09:28) “Well, they were already out of the farm, two of them had businesses of their own. Two of them were married and one of them had a child. And then one had a store and one had a station. And then they drafted both of those and so another brother that just got out of high school took over the store to run it for the one that was drafted then he got drafted, too.” (10:03) “Now, you are getting through your high school years, you got three brothers overseas, what were you thinking in terms of, I mean, you said initially that you thought the war was going to be over with, that it wasn‟t going to affect you, but as you got closer and closer to your age of potential draft, uh, what were you experiencing, what were you feeling? Were you going to join up? Were you going to be drafted?” (10:26) Well, I had a brother a year and a half older than I was, he stayed home on the farm and I had the privilege of going on to school. He always said when I got out of school that he was going to go in. I talked it over with my dad and you know that wouldn‟t be fair. So, ah, at the end of my junior or towards the end of my junior year, and uh, what, I loved high school sports but I gotta walk seven and a half miles every night after practice because of gas rationing we have no way of getting around. We couldn‟t take buses, even to our games. So I got to thinking it over, three brothers in. Where do I belong? Then I decided to join the naval. Well, one brother came home on furlough, the one that had the store and he said, “Don‟t never get in the Army.” Ah, if I‟m not going to get in the Army, I might just as well join the Navy. So that really is when I decided to join the Navy. When I decided to join the Navy, of course, Kip liked that, you know. He could conquer the world. Maybe I could help get this war over.” (12:19) “Ha!! That‟s great. So, how old were you when you actually joined?” (12:27) “Well when I signed up, I was seventeen.” (12:32) “Okay. But they would let you finish high school?” (12:36) “No.” (12:37) “Oh.” (12:45) “I wasn‟t inducted until I got out of that grade of school. In the spring, after school was out before they took me in. See, I volunteered, but then it takes a while before your number comes up.” �(12:48) I see. (12:50) “And, I, so I was actually through my junior year I went in.” (12:55) “And what did you actually join? You didn‟t join the regular Navy you joined…” (12:59) “I joined the Naval Reserve.” (13:02) Reserve. And why did you do that as opposed to just the Navy?” (13:05) Well, I didn‟t want to be a career military man so I and if you joined the Navy, I could join the Naval Reserve. The Naval Reserve you could join for the duration and six months. Where if you joined the regular navy, then you joined for a period of time and I believe it was three years at that time. (13:31) “„Okay.” (13:37) “Now it‟s back up to four years.” (13:42) “Well, let me ask you this. If the war had not happened, what were you planning to do?” (13:45) “I wanted to be a farmer. I guess I wanted to follow in Dad‟s footsteps, (13:50) “Okay.” (13:54) “And I loved farming.” (13:56) “So even as you joined the Navy Reserves, the idea was to serve your country, come back and become a farmer.” (14:02) “Yes. (14:05) Okay. (14:09) See, the way I looked at it, I was losing my teenage years. That, to me, you know, that‟s the time you start driving, start dating, and with the gas rationing, and of course I loved sports. We just….things didn‟t go. Everything was upset. The war had everything in turmoil. Say turmoil. The country came together but as individuals there was no future until that war was done.” �(14:56) “That‟s, that‟s very true. Very profound. It‟s interesting that after all these years, you still look back and realize that you missed out on some real basic teenage….driving a car, finding a sweetheart, having a milkshake…” “Well, I had those.” (15:01) “Oh, you did?” (15:10) “Oh, yeah. But not as many as I wanted to. I was limited. Let‟s put it that way. Because when that, we only had one car there and when those ration stamps were gone we had to stay home. But, no, we had, we made our own fun, the biggest share of it. In a group, youth hall, when we went away, we didn‟t go one in each car. We filled the car up.” (15:31) “With everybody you could pack in there.” (15:35) “When you finally did join up, had you ever traveled outside the immediate area? Had you been to Chicago or anything like that?”” (15:45) “I‟d been to Detroit once. Some friends had invited me to go along and see a Detroit Tiger baseball game. No, otherwise, no. I‟d never been out.” (15:55) “So even though you had traveled out of your home family immediate area, it was with friends, so you felt protected and you went there and came back. But now, you are about to embark on a journey with places with names you can‟t even spell.” (16:13) “That‟s right. I‟d never heard of them before.” (16:18) “So let‟s, let‟s actually walk us through the process. You leave home. Where did you go? The very first place you went to start getting in to the Navy Reserve.” (16:28) “Well, I went to Detroit and we had our physical there. And I went from Detroit to Great Lakes….” (16:34) “Okay.” (16:38) “….Naval Station on the other side of Lake Michigan.” (16:40) “Were you still in civilian clothes?” (16:42) “Well, that‟s when I…” �(16:50) “When did they issue you the uniforms at Great Lakes?” (16:53) “When I got to Great Lakes.” (16:58) “Okay. All right. So basically then, Detroit, their just the physical and there‟s just a bunch of guys standing in a line and they‟re just.” (17:00)“You‟re not in until you pass that physical, see.” (17:04) ”Right. So from Detroit to Great Lakes, how did you get there?” (17:07) “By train.” (17:11) ”And you are with the same guys you saw in Detroit or they all strangers or?” (17:16) “No. Some of them were. Yeah. Some of them are…These are the guys that, the fact is that some of them, a couple of them took the train from here to Grand Rapids or to Detroit.” (17:20) So you knew these guys? (17:22)”No I didn‟t know them personally… until I met them… at the train station?” (17:28) “Okay. All right. So you‟re all in civvies, you are about to go off on this great adventure. I want to picture this now. Okay. You get off the train. Who was there to greet you? Was there a drill sergeant or?” (17:43) “I don‟t know! I don‟t what he was! Follow me!” (17:49) “So you guys are gathered together and you go to, this is a camp?” (17:56) “Yeah. This is your boot camp they call it in the Navy. That‟s your basic training.” (18:04) “Now, let me try and visualize this. What am I seeing? Is it a small place? Is it a huge place?” �(18:13) “It‟s a huge place. Great Lakes is one of the older naval training stations.” (18:14) “So you got parade grounds.” (18:14) “Oh yes.” (18:14) “Barracks. “ (18:15) “Yeah.” (18:15) “These are wooden structures? (18:16) “These are all wooden structures.” (18:18) Okay. Not tent city or anything? (18:26) “Fact is Great Lakes actually did have a couple of ships on Lake Michigan, too. I never had the privilege of getting on one.” (18:27) “All right. So now they‟re marching you, after a fashion I imagine because you guys don‟t actually know how to march yet. Where did you go first? Did they take you to barracks?” (18:37) “Barracks, yeah. We had a regular routine out of our barracks. We stayed in the same place; I think it was about six weeks that we had basic training.” (18:51) “Well, I want to walk you through this. You get to the barracks, you‟re basically unloading your stuff. You‟re assigned a bunk, or you just pick a bunk.” (19:01) “You‟re assigned.” (19:02) “You‟re assigned. Okay. Are these two high? One. Two. Or are they three?” (19:08) “I believe they was two high.” (19:10) “Okay.” (19:12) “You there‟s a funny thing about it. As I went through my naval career, what I‟ve gone through, I‟ve left behind.” �(19:33) “Yeah. Well, I‟m going to try and dredge it up. That‟s what I‟m supposed to be here for.” (19:37) “Yeah. There‟s a lot of things, well, if they weren‟t comfortable why, when I was through with them, well, forget „em.” (19:42) “Yeah. Well, let‟s walk through from the civvies to the uniform. In my mind, you picture it from movies and whatnot that you‟re kind of in a line and, you know, there‟s shirts and you have pants and your shoes are all allocated to you. So, I take it that they had a New York tailor there, he was measuring your….Well, what really happened?” (20:00) “Well, what you did was you had to take care of your own uniform, of course and you had to do your own washing and it was all done by hand. Then when you got them dried, you put them under your bunk to press them.” (20:17) “Okay. Yeah. Okay.” (20:20) “And, everyone, we had one guy, we called him Bonnie Baker. We had to wear white uniforms because it was summertime. When I was at Great Lakes, we had to wear white uniforms and when you stood inspection, they had to be clean, ***see and Bonnie Baker, he‟d always take Bon Ami and rub those dirty spots. So, we called him Bonnie Baker, but he got past inspection just like the rest of us.” (20:53) “What was the daily routine like in the very early days? What time did you get up and what did you have to do?” (21:05) “We got up at daybreak and then we went out and we had a short time of exercise and then we would go for breakfast and of course you got a big military base there and you only got one mess hall and so we had to eat on our schedule.” (21:35) “Are you talking about long lines?” (21:38) “Yes.” (21:42) ”So you had to wait in long lines to go through a buffet?” (21:46) “But they didn‟t send the whole outfit to one time.” (21:48) “Right. It was all scheduled. Right. Sure.” �(21:54) “Then you took what they gave you. You didn‟t say, „I don‟t like oatmeal today. I‟d rather have cream of wheat.‟” (22:02) “So you go through the chow line, you eat, then what? Remember, I‟m talking about the first couple of weeks.” (22:08) “Then we‟d usually go into exercises again. And conditioning was a big thing, one of the biggest things. They used to have competition. We even had boxing and stuff, just to put one guy against the other and learn how to compete.” At that time I thought it was foolish, but later you realize that competing was a big part of it.” (22:44) “Marching?” (22:48) “We did an awful lot of studying of airplanes.” (22:51) “Really?” (22:53) “Airplanes. Ships.” (22:56) “What kind of airplanes? Japanese?” (23:04) “You had to be able to identify them, see. This was a big thing and even after we got out to sea, you had to be able to identify your airplanes and ships and we had to signal.” (23:14) “Communications?” (23:18) “For communications you had to be able to signal with flags and we did a lot of that.” (23:23) “Let me ask you this. You came from a farm background and that‟s not easy. Physically, that‟s not easy. You‟re bailing hay; you‟re doing all kinds of things. So how did you match up in terms of basic training? Was it difficult because they put you through, they put you to the limits, I know that. But in terms of your background as a farm boy, did you adapt better because you‟d worked?” (23:44) “Oh, yeah. To me, I was in good shape because I played basketball for a couple of hours and then I still had to walk home seven and a half miles and then I still had chores to do. So, no, probably physically, these guys who came from the city, they hadn‟t had the exercise.” �(24:13) “A lot more difficult.” (24:18) “I realize that it‟s a long time ago, but was there a sense of camaraderie or was there a lot of…because you see it in the movies all the time. The farm boy is picked on because he‟s a farm boy and the New York guy is supposed to be sophisticated. Was any of that going on in the barracks and whatnot in terms of the fact that you‟re all from different parts of the country?” (24:36) “There was a little of it. This is one thing that‟s amazing, these guys come from New York in their zoot suits, but you know we became just like each other. You grew together. Every time you got moved around while you was in the military, why there was another buddy in the same position you was in. You never had a lack for somebody that you could communicate with.” (25:10) “So basic training consisted of a lot of calisthenics exercises, studying, getting to know aircraft as well as naval ships. Was there a graduation ceremony?” (25:26) “Yes.” (26:30) “You all wore your dress uniforms, it‟s formal. You are now part of the U.S. Navy Reserves.” (25:37) “Well, you was part of that, but I mean you‟ve always been part of that. You went through boot camp. You graduated boot camp, so then you got one stripe on your wrist.” (25:49) “Where do you go from there?” (25:59) “Well, I had a short leave, came home and then I went to California; Camp Shoemaker, which was a debarkation center out in California.” (26:08) “Now, if you went to the east coast, you would be going to Europe. You go to the west coast; you know where you‟re going. Did you figure that out by the time you got to California?” (26:15) Yeah. That wasn‟t hard to figure out.” (26:20) “What year is this, by the way?” (26:23) “It‟s still ‟44.” �(26:28) “Had you been keeping track of what was going on overseas, either through newspapers or radio?” (26:32) “To a certain extent, we‟d hear about a battle or something like that, but we didn‟t, even in our barracks in boot camp, you couldn‟t have a radio. The only news we‟d get would be if they wanted us to have it.” (27:06) “So now you end up in California. What was the purpose of being there? This is a staging area?” (27:13) “Yeah, this is where they send people to, and then you were reassigned. It wasn‟t on the coast. It was out in the desert area. Then they would reassign you to wherever they needed somebody. (27:31) “Had the decision been made as to what your particular job was going to be? When did you find out you were going to be a coxswainer? What were you actually trained to do?” (27:42) “I wasn‟t trained to do anything special then, just be part of the Navy. There‟s where you got reassigned. We were sent down to Coronado….” (28:00)“It‟s a beautiful place.” (28:03)“…Amphibious Training Base.” (28:07) “So now it‟s starting to dawn on you that you might be operating one of these landing crafts. So, how do you take to that?” (28:13) “Oh, I‟ll tell ya. After I got started, we were confused. When you went down there, you didn‟t know what your job was going to be. So they tried us all and give us each tests to drive landing crafts and then they figured out who could handle something and who couldn‟t. Then I got assigned to practice driving the landing craft.” (28:50)“Well, I find it interesting that you are a farm boy from Michigan with no real experience in all this but yet somehow you took to handling this huge landing craft. You just took to it, huh?” (29:05) “Well, golly, before the only way I got across the water was the oars. One stroke at a time.” (29:16) “So now I‟m behind the wheel of this twenty-six foot landing craft, with a diesel motor in there, to be honest with you, I enjoyed driving it. I really did. �I mean when they gave me a chance, I was determined that I was going to do the best I could.” (29:38) “What was the training like for that? I know Coronado myself, because I‟ve been there. I lived in San Diego, but were you operating from a ship and your job was to get the landing craft to the shore? I‟m talking about now, okay? Just the initial training. What was the process? What was it like?” (29:58) “Well, they had a bunch of landing crafts, of course and then we would have classes for a while, part of the day. Then we‟d go out on the beach, take these landing crafts out, and actually drive them. There‟d be a whole boatload of guys; they each were driving their own.” (30:25)“Now, were you training with troops, or empty?” (30:27)“No.” (30:29) “So these were empty.” (30:35) “Well, it was just with the guys who were taking training.” (30:40) “So they were pretending, if you will, to be the troops. So you‟re driving them around and you‟re going to get into another one and somebody else is going to drive you around.” (30:45) “No. It would be the same one. They‟d fit a bunch of us in this landing craft with one instructor and then we‟d have practice runs into the beach. He would tell us what we did wrong and then somebody else would try it.” (31:03) “Did anybody get sick?” (31:06) “Oh, yes.” (31:09) “Did you?” (31:13) “Only once all the time I was in the Navy.” (31:15) “Wow.” (31:20) We had a bunch of these landing crafts. We tied them up together to stop to have some K rations or C rations, one or the other…” (31:26) “..Canned food...” �(31:32) “Dog biscuits. Anyway, we tied a bunch of them up together and we was sitting down, taking a break and smoking. You couldn‟t smoke, either unless you all took a break.” (31:42) “At the same time.” (31:43) “At the same time” (31:45) “Smoke „em if ya got „em.” (31:52) “Then you didn‟t have to if you didn‟t want to either, but we tied together and they‟s just rough enough water that they was bumping together and I started feeling kind of sick. Then I stood up and looked out and I was okay. But I‟ve seen people that step off the dock onto a boat or onto a ship and he‟s seasick. Put him back on the dock and he‟s over it.” (32:11) “Amazing.” (32:14) “That‟s something that didn‟t bother me, but I did enjoy driving these landing craft because it was a new experience.” (32:24) “Here‟s one of those stupid questions that I told you in advance that I was going to be asking you, okay? Did you have any inkling about the danger that you were about to get into, because the idea of learning how to drive a landing craft means that you‟re taking troops into battle and they are going to hit that beach and try to attack. I mean, at this time in your training did you have any inkling?” (32:50) “Oh, we knew what we were training for.” (32:54) “Okay.” (32:56) “We knew why we were there, but we just tried to make the best of what we had. We weren‟t scared. I guess when you‟re at that age and you got a bunch of other guys around ya, you kind of comfort one another. Just to show how it goes. I had three guys in my landing craft and one was a deck hand and one was an engineer and they handled the ropes and everything and I‟d do the driving. I always said, „Jock, you know, there ain‟t no use in you and I worrying. Stan will worry enough for all three of us.‟” (33:47) “I had one guy who worried.” (33:50) “He was a worrier.” �(33:53) “Yeah. So we let him do it.” (33:55) “Let him do the worrying!” (34:02) “Once the training was over, was there any ceremony saying okay, you‟re now a landing craft operator?” (34:05) “No, we knew that before. We were all…there were three men in each landing craft and then we were divided up, told who‟s going to be in which landing craft.” (34:09) “Okay.” (34:19) ”As far as ceremony, no. We were shipped up, we didn‟t even know if we was going on the same ships. “ (34:29) “So where did you go next from Coronado?” (34:33) “We went to Astoria, Oregon. When we went to get onboard our ships.” (34:41) “And what ship was that?” (34:46) “The A.P.A. 226. U.S.S. Rollins.” (34:49) “The mighty R.” (34:54) “Named after a county in Kansas. Now we went up there, a brand new ship, and we went on a shakedown cruise, that‟s what they called it.” (35:00) “What‟s that?” (35:03) “That‟s a trial cruise to make sure it‟s seaworthy. Then we started picking up supplies.” (35:12) “So this is an empty ship except for the guys who are going to handle the landing crafts?” (35:19) “No, the rest of the crew was there, too. Now why they put us on there…?” (35:22) “Actually, the ship‟s crew. See, I wasn‟t part of the ship‟s crew. I was on that ship, but not actually part of the operating of that ship.” �(35:30) “Right.” (35:38) “Our job was landing.” (35:40) “Passengers. You were passengers.” (35:41) “No. We were landing craft.” (35:42) “Okay.” (35:42) “We maintained those landing crafts. And guns. And things like that. And we did have our duties of standing lookout and things like that.” (35:57) “So how long did the trip take?” (35:59) “You mean from Kelt Point?” (36:00) “Yes.” (36:00) “I don‟t know. One day, I guess. I was too busy to look and that‟s scenic. I never went up the post to look. Fact is, the first time I ever saw an orange tree.” (36:12) “Really? Was in California? I‟ll be darned.” (36:15) “Yeah.” (36:16) “So, you‟re traveling on this ship, you say you went and picked up supplies.” (36:22) “Yeah. Well, whatever we needed, you know. Even the electricians had to have extra supplies. Our boat crew, we had to have extra screws, parts for motors. And we didn‟t even have our landing craft onboard yet.” (36:46) “Oh, I was just going to ask that. Okay. So the landing craft is not on yet.” (37:52) “We went on down to San Francisco or San Diego. No, yeah. We stopped in San Francisco first and picked up some stuff, then we went down to San Diego and picked up some more down at a naval base down there and then we came back up to L.A. and that‟s where we picked up our landing craft.” (37:15) “How many were on the ship?” �(37:17) “Approximately three hundred.” (37:21) “Three hundred landing crafts?” (37:25) “No. Landing crafts, there were twenty-six landing crafts.” (27:29) “Twenty-six landing crafts. What was the three hundred figure?” (37:31) “Oh, better that three hundred crew.” (37:32) “Crew? Okay. Like, so now, do you know where you‟re going?” (37:38) “No. Wouldn‟t recognize it if I did.” (37:41) “Well, those are all new names out there.” (37:45) “So, you start off now from Los Angeles.” (37:50) “San Francisco. We picked up our landing craft in Los Angeles, and then we went back to San Francisco.” (37:58) “Okay. So you‟re leaving and there‟s the San Francisco Bridge.” (38:04) “Yeah.” (38:08) “That‟s the last view of America for quite a while.” (38:12) “I always say I went under that Golden Gate Bridge I think fourteen times and I never went over yet.” (38:15) “Wow.” (38:20)“Was there a sense of….I guess, what were you feeling like when you were leaving? I‟ve talked to vets who left from New York. Of course it‟s the Statue of Liberty that‟s the symbol of America. You leave San Francisco, it‟s that bridge.” (38:30) “That‟s the bridge.” �(38:33) “And you‟re leaving it. And you‟re going into parts unknown. Was there any emotions or thoughts going through your head?” (38:38) “Oh, sure. Sure. And, of course, when we leave there‟s a pilot that takes the ship out. We get out in the ocean, and then they bring us our orders. The captain of the ship don‟t even know where he‟s headed when he goes out of that gate. He gets his orders after he‟s out to sea.” (39:02) “Was this one ship or was this a convoy?” (39:06) “No we went alone.” (39:10) “Was there zigzag? Okay.” (39:13) “Yeah, we had a zigzag course, change speeds. That purpose was so that the enemy couldn‟t pick up your course and have a submarine waiting for you. Or, airplane, whatever.” (39:27) “Especially ships with a lot of troops on it. They were targets.” (39:31) “Absolutely.” (39:39) “Now, the trip over had one very unusual event. People don‟t often realize that when you cross over the equator, the Navy, especially has this kind of ceremony. I wonder if you could talk about the King Neptune Ceremony?” (39:47) “When you go across the equator, you got to be initiated. You‟re a pollywog. And so they have initiation and we were unfortunate, really, because we had a bunch of Army men onboard and the biggest share of them were going out for the second tour and they‟d been across the equator before. I think we could have handled the regular crew that had been across before, but not with the Army helping them. When you get an initiation, it makes these hazings look pretty tame. That is one initiation that is, well, fact is, it‟s in every man‟s record yet that he‟s been initiated.” (40:43) “So you‟ve got a king and a queen. The queen dresses up in a wig, okay. And they‟ve got a king and they‟ve got a couple other people in the court there to make sure that you do this…” (40:56) “Yeah. You‟ve got King Neptune and his Royal Family, is what it‟s called. And you got everybody down to the baby. And part of the initiation was, you had to kiss the baby‟s rear end. And he had graphite grease on it, so you can imagine what you looked like when you were done.” �(41:21) “Aw, gawd.” (41:25) “One guy bit it, and boy did he take a beating. Yeah, he took a beating. He was black and blue.” (41:31) “What did they do to you?” (41:36) “Well, they actually used electric welders to give you shocks. They have a tank that is built out of canvas and two by fours and it‟s filled partially with water and they put you in there and you gotta try and crawl out and then they have two and a half inch rope, covered with canvas that‟s been soaking in water and they‟re hitting ya when you are trying to get out of there. (42:00) And another thing is, they had a tunnel they made out of canvas with rings and you had to crawl through that tunnel and they had a fire hose shooting in your face. And they had these outfits and they was hitting you while you were trying to crawl through. It was something different. Then of course, they took a razor and go right over the top of your head and we had one man he had a beautiful head of hair. And of course we down in the tropics and he didn‟t like a hat anyway. He said „If they want me to get rid of my hair, I‟m going to shave my head.‟ So he shaved his hair and it never came back.” (42:48) “Oh.” (42:51) “He was sick. He didn‟t know whether he wanted to go home or not. He had his, evidently, the sun never hit on his skull. Killed the rest of his hair.” (43:08) “Did they slop stuff on your face and all that? Did they have a makeshift swimming pool that they dumped you in?” (43:14) “Well, that was the one we had to crawl out of. And they were hitting...” (43:18) “This is the canvas? It‟s basically a makeshift swimming pool.” (43:22) “Yeah. They made it out of canvas and two by fours. You had. It was a ten foot wall and you had to jump up and catch that and then crawl out and even once in a while there‟d be somebody already up there stepping on your fingers. All depends on whether they like you.” (43:50) “So you finally got through that ceremony and where did you arrive? Where did you get to?” �(43:55) “Our first stop was New Caledonia. That was down there near Australia.” (44:03) “By now, you said you got orders, right? So you know basically where you‟re going?” (44:09) “No. We didn‟t. Well, we knew we were headed for New Caledonia, but from there, no.” (44:18) “You arrive in New Caledonia. Did you get a chance to go off shore?” (44:24) “We went ashore there, yes.” (44:28)“Well, let‟s stop here for a moment. You‟ve never been to Asia. You get off the ship in New Caledonia. What was that experience like? The smell? The heat?” (44:38) “New Caledonia wasn‟t bad. That was a French hold, New Caledonia. They had natives there. Their skin was black, but they never got their hair cut so their hair, instead of bleaching out white, bleached out red. But they did have some of these natives working around the docks and stuff, but the biggest share of them….and one guy had a pair of cowboy boots he threw out in the dumpster there on the dock and two of these natives came along and it was a pair of shoes, you know? They each grabbed a shoe, but they couldn‟t get their foot in it. So they went off with their toe in just the upper part. But they had a shoe.” (45:34) “There was some French Naval people there on New Caledonia. Of course France at that time, Germany had control of France. I suppose what little military they had was out that way. It wasn‟t as primitive as a lot of those islands were.” (46:00) “Okay. You were there to pick up supplies or troops, or what were you there for?” (46:04) “Well, that‟s where we took those troops that we had over.” (46:08) “Now, did you know where these troops were supposed to be going or are you just loading troops on?” (46:12) “No. And there, too, being the landing craft, we‟d take these guys to shore. We didn‟t have to go to the docks like your other ships, see. And we did all the landing craft. If somebody had to go ashore, then we took them in the �landing craft. And if we picked up spice, we usually picked up our supplies with the landing craft and brought them back.” (46:38) “Were the troops…what branch of service were the troops?” (46:43) “They were Army.” (46:46) “Okay. From New Caledonia, where did you go?” (46:50) “We went to Guadalcanal.” (46:53) “Guadalcanal. Now. This was of course after Guadalcanal had been taken.” (46:57) “Yes.” (47:01) “This was one of the bloodiest battles in American history but by the time you got there, it was already secured. Did you see any evidence of what had happened before?” (47:09)”Oh, yeah. You see the wreckages and stuff.” (47:15) “You mean wreckages in the water?” (47:20) “Yeah and the damage along the edge. Fact is, there‟s where we took our practice landings. We picked up the First Marine Division and then we‟d practice there and then we‟d go off maybe to another island then land them on another island. There is quite a chain of islands in that area.” (47:45) “So this was practice, not only for you but for the troops to hit the beach, secure the beach. So you‟re part of military training operations in preparation for wherever you‟re going.” (47:57) “And a lot of these guys had been through battle before.” (48:01) “Already.” (48:05) “But, yeah. It was for both. And even you make your plans for invasion and it‟s got to be tested, you know. I mean it wasn‟t just for us to drive the landing craft or the guys that was running out of the landing craft when they hit the beach. It was for the wheels to see how it was going. Is there something we could change that could save somebody‟s life?” �(48:30) “I know it‟s difficult to compare yourself to fellow coxswains, but when you landed your craft, did you feel like you were getting it right at the right spot so that they could get on or were there a few mess ups here and there?” (48:52) “Well, it was kind of comical at Guadalcanal. See you got down in that area and you had an awful lot of coral. We‟re down near the coral islands.” (49:00) “Totally different than practicing in California.” (49:06) “Yes. On the beach, sandy beach. And, we were going full speed in toward the beach, a full load of troops on all at once, we hit a coral head and that front end came up in the air and couldn‟t do nothing with it. So I says, „Pete, got to ramp.‟ We dropped the ramp, some guys stepped off and, boom, water up to here. The only way you could get off was to get the weight out of there, see?” (49:41)“You were stuck in other words. You couldn‟t move forward.” (49:45) “I couldn‟t move there because coral is sharp. You even walk on it with leather shoes and it will cut the leather in your shoes.” (49:54) “Yeah. I‟ve heard it shreds your boots.” (49:58) “And this was a wooden bottom so it...” (50:04) “What was the make up of these landing craft? What were they made of?” (50:08) “Wood, except for the ramp which was metal.” (50:14) “So if you run aground on coral, doesn‟t that tear a hole into the wood?” (50:21) “Well, they‟ve got a good sized keel. A keel is your center piece. It‟s way back from the bow.” (50:35) ”So whatever you hit is going to hit that first.” (50:38)“Yeah. Actually even our screw has got something under it so it won‟t drag.” (50:47) “But it still stops you in your tracks.” �(50:51) “Oh, yes.” (50:54) „So, how did you overcome that? I mean you couldn‟t see the coral, is that right?” (50:59) “Well, you could some, but see what you had was this deckhand, I‟ll call him. He just was supposed to be your guide because that ramp is up there high enough and it‟s hard. You can‟t see anything below. You can see something off in the distance. He‟s supposed to guide me. If he sees the coral ahead, he‟s supposed to signal to me. He didn‟t do it and maybe he didn‟t see it. There was enough landing crafts that made landings there that had things stirred up, too. And if there‟s any silt…I never blamed him. There was nothing said. This was part of practice. I said Pete, but it‟s Chuck. „Chuck, next time you have to watch out for this.‟ ” (51:51) “But then there were other landings – this is practice now – there were other landings where you hit the beach solid and the thing went down and they ran out on the beach and they were fine? So it depended. There was really no way of knowing what the result was going to be.” (52:06) “You had your designated place to hit. Now you can‟t say, 'Hey, this don‟t look good. I want to go over here a hundred yards.‟ Somebody else has got that. You would…when you went into the beach, you went in like a wave. There was a whole line of you and you stayed your distance from the guy next to you. You got to go in where you can.” (52:32) “Was there any briefing like, „You now have to load your troops, you‟re going onto the beach, you‟re going to load this thing, and, oh, by the way, people will be shooting at you.‟?” Would they give you any indication of the kind of firepower that was going to be coming at you?” (52:49) “No.” (52:54) “But you knew you weren‟t just going to cruise in there and let these guys off for a picnic.” (53:03) “We weren‟t going for a beer party.” �(53:11) “But there wasn‟t any, „Well they‟ve got these kind of cannons and they‟ve got these kind of resistance and be prepared for aircraft trying to bomb you.‟ Was there any kind of briefings like that?” (53:21) “You knew that. They‟d say, „We might hit heavy resistance.‟ But, no. They had no way of knowing for sure.” (53:30) “So once the training was over with, where did you go from there? After Guadalcanal?” (53:37) “Then we ended up at Ulithi. That was a staging area.” (53:43) “Now, Ulilthi, you call it a staging area. This was a huge area in which all kinds of ships are there? And it was a staging area to then go into battle. So now you‟re about to go into battle and you know you‟re about to go into battle.” (54:00) “Oh, we knew what was up.” (54:09) “Now, Guadalcanal you knew was training.” (54:12) “We knew we were getting ready for battle, yeah. All the way. The fact is, when we put the landing craft onboard, you knew what they were for.” (54:16) “Okay. Now at Ulithi, you know it‟s coming up real soon. It‟s not like before. I mean you knew you were going into battle in Coronado, too but, I don‟t think it‟s the same kind of feeling as at Ulithi.” (54:26) “Then we could enjoy running these landing crafts.” (54:32) “Did you get an impression of how big this operation was from Ulilthi? Because it‟s a lot of ships there.” (54:40) “Yes. Well, we did have fighting ships there. The fighting ships are all big. Ulithi, that area is really just a high spot in the ocean, a good anchorage area. The little islands are Anoita, Mogmog. Fact is, we used to take troops over on Mogmog and you can‟t even find it on the map. So they could get off the ship and stretch out, do something. Because when you‟ve got that many men on board ship, especially in the tropics, it‟s heck.” (55:18) “And it‟s like sardines. This troop ship is not like a luxury liner. They‟re packed in. Well, we‟ve talked to guys who were literally standing up, because you couldn‟t lay down, or sit down in some cases.” �(55:32) “Well, we had to stand up to eat. Even the crew had to stand up to eat when we had troops on board.” (55:41) “Because it‟s a continuous line of food. They just keep going. There‟s always food being served.” (55:51) “So, from Ulithi, where did you go?” (55:55) “That‟s when we went to Okinawa.” (56:00) “Now this is real battle. This is the real deal. Where were you? Were you in a convoy?” (56:03) “Yes.” (56:08) “Where were you in the convoy?” (56:09) “I don‟t know. See, a convoy, you have….you‟re in the center. The troop ships are in the center, then you have your other fighting ships are on the outside. We could be on lookout watching for planes, which we did all the time. You can see the aircraft carriers and planes actually landing on them.” (56:35) “This is the Franklin? The Franklin was out there.” (56:39) “Yes. And then you had your cruisers and your battleships and outside of that you had your aircraft. But the aircraft stayed outside of the convoy. Once an enemy plane any plane got over the top of the convoy, he was pretarget.” (57:06) “Friend or foe.” (57:06) “Yes.” (57:17) “So, you‟re part of this huge armada of fighting ships. You‟re right in the center of it. When did you get into battle? Was it the first day of the invasion of Okinawa?” (57:30) “Yes. It was the first morning. The fact is I left the ship before the ship actually dropped anchor. I was designated Wave Leader. We had the First Marine Division on board, but I had to be a Wave Leader for the Sixth Marine Division.” (57:53) “Now, what is a Wave Leader?” �(57:54) “He led the waves into the beach.” (58:00) ”And how many were in a wave?” (58:01) “A full length of the beach.” (58:02) “How many landing crafts are we talking about?” (58:03) “Oh, I don‟t know.” (58:13) “Okay.” (58:18) “As far as the beach extends. I have no idea there was, but anyhow, each one had every so often so far you had a wave leader. He was running between well, say, like me, I was between the second wave and the third, leading the third in.” (58:38) “But it‟s still on the first day.” (58:43) ”On the first day. Fact is, I had to run, the put me over the side. Near as I can figure it out, it was about 4:30 in the morning when we had to go find these...” (58:53) “The ship.” (58:57) “…amphibious ducks. Then we ground the boob to a bib. And I led amphibious ducks onto the beach.” (59:00) “Now, was there, in the very early morning, you get up. You know what you‟re supposed to be doing. You‟re a Wave Leader and you‟re supposed to rendezvous with the duck. Had the shooting started?” (59:21) “Yes. They were shelling the beach. “ (59:25) “Okay. So this was going on already.” (59:28) “Oh, yes. Yes.” (59:32) “So you‟re on the center, but on the outer rim and you‟ve just got this huge amount of „Boom! Boom! Boom!‟ They‟re just shelling the….“Not the….just on the beach area. Towards the beach area. Only when the enemy planes came in did you hear the other shooting.” �(59:50) “Right. But we‟re talking about when you get up. It‟s 4:30. You‟ve got your assignment; you know where you‟re going. Had the shooting already started?” (59:54) “We could hear it in the distance.” (59:58) “Okay. The ships are that far away from you that you could hear it in the distance as opposed to hearing it close up.” (1:00:03) “Oh yeah.” (1:00:06) “I‟ve seen aerial film footage of the armada and even with that, you can‟t get an idea of how big this was.” (1:00:11) “No. That‟s right.” (1:00:20) “So, you‟re in the center and you‟re hearing off in the distance, the shelling. It‟s that far from where you are. That‟s amazing.” (1:00:25) “Of course, those are big bombs. See you‟re not shooting rifles at that time. It‟s the big guns.” (1:00:32) “All right. So, you get into your landing craft from your location. You‟ve got two other guys with you, Pete and Chuck is that right?” (1:00:41) “No, I had Chuck and Phil. Phil.” (1:00:47) “And now you‟re in your landing craft on the water and you‟re going to rendezvous with where you‟re going to pick up the duck, right?” (1:00:54) “Yeah. I had one naval officer with me.” (1:00:59) “So you did find it?” (1:01:06) ”They gave me a pretty good compass course.” (1:01:18) “How did they get the duck onto your landing craft?” (1:01:22) “The duck? Well, that didn‟t get on ours.” �(1:01:23) “Oh, okay.” (1:01:30) “They came out of these…they had these bigger landing crafts that they…” (1:01:31) “…brought the ducks in. Ok.” (1:01:37) “They could bring them in, but they couldn‟t get to the beach, see. They had to unload out there for the invasion. Otherwise, if they‟d have gone in, they‟d have been the only target. This way….” (1:01:42) “But the duck and the other landing craft were part of your wave?” (1:01:47) “Yes. Just the ducks. These are L.S.M.s. I don‟t know whether you‟ve heard of them. They‟re an amphibious outfit only they‟re the kind that you‟ve got to clear the beach and everything so you can get them in there. They do have, for the personnel ones; they have a walkway on each side, like the amphibious ducks and they could let them out the front. They didn‟t have to take them way in to the beach, because the ducks could... ” (1:02:18)“I see. On the water. Okay. What were you carrying in your landing craft?” (1:02:23) “I just had my own officer and a couple marine officers.” (1:02:33) “So your job was just to lead the waves.” (1:02:37) “I had the officers of the waves. A lot of people don‟t realize this. You take your lieutenants, J.G.s, and your ensigns and that kind of stuff, they may be above the enlisted men, but they‟re the first ones to…” (1:03:01) “Hit the beach.” (1:03:03) “ ..A lot of your low rank officers - that‟s one of the most dangerous spots there is, because if you‟re going to be a leader, you have to be in the front.” (1:03:17) “And that‟s the ones they‟re looking to pick off.” (1:03:21) “Let‟s go through your first experience then, the first wave.” �(1:03:32) “We rendezvous with the ducks and then when we got the orders to move, the battleship West Virginia was between us and the beach. So we had to go around the bows of the West Virginia.” (1:03:44) “Were they firing?” (1:03:49) “Yes. They were shelling the beach. We had to go around the bow to go into the beach and that was, well, maybe you can imagine a sixteen-inch gun, what a concussion it has.” (1:04:08) “Loud, really loud.” (1:04:10) “Deafening. We had, I‟m surprised that it didn‟t affect the ears. Of course we had helmets on, which probably blocked a lot of it. That was one of the experiences that stand out as much as anything, going around that West Virginia and the guns shooting over our heads.” (1:04:38) “So you‟re now heading with this wave toward the beach and you‟re seeing explosions on the beach?” (1:04:47) “Dive bombers and shelling.” (1:04:52) “And they‟re coming from the aircraft. Was there any shelling coming at you?” (1:04:58) “Not that I know of, no.” (1:05:04) “So really you‟re heading into a beach area that‟s being pounded, bombarded, but you‟re not seeing the return fire. You‟re just bringing the guys in.” (1:05:13) “Yeah. To be honest with you, we didn‟t get much resistance right away. It was a scary part, being in the third wave, but we had more tragic things happen afterwards because they had, there was a sea wall and they had caves in that sea wall. As long as they were staying in…” (1:05:42) “They were safe.” (1:05:46) “Well, if they came out, they wouldn‟t last. No. They did a real good job of softening up the beach.” (1:05:54) “So, what happened when you landed?” (1:05:58) “I got them guys out and took off again!” �(1:06:05)“Well, I figured that.” (1:06:10) “I landed, let the marine officers out.” (1:06:14) “Did you land well enough so that they didn‟t get wet?” (1:06:17) “Oh, yeah. If you get a sandy beach. You can slide that thing right up on the beach. And then, if you can‟t get enough wake for a wave to come in, then you give it gas and you wash the sand off the landing pad. Pretty soon you can get off the beach again.” (1:06:38) “Little tricks like that take practice.” (1:06:42) “That‟s what it was all about.” (1:06:47) “You know what is interesting, too, though is getting it right like that forces you to focus on what you‟re doing. If you hit the beach right, you want to make sure you get the sand off so even if people are shooting at you, that‟s what you‟re focused on, is to get the sand off there, get the thing back and then get out of there.” (1:07:01) Yes. And you gotta go, when you back out, you got to get beyond the breakers to turn around. You gotta go backwards until you get beyond to where the water starts rolling, you see. Because if you get sideways, it will carry you right back sideways into the beach. So you gotta.” (1:07:23) “Sideways is not the way you want to be, because you‟re a bigger target for one thing.” (1:07:35) “Not only that, but you can‟t get off by yourself. You‟re in the way. Somebody‟s got to pull you off or you aren‟t going to get back out.” (1:07:38) “So you survived the first. You brought the officers in. Now you go back where? Where did you go back to?” (1:07:46) I went back and picked up another wave.” (1:07:50) “Is this ducks again?” (1:07:53) “No, these are L.C.D.P.s, just like I was driving.” (1:07:55) ”Okay. And they have troops?” �(1:07:55) “Yes.” (1:07:57) “So, now you still have to go around the West Virginia?” (1:08:00) “No.” (1:08:01) “Okay. So you are in a different position?” (1:08:03) “These ducks were assigned to be in the area where the West Virginia was.” (1:08:09) “Oh, I see.” (1:08:11) “This is the thing, you go back out and I had a compass course where to go, so it wasn‟t back where I came from.” (1:08:22) “Okay. So you bring in the next wave and these are troops now. Are they Marines?” (1:08:26) “These are Marines.” (1:08:29) “Okay.” (1:08:30) “The fact is this was the First Marine Division. I went back to where my ship was, in that area. I just don‟t remember it. I mean, we made so many trips, I don‟t know which is which.” (1:08:43) “Sure. I understand that.” (1:08:45) “We went back and we, I believe that, near as I can remember it was only two waves that I led in. Then we started running separately. Run at you. Give me a compass course and that way you kept the beach parties had landing craft there to be unloaded and stuff continued.” (1:09:11) “So, after you led the second landing wave, now you and the other guys are going where you‟re assigned. Load some troops. Bring them in. Get back. Load some troops. Get back in. Had the Japanese responded by this time? Are you being attacked?” (1:09:28) “They were starting, yes. They were coming out. And of course, we were aiming at suicide planes up by the beach.” (1:09:37) “What was your first, I know it‟s difficult trying to pinpoint your first, first time you saw one of these aircrafts diving at something. �Did you think he was just damaged and was just crashing there? Did you actually figure, „Wait a minute, these guys are really…‟” (1:09:52) “We knew they was suicide. Because they‟d been using them before we made the invasions. That‟s when the Franklin got hit, before the invasions.” (1:10:03) “Right. Did you see, coming back, did you see any of the American ships getting damaged?” (1:10:16) “Not actually see them get hit, no.” (1:10:19) “Okay. You‟re too focused on getting the guys there and getting back, getting the guys there. You‟re not sightseeing.” (1:10:23) “No. You got your own landing path and, see, you‟re not only dodging other landing craft and stuff, and you‟ve got so much stuff in the water. Fact is we ruined the screw. I hit something and ruined the screw and we had to go into a different ship so we could repair it. It was the only time I got off; got out of the water, from the time I was put in the water until I…” (1:11:00) “Right. By „stuff in the water,‟ what do you mean?” (1:11:05) “Oh, fragments and anything that would float. See these landing crafts were wood. They get blowed up and there‟s a lot of wood and that stuff floating around.” (1:11:18) “I don‟t want to get into gory details because I know it‟s difficult but, were you witnessing around you the carnage? I mean, guy getting hit and things getting blown up and…” (1:11:31) “A lot of that….I‟ll just… For instance, one night there was a river there and after we‟d, they‟d set up so that we could go up that river and get rid of some of this stuff and I had to make my landing up that river. Right at the mouth of the river was a fishing barge that had been sunk. During the night, the Japanese brought this fishing barge and they‟d pick at it. So we finally had to burn it. And I saw once the Japanese come out of one of those caves, shooting. Until somebody shot him. (1:12:31) “No, as far as, say like a Marine, or someone like that, I didn‟t get that much. It was, see, the Navy is so much different than land force. In the Navy, well like the Pragmant. It took fifteen hundred men in one blow. In the Marines they could take one man, one shot. Like us, too. Our biggest problem �as far as the enemy was if they dropped a mortar in one of these landing crafts, they blew up the whole thing.” (1:13:16) “Did you have any close calls?” (1:13:20) “Yes.” (1:13:25) “How long did the operation last, from 4:30 in the morning, until you mentioned at night? Was this going on all day?” (1:13:32) “Oh, yes. We ran for five days steady.” (1:13:36) “Five days steady?” (1:13:39) “Day and night.” (1:13:40) “Did you get any sleep?” (1:13:42) “Oh, maybe. I can‟t remember. Sometimes I guess I dozed off.” (1:13:55) “This is a stupid question, too, but what about eating? Was it still the same regiment of scheduled time to eat? (1:14:02) ”That‟s another thing. I don‟t remember stopping to eat for five days. I don‟t remember stopping to eat. I probably had a c ration or dog biscuit or something like that, but I guess that was your last thought. Once in a while if it got over a bit and it was light going, the deckhand would take over and drive a while.” (1:14:33) “So after the five days of running straight, what happened?” (1:14:38) “Well, one of our landing crafts was broke down up on the beach, so I hooked onto him, hooked a rope to him and was going to take him back to the ship, see? And I hadn‟t been unloading our ship. Our ship had been unloaded and we were working on others. I was taking him back to the ship, and here‟s the ship‟s pulled anchor! Is moving. And it was quite a rough sea. So, I did pull him along side and they hooked the cables up to him and were raising him up. Every time they would get him part way up, the wave would go off another and then he‟d come down the end of those cables and it finally pulled the slings right out of the landing craft so they threw a chain ladder over into the landing craft so the guys could grab on and they did. They got out of there and then this landing craft dropped back down and sunk. And we was, of course, following along, hoping to get back on board and all at once they said, „Sorry. We can‟t wait for you.‟ We were out away from the fleet quite a bit by then. Because, �and I didn‟t know it until afterwards. They said, „Sorry, we can‟t wait for you.” and then they took off and here we were in set the middle of the ocean with about a third of a tank of fuel, all by ourselves. Now what are we going to do? Well, we‟re not going back to the beach. We‟ll find a home somewhere. We did. We found the ship that lost a landing craft. It took us aboard.” (1:16:42) “You know, one of the things that we haven‟t talked about, but you just mentioned briefly, was that this was not smooth sailing, this is rocky, this is really rough waters out here.” (1:16:55) “You aren‟t kidding.” (1:16:56) “So it‟s not just a matter of loading some troops onto a landing craft and then going off like Gilligan‟s Island to the beach. The troops getting off were in danger because they are coming down off these rope ladders and they‟ve got to somehow get into your landing craft as it‟s bouncing up and down, but as you‟re taking it in, it‟s bouncing up and down as well, so you have to navigate through all that. When you went to pick up that damaged landing craft on the beach, the fighting had stopped by that time on the beach anyway?” (1:17:32) “Right on the beach. Yes.” (1:17:34) “So the fighting was still going on inland and you could hear that?” (1:17:37) “Yes.” (1:17:42) “But you were relatively safe.” (1:17:42) “We were quite safe, yeah, except that then there wasn‟t much of the long-range guns coming from the Japanese. It was mostly suicides, see?” “If I‟m not mistaken, I‟ve seen figures once. It said that Japanese used nineteen hundred suicide planes.” (1:18:05) “In that battle.” (1:18:10) “Plus, they used boats that came from down the beach at night. They‟d come up and ram ships with torpedoes. There was one ship we saw involved in that. We went back to get another load and they weren‟t there.” (1:18:29) “Where were you sent after the five days of battle of Okinawa?” �(1:18:37) “Then I got aboard this other ship and went back to Saipan. And that‟s where we went and my ship was there, also. I happen to get the right ship. Either that, or they all went back after a while. No, we went back to Saipan.” (1:19:01) “And what were you doing in Saipan?” (1:19:04) “Loading up.” (1:19:06) “For more troops?” (1:19:07) “To be honest with you, I‟d have to look at that. No, I think we came back to the States after that.” (1:19:16) “Okay.” (1:19:17) “We got out of Okinawa. We were back in Okinawa on the fourth of July. We were there Easter Sunday then we come back and re-loaded.” (1:19:36) “But you headed back to the States now?” (1:19:38) “We came back to the States and got another load.” (1:19:41) “Where did you come back to? San Francisco?” (1:19:43) “San Francisco.” (1:19:45) “So you got back to San Francisco, you loaded up again with new supplies, then where did you go?” (1:19:50) “Right back to Okinawa.” “Okay.” (1:19:53) “It was quite quiet then.” (1:19:58) “And what was that purpose of going back to Okinawa? Just to unload supplies?” (1:19:58) “Take a load back.” (1:20:04) “Okay. So you‟re still in the landing craft?” (1:20:06) “They‟re still fighting.” �(1:20:07) “Okay. So what you‟re doing is you‟re basically providing the supplies for the Marines, for the American military that‟s continuing to fight the battle.” (1:20:20) “We don‟t only haul troops, but we haul cargo, too. We haul enough to supply these troops when they‟re on the beat.” (1:20:29) “Right.” (1:20:29) “And that‟s the idea of the ship. But then they have another ship that‟s practically the same size ship, same kind of ship, called A.K.A. and that‟s cargo and they haul like your kegs and that kind of stuff. We haul mostly for foot troops and when we‟re out there then we all move these other ships.” (1:20:59) “Now, where do you go from Okinawa?” (1:21:04) “Boy, I don‟t know. I‟d have to look it up again.” (1:21:08) “Okay. Well, you didn‟t have further battle, right?” (1:21:12) “No. That‟s all of that. We probably went to the Philippines because when the war ended we were in Leyte, loading up troops for the invasion of the mainland.” (1:21:30) “So you were part of what was to be the invasion of Japan.” (1:21:34) “Yeah.” (1:21:37) “How did you hear about the war ending?” (1:21:41) “Well, we was in Leyte Bay, and I‟m going to picture the whole thing. Then we heard it right there in Leyte Bay. That night, see, every craft has flares, even our landing craft; in case we get out there all by ourselves and the ship‟s going somewhere, why we can shoot a flare. And that Leyte Bay was just something else. Everybody was shooting their flares.” (1:22:14) “Like fireworks on the Fourth of July?” (1:22:17) “It was fireworks, but it was for miles.” (1:22:22) “Now, I understand you had a chance to call your mother at home?” �(1:22:26) “Well, when I came back to California.” (1:22:29) ”What did she tell you?” (1:22:33) “She said, „Hey, they have a bomb now that I think the war is going to be over pretty quick.‟” (1:22:38) “So she‟s telling you about the A-bomb and you didn‟t even know about it. You had to hear it from your mother!” (1:22:45) “Yeah. We didn‟t get much news. People back home knew more about what was going on than we did.” (1:22:55) “Now, were you part of the occupation of Japan?” (1:22:58) “We landed the occupation of troops.” (1:23:01) ”Okay.” (1:23:04) “See these troops that we were picking up to take up to hit mainland, we used them as occupation troops.” (1:23:10) So when bomb was dropped, Japan had an unconditional surrender. Now the Americans are coming to occupy Japan. Macarthur is about to arrive. So, you brought the actual troops that were part of the occupation of Japan.” (1:23:28) “We made two landings. One on the mainland, main island, the north end and then there‟s a bay goes between the two islands and we landed troops on the north island also.” (1:23:43) “Did you get a chance to spend any time in Japan?” (1:23:47) “Yeah. We did. One of the first cities that we landed occupational troops in had been all completely bombed out. It was. The second one hadn‟t been touched. The fact is we even went in to the shopping area.” (1:24:09) “What was your reaction? Granted, you weren‟t fighting hand-tohand combat or anything, but, you know, this was our enemy. What was your impression when you first arrived in Japan? First, let‟s go to the one that was bombed out. What was your reaction in seeing all this devastation?” (1:24:24) “Well, that one there, there was nobody there. And when we first came in, they‟d all took off because they‟d heard we were coming, I guess. And, �there wasn‟t nothing to see there. But then, they started coming back before we left. You know, we were jittery, too. Here‟s the enemy that we‟d been fighting and they were just as meek, they accepted us. (1:24:56) You know the thing that amazes me in this reminiscence here, the mighty R, was pictures of American personnel standing with gay, you know, women in the traditional [garb] and they‟re all smiling as if, I mean you could have taken that picture, except for the fact that the military uniforms kind of set the period that it‟s the 1940‟s, you could have put it in the 1990‟s or the year 2000 and just some tourists showing up. I mean was the reaction of the Japanese to you suspicion or fearful or was there a friendliness or?” (1:25:27) “I honestly believed the Japanese people themselves felt like we came and liberated them. I had a chance to go to the Hawaiian Islands and I rode in the plane with a fellow that was half Japanese and half Hawaiian. Him and I got to talking. His dad was Japanese. And I say to him, „You know, sometimes I think we liberated the Japanese.‟ And he said, „My dad said the same thing. They liberated us.‟” (1:26:12) “Yes.” (1:26:18) “This is what surprised us, they greeted us. And we weren‟t scared of them either. I mean we were afraid they were going to be, the way they fought. They were treacherous. But the way they acted then, they weren‟t.” (1:26:34) “Another thing you had mentioned another time was the number of women and children and lack of men.” (1:26:43) “Yeah.” (1:26:46) ”I mean, who was doing the work? Who was doing the cleaning up and all that?” (1:26:51) “Well, I don‟t think Japan had too many men left. Even their suicide planes, they were training sixteen-year-olds, to fly.” (1:27:02) “When did it finally end for you? You left Japan and where did you go from there?” (1:27:10) “Oh, boy!! Probably back to Leyte, back to the Philippines. We went to Tau Beach quite often, because there‟s where an awful lot of our staging areas was for that part of the war.” �(1:27:31) “But then finally, what, back to the States?” (1:27:35) “Yeah. Well, then we started hauling troops back. They called that the magic carpet duty.” (1:27:46) “Why was it the magic carpet duty?” (1:27:49) “Because we was magic…we were going home! We started hauling troops back and then we had to re-do our ship to a certain extent but then we got rid of most of our landing crafts. I still had one because I was transferred. They broke up the landing craft crew and put what they needed back out on the deck force or in the engine room or wherever they could use them. And a certain amount of them, the guys that had more time in, they were getting discharged. But then we made our cargo crews over into apartment crews, hauling troops. They put up, well actually, made them bunks or just a piece of pipe bent around with canvas waste in the center. And they were hanging on chains and hinged on one side. And we stacked them eight high.” (1:28:55) “In these cargo areas.” (1:29:04) “Where did you arrive back to the States? San Francisco.” (1:29:07) “San Francisco.” (1:29:08) “What was your reaction seeing that San Francisco bridge?” (1:29:10) “See I‟d had the privilege in being back there after we‟d been to Asia. So, it‟s always a pretty sight. The thing that always bothers, confuses people as much as anything is that every day the sun comes up the west and went down in the east. As soon as I got away from that bridge, I got my directions turned around. I did that every time I went across. Everything was just backwards. So when I read my compass, I had to read it backwards.” (1:29:46) “That‟s amazing.” (1:29:49) “I was going the wrong direction, but I got there.” (1:29:53) “Now eventually you got discharged and on your way home. How did you get back to Grand Rapids?” (1:30:01) „Well, in the first place, I got hurt onboard before I came. So then I went to a hospital and Treasure Island for a while and then I came home on a delay en-route. They gave me thirty days to go back to Great Lakes, so I came home for thirty days and then went back to Great Lakes.‟ �(1:30:27) “Oh, okay.” (1:30:33) “I didn‟t have quite enough points to get out, but I had too many to be reassigned, so they just discharged me.” (1:30:42) ”Let you go. So, you finally got home and your family was there to greet you?” (1:30:48) “Oh yes.” (1:30:55) “The whole family?” (1:30:53) “Yes.” (1:30:58) “The brothers were back from the war?” (1:31:03) ”No I had one that was stayed in. When I stay stayed in – he went in, he was drafted that was, and he came out as captain. He seen he was a captain, he had put in more time.” (1:31:10) ”That‟s got to be a great homecoming.” (1:31:13) “Oh, yeah. Came back in one piece. I‟ve got another little story here. The neighborhood I lived in, we had a church there, a little country church. And we had twenty-eight men from that, they had a flag, a star for each man that was gone, twenty-eight of them and all twenty-eight came back. So we were blessed. They all came back.” (1:31:54) “Let me ask you one more question. How do you feel your military experience, not necessarily your combat experience, but your military experience shaped the person that you are today?” (1:32:09) “I hope that it made me a better man. I don‟t know what I‟d have been otherwise, but I think I have a little more respect for other people because while when we were in the military, we weren‟t in there for the dollars in a sense. I try to keep that same attitude today. It‟s a mental attitude. It taught me to appreciate what I have. I saw people out there in those tropics, I‟ll go backwards here a little ways. Being in the landing craft, we‟d get around some of these islands where they were living in grass huts and that kind of stuff and loincloths and then I get back and see what I have over what they had.” (1:33:20) “Well, I want to thank you very much for sitting down with me. I hope it wasn‟t too trying of an experience.” (1:33:27) “Well, it wasn‟t trying for me. I appreciate it. I guess maybe it gave me a chance to just sit down and tell my story.” (1:33:33) “Good, good. I‟m glad to hear that. (1:33:37) The end of Interview (Tape runs until 1:35:48) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Burgess, Frederick J. (Interview transcript and video), 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Burgess, Frederick J. Description An account of the resource Fred Burgess is a World War II veteran who served in the U.S. Navy from June 23, 1944 to May 16, 1946. During the course of the interview he discusses in great detail his pre-enlistment, enlistment/basic training experience, and active duty in the South Pacific fighting against the Japanese. He describes in vivid detail the fighting on New Caledonia, Ulithe, Okinawa, in the Philippines, Saipan, and the suicide bomber attacks on the USS Franklin. He further goes into some detail about what the occupation of Japan was like. Burgess concludes by discussing what he got out of his military service. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005-03-10 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BurgessF Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e39fa78a37ca7f66e54a6d675ed91186.mp4 93d4ec18f01a779eef390dcd2997dd75 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4d1f27c675f3e1b8938e2ffb1fa6ac80.pdf 3d65235b51e0708510975d47d23f4707 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: Other veterans and civilians Interviewee name: Roosevelt Burch Length of Interview: (00:55:35) (00:20) Background Information       Roosevelt was born in Mound Bayou, Mississippi He grew up in the delta area that was very rich and good for growing all kinds of crops He was born on July 24, 1937, but his parents had split up during his mother’s pregnancy Roosevelt’s father moved to Chicago and his mother remained in Mississippi When Roosevelt was 9 years old, he moved with his older sister to live with their father in Chicago They stayed with their father for about a year and then moved into their mother’s new house in Detroit (14:05) School  Roosevelt had gone through about the third grade while living in Mississippi  He had gone to a private school and had to walk 2.5 miles there and back every day  In Detroit Roosevelt went to Hutchison Intermediate school for grades 7-9 and then moved on to Central high school  He graduated from Central high school and won a scholarship for Michigan State University  The scholarship covered tuition, but not room and board and Roosevelt could not afford to go there long  He went to MSU for about 6 months and studied Spanish, but did not have enough money to continue  Roosevelt dropped out of college and moved back home with his mom  He took a few civil service tests and ended up working for the USPS for 3 years in 1957 (23:20) United States Air Force  Roosevelt enlisted in the Air Force in 1960  He signed up in Detroit and then flew from Fort Wayne, MI to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX  Roosevelt went through basic and advanced training in Texas  He then went through technical school in Kansas  After technical school, Roosevelt worked as a file clerk in Kansas  He was only in the Air Force for 8 months before being discharged �(31:25) After the Air Force  Roosevelt began working at a wholesale record shop in Detroit  He worked there for a year and then decided to move to New York City  Roosevelt got a job at a VA hospital in Allan Park and worked there from 1973-1984  He had started there as a file clerk and enjoyed his job, but eventually decided to quit (39:50) Retirement  After working at the VA hospital, Roosevelt was unemployed for a while  He later got a job working for Michigan Blue Cross Blue Shield with Medicare  Roosevelt worked there from 1984-2002 and then retired  He moved back to Detroit and stayed with his mother for a while  Roosevelt is now living in the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Burch, Roosevelt (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Burch, Roosevelt Description An account of the resource Roosevelt Burch was born on July 24, 1937 in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. He went to school in Mississippi until he was 9 years old and then moved to Chicago to live with his father for a while. Roosevelt later moved to his mothers' new house in Detroit and graduated from Central high school. After high school Roosevelt attended classes at Michigan State University for about 6 months where he studied Spanish. Roosevelt enlisted in the Air Force in 1960 and went through training in Texas. He was only in the Air Force for 8 months before being discharged. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Air Force Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-03-19 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BurchR Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ed340544e971e1a1a1057a8114682c66.mp4 a4dfac244b6e7204c1e69be15dcfb5d1 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4cf5e8dff5694786bd89495ca0e205bd.pdf edbd67d630c0193e481094ae1117929a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Vietnam War Douglas Buikema Interview Total Time: (1:38:00) Background  (00:55) Mr. Buikema was born on August 25th, 1946 in Grand Rapids Michigan o Grew up in Wyoming, Michigan o His dad had many jobs, ended up working for an office furniture manufacturer o Mom stayed at home and worked for an office when he and his siblings grew older o Mr. Buikema is the oldest of four boys  (1:35) Worked for a year after graduating high school in 1964, then went to Davenport College for a couple of years  (1:50) The Selective Service wanted to know his status o They said he would be drafted unless he went back to school in the fall o Volunteered for the draft so he would know where he’d be sent o This was during August of 1967 Training  (3:11) Was a squad leader at Ft. Knox, was chosen for this because he was taller o 4 squads in the barracks; 1 platoon  (3:26) Basic Training 4 weeks, then onto Ft. McClellan, Alabama  (3:35) Details on Basic Training: o Took a train to Ft. Knox from Detroit o Physical was in Detroit  Noticed that people were trying to get out of the military  Knew that people went to Canada to get out of the draft o Took a bus from the train station to Ft. Knox o (4:54) Drill Sgt. gave speech, assigned men to barracks o Mr. Buikema said adjusting to military life was easy for him – being in good shape helped o A lot of physical training; remembers marching in double time, etc. o Sometimes people did not make it; some got discharged because they couldn’t adjust to military life  (6:57) Remembers a guy that “lost it,” threw a footlocker across the barracks – had to wear a straightjacket �      o Most of the guys at basic training were from the Midwest US o Ethnicity was mostly white; about 10-15% black, some Puerto Rican and Mexican (7:54) Got orders to go to Ft. McClellan, for AIT o Once he got there, found out he was to go to LCP school, for leadership training o This was about a week – did this before AIT  Was squad leader here as well o The leadership training showed them how to lead by example, etc. o AIT was more specialized training than basic – learned more about how to shoot and clean weapons, how to lead squad, different part of team, etc. o (9:57) Trained in mortars as well o Was surprised when he got to Vietnam to learn that he would not be working with mortars  Instead, he was in the infantry (10:16) Mentions that while he was in AIT, he and the others in training got weekend passes o Remembers going out with guys from Grand Rapids o Became friends with a guy from Georgia, used to go home with him sometimes because it was within the range of where they could go o This man lost both of his legs after stepping on a land mine; one below and one above the knee, walks on two artificial legs and a cane – says this fellow has a great attitude (11:49) After completing AIT, Mr. Buikema was asked to go to NCO School at Ft. Benning, Georgia o 12 week course (12:35) Says that in both schools, most of the people who did the training had been to Vietnam o Was told that every area is a bit different o Training was very good (13:06) The NCO training school taught him all of the different positions in the squad, how to be a leader & how to motivate people o Had to establish firepower superiority, this was one of the main things they had to do o Trained on many different weapons, learned how to clean them o Learned how to call in artillery and mortars o Recalls training in Florida’s swamps (15:30) Remembers going to jump school after NCO with his friend from Grand Rapids o Hoped that if they did this, the Vietnam conflict would be over in another month o Ended up becoming an E5 Sgt. ; instant NCO � o Made five jumps o Went to a leg (regular infantry) unit over in Vietnam o Airborne school was three weeks (17:16) After Airborne, Mr. Buikema went back to his AIT unit as a drill sergeant o Afterwards, he had a 30 day leave before going to Vietnam Vietnam  (17:53) Flew over on a commercial plane, sat with his friend Ken Tepper (from GR)  (18:09) Landed in Bien Hoa o Before landing, he remembers refueling in Anchorage, Alaska o Also refueled in Japan  (19:22) Remembers that when they landed, it was like landing at Kent County Airport; very different from what he expected o Soon after, got on a bus to Long Binh o No windows on the bus, but screens for protection from grenades  (20:18) Stayed at Long Binh for 3-4 days before getting assigned to a unit o At this point, didn’t feel like he was in a war yet o As they were walking near their barracks, they heard loud noises that were nearby, he and his friend dove into a bunker o Found out these noises were artillery support for their troops  (21:34) Ended up going to the 1st Infantry Division  (22:35) Remembers when they were watching a movie one night, they heard a whistle noise (bomb) and a warning, and everybody ran to the bunkers o This is when he realized he was in a war  (23:32) Base at Quan Loi was where he ended up staying o C-130 took him there  (24:25) Remembers training at Quan Loi o Guard duty at night o At this point, they were replacements o Once they got here, more of the same training, wanted them to get used to the new environment  (26:03) The base at Quan Loi was in the Michelin Rubber Plantation o Some of the area that had been sprayed with agent orange was just outside the plantation  (26:55) Mr. Buikema went to Company A, 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry in the 1st Division o Was a squad leader o Average squad size was about 7 or 8 guys  (27:55) Remembers the guys in the second squad better than the first �           o Remembers a friend from the first unit who was killed in an ambush (29:19) When he got to the squad, he tried to befriend everyone and ask their advice o Acknowledged that he was still the rookie even though he was a leader o Says this was a good approach to take o Went in the field with these guys within a couple of days (30:20) Remembers the first time pulling an insertion into a hot LZ (30:33) Went out as a squad, platoon, and company, it varied (30:58) The enemies he encountered during this time included Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army (31:25) Mr. Buikema remembers that in the area he was in, they could go two weeks without having enemy contact/getting shot at o Sometimes they would have contact 2-3 days in a row, but sometimes they even went three weeks without contact (32:30) First hot LZ o Was in the 2nd wave of choppers that landed o They knew it was a hot LZ before they got there o Hopped into a rice paddy, got stuck o Some of the other guys were stuck as well (34:44) Didn’t have an RTO in the squad, but he was trained how to call in artillery, mortars, etc. o They did have a radio though (35:20) Got behind the berm and fired back (35:40) This was something Mr. Buikema got used to o Reminded him of pheasant hunting in a way o It bothered him that he had to shoot a person, but after a while he did get used to it (37:44) Remembers working with the 11th Armored Cavalry o Got to ride on top of the tracks o Armored Personnel Carrier, appeared to be a tank to civilians o They had a flame thrower (39:30) First time getting wounded o They were on an ambush at night o They were originally supposed to go to a different ambush site, but it got late and the platoon leader called to get permission to set up at a place that wasn’t on the map  It was a well defined trail but not on the map, so they set it up o November 16th of 1968 o Saw the enemy coming down the trail, a red lens flashlight �      Light went off, and then saw a muzzle flash  AK-47 “sprayed the area”  Killed two and wounded eight, Mr. Buikema was one of the wounded o (41:45) When he got shot, the round went through the top of his boot and to his ankle, fractured his fibula o Patched everyone up that was injured at night o They were heavily outnumbered at this time, tried to keep the wounded people quiet o Called in Defensive Concentrations (artillery and air support) o (43:43) Mr. Buikema was awarded a Silver Star for his actions in this firefight  The star says his injury was painful, but he said it hit a nerve so he couldn’t feel it  Compared it to when your foot falls asleep o (44:35) Said that during this time they didn’t shoot back after the AK-47 shot all those rounds because they didn’t want to give away their position o (45:03) After the enemy walked by, they called the 11th Armored Cavalry and they picked up Mr. Buikema and his squad (47:08) Mr. Buikema said he knew he was hit instantly, but thought he’d just been grazed o Didn’t realize there was a bullet in his leg o Walked around and helped patch people up (48:20) Once they were back at the 11th Armored Cav’s base, their first sergeant asked if he was hit, took his boot off and saw what happened o Mr. Buikema could hear the blood in his boot moving around when he was running around to patch people up o Went on a chopper, spent time on Cam Ranh Bay for about a month (49:35) While recovering from his injury, went down by South China Sea o This was in a safe area o They had hot meals here o Remembers having Thanksgiving dinner at Cu Chi (51:00) Went back to his unit in January of 1969 o Remembers hearing about Bob Hope in Long Binh, got to see it o His future wife saw him on TV o On his way back to the unit o His unit moved Lai Khe (52:10) Lai Khe was bigger than Quan Loi o Went back to company and platoon o The squad had totally different guys, maybe one or two of the same �              (53:14) The guys that were in his squad before had rotated out, found a job in the rear, one had malaria, some were injured (53:54) The guys in his squad were new, maybe had been in Vietnam for a month o They saw some activity, had been in firefights (55:40) They were south of the rubber plantation (56:00) Operated in a variety of places: jungle, farmland, rice fields, etc. o Remembers seeing areas that had been sprayed with Agent Orange (57:25) Was reminded not to walk down trails (57:30) The second time he got hit, his squad was walking point for the company o His platoon leader told them to walk down the trail, got orders to do so o They walked into a U-shaped ambush (58:08) Remembers a man named Patrick Dugan who was walking point with them o They were moving too fast, hit an ambush the night before o They knew they were in the area o Mr. Buikema went up to Mr. Dugan and told him to slow down o Once he got back in his position, they moved out again and in two minutes they walked into the ambush and Mr. Dugan was killed o Heard that he did not suffer, died instantly (59:03) Stayed out overnight on the search and destroy missions o At night, they would set up an ambush o There were times when they went back to a fire support base, but a lot of the time they’d stay out there (1:00:31) The morale was good overall o Mentions that there were tough times, people got “Dear John” letters, letters about relatives passing away, etc. o Infantry unit tried their best to boost morale as well  Example: after an ambush, the next day, they’d try to get hot meals and resupply everyone with C rations, clean uniforms, etc. (1:01:44) No racial tensions that he can remember (1:02:35) Remembers people using marijuana o In the base camp, there was a guy from his first group who smoked it o Cambodians had an area on their base camp where they would get together and smoke, may not have been marijuana, but “didn’t smell like Marlboro’s” o There was a guy from his group who hung out with the Cambodians o In the field, everyone smoked cigarettes, but nothing else (1:04:30) Went to church with a friend who remembered that it was Sunday one day (1:05:30) Got on LOH choppers to look for areas to ambush and fool the enemy (1:07:12) Remembers B-52 strikes �       (1:07:32) Got a lot of their water from the bomb craters o Used fizzies to hide the iodine taste (1:09:10) The Cambodian mercenaries were Buddhists o Said you couldn’t mess with their heads or helmets o They walked point for their squad sometimes (1:10:35) Went to Manila for his R&R o Remembers his mother sent medical supplies here during WW2 (1:12:44) 2nd time getting hit o Was when Dugan was walking point o NVA was out at night o They blew the ambush the night before, the next morning they got hot food, supplies, etc. o Remembers getting a letter from his future wife who was in Chicago at the time o They were told they would move out and his platoon would walk point for the company o Then Patrick Dugan was walking point, Mr. Buikema told him to slow down and they walked into the ambush o Mr. Buikema isn’t sure what he was hit with  As he rolled over to get his next magazine, he saw an explosion and felt something hit the back of his leg  A piece of shrapnel went through the back of his leg, behind his knee o Said this reminded him of a scene from Saving Private Ryan; mass confusion o He called in fire, told the guys they were pulling back and if they couldn’t come along, they were told to play dead and wait until they got back (1:20:50) Mr. Buikema was in the newspaper a couple times; once was when he was wounded (1:21:07) Remembers writing letters back home o There was also a telephone they could go to sometimes (1:23:22) When he got his the second time he was in country and knocked out from anesthesia because his knee was getting fixed o After he came to, he felt the same o Doctor said they couldn’t stretch the skin far enough, had to go to Japan for a skin graft o The doctor in Japan was from California and sewed it up the next day o His leg was bent at a 90 degree angle to stretch the skin, explained the cast, each day they would fix it up a bit more o After the cast was taken off, his leg wouldn’t go straight for awhile so he had a bit of a limp �   o Eventually it straightened out after therapy, etc. o Was in Japan for about a week (1:25:28) After Japan he went to St. Louis, Missouri (1:27:26) Remembers the excitement when they announced that they were in the US (1:27:41) Processed out quick, then went to the army hospital at Ft. Knox o Took him a few weeks to recover o Was discharged April 23rd of 1969 Back Home  (1:28:52) Was home on leave before he got discharged and he was at the place where his dad worked at a furniture company o Got a tour of the place o Ended up working here a month or so later o Ended up working here 38 years o The company was Steelcase  (1:30:11) Got married that next November  (1:30:35) Was asked a lot about Vietnam o Was told to talk about it now and be done with it o Had a friend who now teaches geography and he went to his class and told Vietnam stories o Mentions that he didn’t talk a lot about it to his kids  (1:31:35) Didn’t see a lot of the anti-war movement personally, just on TV and in the paper o Understood where these people were coming from, describes himself as a neutral person  (1:32:56) Says he learned a lot about himself in the army o Changed a lot – after going out in the field the 2nd time he was more composed under pressure � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Buikema, Douglas (Interview outline and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Buikema, Douglas Description An account of the resource Douglas Buikema was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1946 and grew up in the area. After working for a year and going to college, he volunteered for the draft in 1967. In basic training at Ft. Knox, he became a squad leader and went to Ft. McClellan, Alabama for AIT. He also went to NCO School at Ft. Benning, where he gained more leadership skills. In Vietnam, he was a squad leader and was based out of Quan Loi. He was in A Company, 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry in the 1st Division. Mr. Buikema was wounded twice; once in the ankle, and the other time in the back of his knee. He received a Silver Star. After being wounded the second time, he left Vietnam and was discharged shortly after. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-08-29 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BuikemaD1326V Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ed12f91af3af1603744bc14fc137fe79.mp4 bba84bb3a4021c592dc7e4556a2c07b5 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8f2af1f00c842decc35d7442571a1b26.pdf 2b96c5070e4c0916724208c4c5077137 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Ted Brummel (00:49:15) (00:15) Background Information • • • • • Ted was born on May 14, 1952 in Byron Center, Michigan He lived on his father’s farm until his father started his own plumbing business in 1959 Ted graduated from high school in 1970 and worked with his father until he enlisted in 1971 His family had a long Naval history and he did not want to get drafted into the Army, so he enlisted Ted first spent one year on reserve duty (3:30) Training • • • • • • • • Ted went into boot camp in December of 1970 and then went through ship board training in Texas He went to a regular Navy boot camp, but only for 2 weeks and 2 weeks on ship board training He had much training already from being in the reserve There was not much physical training during boot camp, but they did spent a lot of time swimming They practiced with masks in case of a gas attack and did abandon ship drills Ted then trained on a destroyer called the USS Berkeley where they went out to sea once a month Sea sickness was very hard for Ted to overcome, especially since he was a cook On his aptitude tests Ted had been designated to be a radar or radio man, but was told that because he was only a 2 year reservist, they would not waste 6 months on sending to school (14:05) Cooking • • • • • • While in port, Ted had board duty and was able to leave base every night He would work after breakfast on Mondays and Tuesdays, have Wednesdays and Thursdays off, then work Friday and have the weekend off While at sea, he would work one day on and one day off Ted was married and had an apartment which his wife stayed at in Long Beach, CA They were scheduled to go overseas in July of 1972, but left in April They stopped in Pearl Harbor for supplies and in Guam for ammunition and ended up in the Tonkin Gulf �(17:15) Line Backer • • • • • • This maneuver consisted of 3 ships that pulled night shifts; 2 would go in along the North Vietnam coast and shoot at targets while the other kept watch They went on raids every night for 3 weeks Ted was cooking and was not able to watch the “show,” but was issued a helmet and life jacket anyways Most of the raids were at night and the men could not open any doors or windows to watch because it would let light out The Vietcong [North Vietnamese?] had radar to lock onto the US ships, but the Navy radar was better and could spot their radar when turned on They traveled at about 30 knots and never stayed in one spot for very long (23:40) Moving along the Coast • • • • They spent 3 months on raids of the North Vietnam coast and then 1 month working on mining the harbor They then went along South Vietnam in support of ground troops They used fire power on designated targets for about 2 months and then went back North They never encountered any enemy aircraft and only a few small Vietnam gun boats that the Marines on board would take care of (29:00) Philippines • • • • • • They often went to the Philippines and stopped at the repair port there There was a shore patrol that often came into the bars and was corrupt They made a man give them his camera so they would not turn him in for the marijuana that they planted on him There were also corrupt local police men that would take their IDs and then they could not get back on base They were warned never to go into town alone and to travel in groups of 4 There was a rumor that you could pay the Filipino police $20 dollars to get rid of someone if you did not like them (31:30) US Base • Ted was sent back to Michigan and had some time on leave to spend with his wife �• • • He then worked on the galley on dry dock in Washington from January through August of 1973 Ted had felt that the US troops were not show enough appreciation by US civilians for the services they provided The civilians in Long Beach, CA were nice while they were training there (41:20) Hong Kong • • • • • • After leaving the Philippines the men had a short time on R & R in Hong Kong before coming back to the US Ted really enjoyed the area and it was completely different from the Philippines He bought a stereo system there and lots of clothes; everything was very cheap He was later encouraged to re-enlist, but would not receive a large bonus because he had only been a cook and not received a lot of training He would have re-enlisted though if he had not had a family because it would have been nice to retire very early Ted was discharged in August of 1973 and began working in his father’s plumbing business and later became a partner �THIS IS AN IMPORTANT RECORD SAFEGUARD IT. l. LAST NAME·FIRST NAME-MIDDLE NAME M B a. - 1 . • aj. 5i ljSNR G CS3 6. SELECTIVE SERVICE LOCAL BOARD NUMBER, CITY. STATE AND ZIP CODE SELECTIVE SERVICE NUMBER 20 1281 I 52 1473 4. DATE OF IE­' PAY4 6 •. GRADE. RATE OR RANK 5. DEPARTMENT. COMPONENT AND BRANCH OR CLASS NAVY C 3 2. SEX BRUMMEL, THEOOORE LAVERNE t. BIRTH 7. DATE OF ADE RANK YEAR MONTH MAY 52 YEAR MONTH 72 NOV DAY 14 DAY 01 HOME OF RECORD AT TIME OF ENTRY INTO ACTIVE SERVICE (Slrtd. RED, Cil). Sis" arrti ZIP C,ilt} 4577 88lli STREET BYRON CENTER, MIGfIGAN 4931S 281, GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN 6. STATION OR INSTALLATION AT WHICH EFFECTED 9 a. TYPE OF SEPARATION USNR RELEASED FRCN ACTIVE DUlY SS BERKELEY (DDG-15) AT BREMERIDN, WASH. YEAR DAY BUPERSMAN 3850220.4 - TO ENTER OR REWRN TO 73 SEP 08 COLLEGE. UNIVERSITY. OR VOCATIONAL/TECHNICAL SCHOOL ~7; OF C"RTIFICAT" 155Um HONORABLE RE-l 'NAVXr"R1jSjjRWA~RCENTER USS BERKELEY (DDG-IS) HP: BREMERTON, WASH. RA NKI< MAINT .ANn ?1 Qr c; AUTHORITY AND REASON t. I' I CHARACTER OF SERVICE I. MONTH EFFECTIVE DATE 10. REENLISTMENT CODE 11. LAST DUTY ASSIGNMENT AND MAJOR COMMAND )(~H TERMINAL DATE OF RESERVE/ MSS OBLIGATION 13. IM~~ YEAR 76 16 II. 14. PLACE OF ENTRY INTO CURRENT ACTIVE SERVICE (Cit]. St." •• J ZIP C,Jt) 0 1 05 BYRON CENTER, MICHIGAN b. RELATED CiVILIAN OCCUPATION AND PRIMARY SPECIALTY NUMBER AND TITLE TITLE RECORD OF SERVICE YEARS 01 00 01 01 02 01 (tI) NET ACTIVE SERVICE THIS PERIOD b. RELATED CIVILIAN OCCUPATION AND D.O.T. NUMBER DOT 313 CS - 0000 (,J TOTAL ACTIVE SERViCE (.+/J) (d) PRIOR INACTIVE SERVICE CHEF/COOKS (.J TOTAL SERVICE FOR PAY (e+t/) (j) FOREIGN AND/OR SEA SERVICE THIS PERIOD 2f. TIME LOST (Prtetdi"l TWlI frJ) NONE SECONDARY/HIGH SCHOOL 22. DAYS ACCRUED LEAVE PAID DAY 14 MONTHS 10 00 10 00 11 10 DAYS 25 00 25 08 03 09 20. HIGHEST EDUCATION LEVEL SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED (1" Yttm) 19. INDOCHINA OR KOREA SERVICE SINCE AUGUST 5, 1964 ONO OCT 71 (6) PRIOR ACTIVE SERVICE 17a. SECONDARY SPECIALTY NUMBER AND MONTH lB. D.O.T. NUMBER DOT 313 CHEF/COOKS CS - 0000 ~YES DATE ENTERED ACTIVE' DUTY THIS PERIOD 15. YEAR 23.SERVICEMEN'S GROUP LIFE INSURANCE COVERAGE .1 24. DISABILITY SEVERANCE PAY [][NO OV05 00$15.000 OS5.000 YRS (1-12 grlldes) 25. a. TYPE -44­ COLLEGE YR5 PERSONNEL SECURITY INVESTIGATION I. DATE COMPLETED NONE OS10.000 ONON" AMOUNT 26. DECORATIONS, MEDALS, BADGES, COMMENDATIONS, CITATIONS ANO CAMPAIGN RIBBONS AWARDED OR AUTHORIZED NATIONAL DEFENSE SERVICE MEDAL; VIE1NAM SERVICE MEDAL; CCMBAT ACTION RIBBON; MERITO­ RIOUS UNIT CCU1ENDATION. VIE1NAM CAMPAIGN MEDAL WIlli DEVICE (1960~ X X X X X X X X X X 27, REMARKS "LAST DATE OF ACTIVE IUIY: 31 AUG 73. 8 DAYS TRAVEL TIME". X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X :x X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 28. MAILING ADDRESS AFTER SEPARATION (Street. RFD, Cit}, CIt.JU!. Slatr and ZIP Cet/e) 4577 88lli STREET BYRON CENTER, MICHIGAN 49315 rF-, 31. 30. TYPED NAME. GRADE AND TITLE OF AUTHORIZING OFFICER J. c. mILAND, ENS, USNR, PERSONNEL OFFICER BY DIRECTION OF THE Ca.1MANDING OFFICER PREVIOUS EDITIONS OF THIS FORM ARE OBSOLETE. S/N 0102·002·0202 29. SIGNATURE OF PERSON BEING SEPARATED 1~~~,-iI.. ~e~~ :J;iu.0'""v.,.~Q SIGNATUR" OF OFFIC~HOR,zm 9P~,<, 8"," 8' THIS IS AN IMPORTANT RECORD SAFEGUARD IT. _/4. TO SIGN . REPORT OF SEPARATION FROM ACTIVE DUTY ~ ""':);> V "-'~ ~ '\".) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Brummel, Ted (Interview outline, video, and papers), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brummel, Ted Description An account of the resource Ted Brummel was born in Byron Center, Michigan on May 14, 1952. He enlisted in the Navy to avoid being drafted into the Army. Ted was a 2-year reservist and the Navy told him that they would not spend time training him or with classes if he was only going to be there for 2 years, so he became a cook. He served on active duty between 1971 and 1973, including time spent off the coast of Vietnam on the USS Berkeley where they spent months on raids at night. Military service record appended to interview outline. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-07-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BrummelT Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5679c71cc7a48e57b804f0a738e323ed.mp4 b9b557ea8e7f28ac16af2cd842b3fe20 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9295465bd2f2a024d74af1ccb84d693b.pdf fad8b0ef421529d316b8477e17f4c857 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Donald Brummel Length of interview (0:24:28) Pre-Enlistment • Childhood o Born and raised in Burnips, Michigan. (0:51) His family were farmers. (0:54) • His Job o He was 22 years old during Pearl Harbor and worked at Extruded Metals in Belding, Michigan for 2 years. (1:13) Enlistment/Training • Brummel was drafted in 1944. (2:00) He chose the Navy as his branch of service. (3:00) • Reports for training and is taken to Great Lakes Recruit Training Center, Illinois. (3:31) Did not recall much of his training (3:40). • Transferred to Camp Shoemaker, California for about 1 year. (4:40) • Underwent specialized training and worked at a bowling alley, a ship yard, and a cannery. (5:00) st 1 Duty Station • Sent to Okinawa via Merchant Marine ship. (5:48) Describes rough seas and Kamikaze planes. (6:30) He speaks of the views of the island from the ship. (7:30) • Jobs and Duties o Brummel drives ambulances and trucks. (8:00) Mentions knowledge of the fighting abroad. (9:00) Ambulance drive during the whole of his service. (9:53) o Talks of storms and field hospitals. (10:30) Also, the lack of women on the island, only male corpsman. (11:00) Took care of Sea Bees who worked on the island. (12:00) • Interactions o Spoke of contact with Japanese farmers and female workers, (12:20) and saw no children. (13:20) Camp was attacked in the night, no prisoners were to be taken. (14:00) o Worked with men from Pennsylvania, Detroit and Iowa. (15:00) The received no medical training and were only drivers. (16:00) o African American soldier drink medical alcohol. (16:30) Speaks of Navy food. (17:00) Stayed on Okinawa for about 1 year. (17:45) o End of the war. (18:00) 2nd Duty Station �• He was shipped to another station (location unknown) and was still driving ambulances on this post. (18:31) Discharged from this post and returned to Michigan. (19:28) Additional Experiences • Brummel married before entering the Navy and had 2 children. (20:07) • Outlines bad experiences, (20:51) including drinking rubbing alcohol. (22:00) • Discusses the effects of the Navy on him. (22:30) • Wishes he would have become a Sea Bee. (23:00) • Returns to farming and goes to university. (23:43) • Became a plumber after farming. (24:00) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Brummel, Donald (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brummel, Donald Description An account of the resource Donald Brummel served in the US Navy between 1944 and 1946. He trained as a truck and ambulance driver and served as an ambulance driver on Okinawa, transporting Marines and Seabees wounded in action. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-11-13 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BrummelD Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6a3fafed4d7d0f193ed47a130628cf93.mp4 0bf630d2184762cf8001600391ef19f1 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/64ccc4b82ba54838eb9da34c5f1383d0.pdf f9c7aa2ce1e566c8b0b775b263bee010 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project World War II Era Donald Beachum Interview Length: (00:25:37:00) Early Life (00:00:26:00)     Beachum was born August 23rd, 1927. (00:01:21:00) Beachum grew up in Benton Harbor, Michigan. (00:00:39:00) Beachum’s father was a schoolteacher and worked for 35 years. (00:00:43:00) In 1942, Beachum moved to Lowell, Michigan where he began his sophomore year of high school. (00:00:45:00)  Beachum’s mother worked at a bank. (00:01:06:00)  Beachum had an older brother who was in the service and a sister that was a nurse in the service. (00:01:32:00)  Beachum was very involved in his high school. (00:01:50:00) o He was very athletic. Played football, baseball, basketball, and ran track (00:01:53:00) o He was vice president of his graduating class. (00:02:06:00) o He had “a lot of good friends”. (00:02:12:00)  Beachum attended to Michigan State University after he got out of the service where he studied to pursue a career in teaching and coaching. (00:03:42:00) o Beachum’s college roommate was a prisoner of war for 4 years. (00:03:56:00)  After he graduated high school in 1945, Beachum went to work for a furniture store that he eventually owned. (00:04:10:00) Military Experience (00:04:18:00)  Beachum joined the Navy to avoid going into the Army. (00:04:24:00) o He joined with 4 of his close friends. (00:04:30:00)  Beachum went to New York for boot camp. (00:04:42:00) o Normally, Michigan service men would go to train at Great Lakes in North Chicago, Illinois for naval training, but men were sent to New York instead due to the breakout of Scarlet Fever. (00:04:47:00)  Many of the young men did not handle the Navy well, and were “upset” during their service time. (00:05:20:00) o “It was a trying experience”. (00:05:30:00)  “Boot camp was a training period where they were really rough on you”. (00:05:44:00) o “Gets you used to taking orders and whatnot”. (00:05:54:00) o The men had physical training, such as running, obstacle courses, and test of how long one could stay awake at night. (00:06:19:00) o They also had weaponry training, such as gun shooting practice. (00:06:24:00) o However, the largest part of the training was physical conditioning. (00:06:31:00)  “The food was pretty decent” at boot camp. (00:07:48:00) o Although Beachum did not care for the chicken, which was cooked in large kettles that sometimes still contained inedible parts of the bird such as the head and feathers. (00:08:01:00)  Beachum was stationed in Long Island, New York, at a hotel. (00:08:35:00) �o He remained there for roughly 14 months (00:08:55:00) o While there, he did secretarial work and frequently dealt salary disbursement. (00:09:10:00)  Beachum never saw any active combat, however nearly all of his friends that he joined with did. (00:09:30:00) o He and his group of friends later owned a small cottage in Northern Michigan where they would go for ice fishing retreats. (00:09:52:00)  “Very seldom do [my friends] talk about their experiences” (00:10:10:00) o When Beachum asked one of his war- friends about his experience, he said, “he was there 36 months and was shot at everyday”. (00:10:18:00)  While in New York, Beachum would call his family and friends at home because he was “never much of a writer”. (00:11:34:00)  Beachum never experienced any supply shortages while in New York because “the war was over while I was in boot camp”. (00:12:11:00)  Beachum had a cousin who was married to an Air Force Colonel. It was discovered on the day of his funeral that he was “a back- up pilot for dropping the [atomic] bomb” on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. (00:12:19:00)  The men stationed in New York had a plethora of entertainment outlets. (00:09:30:00) o Beachum and the others were able to “go to 99 Park Avenue and get free tickets to all the shows”. (00:12:50:00) o “You could make a liberty in New York City with 50 cents”. (00:12:57:00) o The men were also able to play basketball, softball, go to the boardwalk that extended down Long Island, and go to the beach. (00:13:38:00) Post- War Experience (00:15:00:00)  Because Beachum had so many close friends that were killed in WWII combat, he tends to “get a little upset when I see these guys driving these Japanese cars”. (00:14:45:00) o Beachum says that he saw a man with a sergeant’s uniform on recently and thought to himself “by God, he couldn’t have been in service against the Japanese driving one of their cars”. (00:15:05:00)  When Beachum attended Michigan State University, it was right after WWII, so much of the student body consisted of young men who had just been relieved of service. (00:16:42:00) o The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I bill, helped many retired militants pursue higher education. (00:16:56:00) o Beachum notes that those who went to college at this time were going for something serious- “it wasn’t playtime”. (00:17:02:00)  Beachum got married in 1947, while still in college. (00:16:42:00) o Together he and his wife had 4 children, all of which followed in their father’s “sporty” footsteps and were heavily involved in athletics. (00:17:57:00)  After the war, Beachum became a board member at the Congregational Church in his community. (00:19:15:00)  “Thank God I didn’t have to have more war experiences”. (00:23:29:00) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Beachum, Donald (Interview outline and video), 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Beachum, Donald Description An account of the resource Donald Beachum served in the United States Navy during the World War II era. Growing up in Michigan, he graduated from high school in 1945 and joined the Navy right away to avoid being drafted into the Army. Because of a scarlet fever outbreak at Great Lakes Naval Base in Illinois, he was sent to New York for basic training, and remained on Long Island doing clerical work for fourteen months before he was discharged. He did not go overseas or see combat, and was perfectly happy not to be shot at. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fleet, Alexander (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2006-05-31 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BeachumD1262V Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/885e798f2c5db0067998b6b186126e7e.mp4 1cdd1f854788cebb88093a4f27f244ff https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1958047fa059e72c78cd9f4dc12236a7.pdf 75c5a8c45ae94e2ce8396c0789cf95d1 PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW HARRY (BUD) BAXTER Born: Detroit, MI Resides: Grand Rapids, MI Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, August 30, 2011 Interviewer: Mr. Baxter why don’t we start by telling us where you were born and what you were doing before you got in the army? I was born in Detroit and moved to Grand Rapids when I was about one year old, or less, and I lived here all my life. I went to the University of Michigan and graduated from Central High School and I went to the University of Michigan where I met my wife and I brought her home for a week-end and my mother fell in love with her, and I had no choice from then on, but to marry her. Interviewer: What did your father do for a living? He was vice president of the All American Home Security Bank here and moved to Grand Rapids by Behr Manning, abrasives [?] and he changed to banking after that. Interviewer: During what years were you at Michigan? I started in 1941 and I went into the army in 1942. I returned in 1946 and completed in 1948. 1:07 Interviewer: What were you majoring in? Civil Engineering, I’m a Civil Engineer. Interviewer: What made you decide to enlist in the army? Well, there was a pretty high demand and I was pretty high up on the scale as far as being drafted, so I just took the bull by the horns and enlisted. 1 �Interviewer: Can you kind of describe that process of enlistment and getting into training? The first and foremost thing they did is we went down to Kalamazoo, to the armory down there, and they had this physical inspection, so we walked around in our underwear with all these women around and that was strange. We were only nineteen years old and to have somebody—and from there I was transferred to Camp Atterbury, Indiana. 2:04 That is wrong, that was coming out, it was in Missouri, Fort Leonard Wood, so there you go. I went to fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, where I took my basic training and then I volunteered for officer training and was sent to Fort Belvoir, Virginia to do that. Interviewer: What was the basic training experience like for you? Fort Leonard Wood was the spot in the world where you could stand up to your neck and wasn’t choked to death on dust [?]. It was absolutely—the climate there was terrible. It was in the middle of the Ozark Mountains, but we had some good officers and we had lots of fun and learned a lot about shooting and how to handle a rifle and take care of it, and also, how to build bridges and prepare roads etc. It was really a growth experience for all of us; all of us had a good time. 3:14 Interviewer: At that stage where you already sort of directed toward the engineers or was this just something that everybody was doing, bridge building and roads? It was engineer training that I was in from the beginning. I don’t know how that happened, but I was in the pre-engineering school in Ann Arbor, so I think that started the whole thing going. Interviewer: Did the army; did you have to take tests and things to qualify or did you just get sent there? 2 �If you could read and if you could see you were in. Interviewer: You were in, but to put people into an engineering training kind of thing? I don’t think—they just selected—for example, a friend of mine was a lawyer and he was in a mule pack outfit cleaning out the stalls. In the war, you did what needed to be done. Interviewer: Let’s go back there to the training process. You were at Fort Leonard Wood and about how long were you there? Do you remember? 4:11 About eight or nine weeks Interviewer: What time of the year was it? I started in December of 1942 and got out in about March or April and then I went to Fort Belvoir Virginia and got there in time for the real hot summer. Fort Belvoir was not known for having cool weather in the summer. Interviewer: Can you describe your time there? That was ninety days of pure training. I mean, it was absolutely very rigorous and they tried to weed out the most men that they possibly could. They had very difficult things for you to do and learn, so a lot of the guys didn’t make it. It was just far enough into the war that the initial impetus was into getting officers. They needed more engineers and infantry, so they were really pushing for that. Fort Belvoir is primarily for engineering. 5:13 Interviewer: What kinds of training exercises did you have that were particularly tough? Triangulation—some of the guys had no idea of how to handle any kind of instrument for surveying, even rudimentary like we did in the army, so that was tough on some of them 3 �and another thing was map reading. I was surprised at how few people had actually never read a map in their whole life and here they are in the army in their early twenties or late teens and they had no idea how to locate themselves on a map. The first washouts were those guys, and another one was those that didn’t have any mechanical ability and couldn’t sense how things went together. They were interested—we had a tac officer that had worked on the Alcan Highway in Alaska, and he was a wonderful man. He was very interested in getting good students and making good soldiers out of us, good officers. 6:17 Interviewer: How much physical training did you get while you were there? Physical all the way, I mean long marches with full packs and PT every morning. Interviewer: Did you work with heavy equipment or mostly measurement and that kind of thing? We put bridges together, and we built bridges, floating bridges etc., how to put them tighter, so when we became real officers under combat conditions we’d know how to build them. None of us realized we were going to build them in combat. We just thought we were going to build them and nobody would be shooting at us, but that didn’t happen. Interviewer: When did you finish at Fort Belvoir? Ninety days after I got there, June or July, around there. 7:10 Interviewer: Where did you go next? I was stationed—sent to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri---wrong, wrong; it was Camp Carson, Colorado. Camp Carson, Colorado, I stayed there and I was tied to the 171st Engineer combat battalion. It was a brand new outfit and Lt. Colonel Kesey; he was a 4 �Major at that time and was our commanding officer. I made some real good friends and correspond with them. I still correspond with the widows of some of the guys. Interviewer: What rank were you at the time? A 2nd Lieutenant Interviewer: And what kind of duties did you have or what were you preparing for? Well, we had these guys that were just brand new recruits in the army and we were teaching them to be soldiers, how to shoot and build bridges and how to build roads. How to do the things that engineer combat battalions do, so this was a brand new outfit. There was a 171st Engineer Combat Battalion and there was a 172nd Engineer Combat Battalion that was not assigned to Camp Carson and they were nearby. 8:32 They were the ones that when the Battle of the Bulge comes the Germans roll right over them. They were bivouacked. They just rolled right through them, and ten percent of the guys were killed. That was a tough thing. We were sitting four or five miles away and were completely clear, we didn’t get anything. Interviewer: We’re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves here; we’ll want to get there. Are there particular events or memories from out in Colorado that stand out in your mind or characterize the unit or the people in it? Well, we had good—I was just a platoon leader at the time, we had three squads, and it was really a growth experience for me too being young etc. The fellow officers, all of us had a good time teaching the guys what to do and how to be soldiers and take care of themselves. 9:27 5 �Interviewer: Did you have any experience with non-com’s in the unit or was everybody green? Everybody was pretty green, but I did have—the company I was in, the sergeant was from the Philippians and he had been in the army a long time and he thought all of us “shave tails” were not worth a darn you know. That’s the thing; you have to learn how little you know when you first start out in something like this. Interviewer: When did you leave Camp Carson then? We went on maneuvers in Tennessee and we must have gone there, probably, in about December or January. We stayed there for—the biggest thing we did there, that I had anything to do with anyway, was repairing a bridge that got damaged by a tank in a maneuver area that we had to repair. We had to send it into an iron works in Tennessee to get trusses repaired, but in the meantime we had to bolster it up from the underneath. 10:39 It was really kind of fun to do and fortunately I had some two or three men that were excellent carpenters and they were able to see what to do and how to do it. It was really a help to have guys that had been in construction. Interviewer: How large were the maneuvers in Tennessee? What size the units involved were, and what you were working with? I couldn’t tell you because I have no recollection of that at all. Interviewer: Big enough for someone to have a tank. Well, they had tanks and they had a whole division there on these maneuvers, and they were given exercises to do and we were too, but we were finally narrowed down to just repairing the bridges. 11:22 They got damaged by the heavy equipment going over them. 6 �Interviewer: Where did you go after Tennessee? From there we were transferred to the New England shore to embark for Europe. We landed in Liverpool and we got there. We must have gotten on the ship—let’s see, DDay was in June, and we embarked just about the time D-Day was because we were on the ocean when D-Day occurred. We went to England, to Liverpool, and then we were stationed down by London. 12:11 Interviewer: What do you remember about the trip across the ocean? It was the largest convoy in the war up to that point and then we zig zagged across and it took us forever. Interviewer: What kind of a ship were you on? It was a navy transport and it was the best ship of all. We had a miniature aircraft carrier and two or three destroyers and there, I’m just guessing now, twenty-five or thirty big freighters going with us. We had a couple scares with subs, the sirens went off and the destroyers were all over the place dropping depth charges. I don’t know if we ever got any or not, but sure scared the living daylights out of whoever it was they were after. Interviewer: What was the weather like on the crossing? Pretty calm, pretty calm, coming back was different, but going over was fine.13:04 Interviewer: What kind of experience did you have in England while you were there? Well, all we did there was get our equipment. We went over without any trucks or anything, so we had to get trucks and mortars and rifles, no, I guess we took our rifles with us. Other than that, pretty much, we had to get all our equipment and kitchen equipment. 7 �Interviewer: How long were you in England then? We landed on Omaha Beach I guess, thirty or sixty days after D-Day and thank goodness we didn’t go in on D-Day. Interviewer: When you were in England did you have to stay mostly in camp or on base? Did you get to go into London or see anything? Yeah, we went into London when we got a couple of short days off. We tried to get all the guys to do that, but when it got close to when we were going to leave, of course, all these were canceled and we had to stay right there for a couple of weeks. 14:15 Interviewer: What impression did you have of London at the time? I didn’t really see very much of it and I don’t recall anything other than it was a big town and I got to see Big Ben and the House of Commons. It was kind of fun just wandering around all the places that you read about. Interviewer: How much contact did you have with the English people while you were there? Going over I didn’t have any to speak of, but coming back—my wife’s father was born in England and he had a brother that lived over there, so coming back, after the war was over, I went and spent a week and a half with him. We just had a ball I’ll tell you, and as a result of that contact, we had some of our first cousins coming over and staying with us subsequent years, so it was fun and I made a contact. 15:05 Interviewer: You’re landing on Omaha Beach and at that point, what sort of a place was it? What did it look like and what impression did you have? At that time the floating dock was done. We went over in an LST, we went up to shore and landed, but by that time the underwater obstacles were pretty well removed and it 8 �was a cup of tea. The only impression I have of that is, we landed and there was, again I was just a platoon leader, and the beach master yells out, “Who owns this?” And there was a big truck, one prepared to put the floating—floats in the water to put a floating bridge across, a Brockway truck it was called, and he said, “Who owns this thing?” I’m standing there and I said, “it’s mine”, and the company commander of the next company over, a friend, he was a 1st Lieutenant, and he said, “no. It’s mine”, so the two of us sided and we kept that truck during the whole war. 16:15 That helped us a little bit time to time. His company used it some and my company used it some, so it was kind of fun. Interviewer: Once you landed then, what did you do? We repaired roads right at the beginning and then we transferred down to the—down south to the 29th Division to Brest. We didn’t do much there because a few days later Brest surrendered a day or two later, so we were just repairing roads etc.. Interviewer: After the surrender of Brest, then what did you do? We were with the 9th Army and then we started going east and we were up—the British were north and the 9th Army was meeting just south of them, and we were corps troops and General Gillem was the General in charge of the 13th Corps. 17:17 He was a civil engineer, so he had a soft spot in his heart for civil engineers, and he came over a couple times and met with us and talked. It was an interesting time to be—and we were loaned out to a different division if a division was going to make a crossing and they were kind of held in reserve, we were put out in front, so all the casualties would be ours and they would reserve their people as much as possible because they were an integral part of the division, but we were lucky, we had some casualties in bridge building, but not a great deal. 18:04 9 �Interviewer: Where were you building bridges? The summer and fall of 1944, where were you? The Len [?] Canal we built over and the Roer River we built over. We put troops across the Rhine. Interviewer: Let’s back up to the first time your unit goes into action or under fire. Can you just describe that experience? It scared the living daylights out of all of us. When people are shooting at you what are you supposed to do? You can’t shoot back because you’re working doing things, that’s a tough thing to do. Our guys really did well and our losses were—we lost a lot of men sometimes, but most of them were just slightly wounded and could come back. Our actual casualties were relatively small. 19:05 Interviewer: What kind of fire were you taking? Was it artillery or machine guns? It started out small arms and then the longer range stuff, mortars and artillery. Interviewer: Where were the American troops, the infantry, at the time? They were waiting to get across the bridge that we were building. Sometimes we would have trouble getting over and they would start building a bridgehead, so we would build a bridge before they got much done. Interviewer: Did you ever have guys that got over the river before the infantry got there? Our guys? Interviewer: Yeah No Interviewer: They didn’t send you in like Revolutionary War sappers then? 10 �No, the only thing we had to do sometimes, as officer, we had to go to see how many units of bridge we had to get yet to make a floating bridge we could cross. We would sneak over at night, or just at dawn, so we could see how big the river was and estimate how we were going to build it and where we were going to build it. 20:02 Interviewer: Can you describe the process of bridge building at one of these places? What did you do? The first thing we had to do was get a cable across the river. That was so you could tie all the floating sections on. Interviewer: How did you get the cable across? We usually rolled it across, but we used mortars on the Rhine because that was a big river. The ones in the canal were small things and we-Interviewer: Once you get the cable across, what do you do? Then you put the sections in one at a time and you put a cable through it up to the line and shove them out. The cable, of course, would sag and you would have to adjust the length of the cables connecting them, so you get the bridge straight. The cable would curve, but the bridge had to be straight. At least you hoped it was straight. 21:00 Interviewer: How long would it take to put up a bridge, say over a canal or something like that? Not the Rhine, but something smaller. Three or four hours with luck. We had one incident where a plane came over and dropped a bomb on us, and that scared the living daylights out of everybody and killed a couple of our guys, but once we got rid of the damaged stuff, we easily finished it up. Interviewer: What kind of equipment was your unit using at that point? 11 �We would get a M2 Treadway bridge rig. The Treadway Company would supply the trucks that would take these inflated rubber floats and put them in the water. Then you would put a saddle on top of them and they floated this way. The floats went this way and we were building the bridge this other way, so we had the floats going this way with the saddles on top and we would connect them with beams. It was all worked out and worked beautifully. 22:15 We had bailey bridges that we built on the Autobahn, and they were, of course, pushed across from the other side. You built enough over here to counterbalance what you did and push them across, so you didn’t have to go on both sides. The reason we had to repair the bridges on the Autobahn was because we had bombed them out, so the Germans wouldn’t be able to use it for stockpiling their equipment. Interviewer: Were you kind of in action or at work pretty constantly in the fall of 1944? In and out, in and out, we had a lot of road repair work. The 9th Army was adjacent to the British and, in fact, the Guards Armored Division of immediately next to us and at that time I think I was a company commander then. I was a 1st Lieutenant and then they made me company commander. 23:10 Then I—we would swap engineers or officers, we would swap out, we got a couple of their 2nd Lieutenants and we sent a couple 2nd Lieutenants up to them, and the one 2nd Lieutenant or I, from the Guards Armored division, British, that man, a driver, and he had he had a kind of small weapons protector with armor around it and a Jeep. So, he had two drivers, a Batman and himself. I said, “send all the equipment back and, you can keep the Jeep and the Jeep driver. Send the others back to your unit, we don’t use those kind of people here”. “No Batman?” I said, 12 �“no Batman”, which is like a Valet. He was just saying Lieutenant, so he was much surprised at that—an officer couldn’t have a Batman. 24:04 Interviewer: How did he adjust once he knew? He was fine, and he was a good guy. Interviewer: Where was your unit when the Battle of the Bulge started? Were you in Belgium at that point? We were in Holland at that point, I think, and that was the only time we had at all in foxholes was when they pulled out unit out and put a little company in to replace them and we were spread out long distances apart. It was scary, but the Germans were just as skinny as we were, so they were scared too. We did nothing, both sides didn’t shoot and if they shot at us we shot back, but we didn’t shoot very often and they didn’t shoot very often at us either. Interviewer: You were not in a sector where they were actually attacking? It was all up north, up towards the bulge. 25:05 Those guys up there really caught it, man, they were—they surrounded Bastogne there, the Germans did, and that was nuts. What was that general’s name? Interviewer: McAuliffe, now you were—what else do you remember about that time in foxholes there? That was one of the worst experience you can have in your life. You can’t bathe properly and the food is scarce and it poses problems as what to do. We weren’t there long enough to get a long-term adjustment. One interesting experience, we had a P51 got his engine shot out and came in and landed in front of us and didn’t have his wheels down, but he bellied in. We pulled him out and it was just as dawn was breaking, so we had to 13 �keep him there with us one whole day. He couldn’t believe how primitive foxhole living was. He said, “you guys live crude, this is crude”. 26:17 I tried to persuade him to say and spend the night, part of the night with us anyway, because our mess sergeant arrived about nine o’clock at night with a hot meal and he said, “no, no, just let me use your Jeep. I’ll just go back”, and I said, “ok, you can take my Jeep and my Jeep driver, but you have to take two other enlisted men with you and I want those three guys to come back all showered and shaved and with clean clothes”. He said, “oh yeah, that’s a deal”, so they came back about two o’clock in the morning all clean and everybody in the outfit went around smelling them because they smelled so good. Interviewer: Do you remember how long you were in the lines before you pulled out again? It wasn’t very long, maybe ten days. 27:05 Interviewer: And then what did you do after that? Back to repairing bridges and fixing roads. Engineer combat battalions are used for attack purposes, to build bridges and take assault troops across big bodies of water etc. Interviewer: Was that going on pretty regularly there? There were a lot of little canals and the Roer River, for example, that’s where they blew the dams out up above it, and it was kind of a small stream when we first looked at it, but when we went to build a bridge over it, it was a pretty roaring torrent because the Germans had blown the dams out up above. Interviewer: At about what point did you get to the Rhine? No idea when, that escapes me completely, but we—when the first Americans went across down south, there was a bridge that was left standing, Remagen, we were up north 14 �with the 9th Army against the British, so we were there shortly after they were there. 28:27 In fact, the sent several of us down to look at the Remagen bridge and we came back and I wrote a letter to Arlene and I said, “gee, I saw a bridge”, and she was able to surmise where I was. That was interesting, the condition of the bridge had been severely damaged by artillery, but they managed to scrape enough together to hold the tanks and get them over. It was really great. Interviewer: Can you describe your experience then in bridging the Rhine? We didn’t build a bridge on the Rhine. We started one, but somebody else came in to finish it, a big construction company. That was a huge undertaking, big stuff. 29:09 Interviewer: Once you got across the Rhine, what were you doing then? The same thing, bridges and roads, repair roads and build small bridges. Repair those over the Autobahn and the Autobahn went right—the course—the 9th Army was just about over the Autobahn and going pretty much along. I was amazed at that Autobahn because we had nothing like that at that time until Eisenhower, when he was president, got them in. We didn’t have a freeway in this country, other than the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I guess, it was the first. Anyway, I credit, we really copied what the Germans had done, and they were beautifully done. Interviewer: What else do you remember about Germany when you were there? Clean, the people were intelligent, well informed, and nice people for the most part, those that were not Nazis. The Nazis, of course, Hitler, altered their minds a good bit. It was terrible some of the things they did. 30:19 Interviewer: Do you remember meeting anyone who admitted to being a Nazi or still showing that kind of attitude? 15 �Nobody and if they were they never admitted it, nobody. They knew immediately that once Hitler was dead, that was it. Interviewer: Before the war ended you’re operating in Germany. How much resistance did there seem to be? Were there people in the rural areas that were still shooting at you or that kind of thing? Nope, it didn’t happen and once VE Day came-Interviewer: Before VE Day. It had kind of eased off a lot toward the end and the last couple three weeks were just a piece of cake. Interviewer: How far easterly had you gotten by VE Day? We got up to—we built a bridge across the river, and I’m trying to think where it was. 31:26 I can’t think of the name of the river now, anyway we built a bridge there and the Russians came and they were pretty cruel people, the Russians were. It was a horse Cavalry outfit and they didn’t like the fact that we were letting the German people cross the bridge, come from their side over to our side and heading back west. Interviewer: So, you’re far enough, so you basically made it to what later became the dividing line between the allied zone and theirs. I can’t remember the name of that river. Interviewer: Was it the Elbe? The Elbe, that was it Interviewer: That’s where you had your first contact, along there? Yeah, very good. 32:16 16 �Interviewer: What do you—about how many Germans were there trying to get across the river? Do you have an impression of that scene? Hundreds of them Interviewer: How long was it between when you got the bridge up and when the Russians showed up? Twenty-four hours, and, boy, a lot of people went across that bridge. Interviewer: What was there condition? What do you remember about them? They were all refugees leaving their houses and home trying to escape the Russians. They were scared to death of the Russians. There was some justification, the Russians really—of course it was a horse Cavalry outfit that came up first and they wanted them to stop immediately, but the troops came across and we negotiated with them a little bit and we kept it open for a while. Finally they got guys out there and anybody that was in the water was machine-gunned. They rode their horses into the water and they were—we weren’t used to anything like that. Interviewer: How long were you up along the Rhine? 33:17 Not long, and we transferred back to Paris, to Versailles. My job then, I was a captain at that time, and I was S2 of the battalion, and I was in charge of pumping out the cesspools in the Versailles area. Interviewer: What condition was that part of France in at that point? What do you remember about it? They were anti-American, most of them for some reason, and particularly the youth. You got a real thing; in fact, we had a couple officers that went out and were beaten up by the French kids in mobs. They were—we soon learned not to go alone in Paris. We were in 17 �Versailles, but we would take the metro in to town once and a while. In fact, I took lessons at the Sorbonne in French and had fun. Interviewer: What else do you remember about Paris at that point? 34:19 Very metropolitan and hadn’t changed a bit, but the French tried—anybody that fraternized with the Germans, they tried to get them ostracized for some reason or other, and they tried to blackball everything that they did. That became the same thing the Nazis were doing. Anybody who was a Nazi, nobody would fraternize with them, so it was interesting. They were trying very hard to get back to normal, and tough to do. The Nazis weren’t easy when they were occupying any area. They were very harsh. Interviewer: How much visible damage was there from the war at that point? There was very little, surprisingly. I don’t think we bombed Paris hardly at all and Versailles wasn’t bombed. I was stationed in the small stables for the palace there, that’s where my office was and that had been a school for French army officers. 35:28 Of course there was nothing in the castle because those painting and all the art work had been removed for safety and the gardens in front were not as well maintained as they were later on when I went over later, five or ten years later. It was kind of interesting to go back and see it subsequently. Interviewer: How long were you stationed there? December, and I got there two or three weeks after D-Day—I mean after VE Day. Interviewer: You went back across the ocean by boat, and you said that was not an easy trip? 36:25 We ran into a hurricane out there and we had to turn around and go back. We were in a liberty ship that was converted for troops. What they did was they put up ballasts on the 18 �deck and when we got these big waves the boat would just go to the side and hang and go back to the other side and hang because the load was not balanced. It should have been below, but it was up, and we had bunks down below, which were lightweight, and the weight was all up on the deck. Somebody felt very badly about that and the skipper said- and I happened to be on the bridge with him one time and he said, “captain, this thing isn’t going to make it, we can’t go this way anymore”, and we were bucking those waves, so he said, “we have to turn around and go back and I’m scared to death to turn it”. We were in a trough turning around and we took a long time turning around. He said, “if we don’t turn around we’re going to break the ship apart”, so we turned around and went back and we ran out of food coming, but we turned around finally. 37:23 It was an interesting trip back, but we made it to Newport News. Interviewer: Then what did you do after that? Were you discharged right away? I went from there to Camp Atterbury, Indiana, was discharged. A colonel was there and all we field grade officers, captains and below, were in this room, there were a few majors there as a matter of fact, and the colonel stood up and he said, “now gentlemen, my job is to recruit people for the reserves, and as soon as you sign up you’re free to go”. My wife was sitting outside with the motor running, and it was New Years Eve day, so this was ten o’clock in the morning and it lasted until two o’clock in the afternoon. I finally said, “what the heck”, so I signed up and that’s why I got called back to Korea. 38:16 Interviewer: One other thing that you mentioned before. Back when you were serving in Europe etc., there was a point where you worked with or you encountered a dump truck unit that was African American soldiers? 19 �Yes we did Interviewer: What do you remember about that or about that unit? Well, on the Roer River we were preparing to lay the gravel down and they weren’t filled with gravel, the trucks weren’t and I’m not going to say any more. Interviewer: They didn’t make any other impression on you they were just guys driving trucks? Yes, driving trucks Interviewer: Once you left the army, what did you do? I went back to school and finished college. By that time I was married and had a child. I graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in civil engineering and I went to work for S.A. Morman Co, which he ended up owning and that’s the extent, but I did get called back for a couple of years duty in Korea. 39:23 Interviewer: Can you tell us about that? In 1950 I was stationed again in Camp Carson, so I went out there. We had just built a house in Grand Rapids, and we rented that out and Arlene and, by that time we had two children, and they came with me. We went out there and we had made some friends there from when I was there before and they found an apartment for us, so we moved into that. We stayed there until I went on maneuvers in Tennessee and then we went back to Camp Carson and then I was sent over to Japan and assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division's engineers, and I was a company commander there. 40:22 Interviewer: When did you get over to Korea itself? After about a month or six weeks in northern Japan, where the 1st Cavalry Division was stationed, the engineers were sent over to build POW camps. We went over there and 20 �built nine, or started nine anyway when I was there, but we finished only one or two before I left. Then I went back to Japan because they were concerned about the Russians. I don’t know if you know, but these Russian owned islands come down to the northern Japanese Islands and they were worried that they would come in and take over. They wanted to know the escape load and how much load the bridges would take. Well these things were built of concrete and they used straw sometimes to reinforce them, you know, so it was just a pure guess as to what they would hold. My reputation was made because the division commander, and I can’t think of his name right now; anyway, he was a general. 41:28 He would say we got to do this and this and this and said, ”Baxter you’re figuring out how much the lead capacity is for these bridges, what about this bridge right here?” I said, “Well sir”, I said, “if you’re going to put tanks over it, you should never send tanks over it because it will never take it”. This colonel, who was one of his commanding officers said, “I’ll put my tank over that, it will hold up under anything”, and down it went. After that everyone said, “if nobody objects, we’ll ask Captain Baxter to tell us how”, and that was kind of fun. Interviewer: What was your impression of Japan at that time? What did it look like and how were the people? One of the interesting things I did was, I went down to Nagasaki and took a look at that and that was really an eye opener for me. I flew down a couple times, down to Tokyo on business and in fact, I was going down one time and Shatoshi Airport, which was a Japanese naval airstrip. 42:34 It was twenty thousand feet, a long runway, and I was in a DC3 and so you got a stretcher, this was a medical evacuation DC3, so I got a guy sitting next to me, he was a corporal and he said, “you’re Bud Baxter, you use to live in 21 �Grand Rapids, Michigan, I lived on Orchard Hill, two doors from you”. He was about five years younger than I am, and I moved away from there when I was about nine years old, so I didn’t remember him. Here you are—you never want to do anything wrong in life because it will catch you every time. Interviewer: Had that happened on an earlier occasion where you met somebody that hadn’t expected to meet? A couple of times, I saw—we built a bridge over the Roer river and I can’t remember which one, and here’s a guy I’d known in high school directing traffic, he was an MP. 43:25 That was kind of interesting. Interviewer: what else do you remember about Japan? What was it like to be an American soldier in Japan at that time? Well we were in Shatoshi and Kyoko, which was north, and we had a real interesting time. When I took over Baker Company it had the highest VD rate in the whole division and the colonel said, “Baxter, get that down”, and I said, “yes sir”, so I cut off a—it turned out the captain I was relieving was going into town every night and sleeping with these gals, so when I signed for the equipment it was my Jeep then and I told the Jeep driver, “this Jeep cannot leave this camp ground without me in it, under no circumstances. If you want to remain a Jeep driver and a corporal, just remember that”. 44:23 “Yes sir”, he said, so that night the captain wanted to leave and go into town and he said, “I can’t do it sir, I can’t, Captain Baxter said I can’t”, and he came storming and said, “I want it”, and I said, “you can’t use my Jeep, I’m sorry, not for that kind of purpose”, and he got into town, but with anything that I supplied. Interviewer: Did you manage to get the VD rate down? 22 �Oh yes, I cut off all passes and leaves and we stayed right there and set-up the entertainment in the day room and I would bring girls in and they could dance with men right in the room, and guys were stationed at the doors, so nobody could go out. The girls all stayed in the room and then we sent them back in a bus, back to the town. Interviewer: Did you have much contact or communication with the people in the town or were you working with anybody there? No, somebody else did that for me, and I had no contact with them at all. 45:20 These were very nice young ladies for the most part. They were thoughtful and kind and good and they loved being with the Americans. We had Coke and ginger ale and no beer or liquor. We just really did well with them. Interviewer: What was Korea like when you were there? That was an interesting time. I had the occasion, one time, to go from Pusan up to Seoul on a train and I had a—it was an overnight trip, and I had this bunk assigned to me and I got in there and everybody said to be careful because those guys will come in and rob you, they’ll get in the train and come along. I had my billfold, so I took my billfold, and here I was down in my underwear, so I stuck the billfold in the elastic band because I wanted to sleep. I was wakened about 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning and my billfold’s gone. All my money, all my identification and everything, so I thought, “oh well”, because these bunks are short and for the most part the Koreans were shorter than we. 46:38 I was kind of not sleeping well anyway, so I said, “I might as well get up”, so I got up—our Pullmans use to snap together etc., but these were just loose hanging, so I open it up and here’s my billfold on the floor in the middle of the aisle. It came out while I was sleeping and I don’t know how long it had been there, but nobody took it, so it was 23 �intact. That was just pure luck, and in all the stations there were youngsters there who were begging. They were isolated from their families and lost their families, either killed or didn’t know where they were. They were just pan handling and wanted money or food, and I showed up there with a couple of sandwiches, ham sandwiches, with bread about that thick and a whole bunch of meat in there and I passed those out. I went up there without eating because those kids were desperate. 47:31 They were just purely begging and begging and ranged in age from four or five up to sixteen or seventeen. Brothers and sisters, and they would take the younger ones as much as possible if they knew them, and other than that, they were all on their own—tough. Interviewer: Did you see much of the adults? Very little, had very little to do with the Koreans. Interviewer: What did the countryside look like? It hadn’t been devastated badly. The 1st Cavalry was station up at the Touran Reservoir and the North Koreans and the Chinese ran them out. They came all the way back down to Pusan and they evacuated over and that’s when they went up to Kyoto and they were a beat outfit when I joined them. They were just in the process of getting rehabilitated. 48:33 Interviewer: The worst part of the war was over by the time you got over to Korea wasn’t it? Yes, it was pretty stationary when I was there, but we lost a couple guys though on a water pipe. When I went up on that train from Pusan up to Seoul, every other car was a flat car with a quad fifty mounted, so they could—because they got up in the hills on either side of the railroad and they would sometimes shoot at you and they would respond 24 �with those. That didn’t happen when I was on board, they didn’t have to, but they were equipped to do it. They had about three of those quad fifties, three of those cars. Have you ever seen a quad fifty fire? That’s a roar I’ll tell you, that’s a big blast of sound when you here one of those things go off, yeah. Interviewer: Is there anything else that comes to mind about your experience in Japan or Korea? 49:25 No, not so much, we did what had to be done. We built the POW camps, and they loaned me all kinds of bulldozers and graders and pans. Interviewer: Were you there long enough to see POW’s come in or were you gone by the time they got there? I had one interesting experience. We used the POW’s to build the camps, you know, there were 10,000 POW’s, men and women, because they had women in their army right with the guys. This one camp—there was only one POW camp that we completed all the way—we were going to transfer them from the temporary rolls of concertina wire etc., into this camp that we built and the rumor was that they weren’t going to move. There were 10,000 of them and maybe only500 or 600 GI’s around there, so they could have swamped us if they wanted to. 50:26 They might lose a few guys, but they were apparently willing to do that. Gee, I got to thinking, “ How am I going to get these guys to transfer the next day?” There was a tank outfit down the road and I went down there and asked them if they had any flame throwing tanks there and they said they had a couple of them, maybe three or four. I said, “I would like to borrow them for tonight and tomorrow”, and he said, “ok”, so I explained what I wanted done. We put one on each side of the existing camp and at night after it was dark, we had them shoot out some 25 �flames, so they could see what they were. The next day the tanks went clank, clank, clank, clank behind the guys when they walked to the new one and we didn’t have a bit of trouble moving them. Interviewer: What condition were the prisoners in and what do you remember about what they looked like or how they acted? You were there and did the work on the building so-They worked and they did a good job of wiring. We had to check it, but they wired all the connections. We put the wire twelve inches on center each way. We had to wire them together, each one of those sections, so the guys had to watch them closely, but they were pretty good. 51:40 Interviewer: In general, how did they behave and conduct themselves? Other than the one time when I heard the rumor that they weren’t going to move, they were pretty docile. In fact, the Red Cross provided stuff for them, sanitary napkins and Kotex and that kind of stuff, and the guys didn’t know, the women that were there didn’t know what to do with it and that’s when they would take it apart and make table cloths out of it. Interviewer: Then what did you do then, coming out of Korea? I came back home. No, I went back to Japan and that’s when I was assessing the load carrying capacity of all the bridges, because they were worried about a Russian invasion. That’s why I left before the troops did. 52:29 I came back to the United States. Interviewer: Let’s take you back to after VE Day in Europe and you were about— was there any rumor about you going over to Japan or over to the Pacific, building bridges or helping? 26 �Oh sure, we didn’t have enough points, you do that on a point system and we didn’t have enough points, really, to qualify for instant removal, we had enough points so we didn’t have to go there right away, over to the far east, but we had enough so they could have separated some of us and send some of us. All of a sudden VJ Day happened too. Interviewer: What was that like? A big relief. I think the dropping of the atomic bomb was a terrible thing to do, but I think we saved hundreds of thousands of lives rather than attacking Japan, no doubt, because the Japanese were prepared, everybody was prepared to fight, and every household would have been a fort. 53:41 I t would have been a tough battle, I thing, a tough battle. Interviewer: Also, I was curious—did you have any bridge failures while you were over there? Did you built a numerous amount of bridges, was there any bridge failures or—you were the guy to go and talk to obviously, if there was going to be a weight problem, but were their any failures that you knew of after you went to the next river or anything like that? Well, because what we did was we just built assault bridges and then they had another company come in from the rear echelon and build a heavier bridge for the bigger stuff. 54:23 The most we ever built for was the M2 Treadway Bridge and it was good for a medium tank Interviewer: The correspondence with your wife, were you married when you went to Europe, so you were married? What was the correspondence with you wife, did you get letters and write letters often? I mean, you were right up at the front or near the front and taking fire. 27 �I tried to write to her about once a week and she would write to me about the same. Did I tell you about the valentine? We had a child that was born while I was away, I didn’t see it until I got back here and he was sixteen months old when I saw him for the first time, but he—my wife, it was valentines day coming up and she took the bottom of his feet and put lipstick on them and printed them on the card and sent it over for Valentines Day. 55:26 I was sitting in my Jeep and I leaned forward, it was a blackout, and I was leaning forward using the small lights on the dash trying to see what it was and a mortar shell or an artillery shell, I don’t know which one, landed over there and a piece of shrapnel went into the seat in back of me, so by leaning forward I missed it. If I had been leaning back I would have had it in me. It was pretty well spent because it didn’t do big damage to the seat, but it would have damaged me, I’m sure. It’s where you were, you could be standing next to somebody and he will get killed and there you are in tact. Interviewer: Overall, how do you think the wartime experience affected you? Do you have things that you carry with you now that affect you? 56:11 I think my language was terrible when I got back. Lots of swear words and you—just because I was young when I first went in and you pick-up the language everybody else uses. It took a couple of years until I got back to—my wife was so sick of it and now we’ve been married sixty-three years with sixty-four coming up this fall. Interviewer: When you first went in, was it a major culture shock? Most guys go through an experience of the first time being yelled at, first time getting up at five o’clock? If you lived on a farm I guess it was a little different. I’ve talked to people who lived on a farm and five AM is no big deal, but was there a culture shock there at all? 57:05 28 �I never noticed, no, I just did what had to be done. I think the majority of us did that. You say culture shock—I think the ones that were most affected were some of the boys that were more babied by their parents and they’re the ones that had the real—I was at a boys camp and had been a camp counselor, so I was more accustom to the rough and ready stuff. 57:35 I think that made a—but in the majority, I don’t recall any serious problems like that. Interviewer: Thank you, thank you very much. 29 �30 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Baxter, Harry (Interview transcript and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Baxter, Harry Description An account of the resource Harry "Bud" Baxter graduated high school near the beginning of WW II. He went to college at the University of Michigan for a year, but feeling that he would soon be drafted, he enlisted in the Army. During WW II he traveled with other men where they built bridges and repaired roads so that the United States Army could move around through the area. Harry continued to remain in the reserves when his time was up and eventually served for a short time in the Korean War. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Veterans Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-06-28 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BaxterH Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/923a97c8f6b14e504a3f822c5ab6b95c.mp4 5c8ac7daae642d3d6af14cf6d7d848bc https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ab7c1952df42c1c84c9fa3256b50aaf1.pdf 9e53a7e65c64a634987e94e05ea2af3c PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: World War II Interviewee’s Name: Gerard Bauma Length of Interview: (01:16:17) Interviewed by: James Smither Transcribed by: Chelsea Chandler Interviewer: “Now, Mr. Bauma, can you begin by giving us some background on yourself? To start with, where and when were you born?” Of course, that is hearsay. I was there, but I was not aware of it when I was born. I was born in the city of Zwolle in the Netherlands, and I was the youngest of four. Interviewer: “And what year were you born?” I was born March 24, ‘22, and I had two brothers and one sister. They all were married, had children, and we are the only surviving ones of our siblings. (1:00) We—My dad was a preacher—a well-known preacher—in the old country. He—There was no room in the seminary, or else he would have, no doubt, been a seminary professor. He had an honest-to-goodness doctor’s degree. Like today all kinds of people walk around and call themselves “doctor”. Interviewer: “Yeah. Even I get to do that.” You do? Interviewer: “Yes.” Well, like I said before, a lot of sins will be forgiven. And all my siblings, like I said, have passed away, and we are the only survivors. In 1927, I think, or ‘29—I don’t know. (2:01), that’s long ago, we moved to the city of The Hague, which—You know, no doubt, that Amsterdam is the capital, but The Hague—some forty, fifty miles away—is the seat of government. And that’s where the embassies are for countries, so that’s kind of the ruling heart of the Netherlands. It’s a beautiful city. We’ve been back there a number of times, and I’d like to go back once again. But my wife won’t let me. Neither will my children because they feel that at my age—close to ninety—it’s a bit too risky to do that. It’s—The Hague is situated on the North Sea. There’s a separate—used to be separate place, ‘S-Gravenhage, but like I said before, just as you—Just as I cannot pronounce a “th”, you cannot pronounce the guttural G. Gravenhage. So they pick us up right away that we have an accent, which is fine. A lot of people walk around with an accent. After all, all of the United States and Canada is the result of immigration from I don’t know how many different countries. Interviewer: “So did you grow up in The Hague then? Did that—” �My high school was in The Hague, and my dad died when he was sixty-five also in The Hague. In the meantime, I was in seminary, and it was a bit difficult, of course, because of the German occupation. (4:07) Interviewer: “Okay. Can we—I want to actually back up a little bit and talk more about what life was like in the Netherlands sort of in the 30s in the period when you were growing up before the Germans got there.” It was the Depression time, of course. A lot of people out of work, and I still see them shoveling snow with a piece of 2x4 and a plank attached to the bottom. And there they went across the street shoveling snow. We also realized that every time after—at the beginning of the new year, my dad would come home with the news that his income would go down because the money just wasn’t there. And I went to school—two different Christian schools—and later on to high school, and that was also during the war. At the beginning of the war. And that was a strange experience. A while ago, I had a speech here. They asked me to do so. To speak about life under occupation, which is a—I hope I’ll never see a time like this again. I hope nobody ever will. When all of a sudden, uninvited, Nazis came across the border—I want to make a distinction between Nazis and Germans—and then they just laid down the rule. Whatever you could do, whatever you could not do. And for five years there was resistance—underground—because if you—You couldn’t do it aboveground, of course, because of who’d be the end of it. (6:09) There are people also here who were more active because of age. More active in the resistance than I was. I did it in my way. It was—Yeah, again, unorganized because if you’d have an organization, it would be taken away to concentration camps. As a matter of fact, I spent four days in a concentration camp. I was picked up in the train on my way to the seminary town—I always have to make very clear that I talk about seminary instead of cemetery—and they picked me up. The Gestapo did. The Gestapo is the secret German police—Geheime Staatspolizei—and I told them that I was a seminarian and as such—And as some strange thing in the German—in the Nazi mind that seminarians were free from having to go to Germany because everyone eighteen years or older had to go to Germany to work as a slave laborer and work in German factories. IG Farben, which is a very well-known German company, employed a lot of those folks, and they were not treated the best. And one time, in the city of Rotterdam, there was a razzia. You know what a razzia is? Interviewer: “Can you explain that?” A razzia means that the police just stops everybody on the street and pick them up. Never mind who. (8:09) There you go. But I was let go after four days, again, because I was a seminary student. There was somebody with me who notified the seminary that I was in trouble, and, again, after four days, they let me go. And then—Before the war, it was a quiet country. Peaceloving. We had an army, and when the Germans invaded, the Dutch Army had to surrender in four days—five days because they had bombed the heart out of Rotterdam. That’s the largest harbor in—maybe in the world. I don’t know. They just bombed the center of town, and Margaret lived in Rotterdam at the time. Interviewer: “That was the queen?” �Pardon? Interviewer: “The queen?” No. Margaret. That’s my wife. Interviewer: “Oh, your wife. Okay. That’s right. The queen was Juliana or something [Wilhelmina].” And the queen escaped just in time and the government. The ministers, so the government. They somehow were able to cross the North Sea to go to England, and from there the royal family moved to Ottawa, Canada. The queen—It is said that Queen Wilhelmina, who was queen in the Netherlands in those days, was called by Churchill as the only man on the Dutch—on the European throne because she is quite a gal. (10:02) There is a statue of her in the city of The Hague, and here she is. Like I said, before the war, it was a peace-loving country. Interviewer: “Now yourself. You were still in…” I was in The Hague. Interviewer: “Yeah, and you were still in high school in 1939 when the European war started. Now at the time that happened—when the Germans attacked Poland and so forth— were you aware of what was happening? Did you pay attention to the news in those days?” Oh, yeah. We knew about first what Hitler called the Anschluss—that they annexed Austria— and then slowly on they went to Scandinavia. Denmark, Norway. Not Sweden. Sweden remained neutral all these years, and then, at a given moment, Hitler says, “Now all my territorial demands have been met,” which was not the case because whatever Hitler said you could never trust, of course. And it was interesting. We had a history teacher. The man was an excellent historian. He had one fault. He couldn’t keep order. We called him Bald Joe, but after Hitler had spoken in Nuremberg, Germany where he addressed a crowd—“Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!” Then we asked our history teacher, “Would you please give us your view on this?” Which he didn’t. Then we were like little mice in his hands because this man knew his history. (12:00) And he told us one sentence I never forgot in my life. He said, “When you look at a map of the world, especially Europe, and you say to yourself, ‘Yeah, we grew up between the two wars.’ Then you say to yourself, ‘Well, this is the way it’s going to stay forever.’” And he said, “Don’t kid yourself. These borders are going to change,” and did they ever change. We—I don’t think that we really expected the Germans to invade the Netherlands. You know, they didn’t in the first war. They left us alone, but—And I—Somewhere—I should have picked it up. Somewhere I have a map of the Netherlands. You—I don’t know if you happen to be—know the map that well, but the Netherlands has one thing that looks like the trunk of an elephant that goes down between Germany and Belgium. And that’s a rather narrow gap between the most southern city in the Netherlands and then Belgium and France. So in the first war they invaded Belgium but not the Netherlands, but in the second war they wanted a broader front. As a matter of fact, in the 1880s—I think it was the 1880s—there was the German chief of staff. Von— �Interviewer: “Von Schlieffen.” Yep. He already suggested that the Netherlands also be invaded during the first war in order to create a wider front, but Hitler decided to—just to ignore. (14:09) And he went also through Holland. One of the strangest experiences. I woke up May 10, 1940 at four o’clock in the morning. That plane—A German transport plane flew over and was on fire, was hit by Dutch artillery, and it crashed behind our house maybe a distance from here to—not even to 44th Street. And, of course, I was eighteen. Yeah, kind of nosy. So the plane crashed, and the twenty paratroopers in it were killed because they were bent on capturing the Dutch government and the royal family. But both of them failed, and I went over to the place where a plane crashed and picked up—of course, there was no jet planes yet—a three blade propeller. I picked up one of these blades. It was broken off, and for the life of me I wish I would know where it is right now because I kept it as a souvenir. And there’s a possibility that it’s still stuck under the house where we lived in the city of The Hague, but I’m not quite sure. But it would have been a good trophy. No, we did not expect—I don’t think we expected it, and—But they came anyways. (16:02) And, you know, we had heard of—It’s a biblical expression: “of wars and rumors of wars.” Austria, Scandinavia. It was, I think, in March. Interviewer: “In April. April. Yeah.” April. Yeah, and then the Norwegians sank a heavy German cruiser close to Oslo, and—But we still—I don’t think we still—I don’t think we expected it. But it was a [?]. You talk about war, and when you’re that age, there’s something romantic about war. I found out there’s nothing romantic about it, and then the first—One of the first things I saw was a truck of a dairy—a flatbed—and went north to—The Hague was surrounded by a couple of very small airport, and that truck was on its way to one of these airports. Because then I realized war means coffins. And war means death, and war means coffins. That was a real—Yes, in a way, a surprise for me. Interviewer: “Yeah. Was the truck carrying coffins?” Yeah, the truck was carrying coffins, and it went north to one of these airfields, which the Germans wanted to capture. They were not able to. They were defeated there, and after the war, I went south to Rotterdam, not knowing that my wife was living there at the time. (18:11) And so that was not the reason I went to Rotterdam, but the heart was bombed out of Rotterdam. It was still smoking and smoldering. Terrible stench because Rotterdam is a harbor, so in these warehouses, they had all kinds of stuff that was, yeah, ready for loading and unloading. My— Margaret’s father was in business in grain import and export, and he dealt a lot with that kind of stuff. Shipping in from United States, Canada, and all over the world and then transferring it to barges that would go to Germany and France and I don’t know where all. Interviewer: “Okay, so you actually went to Rotterdam shortly after the Dutch surrendered then?” Right. �Interviewer: “So you can see some of what the city was like at that point. What were the— Do you remember the first time you saw German soldiers actually coming in and taking over?” Yep. They—We lived just one block away from a main artery, and they rode in the trucks there. And they had their goosesteps. You know how they do that? And it was, in a sense, a terrifying thing to see that, especially since we were a peace-loving country. (20:06) The artillery dated back maybe to before the first war. I don’t know, and then slowly on—Then they had the like— In The Hague, the seat of the government, there is what they call the Hall of Knights that dates back, I think, to 13—1400. And then, once a year, the queen comes with a golden—in a golden carriage drawn by eight horses and all kinds of coaches following with the ministers, and I don’t know who all was in there. And then she had a speech on the throne, which, of course, just like the [?] was written by the government, not by her, but then she always talked about my government, which is correct. And then just after the war was over, then the Germans appointed a man by the name of Seyss-Inquart. He was from Austria, and he limped. So, within no time, the Dutch had a new name for him—Six and a Quart—referring to his limping. And then, on the queen’s birthday—No, on the birthday of her son-in-law, Prince Bernhard, who was a German— But on his birthday, people walked around with a flower in the lapel because he always wore a flower in his lapel, and then Dutch sympathizers wanted to pull it out. (22:29) But they also put some razor blades next to it, so they detected very soon that you better be very careful. But when Seyss-Inquart sat on the throne where the queen always sat during the opening of parliament— totally insensitive, of course—But then right away the Germans put down the law, and one of my impressions is that there was an absolute lack of all kinds of justice. The German sympathizers— Did you ever hear the word “Quisling”? In Norway, he was the Dutch—the Norwegian traitor, and Quisling has become synonymous with traitor. If you are a Quisling, that is not so good, and he behaved like royalty. And then very soon already ration cards came in because Holland has a large—not such a large area and several million people. I think eight million, but don’t quote me on this. (24:00) Six or eight million. Something is in the back of my mind. Maybe six million people and not enough farmland to maintain and to feed that country, so there had to be rationing. And when we came here, people complained about it that during the war, sugar was getting rationed, I think, and gasoline and tires, and then I always kind of smile because for the rest there was enough. And there was freedom. You could say openly, “I don’t agree with FDR,” or whatever else, and no one would say anything about it. The British had a Dutch radio broadcast. Radio Oranje they called it. You know, orange is the Dutch national color because the royal family is the House of Orange, and on the birthday of the queen, everyone walks around with some orange in his lapel or kids with a—kind of a shawl around them. But you couldn’t do that, of course, during the war, and—But, as I said, the worst remembrance I have is a total lack of any kind of justice. They could pick you up on the street like they did me because I was supposed to work as a slave laborer in Germany. Interviewer: “Now how soon did they start to move people out of the Netherlands as slave laborers? Was that later in the war, or were they—” No, that was a bit later, not immediately. (26:04) No, I think they first may have tried some appeasement. After all, we’re all Germanic. Dutch is a Germanic language, and I think they tried appeasement. But very soon they found out that it didn’t work, and slowly on the resistance �began. And there was a preacher who had to—what we called—He had to dive. He had to go underwater—had to disappear—and he went from pulpit to pulpit always unannounced because that would be too dangerous to announce it. And then he basically had the same sermon that resistance was required, but then he had to go again right away. I remember in the city of Arnhem there was a minister by the name of Jacobus Overduin, and he was minister in Arnhem. You know, remember Arnhem: A Bridge Too Far? And he preached—Oh, yeah, the Germans wanted to appoint a German sympathizer as supervisor of the Christian schools in Arnhem. And he preached against it, and at the dinner table he left. And the Germans came in a bit after he had left, and he went underwater. (28:01) You know, one of these expressions that are coined in those days, and he—Every now and then he would appear here and there, and I think—but no, I don’t want to tell this as gospel truth—that his wife expected a baby. And they also know the story of birds and the bees, and they discovered that he had been home. But then he was gone again, and then finally they—Yeah, he went to Dachau. They picked him up somewhere, and he went to the concentration camp in Dachau. You heard of Dachau? One of the infamous German concentration camps. We were there. And I think it was two or three years ago, and then at the gate in wrought iron in a semicircle it says, “Labor—Arbeit—” Interviewer: “‘Arbeit macht frei.’ Yeah.” “Macht frei”. And, of course, that is as ludicrous as it can—as can be, and what they have done to Dachau now is they razed all the barracks. And then after—That was after the war, and then they built a brand new one the way it was at the beginning. And that’s—They sanitized the whole business. The execution place is still there and with the three crosses, and—Now maybe I’m not very organized in all that I say because things are popping up. (30:03) Interviewer: “That’s okay. All right. Now did the Dutch minister survive Dachau, or did he die there?” He survived, and he wrote a book under the title Hell and Heaven in Dachau where he pointed out the typical—For the Nazis. Not Germans, but the Nazis. And it’s a different breed. The inconsistency of Nazism. Like sometimes they had to clean the sidewalk with a toothbrush. I think that book has been translated into English, but I’m not certain. But something in the back of my mind—It has been translated, but the title escapes me. Interviewer: “All right. Well, I mean, that’s sort of a side issue as far as your story goes, so we’re primarily interested in recording kind of what you witnessed and experienced.” Yeah. Well, what we—what I witnessed at four o’clock, May 10, 1940—The German plane was flying overhead, and they tried to surround the city of The Hague with paratroopers. But they— Their main purpose failed, and, yeah, then slowly on they kind of tightened the screws. Newspapers had to be restricted in what they could print. Magazines were censored. (32:03) Again, lack of freedom and the lack of justice. If you ride a bike on the street and somebody wanted it—“The bike is mine.” And when I went to Rotterdam on my bike, which is maybe twenty miles, and I saw that city smoldering—Terrible stench. And now they put a statue there of a man with his arms up. Had been made by a man by the name of Zadkine. Z-D—I think it was Polish. And he has a great, big hole in his body, and the Germans—Excuse me. The Dutch �very soon called it John Asshole. Not a very polite word, but that’s—I mean, that’s the reality. They nicknamed it. Yeah, ask me some questions. Interviewer: “Okay. All right. Now your seminary remained open. You were able to continue to go to school for a while?” I was in high school yet, and in ‘42, I graduated from high school and went to seminary close to the city where I was born. And then there was—We—They sent us home again in ‘42. In ’43. January ‘43. (34:03) They closed the seminary because it was too tempting for the Germans just to go there and pick up a couple of carloads of young men because everyone over eighteen had to go to Germany. And did I say this already? That—Oh, yeah, I mentioned the word “razzia”. In Rotterdam and in The Hague, too, where I lived, they just stopped everybody on the street. And yeah, I’m a seminarian. Never mind even if you’re a cousin to Hitler, you still have to go to Germany, and one of my high school classmates went to Germany. And he never returned. He was killed in an air raid. Interviewer: “Okay. Now, even though your seminary was closed, you still had the status of a seminarian? You had a different thing marked on your identification papers, or…?” Yeah, I had—Yeah, I had a piece of paper that I was a seminarian. Interviewer: “So what did you do after the seminary closed?” Stuff that my folks didn’t know and shouldn’t know because no one talked about what happened and what you did. That was also, yeah, a code of ethics. You just didn’t talk about it. Like I had a little crystal set—and don’t ask me how it works—but I could listen to the British radio, and the Germans work in the same frequency as the British radio. And it went, “Woo, woo.” They interrupted it so that—That was a very loud one, so you had to be very careful listening to it because everyone out on the street could hear it. (36:10) And it was a sign of extreme weakness that you may not listen to what the other one has to say. Extreme weakness. Yeah, what else? Interviewer: “Okay. Well, did you get involved at all with the resistance, or did you know people who were in it?” I was in it. Yeah, I listened to the British radio and then wrote bulletins and send them to a friend of mine and gave them to a friend of mine who was a law student, and he worked—of all things—at the Peace Palace. By the way, in 1913, the Peace Palace in The Hague—Beautiful building, enormous grounds, very well-kept. And the Peace Palace was opened in 1913, and a practical joker in August ‘14 attached a sign to the gate. The sign said, “For rent,” when the first war broke out. “For rent.” And so I went to the Peace Palace, and we exchanged ideas there. And that some of them are later put into print, but, again, do you know any Latin? Interviewer: “A little.” And—“Nomina sunt odiosa.” Names are not to be mentioned. That was a principle of resistance, and one day we were at home. (38:10) And my—Somehow my dad got a hold of one of these �printed pages. I don’t know how he got a hold of it, and my dad was a smart man. Well, he said—Then I told him. I said, “Hey, it’s seems to be good on the Russian front.” “How do you know?” he said. I said, “Look. What is—” Because then I pointed at my dad. I said, “Look what this bulletin has to say.” He did not know that his own son had written that bulletin, and I saw the purpose of these bulletins not so much the bearer of truth but to build up morale. And yeah, the Russians are beaten back. The Germans are beaten back on the Russian front, and I made a long story of it. And my dad said— “Yeah,” he said when he saw that, and, again, I don’t know how he got a hold of it. When he saw it, well, he said, “But that’s written by Dutch army officers.” I didn’t contradict him, and I don’t think I ever did. Interviewer: “Now how did you get started doing that?” Slowly on because I had that crystal set that you could listen to the British radio, and I don’t know how I got started doing it. Interviewer: “Okay, but somehow your friend, the law student, must have found out, or you told him or something.” Yeah. Oh, yeah, he knew it. He knew it. Yeah. Interviewer: “All right. Now did you know of people who were involved in the resistance who got caught by the Germans or arrested?” (40:05) Oh, yeah. You know, I said, “Why did you [?] like me?” Did you ever hear—You heard the name of Witte Travel on 28th Street? He is dead—also used to live in this building—and we were very good friends for years already. And he died a while ago—I think two years ago—and he was really involved in the Dutch resistance. He was a policeman—the Coast Guard—and so he walked around in uniform. But one day they caught him and stuck him in jail and did not treat him very kindly. He told me a couple of things about it, and on the day of liberation, May 5, 1944—No, 1945. He was in prison in Amsterdam, and he could see through a crack in the window that people were celebrating in front of the prison. But he was still under lock and never knowing would the Germans still come and out of spite still kill him, and they did a lot of that stuff. Like on the day of liberation the Dutch people were celebrating on the dam square—that’s just D-A-M, no N—in front of the royal palace, and at the corner was a hotel with a balcony. (42:08) And they set up a machine gun and start firing into the crowd, and I think they killed some twenty, twenty-five people there out of spite. Like what they also did is, out of spite—You know what a polder is? Interviewer: “Well, you can explain that because this audience won’t know what one is.” Pardon? Interviewer: “The audience for this will not know what a polder is.” No. A polder is a piece of sea, and they build a dike around it and then empty it so it can be used for agricultural purposes. And they—Out of spite, they blew the dike in one of these polders, and �so the thing was flooded again. Millions of dollars of damage—farms, farmland—but they didn’t care. And so it had to be dried again and then—I think it was saltwater, and then you have to put gypsum on it and kind of plow it—I don’t know exactly how that works. I’m not a chemist, although I was—At first, I would go to be a doctor, but I quit that very soon because chemistry was not my cup of tea. Interviewer: “All right. You were talking about the Germans sort of wrecked things on the way out or as they were about to surrender.” Yeah, yeah, and then when they—After they surrendered, they—Did you ever hear of the enclosure dike? (44:00) That’s—There is a kind of an inner sea connected to the North Sea— saltwater—and there is an enclosure dike, I think, some fifteen miles. And they just let the Germans walk home maybe also out of spite, but—Instead of putting them on trucks. Well, bridges were blown, railroads were impossible, so there was no transportation. Finally, when I went back to seminary in the end of ‘45—No, in the summer of ‘45. Then we had to zigzag across the Netherlands because all these bridges were gone, and in those days we just blessed the Bailey bridges. Did you ever hear of a Bailey bridge? Just like a—Pieces they put together, and then you can make bridges out of it. You can make whatever you want out of it. Interviewer: “Right, right. The military engineers kind of built these replacement bridges. Portable ones. Right.” I don’t know how many bridges there are in Holland, of course, with all these rivers and canals, but the main ones were gone. All the raw material of the railroads were stolen, and we had to start from scratch. When I went back to seminary, I had to hitchhike. There were simply no transportation. Interviewer: “Okay. I want to back up a little bit back into the war years themselves. Now do you remember hearing about the D-Day landings in Normandy in ‘44?” Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Interviewer: “Did you view that as significant or special at the time, or…?” (46:05) That was the turning point in the war for us because we knew this was the beginning of the end, and then the Germans had a very clever way of indicating that they were retreating. I remember when they were retreating in Germany—In Russia. Then the German official bulletin said that heavy fighting, for instance, was going on east of Smolensk—that’s a city in Russia somewhere—but the Russians were beaten back with heavy losses on their part. Couple days later, the official German bulletin said, “The Russians were beaten back with heavy losses on their part west of Smolensk,” which is one way of admitting, “We’re retreating.” And you could never trust these bulletins, of course. We could trust what came from the BBC, and we blindly believed it. Maybe it was overblown a bit at times, but we needed it. Interviewer: “Well, their policy was mostly to actually be accurate and tell the truth because they wanted people to believe them and not the Nazis, so a lot of it would have �been—Okay. Now what about when the British tried to attack through the Netherlands and—to go to Arnhem? Were you paying special attention to that?” “A bridge too far”. Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, my wife was kind of working as a supervisor in a boarding school for Dutch girls of nobility, and one of them—I forget her name. I’ll ask her. One of them was Dutch—Yeah, was Dutch nobility, and the boarding school was right across from the “bridge too far”. (48:29) So I think in June, July ‘44, she left there, went back home. Was getting too dangerous. And a couple of years—I think two and a half years ago was the last time we were in Holland, and then our kids wanted to see the “bridge too far”. And, you know, the “bridge too far” was half—was—They came as far in ‘44 as Nijmegen. That is—There are a couple of rivers there—the Rhine and the Meuse and the Waal—and Nijmegen had a bridge across the Waal. And Arnhem had a bridge across the Rhine, and there was a little town. Maybe they were twenty miles apart. There was a little town halfway, and that’s as far as the Allied came. And they couldn’t get any further, and it lasted like that all winter. And then we had the infamous Hunger Winter. We were evacuated by the Germans because they declared that little fishing harbor to be part of a fortress. (50:05) They tore down a lot of houses there and made a tank trap there—deep canal—and built bunkers in the middle of the city. I don’t know what they came—what came of these bunkers because it is solid concrete, and there were houses right next door to it. So the only way to demolish it would be with—Not with dynamite, but with power tools. Because if they would’ve used dynamite, then many of these houses would’ve been demolished, too. Interviewer: “Okay. Now this was in The Hague that you’re talking about?” In The Hague. Right. Yeah. Interviewer: “Okay, so where did they evacuate you to? Just another part of town or farther away?” We—Some people had to go away to—Whose jobs were not supposed to be essential. They had to move to the eastern part of the Netherlands, and because my dad was a minister, we could stay around there. But we had to move out of that circle of that fortress. If you go by streetcar—A streetcar went through that part, but as soon as you came into that part, the conductor had to lock the doors of the—So nobody could get out, and as soon as you’re out of it again, he opened the doors again. And they tore down a lot of—Was beautiful piece of woods behind our house. (52:04) They tore half of it down, and there was a grassy area. I think it was used as a parade ground once, and they put up all kinds of what they called Rommel’s asparagus. That’s poles, and they’re connected with barbed wire—interconnected—so that paratroopers could not land there. Well, they never tried. What happened—They—The Allies in April ‘45 dropped food. I’ll show you some of it, and—Which was more of a token than it really helped because you cannot feed four million people who’s starving out of planes. And the Americans dropped boxes about this by this by this, and we knew right away—Because I was with the underground, we were called up, we were told to go to certain drop areas where they dropped that food, and we knew right away in these boxes where the cigarettes were. So we had a knife, we rush, and right away there was no cigarette left in any of these boxes because we had no cigarettes. Now they—I don’t know what they made them from. It was junk. (54:05) My—One of my professors in seminary �smoked what he called headache tobacco. It was homemade. I don’t know how it was made, but he said, “It gives me headache.” Interviewer: “Okay. Now when those drops got made, did the Germans try to get to the boxes before you did, or…?” There were—A piece of paper was glued to every box. If a German tries to interfere, he is considered to be a war criminal, and there were—was German—The Gestapo was walking around. They hardly did look at it because they knew that the game was over, and they were smarter than messing with it. And then these boxes were mainly brought to hospitals and maybe old age home. I don’t know. We were just told to pick them up and to put them somewhere and then leave them alone, but we did get—Because we were terribly underfed, of course, after that Hunger Winter. Yes, I did eat tulip bulbs and sugar beets. That is not just a story that’s making the rounds, but that’s the truth. And I have seen the Holocaust, so people who want to deny the Holocaust don’t know what they’re talking about. And then after a day work carrying all these boxes—And the British pulled in guinea bags. (56:05) That was dangerous because sometimes one of these bags would land on one of these poles and slide down, and I’ve seen a kid who was working there, too. And he was eating butter. I said, “Man, you’re nuts. You cannot afford it because your stomach won’t take it anymore.” Well, didn’t take very long, and he’s sitting somewhere in the corner and moaning and groaning. But we got a tin of bacon along home, and somehow my mother still had a couple of chickens. So we ate ham and eggs, and a day or so later, the Canadians came in because, you know, the Canadians followed the coast and liberated Holland. Most of it. The Americans did some because they were further east, and I was sitting on the side—by the side of the highway. I didn’t want to miss the arrival of the Canadians, but I couldn’t do anything else but sit. I was so sick. I was so sick because I ate too much of stuff that I shouldn’t have eaten. Oh, but it tasted so good. Interviewer: “All right. Now you had mentioned that you’d seen the Holocaust. What did you mean by that?” I’ve seen, first of all, Jews walking around with the Star of David—“Jew”—and I’ve seen trainloads of Jews being carried away to Poland. (58:03) Many Jews never returned, and I don’t know—No, I better not say this because I can’t vouch for it that it is true. The cruelties. But yeah, again, the total lack of any justice. “Why a person?” “Because he’s a Jew.” Interviewer: “Okay. Now, during the war, did you have any idea what was happening to them, or did you only learn that later?” I think we only heard of it later, but we had suspected it because German police was walking next to these trains that were on their way to Poland. And, you know, interesting thing. I told you about Dachau, and Dachau has been sanitized. You still can see it. Auschwitz is in Poland. I’ve never been there, but a very good friend of mine, John Witte—He has been there in Auschwitz. He said, “That’s where you see what a concentration camp is.” The Poles left it the way they found it instead of cleaning it up. �Interviewer: “All right. Now when you were arrested by the Germans, did they take you to Germany, or did you just stay in Holland for those four days?” No, I stayed in Holland for four days, and it was kind of providence. Yeah, of course, I strongly believe in providence, and—But when I was in a concentration camp—Then the last day I didn’t feel very well, and then, all of a sudden, my number was called. You know, you all had a number? (1:00:16) And I also kind of hit myself, and I don’t know where that piece of cotton is on which the number is stenciled. But, all of a sudden, I heard number so-and-so. I even forgot my number. “Number so-and-so, you have to come to the office.” I felt as fine as I ever did— mind over matter—and I went to the office. And they told me to go home. Interviewer: “How long did it take for things to get back to some kind of normal after the Allied Forces showed up?” Well, again, they first occupied a southern part. What we in Holland—We called below the rivers, and that was in the fall of—Yeah, the fall of ‘44, and then when the Germans surrendered, then the northern part came, which is the most heavily populated. And then very slowly on my sister—My brother was engaged. No, he was married already. His father-in-law was in city government, and he already—And he has—Was a baker. (1:02:11) Yeah, not just—I don’t know how many stores they had in the city, and he already had said, “Don’t you ever think that as soon as the war is over there will be enough again.” I remember that when the war was over—I mentioned in April they dropped that food, and then after liberation, trucks were waiting south of the rivers with food. And it took quite a while before you can supply enough for five million people, so slowly on there was—still was rationing after the war. And I remember that during the war, it was a virtue to escape that rationing, and the resistance sometimes would raid offices where the coupons were and distributed them. And during the war, we made use of that, and then after the war, I said—We said, “No. No, there is a real government again.” And, at first, it was a form of resistance against the Germans—against the Nazis—to try to get away from it, but as soon as the war is over, we shouldn’t do this anymore. (1:04:08) I remember once my dad had a—was minister in a place, and I think that place doesn’t exist anymore. It may well have been taken over by the Amsterdam Airport, which is these enormous runways for these flights across the ocean and to Tokyo. So I would not be amazed if that would be runway now, and—But during the war, I went there once by train and picked up a suitcase full of wheat and other stuff. Edibles. I came to that farm, and all the doors were locked, those close to Amsterdam. All the doors were locked. Finally, I went to the house part of the farm, and then I saw them sitting at— having dinner. And then they saw me and strongly apologized that I was not able to get in. I said, “Oh, I understand that.” Because people came there—“Can we have one potato?” He said, “Sorry. I can’t because in no time flat I’ll be out of potatoes.” But he supplied us, of course, and I carried a heavy suitcase of wheat. And I don’t know what all was in there, and it was a—Yeah, a real outcome for us. (1:06:02) Yeah, what did you ask again? Interviewer: “Well, I was asking sort of about the transition back to peacetime, and you talk about the rationing continued and—” �Yeah, that went slowly. Rationing also disappeared slowly, but to provide for a country that is— has no supplies left because much of it was stolen by the Germans, too—Like cows they took to Germany, and that has to be replenished. And that doesn’t work overnight. Interviewer: “Right. Okay. Now yourself. You said you went back to the seminary then after the war was over?” Yeah. Interviewer: “Okay, and then did you complete a degree there?” Yeah. Degree. Interviewer: “And then after that, what did you do?” Then I got married and went into a parsonage close to Rotterdam, and, yeah, as I said, my dad— My wife was only child. And my dad—My father-in-law was in the grain business—import, export—so he didn’t have much to do during the last year or so of the war. Interviewer: “And then did you stay as a minister for a long time or just a short time or…?” I was—We were in Holland in a ministry in about a year and a half. And then one day I come home, and my wife said, “There’s a guy been here from Canada, and he’ll come back tomorrow.” He had—was on vacation in the Netherlands, and he heard a minister preach. (1:08:08) And he walked up to him, and he talked to him about Canada. And the guy said, “Sorry.” He said, “Two weeks ago, I was installed in this church.” He said, “I can’t very well think about it.” “Do you know somebody else?” Then he mentioned me because I had talked to him a couple of years earlier. You know, in those days, immigration was in the air. Holland had been locked up for five years, and then, all of a sudden, immigration started. And they went by the boatload. By the boatload and in troopships, so that was not the most comfortable way of shipping. And churches were opening up in Canada, Australia, New Zealand because people wanted to get away from the confinement. Yeah, and Holland is a small country. A farmer with a couple of sons—He only had one farm, and you couldn’t split it up. Although there is one very, very conservative place in Holland where they—where the farmer has two sons they just divide the land in a small, very—sometimes very narrow piece, and—Yeah, but someday you run out of it, and that’s one of the reason that immigration started also. (1:10:07) Interviewer: “All right, so then—You then met this person, and did he convince you to go to Canada?” No. Oh, yeah, he came to our house, and we talked about it. Most of us right away felt, “Hey. That is something.” And then a bit later—couple of weeks later—a fat letter came in the mail from Canada, and we said right away, “That’s a call letter.” And yeah. Then we accepted that call and went to Canada. �Interviewer: “Okay, and where in Canada did you go?” We went to Essex, Ontario. That’s right across—It’s—Windsor was part of my parish, and then we stayed there for a couple of years. Six years. Then we went to London, Ontario, and from there we got a call to Grand Rapids. And we—And that’s the church where we—from which we retired. Interviewer: “Okay, and which church was that?” East Paris on East Paris Avenue here in town. Interviewer: “Okay. All right. Now if you look back on that whole experience during the wartime and when the Germans were there and so forth, are there particular things that you think you learned from it or lessons that came out of that or things that maybe affected the way you view the world?” (1:12:00) You know, there is one hymn. “He leadeth me by His own hand. He leadeth me. His faithful follower I will be, for by His hand He leadeth me.” And we—All through our life, we’ve experienced that in so many different ways. The way we met. A lot of people called she a coincidence. I attended a student conference in Switzerland as a delegate from our student body. I was a member of the student senate, and then afterwards—It was in ‘46. Afterwards, we were invited by families in Switzerland to stay there sometime, and I went there with another Hollander. And, you know, Switzerland has not been touched by the war, and these people had heard about the Hunger Winter. And they really fed us, and then, at the given moment, I said, “I’m going home.” And that Swiss lady was kind of upset, but [?] “Is it not good enough here?” I said, “Yes, it is, but I’m going.” And I come home in my room in the seminary town, and I find a note there that I had to attend another conference—a student conference—in Holland. (1:14:04) So I went, and my dad said, “What are you? A student or an eternal conference goer?” But I went anyways, and there I met—saw two girls walking there. And I said, “Hey. That girl is mine,” and she still is. You see these flowers around here? We just celebrated our sixtieth anniversary, and we have not regretted it. Oh, sometimes I’m sure she says to herself, “I could wring his neck,” but she’s never done it yet. I don’t think she ever even came close to it. Interviewer: “All right. Okay. Is there anything else you’d like to add to the story here before we close out the interview?” Like I said, “He leadeth me.” The way we met, the way we went to Canada, all through, and that’s also—I’m almost eighty-nine next month. Next month too old to be eighty-nine. My wife is eighty-seven, and that always has given us strength because we know that you won’t be there that long anymore. But also then, when we depart from this world, “He leadeth me. By His own hand He leadeth me.” And that gives us joy, peace, satisfaction, and yeah. Interviewer: “I think that makes a pretty good way to close an interview, so thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us today.” Good. (1:16:17) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bauma, Gerard (Interview transcript and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bauma, Gerard Description An account of the resource Gerry Bauma lived in the Netherlands during World War II. As a seminary student, he had the opportunity to live in the times without having to go into forced labor as many of his friends did, although he was at one point caught up in a German sweep and sent to a forced labor camp, where he stayed until the seminary arranged for him to be released. He also observed the initial German attempt to capture the Hague by air, and after the surrender took his bike up to Rotterdam to inspect the bomb damage. He got a radio during the war, and passed along things he learned to a friend who ran an underground newspaper. He survived the "Hunger Winter" of 1944-45, and emigrated to Canada shortly after the war. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-02-08 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BaumaG1076V Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/359e1ba45bfe1360b2647355b7d70c3b.mp4 f7650b5cce9c01c781ce03a7b39da484 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/340fd0fd0e859d7b42719310c8495839.pdf 0e4621506b30c8b572be77996b1917fd PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Jonathan Richard Bates (00:30:04) (0:34) Background of Army career • Joined in 1983 when in college o Wanted to serve country o Other family members had served o Wanted to learn new stills o Money for college • Part of the Michigan National Guard (1:41) Job assignment in Iraq • Army Advisor with the Iraqi Army from 2004-2005 • Saw combat (2:14) Most memorable moment • Spent a year in Iraq • Imbedded with the Iraqi Army as their American Liaison • In 15 missions with them and over 200 patrols (3:40) Casualties • In Bates’ company of 60-plus men, 2 killed and 17 wounded o Those injured/killed were from rocket or mortar attacks and sniper fire when on patrols o Bates is proud because compared to other companies, his did not lose many men (4:40) Provisions • At the American base, plenty of provisions • When with the Iraqi Army would get food from markets, locals, street, the army itself o Ate spam, bread, goat brains, pigeon, etc. (6:10) Free time • Used laptop or iPod • Get to know Iraqi soldiers; became great friends o Talked about family, friends, politics, religion o Danced, sang o Shared culture o Practiced for combat- first aid training and basic land navigation • Usually not a lot of free time because a lot was going on in the area • Still in touch with a lot of Iraqi friends by email (8:40) Holidays • Bates was in Kuwait during Thanksgiving; just ate Thanksgiving dinner in the mess hall and then went back to his tent • Spent Christmas in Iraq where he played dominos • Celebrated a lot of Iraqi holidays �(10:17) Skills learned • Language – learned a bit of Arabic • Tolerance o Their democracy won’t be the same as US democracy because we are two different cultures o There are a lot of parallels between there struggle for freedom and our struggle for freedom from Britain o Rich in history, tradition, and wonderful people (12:37) Outside of the military • Teaches elementary school • Musician • A dad (13:27) Lessons learned • Tolerance • More worldly • Time in military made him more aware of the things going on in the world • Only 2% of the US population serves in the military; wishes more would serve (14:59) Bates’ absence and the impact on his family • Family had a great support system o The church was instrumental as was the school • Bates was gone for 12 months (17:42) Homecoming • Awesome to get home • Very difficult to leave Iraq because formed like a “Band of Brothers” with the Iraqi soldiers • Celebration at the airport; lots of family and friends as well as a few television stations (21:55) Going to Iraq • Just started teaching PE • Got a phone call that said, “You’re going to the sandbox.” • Went with the 98th Division of NY • Had one month to prepare which was longer than most soldiers get • The elementary school he was teaching at was wonderful o Told he could have his job back when he returned and that they would take care of his family in his absence o Allowed Bates time off before he left and also when he got back o Threw a big celebration for him upon his return (24:20) Training for the Army • Was a college music major and joined the National Guard Band o Also trained in combat • In college joined the ROTC program to be an officer; wanted to be a pilot but that didn’t work out so went to band and then became a drill sergeant o Trained in infantry o Went to various schools like NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical), etc. • Bates is a professional soldier �(26:10) Life now • Still in the Army • In back of mind, worries will be sent back to Iraq • Feels Iraq is a worthy cause and is willing to die for it • The US has done good things in Iraq; got rid of Saddam Hussein just as the WWII generation got rid of Hitler o Iraqis say that Saddam Hussein was worse than Hitler • Wishes people would not call the war pointless or stupid because the men and women serving this country are sacrificing so much � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bates, Jonathan Richard (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bates, Jonathan Richard Description An account of the resource Jonathan Richard Bates is a Veteran of the Iraq War and has been serving in the United States Army since 1983. In this interview, Bates discusses his recent tour of duty in Iraq. As an Army Advisor for the Iraqi Army, Bates has unique insight into the Iraqi culture and people. With the Iraqi Army Bates went on 15 missions and over 200 patrols. His story is one that shows although Iraq and the United States are two different cultures, each has a rich history that often parallels the other, such as the fight for democracy. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Page, Ashley (Interviewer) Forest Hills Eastern High School (Ada, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Iraq War, 2003-2011--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-06-04 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BatesJ Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5070a0c5138c5cbc4be23f0d08b42b2c.mp4 9fc1754c5b6d8d50b6571c43ed53f390 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/21875262f2e23f892294e1f2bf5a7c05.pdf e188a7e51f4c2da915694e592a48d731 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Norman Batch (47:26) Pre-Enlistment • Born in 1925 (0:25) • In Muskegon, MI (0:45) • Moved to a farm in Hooblerville, MI (01:00) • Received a deferment from the service so he could work on the farm (01:45) • Got into a disagreement with his father, so he left and volunteered for the service (02:00) • Graduated high school in 1944 (02:25) • Father chopped wood for a living (02:45) • Was in 10th grade when Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor (03:45) • Went straight from high school to the service (04:00) Enlistment • Was sent to Detroit for his physical, passed and sent back home (04:30) • Told his parents he was going into the service (04:45) • Sworn in at Fort Sheridan in Chicago, IL (05:00) • Volunteered for the Air Corps, but ended up in the Army (05:20) • Was sent to Camp Craught in South Carolina for boot camp (06:00) • First day they ran a mile, then 2 miles, and did exercises (07:00) • Did mostly exercise first week, second week was running (07:20) • Had boot camp through the summer, June through September (07:50) • Half of his group went to Pacific, half went to Europe (08:40) Deployment • He was sent to Europe aboard the Queen Elizabeth (08:45) • Got a little ways out into the Atlantic, and found German subs waiting for them (09:20) • Had to change course and took them several days extra, and landed in Scotland instead of Southampton, England (09:50) • Took a train to England (10:00) • Spent 2 weeks in England, waiting to embark across the Channel (10:30) • Got on LSTs and went across the Channel (11:15) • Had to swim in to shore because the harbor was destroyed (11:30) • Slept in a red barn on top of a hill (12:15) • Headed inland by truck the next day (12:30) • First battle was in Metz, a fort city with walls around it (13:00) • Had to go house to house driving the Germans out (13:15) • A German threw a hand grenade at him and jumped out the window (14:20) • Grenade was a dud, people outside caught him (14:30) �• • Most ammunition the Germans had were duds (14:50) Moved on to Belgium (15:40) Battle of the Bulge • Moved in to Germany and the Battle of the Bulge broke out (16:00) • Had to travel 35 miles in one night to save the 101st Airborne in Bastogne (16:45) • He was in the 80th Division in the 3rd Army under General Patton (17:00) • Became trapped on a hill in the south of the city (17:25) • 200 men trapped for 5 days because all the tanks ran out of gas (17:45) • Many men killed and wounded on the hill (18:35) • Ran out of food on the 5th day and had little water (19:00) • Had the Ardennes Forest to their backs (19:15) • Heard tanks in the forest, thought it was German tanks, but it was the Americans (19:45) • Happened on Christmas Day, 1944 (20:30) • Was fighting with different divisions when he was wounded by a mortar shell, sent back to England (21:15) • Friend killed (21:20) • Wasn’t sure if the Germans captured him or the Americans found him (23:00) • Couldn’t feel his extremities at first (23:15) • Was sent back to France after he was healed (23:45) • War ended while he was in the hospital (24:10) Post War • Had to guard German POWs and make sure French soldiers didn’t harm them (25:00) • Ended up guarding SS troopers (25:30) • Got along well with French soldiers (26:50) • Was shipped to Vos, Belgium to take care of the cemetery (27:50) • Had friends buried at that cemetery (28:20) • Had to show parents where their children were buried (28:30) • Got an office job there because he could type (29:15) • Transferred to another cemetery in Holland (29:45) • Stayed with a family in Holland (30:00) • Was in Holland for 2 months (30:50) • Then sent back to France, delivering mail for a short time (31:15) • Got pneumonia from delivering mail in the cold, had to go to Charleroi to go to the hospital (32:30) • Was supposed to be shipped back home, but was in the hospital so he couldn’t go home right away (32:50) • Travelled to Scotland, England, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Germany and Holland during his time in the service (35:50) Back the United States • Travelled back to the United States by Liberty Ship (37:20) • Hit a hurricane on the way home (37:45) �• • • • • • • • • • • • Almost went overboard during the hurricane, but only lasted for 4 or 5 hours (38:50) Took 4 days to get to New York City (39:35) Was processed in Fort Dix, New Jersey (39:50) Discharged at Camp Atterbury, IN (39:55) Took a train to South Bend, then rode a bus to Grand Rapids, then took a bus to Muskegon (40:30) Parents didn’t know he was coming home that day (41:25) Didn’t want to work when he got home (41:45) Received 300 dollars for discharge (42:00) Loaded furniture for a little bit, but quit soon after because of the boss (42:30) Took a job with Dreser Industries, and retired from there in 1990 (44:15) Belongs to the VA in Grand Rapids (44:30) Gets the Division newsletter (45:00) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Batch, Norman (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Batch, Norman Description An account of the resource Norman Batch was born in 1925 in Muskegon, Michigan. Since he was raised on a farm, he received 6 months of deferred service, but ended up enlisting on his own. He served in the 80th Division of the 3rd Army under General Patton, and fought at Metz and in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he guarded German POWs and took care of cemeteries until his service was up. He came back to Grand Rapids and worked until he retired in 1990. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McCauslin, Kelly (Interviewer) Spring Lake District Library (Spring Lake, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-06-28 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BatchN Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4cd9778e9d80b14d421894c928d3fe39.mp4 3c8de6d5556a641ff830cef713437a92 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a6ddcf60f269a1c1fd0faa69fcb1367c.pdf 97c308242c202745fed16e85c99a8987 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Dennis Bassett part 2 Vietnam / Cold War Interview Length: (02:29:29:00) Vietnam Tour Recap (00:00:04:00)  Bassett’s tour of duty in Vietnam lasted from 1968 through 1969, and he originally as a platoon leader in Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry, 2nd Brigade, 9th Infantry Division (00:00:04:00) o The soldiers Bassett commanded were pretty good, although the farm boys were a little bit better than the city boys because the farm boys were more comfortable outdoors (00:00:57:00)  If Bassett made the soldiers comfortable and they knew that Bassett knew what he was doing, then they would go along (00:01:11:00)  At certain points of time, the situation would go wrong rapidly and every would look to Bassett, asking for direction, and these were the moments Bassett realized he needed to step up and lead the soldiers (00:01:18:00)  If Bassett did the right thing at the right time, based instinctively on his training, then the other soldiers followed him (00:01:45:00)  Of the soldiers that Bassett traveled with at the front of his platoon, one was a Hispanic from California, another was from Colombia, another was a potato farmer from Idaho, and another was a kid from Saginaw, Michigan (00:02:11:00)  They were normal guys thrown together with different backgrounds but they coalesced during their tours (00:02:45:00)  The normal Army policy was to keep an officer as a platoon leader for six months, so after his six months were up, Bassett was pulled up to be an assistant to the 2nd Brigade intelligence officer (S-2) (00:03:39:00) o Because Bassett had a Ranger and an Infantry background, part of his job was whenever long-range patrols were assigned to 2nd Brigade, he would organize and oversee their operations; coordinate their drop off/pick up and maintain communications (00:03:53:00)  Eventually, the Army brought in a compact, tripod-mounted radar set and they ordered Bassett to form a team that would erect different radio sets throughout their province (00:04:50:00) o Each unit in the brigade designated a soldier, usually someone the commander wanted to get rid of, and they, along with Bassett, all went to a class about the radar sets (00:05:16:00)  The sets were ground reconnaissance radar and Bassett and his men had to develop a way to get them into the field (00:05:29:00)  Not all of the men assigned to Bassett were extremely bright; however, even the mentally dull soldiers would still work, so Bassett would find jobs that suited them (00:05:41:00) � o Eventually, the soldiers developed towers to mount the radar sets on that separated into two parts and could be erected in various MACV Regional Forces (RF) compounds around the province (00:06:10:00)  Bassett did not do much at all except watch as the soldiers went to work; as it turned out, the soldiers were very clever in doing their work (00:06:33:00) o Early on, Bassett had trouble maintaining communications with all his soldiers because whenever the soldiers mounted a radar set in one of the RF compounds, they would stay at the compound to show the other soldiers who and what was around the compound (00:06:50:00) o At one point, Bassett went on R&R to Hawaii and when he came back, there was a jeep and trailer waiting for him, with his name, a radar symbol, and the letters OIC (Officer-In-Charge) written on the top of the spare tire on the back (00:07:07:00) o Eventually, Bassett’s NCO said they had set up an antenna so Bassett could talk with all his soldiers; however, when a captain came around asking if Bassett had taken an antenna and if it was Bassett’s but Bassett lied and said that they had had the antenna for months (00:07:32:00) o When his unit was eventually pulled out of the area, Bassett tried turning in the equipment that his men had procured but the soldier in charge said he could not take the equipment because they were not on his records; to this day, Bassett does not know what happened to his jeep (00:08:09:00)  Nevertheless, the jeep was very helpful because if one of the radar units ever went down, since it was a 24/7 operation, Bassett and his men needed to get a replacement out immediately and they used the jeep and the trailer to help move equipment (00:08:38:00) o Bassett does not know exactly how effective the radar sets were because the sets were only in the testing phase but he and his soldiers still had fun with them (00:09:32:00)  On different occasions, Bassett would spend three or four days at a compound making sure the radars worked properly and at different points, he would point out enemies to the soldiers in the compound, who would often launch an M-79 grenade to where Bassett indicated (00:09:40:00) o The radar sets themselves were no more than a foot and a half tall with a fan mounted on the back that would sweep back and forth while one of Bassett’s soldier would be below it, looking at a screen (00:10:30:00) When Bassett served in the brigade headquarters, the brigade commander was a very demanding man, although many times, his demands did not make sense (00:12:05:00) o On a normal day, the commander would return to the headquarters ship and after eating a meal, would have a meeting with all his staff around seven o’clock in the evening that lasted roughly two hours (00:12:13:00)  Some of the time was spent by the commander ranting and raving about different things and once the meeting was finished, the commander would give out different missions to accomplish (00:12:34:00) �  The staff officers would work on the missions while also preparing for the morning briefing, which was at around five or six o’clock in the morning (00:12:50:00)  After the morning briefing, the officers would run a normal cycle before the evening briefing, which was a very tiresome schedule (00:13:01:00)  Eventually, the commanding officer began firing officers because the officers were too confused about their orders (00:13:11:00)  At one point, the brigade XO was so confused that he introduced the headquarters company commander as himself, which caused a small pause; after the incident, the brigade commander fired the XO and sent him to the 4th Infantry Division (00:13:21:00) o The only clever staff officer was the brigade S-1, a career major (00:13:59:00)  The brigade commander was writing so many bad OERs (Officer Efficiency Reports) and the S-1 recognized the commander was unstable, so if the S-1 did not like the report, he would change it (00:14:10:00)  One time, the brigade commander ordered Bassett to be in two different places simultaneously; Bassett repeated the order and said, “yes sir, can do” (00:14:30:00) o The brigade S-3, another major, helped keep stability amongst the officers and reminded the others that there were still sane people in the world (00:14:53:00) o The brigade commander had a personal helicopter to fly him to different locations and it eventually reached the point that soldiers would lie and fake being sick so they did not have to fly with the commander (00:15:22:00) o At one point, the commander ordered a lieutenant to keep him updated as to the situation for a company that had been inserted into the field; when the lieutenant came back and said the company was not inserted, the commander said he was certain that it was (00:15:49:00)  The commander ordered the lieutenant to check again and when the lieutenant reported that the company had not been inserted, the commander accused the lieutenant of lying, ordered the lieutenant to get out of the TOC (Tactical Operations Center), and turning to the brigade S1, said he wanted the lieutenant in the field by morning (00:16:28:00)  The lieutenant did not know anything about operating in the field, so Bassett gave him all of his old equipment and the next day, the lieutenant was in the field; two days later, the lieutenant was wounded (00:16:53:00) o The brigade commander did not last too long but regardless, there was still something wrong with him (00:17:27:00) o Although the original brigade commander was taken out, Bassett does not recall his replacement because it was nearing the end of his tour and the entire Army was slowly falling back, with Bassett’s unit being one of the ones selected to be entirely withdrawn (00:17:44:00)  The brigade was selected to be pulled out but soldiers from all over the division were brought in to bring the unit to full strength before it was brought back to the U.S. (00:18:10:00) During the brigade’s withdrawal from Vietnam, the soldiers were taken off of ships and sent to a base camp on land, where they trained in how to properly march (00:18:27:00) �  o The soldiers were flown out as a group to Seattle, where they had to march through downtown Seattle in new uniforms the Army had issued (00:18:34:00)  Peace movement hippies were at the march but they misjudged the soldiers (00:19:12:00)  Prior to the march, the soldiers were staying at Fort Lewis, just outside Seattle, and on the day of the march, all the soldiers loaded into buses and after the march, they all got back onto buses (00:19:27:00)  Due to the speed of travel, the time between when soldiers were in country and in the United States was compressed (00:19:54:00)  As the soldiers were sitting on the buses, members of the peace movement kept trying to shove pamphlets and pieces of paper with anti-war slogans into the windows (00:20:10:00)  One anti-war guy tried to walk onto Bassett’s bus carrying a Viet Cong flag and Bassett literally kicked him out (00:20:42:00)  The soldiers had the buses’ windows down and as the buses started to move, the hippies kept trying to shove the papers in, so some of the soldiers began grabbing their arms (00:21:07:00) o A similar situation happened to Bassett when he was in Maryland (00:21:46:00) o For Bassett, it was difficult to differentiate between the peace/anti-war movement and the Viet Cong movement because thirty days prior, if he saw someone carrying at Viet Cong flag, he shot at them but now, if he saw someone carrying that flag, he could not do anything (00:21:56:00) Once their processing was complete, all the soldiers broke up and went to the airport in Seattle, where Bassett and a group of other soldiers sat in a bar (00:23:14:00) o In the bar, Bassett and the others “formed a blockade” because they knew that once they left the bar, they were all going their separate ways (00:23:46:00) o Civilians would walk up, asking what the soldiers were doing, and the soldiers would explain that they had just returned from Vietnam; the civilians wanted to join them but the soldiers would not let them (00:24:02:00) Eventually, Bassett caught a plane and returned home, although he does not tell anyone that he was coming home (00:24:43:00) o No one was at Bassett’s home when he got back, so he waited outside in his uniform, took his shoes off, stuck his feet in his pool, and waited for his wife to come home (00:25:09:00) o Before Bassett had left for Vietnam, there was a loose piece of molding and he pounded a nail partially into the molding, with the intention that one year later, he would come back and finish the job (00:25:32:00)  Bassett partially did that for his family because where they were living, it was not uncommon to see an Army car driving by; it drove the wives nuts because sometimes, the cars would slow down in front of their houses to see an address (00:26:12:00)  After Bassett was already home, his wife received a phone call reporting that Bassett had been killed in action; the phone call was not from the Army but was from peace activists (00:26:30:00)  Bassett’s wife responded that it was unusually because Bassett was sleeping in their bed (00:26:58:00) �Ranger Instructor / Language Training (00:26:58:00)  Eventually, Bassett received an assignment to the Ranger department (00:27:14:00) o The Rangers ran three different training bases: one at Fort Benning, Georgia, another in the mountains at Dahlonega, Georgia, and one in Florida; each base represented a different phase of Ranger training (00:27:23:00) o Bassett’s boss in the Rangers happened to be born on exactly the same day and in the same year as Bassett, although he wanted to fire Bassett on the first day Bassett was there (00:27:58:00)  They were supposed to set up a ropes course for the day and Bassett, who had arrived early, had gone to get the ropes and started hooking the ropes up; the boss was upset with Bassett because Bassett had not officially reported to work yet (00:28:10:00)  The boss had told Bassett to be at a certain spot at a certain time and to get certain things ready; Bassett had just arrived early to do the work but the boss did not see Bassett’s car, so he assumed Bassett had not shown up for work (00:28:27:00)  Instead, Bassett had already started doing the work and the boss commended him on his initiative (00:28:38:00)  Bassett’s second assignment with the Rangers was at Fort Benning working as a lane instructor, which was instructor who would take the Ranger trainees out and grade them on their actions (00:29:03:00) o Usually, each trainee would have a different assignment; none of the trainees knew what his individual assignment would be but Bassett knew the assignments for each soldier (00:29:25:00)  Bassett graded each trainee individually, which meant Bassett always had to be present; if they were rainy and cold, then Bassett was rainy and cold (00:29:45:00) o Although Bassett did have some form of power over the trainees, he was not allowed to show favoritism; Bassett could do nothing to interface or hint anything to any of the trainees (00:30:01:00) o The trainees that Bassett oversaw were both officer trainees and candidates as well as enlisted personnel (00:30:25:00)  The Rangers program had two sets of instructors: one set was for the traditional two-and-a-half month training course and the other set was for a two-week long OCS training course (00:30:31:00)  There was also a course for the “shake-n-bake” NCOs, the top-rated NCOs and enlisted personnel during basic training (00:30:50:00)  Both the OCS and “shake-n-bake” courses were abbreviated leadership courses and Bassett was more involved with them over the traditional, long training course (00:31:10:00)  After finishing the training course, Bassett and the other instructors would take the trainees into the woods for a week (00:31:28:00)  Bassett spent roughly a year working at Fort Benning as a line instructor and the reason he moved jobs was because according to Army policy, if at the time the received their � commission, an officer was Regular Army, which Bassett was, then that officer had to spend two years in a combat arm, either infantry, armored or artillery (00:31:50:00) o After the two years, an officer could chose to stay in their particular combat arm or he could go into a specialized branch; Bassett personally chose to go into intelligence (00:32:14:00) After making his decision to go to the intelligence branch, Bassett was sent through a selection process in Washington D.C. (00:32:44:00) o When asked what he wanted to do, Bassett said that he did not know and asked what he could do; Bassett and another man had a circular conversation for several minutes before the other man suggested Bassett try something (00:32:56:00)  The other man said Bassett was going to need language training and suggested Bassett go to German language school; when Bassett asked where he had to go, the man said he needed to check if Bassett had an aptitude for studying a foreign language (00:33:14:00)  The man asked if Bassett was good in math, which Bassett was not, so the man ordered Bassett back to Fort Benning to take a foreign language aptitude test (00:33:36:00) o Bassett went to the testing center at Fort Benning and when he asked what he needed to pass the test, a man at the center said that they preferred soldiers to pass the test with at least at 60 or 70 but the lowest minimum was 40 (00:33:54:00)  Bassett asked what kind of test it was but the man said nothing, except for Bassett to just take the test (00:34:14:00)  The aptitude test consisted of a made-up language and Bassett had to pick out a verb or a specific word; the entire test did not make any sense to Bassett (00:34:18:00)  After he finished the test, Bassett turned it into the proctor, who said he would grade it for Bassett before sending it in officially (00:34:38:00)  Once he graded the test, the proctor told Bassett that he had gotten an 8, a score that the proctor did not recall ever seeing before and the proctor said he did not think Bassett was going to go to language school (00:34:48:00) o Bassett returned to Washington and the man there said because Bassett had scored so low, the man could not send Bassett to language school (00:35:01:00)  Bassett argued that although he was not overly bright, he was very disciplined and if the man sent him to language school, then Bassett was going to learn that language (00:35:15:00)  The man relented, sent Bassett to the language school and true to his word, Bassett “learned” the language; at the school, Bassett did not learn the language so much as he memorized it (00:35:22:00)  Bassett worked four times as hard as everyone else in his classes to pass, while there were some other men who did not do anything in the classes but still managed to learn the language (00:35:41:00)  The hard work eventually paid off when Bassett spent eight years living in Germany (00:36:07:00) Germany 1 / Intelligence Training / Philosophical Discussion (00:36:07:00) �      After completing his language training for German, the Army gave Bassett a deployment to work in Munich, Germany; when he deployed to Germany, Bassett was allowed to bring his family with him (00:37:16:00) Once in Germany, Bassett’s assignment was working in special intelligence collection; the assignment required Bassett’s German language skills in order to develop HUMINT (Human Intelligence) sources (00:37:27:00) o In developing the intelligence sources, Bassett had to use very sensitive methods and procedures (00:38:07:00) o Bassett spent a large amount of time traveling around, meeting different individuals and discussing possible business opportunities; however, with most of the “business opportunities”, only one side was fully knowledgeable about what the full extent of the possibilities were (00:38:15:00) o As a result of his traveling, Bassett had the opportunity to see large amounts of Germany (00:38:33:00) Bassett was in Germany from 1971 until August 1974 (00:38:40:00) o Apart from traveling around Germany, Bassett also took a lot of road trips on a motorcycle to different parts of Europe (00:39:19:00) Where Bassett was stationed in Germany, the soldiers did not have access to any American television media; the soldiers only had access to American radio (00:41:30:00) o The soldiers’ world was contained within their job and their immediate surroundings, so their perception of the political menstruations of the outside world, such as President Nixon’s continued efforts at détente with the Soviets and Chinese were limited (00:41:40:00) o Apart from periodic flareups, there was little going on within their surroundings, so the soldiers viewed the world differently (00:41:59:00)  For people in the United States, they were protected by oceans on two sides and the Chinese did not have missiles capable of reaching them, so what was the point of worrying about them (00:42:12:00)  The soldiers’ world condensed the closer they were to their potential enemy (00:42:19:00) After he completed his tour in Germany in 1974, the Army sent Bassett to the Intelligence Officers Advance Course at Fort Huachuca, Arizona (00:41:40:00) o The course was nine months long and consisted of doing two major papers as well as making a presentation, a large amount of reading and test taking (00:42:49:00) Once he completed the training at Fort Huachuca, Bassett became a training company commander at the fort (00:43:01:00) o In the simplest sense, Bassett was a dorm master; he made sure all the soldiers fell out for formation in the morning, took the soldiers to class, brought the soldiers back from class, fed the soldiers, and ferreted out the bad soldiers so they could be discharged from the Army (00:43:21:00) o The soldiers in Bassett’s company were going through their first round of skill set training for their MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) (00:43:45:00)  Everyone went through the generic basic training and after that, each soldier went into a specific course that trained them in a viable, usable skill for the military (00:43:54:00) �  The MOS for the soldiers in Bassett’s company was intelligence, although they did not all receive the same type of training (00:44:14:00)  Some of the soldiers were going to be maintenance men for the radars Bassett had worked with in Vietnam while others trained to be the radar operators (00:44:24:00)  The MOS for the radar operators was such that if a soldier flunked out of every other school, then they would get that training because it was very simplistic (00:44:54:00)  Although not all the soldiers were brilliant, that did not mean they were all useless; not everyone had to be smart to serve a purpose but each person had to be good at what he did (00:45:14:00) o For some of the soldiers, it was a perfect fit and they provided a service; on the other hand, some of the soldiers were still bums (00:45:36:00) o The Army’s discharge program was such that anyone could be discharged within six months, so long as there was a cause for the discharge (00:45:48:00) o Overall, the quality of the soldiers Bassett commanded at Fort Huachuca were not as good as the quality of the soldiers Bassett commanded during his tour in Vietnam (00:46:32:00)  According to Bassett’s perspective, most of the soldiers killed in Vietnam were white, most were around 19 years old, and most were volunteers (00:46:36:00) Bassett believes that philosophically, within males, there is a curiosity as to whether each man is a warrior or not and that the men who volunteered to fight in Vietnam did so in order to answer that question about themselves (00:47:07:00) o The men also felt a need or calling to support their country, so they volunteered for the Army, specifically with the intentions of going to Vietnam (00:47:32:00) o On the other hand, Bassett believes that other men are afraid to answer the question directly, so they joined either the Army Reserves or the National Guard or they sought an outright deferment (00:47:44:00)  In Bassett’s experience, these men often sought these routes because they were afraid; however, the men covered their fear by making claims such as having philosophical objections to war (00:47:53:00) o Bassett paints the decision very clearly, either a man would chose to go or would chose not go (00:48:20:00) o On several different occasions, Bassett has had others come up to him and confess that they did not have the guts to go to Vietnam, so they enlisted in the Army Reserves instead (00:48:22:00)  Bassett perceives these admissions as the people showing that they carry that fact around out of a sense of guilt (00:48:40:00) o According to Bassett, the only good thing to come out of serving in a war is serving helps answer the question of how an individual would respond in a situation, a question everyone has tried to answer since their birth (00:48:50:00) o Speaking from his personal experiences in the war, the commonly-held conceptions of the war: it was a draftee's war, it was a poor man’s war, and it was largely fought by minorities, were not the case (00:49:47:00) �    When someone was in the field in a line unit, there were not distinctions between the different groups; they were all Bassett’s “boys” and he went with them (00:49:53:00) o Everyone, including the draftees, all had the same training and they all wanted to get out of the fighting alive (00:50:18:00)  In Bassett’s experience, as a result of their training, the soldiers had a sense that if involved in a battle, they should try and kill as many people as possible and not let any of the enemy escape (00:50:26:00)  Often times, Bassett and his men were largely by themselves, without any support for a substantial distance, so they could not afford to let people get away (00:50:47:00)  The soldiers were taught to be aggressive and to treat the fighting as merely a “business” (00:51:40:00) The Army tended to draw a large amount of their forces from the South because that was where a large majority of their military bases were, which meant the soldiers were able to train year-round (00:52:25:00) o Southern men have a tradition of fighting for and, sometimes against, the United States that stretches back to the American Revolution and includes fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War (00:52:32:00)  In some cases, it went so far as a soldier’s great-ancestors had fought in the Army, so it was almost expected that at some point, a child in the next generation was going to serve (00:52:58:00) As time has progressed, Bassett believes people join the military to escape what they perceived as a chaotic, unstructured society; the military represented a more basic, service-based society (00:53:19:00) o In the military, a person’s rank is often based on merit whereas in civilian society, it is possible for someone to achieve a higher standing by having a larger material wealth (00:54:02:00) Bassett finished his time as a training company commander at Fort Huachuca in 1976 then went to a six month counter-intelligence course before serving as a teacher at the fort (00:54:42:00) o Bassett also briefly attended an Organizational Development Course for four months at Fort Ord, California before returning to Fort Huachuca to implement the lessons he had learned (00:55:07:00)  After attending the course, Bassett became something akin to a consultant, who soldiers would go to express concerns about different problems or situations (00:56:02:00)  After hearing complaints, Bassett used a series of different methods and techniques to gain information about a situation before giving his observations and asking what the others wanted to be done (00:56:13:00)  While doing this job, Bassett discovered that when talking with others, the negatives always came before the positives (00:56:41:00)  By taking the course at Fort Ord, Bassett earned nine masters-degree credit hours from Pepperdine University (00:57:08:00) �  The course was very effective because the instructors used a large number of practical exercises (00:57:29:00) In 1978, Bassett’s commanders called with an offer to transfer to a Ranger battalion and work as the battalion’s S-2 (00:58:03:00) o Bassett said he would love to take the job but he had not been to Airborne school yet, a requirement for joining the Rangers; however, his commanders said that would not be a problem (00:58:25:00)  The following week, Bassett was going to go to Airborne school because a slot at the school was open; although Bassett did not like heights, he went to the school anyway (00:58:33:00) o After finishing Airborne school at Fort Benning, Bassett returned to Fort Huachuca, packed up everything and reported to the 2nd Ranger Battalion at Fort Lewis, Washington, just outside of Seattle (00:58:47:00) o Bassett stayed with the 2nd Ranger Battalion from January 1978 until July 1979 (00:59:02:00) o At the time, there were only two Ranger battalions in the entire Army, one of the East coast of the United States and one on the West coast, and they were constantly in a rotation; one battalion would be training while the other was on standby and vice versa (00:59:20:00)  Everyone in the battalion went on leave at the same time, officers included, and the battalion commander had what equated to absolute power (00:59:30:00) o In the time Bassett was there, the battalion was constantly on alert but the battalion never actually deployed (01:00:18:00)  One of the closest times the actually came to deploying was when there were a series of flare-ups in central Africa (01:00:28:00)  The battalion would constantly go through what were labeled as “readiness deployment exercises”, where the battalion would practice deploying based on different time frames, either in a two-, a six-, or an eight-hour time frame (01:01:00:00)  At the end of given time frame, the entire battalion, between five and six hundred soldiers, would be on a plane, flying to a location (01:01:26:00)  During the exercises, the officers would a Learjet and fly out before actually learning what their destination was, whether it was Hawaii, or Georgia (01:01:53:00)  More often then not, the exercises were in the morning and while the rest of the soldiers were packing up, the officers would receive the scenario (01:02:15:00) o During the exercises, Bassett’s soldiers had five jobs: removing the microphones from all the telephones, standing guard, organizing where the soldiers parked, making sure there were not outside forms of communication, and keeping reporters away (01:02:18:00) o Just after Bassett left the Rangers in 1979 for his next assignment was when the situation in Iran involving the Shah began rapidly deteriorating (01:03:17:00) � Before the Shah actually fell, Bassett received a phone call asking if he wanted to go to Iran; Bassett said okay and was told they would be in touch (01:03:44:00) o Bassett could have stayed with the Ranger battalion when his initial service period was finished; however, Bassett was very close to the battalion’s commanding officer, a lieutenant colonel, and decided to transfer with the lieutenant colonel, while a friend of Bassett’s filled the S-2 position (01:04:22:00)  A lot of the battalion staff ended up dying about a month after Bassett left in a night time C-130 crash in Nevada; the pilots were wearing night vision goggles but did not have a lot of experience with them and they flew the entire, fully-loaded plane, into the ground (01:04:58:00) Inspector General’s Office / Travel / Germany 2  After leaving the 2nd Ranger Battalion, Bassett went to the Inspector General’s office, where he had two different jobs (01:05:55:00) o The Inspector General did investigations to monitor the health and welfare of specific units and made sure soldiers were not taken advantage of (01:06:03:00) o Bassett and his co-workers in the office did investigations whenever someone made a complaint about what they perceived to be a problem, performed annual inspections that were known by a unit in advance and would test the unit’s accountability, efficiency, cleanliness, crime prevention, etc. (01:06:26:00)  The inspections usually lasted several days as a whole team of inspectors went through the unit, going over everything from personnel records to the armories (01:06:53:00) o When not performing inspections, whenever soldiers would call asking for an appointment with an inspector general, Bassett would meet with them to discuss whatever was on the soldiers’ minds (01:07:07:00)  During the discussion, the soldier would make a complaint and Bassett would question as to what drove the soldier made the complaint; Bassett would write the complaint down and ask the soldier what he wanted Bassett to do (01:07:32:00)  Bassett would usually make suggestions and observations about what the soldier could do differently to fix any problems (01:08:20:00)  In a basic sense, the Inspector General was a place that soldiers could go to air their grievances without needed permission from their superiors (01:08:28:00) o Although he did the job, Bassett wanted to move on to something else; it was good to help people, especially when Bassett was able to fix a major problem but it took a certain personality to do the job really effectively (01:09:36:00)  After his time at the Inspector General’s office, Bassett traveled to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, where he worked in the Chicago “readiness region”, working with the Army Reserve and National Guard units throughout Wisconsin and Iowa (01:11:21:00) o Bassett did not like doing the job, but he had good soldiers working for him, so he shut his mouth and drank coffee (01:12:16:00) �   Eventually, Bassett received a phone call asking him to go to Washington D.C. for an interview; when Bassett asked who he was talking to, they said that they would let him know later on (01:12:35:00) o When Bassett asked about paying for the flight to Washington, the people on the phone said if Bassett bought the ticket, they would reimburse him (01:13:01:00) o Bassett went to his boss and said he had received a phone call from someone he did not know, asking Bassett to go to Washington for an interview (01:13:06:00) o Bassett soon received another phone call asking if he was ready to go to Washington and when Bassett told them when he was flying in, they told him to meet them at a conference room at the airport; when Bassett walked into the room, there were two men wearing civilian clothes (01:13:34:00)  After finishing the interview, the two men suggested they and Bassett go for a ride, so the three went for lunch, after which the men gave Bassett money for a cab, a hotel room for the night, and money for his plane tickets and told Bassett they would be in touch (01:14:07:00) o About a month later, Bassett received another phone call saying that Bassett was going to Armed Forces Staff College (01:14:43:00) Bassett began attending the Armed Forces Staff College in January 1981, after which he worked with a unit that “did not have a name” and stayed there until 1983 (01:15:01:00) In 1983, a friend of Bassett said there was an opening in Berlin for a unit commander and Bassett went to Berlin in June 1983 to take the position, doing the same type of work as when he was in Munich, although now inside East Germany (01:15:38:00) o Tactically, it was not hard getting information out of East Germany, although the East Germans managed to get more intelligence out of West Germans than the West Germans got out of East Germans (01:16:51:00)  In East Germany, roughly one out of every three people were tied to the East German intelligence service (01:17:14:00)  Based on the Potsdam Agreement, American military liaisons were able to go anywhere they wanted inside East Germany; in a sense they acted as mobile intelligence collectors (01:17:38:00)  The only limitations on the movements of the liaisons were the liaisons had to stay in the open and they had to avoid Soviet and East German PRAs (Permanent Restricted Areas) and TRAs (Temporary Restricted Areas) (01:18:01:00) Re-discussion of post-Fort Huachuca experiences due to sound   Following Fort Huachuca, Bassett was a captain assigned to the 2nd Ranger Battalion in Fort Lewis, Washington then transferred to work at the Inspector General’s office at Fort Lewis (01:18:50:00) o Bassett worked in the Inspector General’s office until the Army told him he had to report to his alternative specialty, which involved going to the readiness group at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin (01:19:35:00) While at Fort McCoy, Bassett received a phone call from a man asking Bassett to travel to Washington D.C. for an interview; Bassett asked who the man worked for but was told that it was not important (01:20:14:00) �  o Bassett asked how he could contact the man after asking his commanding officer’s permission and the man told Bassett to only tell his commanding officer that it was an official request (01:20:34:00) o The commanding officer said the situation felt spooky but if Bassett wanted to do it, then the officer was not going to stop him (01:20:54:00) o A couple of days later, the man called Bassett back and Bassett said he would come to the interview; the man said that it was good and that he would call couple of days to see when Bassett goes going to be getting to Washington (01:21:05:00)  The man eventually called back again and told Bassett that when he landed at the airport in Washington, he was supposed to go to a meeting room in the airport (01:21:15:00) o Bassett followed the instructions and once in the meeting room, two men wearing civilian clothes interviewed him; once the interview was over, the men told Bassett to get into a car and after taking Bassett to lunch, the two men took him to the hotel where he would be spending the night (01:21:30:00)  At the hotel, one of the men opened his pocket, counted out money to pay for Bassett’s airfare, hotel room, and cab fare, thanked Bassett, and said they would be in touch (01:21:43:00) o Bassett received another phone call about thirty days later saying that Bassett was going to go to the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia for a couple of months (01:22:14:00) A couple of days after the final phone call, Bassett’s commanding officer said Bassett was to report to the Armed Forces Staff College in January 1983 (01:22:36:00) While completing his work at the Staff College, Bassett received another phone call, saying he was going back to Washington (01:22:43:00) o Bassett did not have anywhere to live in Washington, so he ended up staying with a friend, the officer who replaced him in the 2nd Ranger Battalion and his two daughters and pets (01:22:52:00) o Bassett stayed with his friend for six weeks because he had received orders to go to Lebanon (01:23:25:00)  However, before they sent him to Lebanon, the Army wanted Bassett to go to French language school; despite his previous experiences with the language aptitude test, Bassett went to the school anyway (01:23:56:00)  The company overseeing the language school was Berlitz and their methodology for teaching was different from the methodology Bassett used when he attended the German language school (01:24:28:00)  Bassett passed the German language school by memorizing the German language whereas the Berlitz method was based on modeling the language and Bassett could not model what he could not see (01:24:30:00)  The situation with getting Bassett into Lebanon was continuously changing between he was going or he was not going, based largely around the actions of Hezbollah, specifically regarding the airport (01:24:50:00)  So long as Hezbollah kept targeting the airport, aircraft could not take off or land there (01:24:58:00) �   Bassett was stuck regarding where to live because there was no point in renting an apartment if he was not going to be living in it (01:25:09:00) o Eventually, Bassett received a message from the J-2, the senior intelligence officer, saying they appreciated Bassett’s willingness to go to Lebanon but the entire situation was too convoluted for Bassett’s sake or for anyone else and they were canceling that particular project (01:25:22:00) Bassett stayed in Washington from 1981 until 1983, when he knew there is an open assignment in Berlin (01:25:46:00) o After he was chosen for the position, Bassett and his family moved to Berlin; the job ended up being very similar to the work Bassett had done in Munich the first time he had served in (01:26:04:00) During the time Bassett was in Berlin, several methods were used in gathering intelligence; one of the methods used was debriefing both legal and illegal immigrants who traveled from East Germany into West Germany (01:26:37:00) o Sometimes the East Germans and Soviets would send sleeper agents to see what questions the West Germans and Americans and what information the latter two were interested in (01:26:55:00)  The questions the West Germans and Americans asked were intended to fill in the blank spots where the West Germans and Americans did not already know the information (01:27:06:00)  If the East Germans and Soviets sent in a sleeper agent, they could find out what the West Germans and Americans did or did not know based on the questions asked (01:27:11:00)  Other times, people from other Warsaw Pact countries would come, requesting to either defect or act as spies for the West Germans and Americans and they too went through the debriefing process, although Bassett never talked directly with them (01:27:24:00) o The West Germans and Americans also gathered intelligence using technical means, such as intercepting East German and Soviet communications and transmissions; however, although they could receive the transmissions, it was not guaranteed the West Germans and Americans could decode them (01:28:04:00) o Intelligence could also come from aerial overflights, flights that would fly over West Berlin but could see a substantial distance into East Germany, or from satellites looking down from space (01:28:19:00) o These methods were external and were largely intended to keep track of the East German and Soviet armies; the West Germans and Americans knew where the enemy’s barracks were but were more concerned about the possibility of an armored attack (01:28:49:00)  If the tanks were in the tank park, there was not too much worry but if the tanks were not, then efforts were made to find them (01:28:57:00)  Once the tanks were found, if they were in the field, that was fine because tanks generally did not drive themselves into an attack position; instead, tanks were often driven on board trucks to an attack position (01:29:05:00) �   Internal intelligence, often more of a civilian interest for policy-making or of CIA and counter-intelligence interest, was a little more difficult to gather; Bassett personally was more interested in the military side of intelligence gathering (01:29:17:00) The Potsdam Agreement towards the end of World War II allowed for the breaking of Germany into sections; because Berlin was the German capital, Berlin too was broken into sections (01:29:48:00) o Each Allied power during the war had a section assigned to them for occupation, both in Germany proper and in Berlin, with all of east Germany was given to the Soviet Union (01:30:30:00) o Because each Allied power (France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States) had a section of responsibility, they each had the right to send their people into the other sections (01:30:51:00)  For the most part, the three Western Allied powers were only interest in the Soviet section (01:31:04:00)  The military liaison missions had the right to go into any other section any time they wanted to without needed to coordinate with the nation that controlled a specific section (01:31:09:00)  Both the Soviets and Americans would place Permanent Restricted Areas where they did not want the liaisons to go and Temporary Restricted Areas if a training exercise was going on (01:31:21:00)  The liaisons, usually two at a time, would travel around the sections in special cars that were configured to be displayed differently at night as opposed to the day (01:31:40:00)  At times, the Soviets would place Temporary Restricted Area signs then move them forward; the liaison would see the signs were not where they were supposed to be and would go into the area, giving the Soviets a reason to hold them (01:32:12:00) o On January 1st, 1983, the Soviets killed one of the liaison officers (01:32:38:00)  The Soviets had a train-load of tanks parked in an open area, so the two liaison officers went into the tanks to see if they could find any manuals or information (01:33:00:00)  In Berlin, a Soviet spy had infiltrated the American intelligence community and had knowledge of where the liaison officers would go (01:33:26:00)  The spy in Berlin told the Soviets where the liaisons were going to be, the situation rapidly deteriorated, and the Soviets ended up shooting the liaisons (01:34:02:00)  After the shooting, the commander of the American liaisons went back to the area as a form of physical protest (01:34:18:00) Bassett spent another three years working in Berlin, moving back to the United States in 1988 (01:35:33:00) �o During this time, Bassett could definitely sense that the situation within East Germany was beginning to deteriorate (01:35:57:00)  A number of different things were beginning to happen, such as food rationing, increased pollution, increased spread of disease, and the East Germans were just tired (01:36:10:00)  Germans were aware of the Solidarity movement in Poland only so far as the West told them (01:36:36:00)  The Germans only had a single German-based radio station where as the Americans could broadcast American radio stations and the British could broadcast British radio stations (01:36:40:00) o The Soviets and East Germans did not make efforts to jam the broadcast signals because it involved jamming the entire broadcast spectrum, including their own broadcasts and transmissions (01:37:18:00)  Bassett was in Berlin when President Reagan traveled there and made his famous speech (01:38:31:00)  For the large part, nobody actually made it “over the Wall” by actually going over the Berlin Wall; East German guards had orders to “shoot to kill”, there were lights, mine zones, wire, and dead zones, and someone had to cross all that if they went over the top of the wall (01:38:41:00)  Early on, people did try to go over the top of the wall because they wall was originally just wire before becoming an actual wall; as time went on, the defenses surrounding the wall became more elaborate and complex (01:39:02:00)  That being said, there were supposed openings in the wall for East German agents to get into West Berlin but for others, there was the Berlin subway (01:39:45:00) o The subway system ran from East Berlin into West Berlin and back into East Berlin (01:39:57:00) o Bassett does not recall any guards on the West Berlin side of subway; if an East German got on the subway, he could conceivable get off in West Berlin (01:40:10:00)  If a West German or American got on the subway, they were warned when it was the last stop before East Berlin, although the train kept going back into East Berlin (01:40:24:00) o The theory was that whenever the Soviets or East Germans really wanted to know what was going on in West Berlin, they would just get on the subway (01:40:44:00) o Bassett himself never took the subway because he and the other Americans were always scared to death of accidentally going into East Berlin (01:41:14:00)  Bassett knows stories of other soldiers who missed the sign at the last stop and accidentally went into East Berlin; the soldiers never left the train and just made a circuit back into West Berlin (01:41:17:00) �o If a soldier or someone else had the proper paperwork to travel to East Berlin, they could use the subway to get there legally and to see all of East Berlin (01:41:35:00)  People within the intelligence community made it their business to visit all parts of East Berlin, going as far as the border between East Berlin and East Germany (01:42:18:00) Washington D.C. / Saudi Arabia (01:42:39:00)  After leaving Berlin, Bassett next assignment was a command position at Fort Meade, Maryland (01:42:39:00) o As part of the assignment, Bassett and his men would interview willing immigrants into the United States to discuss any intelligence that would be of interest (01:43:03:00)  Bassett and his men would interview Soviet immigrants as well as Cuban immigrants; Bassett’s command had four or five offices around the country and the interviews would take place at one of those offices (01:43:44:00)  Apart from Russian Jews, who automatically got in, every other nationality had to go directly from their point of origin, such as the Soviet Union or Cuba, to the United States; they could not stop in another country before getting to the United States (01:44:07:00)  Someone was considered a legal immigrant if sending them back to their home country would cause harm or religious persecution (01:44:41:00) o Bassett had the position at Fort Meade from 1988 through 1989 (01:45:10:00)  Because of the instability surrounding the Eastern bloc at this time, there was an influx of immigrants (01:45:21:00)  All the immigrants had to be screened and at that time, the United States was very particular about which immigrants they allowed in; the United States needed to have some form of control over who was entering the country (01:45:51:00)  Eventually, Bassett received a promotion from lieutenant colonel to colonel and he was sent to work with the Army staff at the Pentagon (01:46:11:00) o In reality, Bassett had not received an official promotion; instead, he had been placed on a list for promotion but the Army wanted him in positional power regardless, so they made him a “colonel” but continued paying him as a lieutenant colonel (01:46:18:00)  Bassett and the others on the list would continue receiving pay as lieutenant colonel until Congress signed off on the list, officially making them colonels (01:46:44:00)  Each man on the list was assigned a number based on seniority and each month, only a certain number would be selected for promotion; only a certain number were chosen because the Army wanted to keep the number of colonels at a set amount (01:46:57:00)  Once the first group on the list received their promotion, then the next soldiers on the list were the next in line to receive their � promotion; the large a soldier’s number on the list was, the longer it would take to receive his promotion (01:47:12:00) o At the time Bassett worked there, the Pentagon was broken down into sections representing the major branches of the military: Army, Navy, Air Force, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (01:47:40:00)  The Army section was further broken down into: Operations, Logistics, Intelligence etc., and within the Intelligence section, there were three different divisions: Signals Intelligence, Human Intelligence, and Imagery Intelligence (01:48:00:00) o Bassett worked in policy operations in Human Intelligence (01:48:47:00)  Apart from organizing operations, Bassett now had to deal with organizing a budget, managing resources and manpower, etc.; in a sense, the job was entirely bureaucratic (01:49:19:00) o The situation changed when Iraq invaded Kuwait; Bassett was getting tired of having to wake up early to get to work and getting home late, so he volunteered for service in Iraq (01:50:05:00)  Bassett’s commanding officer said no and told Bassett to get back to working (01:50:05:00)  Before the war actually began, Bassett received a phone call saying that a general wanted Bassett to serve in Iraq; Bassett was happy because that meant he was getting out of the Pentagon (01:51:02:00) Bassett deployed to Iraq and once the war began, he did some business work, some counter-intelligence work, helped interrogate Iraqi POWs, coordinated with the Saudi military/national guard (01:51:25:00) o The situation returning from Iraq was entirely new to Bassett; he traveled light and did not carry any civilian clothes because the Army provided everything, so when he received his orders home, Bassett boarded a flight wearing the same clothes he had been working in that morning (01:52:04:00) o The journey home took Bassett and the other soldiers on the plane to an island off of Sicily; Shannon, Ireland; and Bangor, Maine, where the flight arrived late at night and the soldiers were allowed to get off (01:52:47:00)  Because the town had long been part of the traditional route for soldiers to return home, all along the corridor leading away from the plane were men, women, and children who lived in Bangor saying “thank you” to the soldiers (01:53:17:00)  The experience was totally different from what Bassett had experienced when he came home from Vietnam, so he thanked everyone who was in the line (01:53:50:00)  At the end of the line was a group of Vietnam veterans who wanted to talk with the soldiers (01:54:06:00)  Bassett found out every time plane flew into Bangor with soldiers, the people would go out to greet the soldiers (01:54:33:00)  After leaving Bangor, the next flight took Bassett to the naval base at Norfolk, Virginia; when Bassett asked how he could get to Maryland, he was told a bus was taking soldiers to the airport (01:55:01:00) �    Bassett did not want to ride on a bus, so he went to a rental car business, rented a car and drove home, wearing the same fatigues he had left the Middle East in (01:55:20:00) o Twelve hours after Bassett returned home, he was back working in his old position at the Pentagon (01:55:38:00)  Prior to going to Saudi Arabia, Bassett returned home one day and his wife told him to call his old boss; Bassett called and his boss told Bassett to be prepared the following Monday to deploy (01:57:32:00) Bassett continued working at the Pentagon until he thought of another reason to leave the job (01:58:03:00) o During this time, the United States was attempting to implement the “peace dividend”, which involved drastically downsizing the military (01:58:12:00)  Bassett’s job during this period was finding ways to downsize different parts of the intelligence community, so he developed a way to reform the structure (01:58:32:00)  As part of the redevelopment plan, Bassett held a worldwide conference to explain to other nations’ intelligence services what the United States was going to do (01:58:44:00)  After the conference, Bassett was placed in charge of the redevelopment and was assigned to Fort Meade (01:59:03:00)  At one point, Bassett held a staff meeting for everyone in the program, roughly fifty personnel, and told them to pay attention to the method because one day, it would be done (01:59:32:00) Bassett led the redevelopment program for roughly two years, after which he was assigned to work at the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency); the agency was also planning to restructure a few things, so Bassett was placed in charge of the operational group (01:59:57:00) o As part of his group, Bassett had some civilians from the State Department, a couple of men from the CIA, some of the men from Bassett’s redevelopment program in the Army and some personnel from the DIA (02:00:16:00) o From Bassett’s perspective, the DIA did not like how Bassett had reorganized Army intelligence because they wanted more control (02:00:28:00) Eventually, another command position opened up at Fort Meade, so Bassett took, working as commander of the Central Clearance Facility located the fort (02:01:31:00) o At that time, the facility granted validated, updated, denied, etc., all security clearances for all Army, Army Reserve, and civilian personnel (02:01:49:00)  The process of actually getting clearance was very long and drawn out to begin with because although both officers and enlisted personnel had the ability to get clearance, it required an intense amount of background checks (02:02:12:00)  Once the background checks were done, the information went to the adjudicators working under Bassett and they would examine the complete package; if it was a complete package that the adjudicator approved of, then clearance was granted and if not, the package was sent back with a request for more information (02:02:44:00) �  If more information was needed, the person was sent to the back of the line, so it sometimes took between six months and year for someone to receive their security clearance (02:03:18:00)  If it really got bad, it could take over a year-and-a-half for someone to get clearance (02:03:24:00) Eventually, Bassett got a job working with the National Guard in Michigan, with the intention of making it his retirement job (02:03:37:00) o However, in 1996, Bassett was diagnosed with prostate cancer and after having the cancer surgically removed, from 1996 to 1997, Bassett was in the “twilight zone” (02:03:50:00)  The Army could not do anything with him because he was recuperating and they did not want to discharge him because regulations required them to wait six months (02:04:21:00)  During the six months he recuperated, Bassett was taken from regular status and transferred into hospital status at Fort Knox, Kentucky (02:04:37:00) o After the six months, Bassett went to a disability board, who informed Bassett that they were going to medically retire him, which they did, in July 1997; although he was medically retired in July 1997, Bassett had a mandatory retirement day in November 1997, so everything worked out fine (02:04:47:00) Colombia / Sept. 11th / Civilian Contractor (02:05:12:00)  After the medical retirement, Bassett spent a couple of years working in civilian jobs before receiving a contract to work in Colombia (02:05:12:00) o At the time, the President and Congress were pushing forward an operation called “Plan Colombia”, where the United States would assist both the Colombian Defense Ministry and the Colombian National Police (02:05:23:00)  The two groups, although slightly connected, were relatively autonomous, competed for resources, and had different perspectives and supporters; the Colombian National Police was supported by the American DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) because they did all the drug raids while the Defense Ministry was supposed to fight the land wars against the guerilla groups in the countryside (02:05:57:00) o The plan was for the United States to move equipment and support into Colombia to help synchronize and modernize both groups so they could better perform their jobs (02:06:30:00) o At the time, Colombia had roughly nineteen different subversive groups in the country and they all wanted the same thing, land; specifically, land to grow cocoa plants on to make cocaine (02:06:41:00) o Bassett traveled to Colombia as part of a twelve man team and they did a survey of the situation, with Bassett handling the examination of the intelligence services (02:07:38:00)  Each person in the team had a different section to exam and these included: personnel, logistics, operations, intelligence, etc. (02:07:47:00) o While in Colombia, Bassett lived in an apartment by himself and he left in March 2001 (02:08:08:00) �   o In the time that Bassett was in Colombia, the Colombians both did and did not act on the advice that they team gave them (02:08:24:00)  At different times, the Colombians did act on the advice that they Americans gave, with the Bassett’s intelligence section coming very close to making complete changes (02:08:30:00)  To the Colombians, cooperation with the team was necessary if they wanted to receive American financial support to purchase the upgrade equipment necessary to fully implement the changes (02:08:38:00)  Bassett’s specific job was coordinating how exactly the intelligence moved back and forth because prior to then, the intelligence services were parochially divided between the Defense Ministry and the National Police and there was some animosity between the two groups (02:09:05:00)  In particular, the National Police was kicked around a bit because whenever one of the subversive groups attacked, it usually targeted people in the National Police and their families and the Army was usually slow in responding with assistance (02:09:20:00)  During weekly meetings with representatives from both groups, Bassett stressed that it was the same flag that covered the coffins, regardless of which group they were in (02:09:55:00) o Bassett liked being in Colombia because the country had beautiful weather, beautiful scenery, and beautiful women (02:10:10:00) After finishing the contract in Colombia in March 2001, Bassett was home for two weeks and one day, when he was working on his lawn tractor, his wife handed him the telephone; Bassett answered and was told he needed to be in Washington in two days (02:10:44:00) o Although Bassett complained that he had just gotten home, the man said it would only be for a couple of days, no more than five (02:11:09:00) Prior to 9/11, Bassett was working at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and Fort Irwin, California as an intelligence representative during computerized war games (02:11:56:00) o Bassett went to Fort Irwin as part of the 4th Infantry Division (02:12:47:00) When the attacks on 9/11 occurred, Bassett was with a friend from Vietnam in a farmer’s meadow hunting prairie dogs with .223 rifles (02:13:18:00) o When the friend got back to the friend’s home in Dodge City, Kansas, he called Bassett and told him to turn on the television because the attacks had happened (02:13:35:00) o The attacks made Bassett’s life difficult because he had to drive from Kansas back to Fort Sill but the price of gasoline shot up and people began rationing gasoline (02:14:12:00)  Bassett had a tough time making it from Kansas back to Oklahoma, partially because of the gasoline and partially because he had pair of rifles in his car (02:14:16:00) o It took Bassett three hours to actually reach his post at Fort Sill because whenever an attack occurred, the military tended to overreact, so 19 year-old MPs were guarding the gates to the base and they acted as if they were guarding the world, so every car going into the fort was being inspected (02:14:33:00) �   Once it was finally Bassett’s turn, a young, energetic MP looked under Bassett’s floorboards, found a hunting knife, and asked if Bassett had a license to carry a hunting knife (02:15:11:00) o Once Bassett finally got into the fort, he went to work (02:15:30:00) When the United States went to war, Bassett received the phone call telling him he needed to go to Washington (02:15:42:00) o Prior to going to war, everyone involved, regardless of civilian or military, needed training and education over different subjects, such as the Geneva Conventions, marksmanship, etc. (02:15:52:00) o Bassett was called in because there was a large number of civilian contractors who were meant to rebuild Iraq but were sitting in Kuwait, waiting to receive the training (02:16:16:00)  There was a large backlog because everyone, regardless of their job or position, had to go through the training and there was only a handful of sites in the United States where someone could receive it (02:16:27:00)  For some people, they did not have to receive all the training but they still had to wait for all the other groups to finish their training, which took several days (02:17:12:00)  Bassett and another man took the full training sequence and cut it down into the sections that only a contractor would need (02:17:30:00)  After Bassett and the other man finished, their boss asked where the two men’s passports were; when Bassett said his was at home, the boos told Bassett to get it by the next day (02:17:52:00) o The following day, Bassett was on a flight out of Dulles International Airport and into Kuwait with two other men and the three men put together the presentation for the contractors on the flight (02:18:21:00)  Bassett was originally supposed to only teach three classes but did not end up leaving Kuwait for seven weeks (02:19:02:00) o Once Bassett finally left Kuwait, his company started holding classes in North Carolina (02:19:21:00) After 9/11, security across all the U.S. borders were heightened, although quantifying what “heightened” actually meant was difficult (02:20:09:00) o At the time, the U.S. Army in Europe wanted someone to look at their facilities and personnel from the position of a civilian belligerent and decipher what would a belligerent do (02:20:26:00)  Therefore, Bassett was a project manager in charge of a team that would spend three weeks on a road in a specific country, testing different groups of facilities in that country (02:20:59:00)  Prior to the test, the team would talk with the man who was in charge of the facilities and he would explain what he believed the biggest weaknesses were (02:21:21:00)  Three weeks later, the team would return and not only give their analysis of what they saw at the facilities but would also make suggestions for changes to any vulnerabilities (02:21:42:00) o The team also looked for anything they perceived as a flaw and brought attention to it (02:22:12:00) �     Normally, the first part of the three week cycle involved the team going onto the Internet to see what information they could gather from there; more often then not, the Internet was a treasure trove because people were too naïve and often placed more information than they needed to on the Internet (02:23:11:00)  It was originally supposed to be a one-year contract but the team worked so well, the Army extended the contract for another year; after the second year, Bassett got a friend to replace him and went home (02:24:56:00) As Bassett continued teaching the civilian contractors in Kuwait, roughly every three weeks, he had to fly from Detroit, Michigan to Frankfurt, Germany and into Kuwait; eventually, it reached the point that Bassett would simply fly into Iraq to teach classes in Baghdad (02:25:48:00) o During one rocket attack on his hotel, Bassett was on the same floor where the rocket impacted, only a couple of rooms down, and he watched on television as a CNN reporter discussed the destructive power of the rockets (02:26:26:00) Once Bassett finished teaching, he returned home briefly before being sent to the Congo to help assist the U.N. forces dealing with the rebel situation in Rwanda and the surrounding countries (02:27:10:00) o Bassett and his team were supposed to train personnel from all the countries to help with the flow of intelligence (02:27:30:00) o After the training, a centralized cell would stay while the other personnel would return to their countries so information could flow in and out of the central point and help coordinate with local forces (02:28:08:00) Nevertheless, the mission in Africa fell apart and Bassett returned home, was eventually diagnosed with colon cancer and finally retired (02:28:53:00) In conclusion, the average soldier in Vietnam was just a kid down the street who just wanted to do his job and go home (02:29:14:00) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bassett, Dennis (Interview outline and video, 2 of 2), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bassett, Dennis Description An account of the resource This interview session recaps the first part of Bassett's tour in Vietnam, and then covers the second half, when he was a brigade-level staff officer in the 9th Division. Bassett supervised long range reconnaissance patrols, organized and ran a provisional company working with experimental ground radar, and dealt with an unstable commander. He would remain the Army until 1997, working both with the Rangers and in intelligence work. He spent a total of eight years in Germany, including the period immediately before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and also went to Saudi Arabia and Iraq at the time of the Gulf War, and also worked at the Pentagon. After retiring for medical reasons, he continued to work as a civilian contractor for the military, helping the Colombian army and national police with counterinsurgency training and later working with civilian contractors sent to the Middle East at the time of the invasion of Iraq. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Kentwood Historic Preservation Commission (Kentwood, Mich.) WKTV WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-04-26 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BassettD1107V2 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1b2172f65b744e6e31b9aeafb249960a.mp4 90a4740793922a64593e04d3b2a9e641 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0741ae36888f4799cdc0a6abc0582407.pdf 81cb3ae2f46c2553bbaabceb7120c60c PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Vietnam War Dennis Bassett Interview Length: (01:53:58:00) Pre-enlistment / Training (00:00:10:00)  Bassett was born in February, 1942, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Bassett’s father worked for General Motors and his mother was a stay-at-home mom for Bassett and his two younger brothers; Bassett attended Ottawa Hills High School before graduating in 1960 (00:00:10:00)  After graduating from high school, Bassett thought about his life and decided he had to do something different; he wanted to see different things, have a different pace, and not follow a traditional route (00:00:59:00) o Bassett did not believe he was ready for more schooling, so he decided to join the Army (00:01:13:00)  When Bassett joined the Army in 1960, the divide was roughly fifty-fifty between enlistees and draftees; the draftees tended to be a little older while the enlistees tended to be eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds (00:01:29:00) o There were a lot of “buddy plans” at the time, so Bassett enlisted with a man from his church who went on to be a doctor and another man who went into the Air Force (00:01:41:00) o Bassett believes that if someone did not want to go to school or work a steady job, as well as a sense of service and doing something for the country were common reasons why a person joined the military (00:01:56:00) o When Bassett enlisted, he wanted to serve overseas, although he did not know specifically where he wanted to go (00:02:24:00)  After enlisting and saying good bye to his parents, Bassett was placed on a bus and sent to Fort Wayne in Detroit, where he was sworn into the Army, given a set of fatigues, and told to get something to eat; the next day, a train took Bassett to Louisville, Kentucky, where he was placed on another bus, taking to a basic training reception center, assigned to a basic training company, given his equipment, and told to be ready the next morning for his basic training (00:02:42:00) o Bassett went to Fort Knox, Kentucky for basic training, which was an armored training center, making the base fairly large; however, from Bassett’s perspective, the base was about three streets because he could not leave the area he was assigned unless he was taken someplace or marched someplace (00:03:29:00) o Basic training was intended to regiment everyone to the group, so the Army began by cutting everyone’s hair, giving the soldiers all the same uniform, making them show up on time, and making the soldiers work as a group (00:04:02:00)  Basic training focused on basic military skills and as a soldier’s career progressed, then the training got larger; in basic training, the soldiers were supposed to learn how to shoot, how to march, and how to cooperate with �    people because when they left basic training, the soldiers went as an individual to an organization and were expected to fit in (00:04:17:00) o Bassett went through training with a mix of both white and black soldiers and the soldiers tended to come from specific areas, such as Pennsylvania; there were a few soldiers who had come to the United States on educational visas, dropped out of college, were in the country, and were drafted (00:04:47:00)  Bassett’s training unit had a German and an Argentinean, who were quite surprised to find themselves in the Army (00:05:23:00)  Mostly soldiers adjusted to military life quickly because it was a time when most men were disciplined already (00:05:38:00) o The only major conflict at the time involved Cuba, so the rumor throughout the soldiers was that they were going to go to Cuba (00:05:51:00) Basic training lasted for eight weeks and was followed by Advanced Individual Training, which Bassett took at Fort Knox; if someone had a different specialty, then he went to a different base for his advanced training (00:06:11:00) o During the advanced training, the Army’s control loosened somewhat but the soldiers still had to be at certain places at certain times; during advanced training, the soldiers were allowed to wear civilian clothes as opposed to basic training, when they could not (00:06:29:00) o During training, everybody slept in double bunks, there were no private rooms or co-ed facilities, and public bathroom and showers (00:06:44:00) Advanced training lasted for about another eight weeks, after which, the soldiers were assigned to their units; after the eight weeks, Bassett was sent to Korea (00:07:00:00) o After advanced training, Bassett was told to go home and the Army would send him a ticket; however, then he was told to go home, given some money, and told to get to the Oakland Army terminal by a certain date (00:07:14:00) o In January 1961, Bassett went to the airport in Grand Rapids, flew to Chicago and then took another flight to California (00:07:33:00) In Oakland, Bassett and the other soldiers were in a holding position where the Army kept constant track of them; there was a morning formation and a formation when they brought the flag down and in the mean time, the soldiers just hung around (00:08:16:00) o The soldiers were waiting for a ship because that was how they were getting to Korea; when the ship finally came in, all the soldiers were loaded onto trucks, driven down to the pier, unloaded, along with all their equipment, boarded the ship, and were told to find a berth (00:08:36:00) o Bassett spent about seven days in Oakland and during those seven days, he did not leave the base once (00:09:02:00) The soldiers were eventually placed aboard a troop ship that had probably been around for a long time (00:09:12:00) o If a soldier got the lower bunk, he was about four inches off the floor, and get in, the soldier laid on the floor and scooted in; if a soldier had the top bunk, four bunks up, he had to climb over everyone’s bunk to reach his (00:09:24:00)  If the soldier on the top bunk got seasick, he threw up on the soldier in the bunk below him, who threw up on the soldier below him, until it reached the bottom bunk, where that soldier just moved away (00:09:43:00) � o o o o Bassett originally got the bottom bunk but moved up later on to the second bunk (00:09:56:00)  The rule was the soldiers slept head to feet to stop the spread of infectious disease; because the soldiers had to double bunk, everyone slept with someone’s feet by his head and his feet by someone’s head (00:10:03:00) When the soldiers woke up in the morning, they all went to the mess hall to eat before going on deck, where they stayed, no matter the weather, until they were brought down for the noon meal, which could take an hour (00:10:22:00)  After the noon meal, the soldiers went back to the deck and stayed there until dinner, then went back to their bunks (00:10:42:00) Because they were sailing in January, the weather was terrible; it was cold and windy but in a sense, Bassett was lucky because he received an assignment to paint the brig with three other soldiers (00:10:47:00)  The combination of paint fumes and the movement of the ship would make the soldiers nauseous and in order to take care of the nausea, the soldiers had to climb from the belly of the ship to the deck and grab some air before heading back down (00:11:13:00) The voyage to Korea took twenty-eight days and the ship stopped in Japan, where the Army had arranged for the soldiers to get off the ship (00:11:38:00)  The ship sailed into Yokohama, where the soldiers were placed on trucks and driven to Camp Drake, where the soldiers ate and then received some free time (00:11:49:00)  During the free time, the soldiers could go to downtown Yokohama, some soldiers did, and some lost their money; as far as ships coming in, the Japanese had a well-orchestrated plan to deprive the unwary of their few dollars and cents (00:12:14:00) After spending a night in Yokohama, the soldiers re-boarded the ship and sailed into Inchon (00:12:38:00) Korean Deployment (00:12:45:00)  Once he arrived in Korea, Bassett was assigned to the 6th Medical Depot, which was located between Inchon and Seoul and divided into four sections, each with a different assignment (00:12:45:00) o The medical section supported the 121st Evac. Hospital, which was located on hill while the 55th Quartermaster was the depot’s quartermaster section and there was a signal compound next to the quartermaster compound; each compound was surrounded by fence, with adjoining middle fences and a fence leading out to the street and there was also an engineering compound (00:13:24:00)  At the time, the 121st Evac. Hospital served as the major military hospital for all of Korea (00:13:51:00) o There were around one hundred and fifty soldiers working in the depot, which was primarily a warehouse (00:14:14:00)  Bassett was first assigned to help the clerks, then moved up to guard duty, and was finally assigned to be in charge of finance because the previous soldier had gotten sick and never came back (00:14:22:00) �    o While in charge of finance, Bassett was told he had to do payroll and when Bassett said he knew nothing of how to do payroll, the commander said too bad, handed him two books about payroll and said there was a payroll out in about two weeks, so Bassett needed to get to work (00:14:37:00) o After the first pay day, there was a line of soldiers saying that Bassett had screwed up their pay, so Bassett had to recalculate for each soldier (00:15:07:00) o The next pay day, there were soldiers complaining that Bassett had taken money away from them; Bassett had overpaid the soldiers the first time, so he had to take the money back (00:15:20:00) o After the first couple of pay days, everything settled down and Bassett became a mediocre finance person, although he did not, and still does not, know anything about payroll (00:15:38:00) During off-duty time, Bassett played softball for eighteen games in the summer (00:15:55:00) o It was about eight years after the supposed end of the Korean War and the soldiers could get a bus from the tour special services that would take the soldiers up north or to other places; however, the soldiers did not have any cars and there were not any taxis (00:16:19:00) Sometimes, the soldiers would have to pick up medicines that came in from Japan that needed immediate refrigeration; if a soldier was a designated driver, then he drove with an escort to the railroad station or airfield to pick up the medicine and that was when the soldiers were able to go into Seoul (00:16:39:00) o When the soldiers would go to the railroad station, there were Korean kids who wanted to shine the soldiers’ shoes; thirty years later, when Bassett was at Armed Forces Staff College, there was an adopted Korean student, so Bassett told the student about his time in Korea (00:17:29:00)  The student told Bassett that when he was eight or nine, he would go to the railroad station to shine shoes, so it was quite possible the student tried to shine Bassett’s boots while Bassett was in Korea (00:18:20:00) At the time, the airport in Seoul could not handle commercial aircraft because it had no terminal; when Bassett flew out of the airport to go on R&R to Japan, he went into a small building, showed his leave papers, and was told to go stand outside because the office was not big enough for him to wait inside (00:19:12:00) o Overall, Seoul itself had not recovered much from the Korean War; meanwhile, in the villages outside the city, there was barely electricity, there was no sewage system, the women still washed clothes in creeks with rocks, etc. (00:19:46:00) Because the medical depot was akin to a warehouse, the soldiers had some Koreans working in the warehouse alongside them; however, the Koreans would leave the base at night and go wherever they went (00:20:16:00) o There was also some secretarial support from the Koreans and although Bassett does not necessarily know if the soldiers needed help from the Koreans, either in the warehouse or otherwise, it was good for community support (00:20:31:00) o The nearby village somewhat supported itself off the base because it was a village of bars and whores (00:20:52:00)  Soldiers did tend to get into trouble when they went into the village but it happened in degrees; there were fights in the bars between soldiers, but �    not often, some soldiers found a Korean woman and “went native” (00:21:15:00)  As a rule, Bassett felt safe going into villages (00:22:02:00)  On some occasions, the soldiers could hunt; the soldiers could check shotguns out from special services, rent a jeep from the motor pool, and go up into the hills to shoot pheasants (00:22:10:00) Bassett spent eighteen months in Korea, which was longer than a standard tour because the Berlin Wall was built and the Army put a stand-down on all movement, meaning all soldiers stayed put (00:22:37:00) o At that time, the soldiers were always going on alert out of fear that the Korean War might start up again (00:23:10:00)  The depot was further north, thus closer to the DMZ, than Seoul, and was about ninety seconds by jet with afterburners from the border; as well, Seoul, and everything to the north, including the depot, was within range of artillery fire from beyond the DMZ (00:23:21:00)  Every now and then, the North Koreans would cross over the DMZ and whenever they did, the soldiers received alerts and had to fall out and draw their weapons (00:23:44:00) o The planners always looked at things as if something in Berlin was a deception to something that might happen in Korea or if something in Korea was meant to draw attention away from something in Berlin or Cuba (00:23:57:00) o Because of the Berlin Wall going up, all the soldiers were extended for ninety days on their tour (00:24:19:00) o At the time, there were firing incidents on the border between the North and the South but Bassett does not believe that the news always reported it (00:24:29:00)  The DMZ was patrolled by both South Korean and American forces who literally walked along a fence-line; there were incursions, which involved shooting, from one side of the border to the other and mostly, it was North Korea trying to provoke something (00:24:38:00)  Those things happened but they were not reported directly to the soldiers and were never reported in the national news (00:25:02:00)  The 121st would have been the closest hospital, although the individual divisions would have had their own medical clinics; the clinics would have done the first medical support and if there were wounded, then they were brought to the 121st (00:25:19:00) At one point, Bassett got to go to Japan, which was a perk although it was the only place the soldiers could fly to, and they spent a week there (00:25:57:00) o Bassett went with another soldier and received accommodations at a military hotel in Tokyo, where they wore civilian clothes, ate their meals, and spent the night, for a small fee, all while seeing the sights of Tokyo (00:26:08:00)  During World War II, the Japanese Army and Navy had meet in the hotel to plan a revolt against the Japanese government (00:26:32:00) Bassett originally enlisted for a three-year tour while on the other hand, a draftee automatically received a two-year enlistment (00:27:27:00) When he came back from Korea, Bassett was an E-3, a PFC, meaning he did not have a stake in his military future nor did anyone ever ask him for his opinion (00:27:47:00) �o Bassett returned from Korea on a ship, was dropped off back in Oakland, and told that he was on his own, so he had to buy his own ticket home (00:27:59:00)  On the flight home, Bassett was one of the first men to fly on a 707 airliner; at one point, he sat next to a woman who brought Bassett back to her house, fed him, and took him back to the airport (00:28:19:00) o When Bassett got into Grand Rapids, he did not have any orders, which was uncommon; Bassett ended up going to the local recruiter's office to ask how long he was supposed to stay home and where he would be going but all he was told was orders would be sent to him (00:28:46:00)  The entire situation was interesting because a PFC was normally sent to a replacement depot on a base and was farmed out from there based upon a unit’s needs; a PFC did not receive specific orders (00:29:07:00)  Eventually, Bassett received by-name orders from the Pentagon telling him where to go, which was the 2nd Ranger Company in Dahlonega, Georgia (00:29:27:00) o Although Bassett did not know where exactly Dahlonega was, he knew it was in Georgia, so he took a bus to Atlanta; eventually, someone asked where he needed to go and when Bassett told them, the person told him to be there the next morning (00:29:55:00)  The next morning, a bus took Bassett into the Blue Ridge Mountains; the bus eventually stopped and Bassett was told he was in Dahlonega and it was where he needed to get off (00:30:16:00)  Once off the bus, Bassett walked into the local drug store and asked where he needed to go; a woman in the store told him to call a number, he did so, said he was in Dahlonega, and was told to stay there and they would come pick him up (00:30:46:00)  An hour later, a jeep came, picked Bassett up, and took him another twelve miles into the mountains (00:31:03:00) Ranger School / Inter-Service Years (00:31:24:00)  Dahlonega was one of several Ranger training locations at the time and consisted rappelling, mountaineering, patrol and ambushing, designed to be if the soldiers were operating in mountainous, woody terrain in the enemy’s rear (00:31:24:00) o The school consisted of seventeen staff members divided between the cadre, who had gone through Ranger school, and soldiers who supported the cadre; although Bassett was not an instructor, he worked with the instructors (00:32:02:00)  When Bassett went back to the school as a student in 1967, the cadre knew who he was and pressured him the most; however, after pressuring Bassett, the cadre would pull him aside to make sure he was doing okay and see how he was doing (00:32:52:00) o While at Dahlonega, Bassett worked in Operations and Training for a captain and a sergeant, where he set up the operation orders for the students (00:34:12:00)  Bassett was stationed at Dahlonega for eighteen months, completing the other half of his three-year enlistment; once his enlistment ended, Bassett decided to get out of the military and go to college, although his comrades suggested he stay in the military and attend OCS (00:35:09:00) �  o When Bassett was in basic training, he took a series of tests and when the scores came back, he and some other soldiers were told to fall out; once they did so, the soldiers were told they had scored high enough to go to OCS, although Bassett did not want to go; however, the military said they could send him to OCS and Ranger School (00:35:30:00)  In 1963, Bassett knew lieutenants who were forming the precursor units to the modern Special Forces and those units were going to fighting someplace in Southeast Asia (00:36:07:00)  However, at one point or another, Bassett would hear that one of the lieutenants had been killed, although there were only advisors in Southeast Asia; even today, someone could go to the Ranger training battalion and see the names of the these soldiers on street signs (00:36:38:00) At the end of his enlistment, Bassett decided he needed to get an education because it gave him an out, so he turned down OCS, went back to Grand Rapids, attended junior college, and got married (00:37:17:00) o When he got home, Bassett got a job working nights at a hospital during the week and days on the weekend, which amounted to a forty-hour-a-week job, and he met his future wife at the hospital (00:37:35:00) o After two years at junior college, Bassett needed to move on, so he ended up attending Western Michigan University, where he graduated with a degree in Business Marketing and a minor in Psychology (00:37:53:00)  Because he had three years of enlisted time, Bassett joined the ROTC for his final two years in college and the government gave him a National Defense loan, which helped Bassett and his wife get through, because by then, they had had a child (00:38:19:00)  At the time, the only kind of jobs Bassett could get included working at a juice company (00:38:42:00)  Although Bassett received the GI Bill early in the framework, it came late for him personally because he only received funding for a year (00:39:10:00) o Because Bassett had done ROTC in his final two years, once he received his degree, he also received a commission and the Army told him to go to Fort Benning, Georgia (00:39:47:00) When Bassett got to Fort Benning, he was told that because he was a Regular Army officer, he was on a different track from a Reserve Army officer (00:39:54:00) o If someone was a distinguished ROTC student, then he could be offered a commission in the Regular Army (00:40:09:00) o Soldiers who received a Regular Army commission were different from other commissioned officers because although everyone went through a five-week basic course, after the basic course, all Regular Army-commissioned officers went through Ranger School while the non-Regular Army-commissioned officers went through a different three-month course (00:40:48:00)  When someone was commissioned, he was asked what branch he wanted to be commissioned in; if someone was non-Regular Army, he went directly to that branch while if someone was Regular Army, he would � have to serve two years in a combat arm: Infantry, Armor, or Artillery, then he could go to the branch he desired (00:41:23:00) o Bassett did the five-week course with all the officers then went to Ranger school and if somebody made it through Ranger school at the time, then he went to Vietnam (00:41:51:00)  On the other hand, if someone took the other track, he also ended up in Vietnam; there were very few who did not go to Vietnam (00:42:07:00)  During the five-week course, the soldiers did PT and training in the morning, ate lunch, and then had classroom work in the afternoon (00:42:18:00)  In the classes, the soldiers learned how to call in artillery, map reading, military history, military law, the quartermaster system, medical training, and information about Vietnam (00:42:59:00) o The classes were mostly done with slideshows, so the soldiers took notes and tests (00:43:24:00)  After learning about something in a class, the soldiers would go into the field and do practical applications (00:44:04:00)  The time assisting at Ranger School helped Bassett because he had already walked all the patrols, although it did not help him in the three-week basic course, which was a culling course to weed out the weak and make the soldiers who wanted to quit actually quit (00:44:28:00)  If a soldier was having trouble with the daily rucksack run, the other soldiers were told not to expend their energy carrying him because the soldier was not going to make it (00:44:50:00)  Once they reached the mountain phase, Bassett knew the mountains, knew what was going on, the patrols and exercises the soldiers went on, how the soldiers were graded, etc. (00:45:16:00) o After completing Ranger school, Bassett deployed to Vietnam (00:45:44:00) At that time, there was a public law saying that someone had to spend one hundred and eighty-one days in the United States before deploying overseas, so once he completed his officers training, Bassett was assigned to the 197th Brigade at Fort Benning, a unit all lieutenants on the base went to, which created an interesting mix (00:45:48:00) o At the time, there were three classes in 197th (00:46:14:00)  The first class were captains, who always hung together and did not talk with lieutenants coming out of Ranger school; the captains had already completed one tour, had come back, and were killing time until they began their second tour (00:46:14:00)  The second class were the lieutenants who had deployed but come back early or had just come back, often with an injury (00:46:42:00)  The third and final class were the new lieutenants, such as Bassett; nobody wanted to talk to them because they had not done anything or been to Vietnam (00:47:10:00)  In the third class, there were lieutenants waiting for their one hundred and eighty-one days to be up as well as lieutenants who had just crossed the one hundred and eighty-one days, which � meant they were going and which also meant there was a constant rotation within the class (00:47:32:00)  Once a lieutenant reached the top of the order and closed in on the one hundred and eighty-one days, he began receiving feedback about the lieutenants who had goon before him, including those who had been killed or wounded (00:47:51:00) o Bassett was in the 197th in the middle part of 1968, following the first wave of the Tet Offensive, which partially explained the high casualty number (00:48:46:00)  When Bassett flew out of Grand Rapids to deploy to Vietnam, there was another man from his class on the flight, but he did not make it (00:49:03:00) When Bassett’s orders to Vietnam came up, he and his family, who was at Fort Benning with him, drove to Grand Rapids to say hello to his family and watch pitcher Denny McClain throw a game (00:49:28:00) o When he deployed, Bassett went to Fort Lewis, Washington, waited with other soldiers until there was a full planeload of soldiers and once there was, flew to Vietnam aboard a chartered Pan Am airplane (00:50:00:00)  On the flight over, the stewardesses were great; the stewardesses were on the flights both taking soldiers to Vietnam and bringing soldiers home and Bassett believes the stewardesses were able to pick up on the apprehension of the former and the happiness of the latter (00:50:24:00) Vietnam Deployment (00:51:04:00)  When Bassett arrived in Vietnam, he and the other lieutenants were told to be somewhere the following morning because there would be a roster to be called off; when someone’s name was called off, he departed and was told to go to someplace at a certain time to pick up his orders (00:51:04:00) o Bassett originally had orders for the 1st Air Cavalry Division, so he read as much as he could about the area where the Division was located; however, when they called of his name, Bassett was assigned to the 9th Infantry Division, which was in a different Corps, had no mountains, and Bassett knew nothing (00:51:36:00)  At the time, the 9th Division was located in the Mekong Delta region, south of Saigon (00:52:40:00)  Bassett believes part of the reason he went to the 9th Infantry was because of the Tet Offensive; had everything been even, he might of gone to the 1st Air Cav. but if there were a lot of losses in the south, then the Army diverted people and they became “filler” (00:52:45:00) o Bassett’s first impression of Vietnam was that it was humid, the language sounded different and the air smelled different; however, Bassett had already been to Korea, so he was not shocked and awed by what he experienced (00:53:17:00) o Bassett knew what was going on in Vietnam and volunteered to go; he had graduated from college in 1967 and the war had been going on for a long time by then (00:53:28:00)  When soldiers would deploy, they would go to a reception center and then fly to a base; once at the base, the soldier was allowed to let Vietnam settle in, including more training, �  getting acclimated to the weather, going out on patrols with live ammunition, being updated with all of their shots, etc. (00:54:10:00) o At that time, Bassett got to know other people, started to bond with other people, and by the time the acclimation ended, his sleep cycle was better, he knew how the latrine worked, etc. (00:55:05:00) o Eventually, the soldiers received orders to go to a room that would have a list telling each soldier when to be at the airfield so he could be picked up (00:55:35:00)  Sometimes the plane would come in and sometimes it would not; when the plane would not come, the base personnel would say there were no more aircraft and tell the soldiers to go back to their billets (00:55:51:00) While in Vietnam, the 9th Infantry moved from its original position near Saigon to a position further south, in Dong Tam (00:56:06:00) o Before the Tet Offensive, the 9th Infantry’s objective was going after Viet Cong main force units, which were enemy units, mostly battalions, with large numbers of soldiers; however, after the Tet Offensive, the enemy units were so decimated that the division was going after enemy companies and later, squads (00:57:14:00)  As the 9th Infantry continued operating, the enemy units became smaller and smaller for survival, although the division occasionally came across full main force battalions (00:57:50:00) o The unit Bassett was assigned to once he joined the 9th Infantry was part of the Riverine Force, so the soldiers in the unit stay aboard ships and went to war in either helicopters or landing craft (00:58:11:00)  There were two motherships because there were two battalions, the 4th of the 47th and the 3rd of the 60th and Bassett was assigned to Alpha Company, 3rd of the 60th, as the 2nd Platoon leader (00:58:28:00) After Bassett joined Alpha Company, because the enemy units had been broken down so much, he seldom worked with the company and spent most of his time working with only his platoon, a fact he finds amazing (00:59:36:00) o At that time, platoons did not consist of over thirty people and constant rotation always caused changes so that if Bassett was full up, he had maybe twenty-one or twenty-two soldiers (00:59:53:00) o There were so few soldiers in the platoon that Bassett did not use squad leaders, although he had them; instead, Bassett used the platoon sergeant as a squad leader and Bassett himself became a squad leader (01:00:05:00)  When they moved, Bassett moved the platoon together and if he wanted to maneuver, then he broke the platoon down (01:00:15:00) o Generally, one way or another, the soldiers ended up on a helicopter, on what they called an “eagle flight”, which were basically air insertions (01:00:27:00)  The soldiers would load up into six helicopters with usually two escorts, either Cobras or Hueys with rockets; no one would tell the soldiers where they were going, only that they were being inserted (01:00:38:00)  The attack processed was choreographed so that after the escorts flew in and fired their rockets, the transport helicopters would fly the soldiers in before leaving (01:01:15:00) �   After clearing the LZ, the soldiers would go for a stroll and see what they could kick up; before a mission, Bassett would be given a grid square, which was one thousand meters square, told he was somewhere within that square and told to see what he could find out (01:01:48:00)  The theory was the enemy spread out and the Americans needed to fan their soldiers out from a central hub to control the area; although Bassett did not know where he was, someone did (01:02:01:00) o Bassett always operated with a radio operator and although he did not have one personally, the company commander always had a forward observer with him to call in artillery (01:02:21:00) The first time Bassett went out with his platoon, the company was in a village providing support for Dong Tam; the platoon came in from the woods and after Bassett met the company commander, he joined the platoon (01:02:51:00) o Bassett did not meet the person he was replace because the officer had been killed during the Tet Offensive [probably the mini-Tet in May, rather than the original offensive in February] (01:03:19:00) o When Bassett joined the platoon, his platoon sergeant was not a seasoned veteran; instead, the sergeant had gone through the accelerated NCO program, which gave extended training to an NCO for another stripe (01:03:47:00)  When he arrived, Bassett asked the sergeants what the platoon had done for the last week, where the platoon had gone, what the sergeant knew, what Bassett had to watch out for, and where the platoon had spent the night (01:04:05:00)  Bassett said the platoon was going to move and when the sergeants suggested otherwise because it was late, Bassett said the platoon was moving because he did not want the platoon to spend the night in the same place twice (01:04:18:00)  Bassett’s training made him as prepared as he could be and although the soldiers in the platoon initially did not want to move at night, by the time Bassett was done with them, they moved frequently at night (01:04:36:00)  If the enemy knew where the platoon was a night, they could send mortars in or ambush the platoon, so Bassett adopted a series of tactics to prevent this (01:05:01:00) o The platoon would wake up in a different place every morning and would move and stop; Bassett would reconnaissance a place the platoon would spend the night, go someplace else, then go back to the place he had done reconnaissance on earlier (01:05:14:00)  The platoon got used to the tactics but they did not like it at first (01:05:42:00) The commanders often rotated battalions in and out of the job, which was not all that entirely difficult because the soldiers were in a quasi-friendly area (01:05:55:00) o There were South Vietnamese regional forces who would sleep in covered bunkers while Bassett’s soldiers had to sleep in the mud (01:06:12:00) �o Bassett took steps to ensure the safety of the platoon, including taking some of the key people in the platoon and going into villages (01:06:33:00)  Once the platoon had set up for the night, Bassett would tell his platoon sergeant that they were going to go for a little walk, so they would go with some tiger scouts, former VC who had switched sides, and Bassett would take them on a Ranger patrol on the outskirts of a village (01:06:47:00)  The soldiers would settle in at the outskirts and Bassett would tell the tiger scout to just listen to hear what the villagers were saying (01:07:18:00)  During these smaller patrols, Bassett and the soldiers had to watch out for ducks, which would cause a tremendous racket, which acted as a great alert system for the village (01:07:33:00)  If the scout heard a conversation, which was uncommon because the villagers tended to go to bed early, then Bassett would exchange sign language with his soldiers and while maneuvering them around the hut, he and the scout would go inside the hut to see who the occupants were talking to and quite often, they caught the enemy (01:07:48:00)  One time, they managed to capture a VC lieutenant who was home on leave (01:08:20:00)  The soldiers would call in someone to take the enemy away and either the wife or mother of the soldier would have a fit, so Bassett would have the scout tell them that the soldiers were not going to kill their loved one (01:08:30:00)  The people the soldiers captured often divulged information but if Bassett was ever wrong, then they released the person (01:08:45:00)  By being active, Bassett and his soldiers set the time-table for how the enemy would be able to operate (01:09:00:00) o During the dry season, the platoon would spend around five or six nights in the field but during the rainy season, the platoon would only spend around three or four nights out because they were always wet, especially after walking through rice paddies (01:09:15:00)  If the soldiers walked on the rice paddy dikes, there were often booby traps on the dikes, so the soldiers often had to walk in the rice paddies themselves, although the locals tended to sometimes know where the booby traps would be on a dike (01:09:43:00)  One time, the platoon was working in an a semi-friendly area and a farmer with two water buffalo was working in a rice paddy; as the platoon went by, the farmer said something quietly to one of the tiger scouts and the scout said the farmer had said that there were two booby-traps in front of the platoon (01:10:01:00)  A day later, the platoon was in the same area and there were two packs of cigarettes outside the farmer’s village doorway from the platoon; it was the platoon’s way of saying thank you without burning one of their sources (01:10:34:00) o In the sector where the platoon operated, Bassett and his small group would patrol to see who was there but just their presence counteracted the presence of the enemy (01:11:14:00) �  If the soldiers sat back in a little shell, then the enemy controlled everything around them but if the soldiers changed their schedule, then the enemy had to change their schedule (01:11:28:00) When the platoon was on the move for a four-day operation in a known hostile area, they could possibly exchange fire with the enemy four times, although the platoon was never ambushed (01:12:05:00) o The Delta area was all rice paddies, then a stream with villages in the woodline near the stream; when the soldiers went through the woodline, then there were more rice paddies and the order repeated itself (01:12:42:00) o Walking thorough the rice paddies, the soldiers went up and down because of berms; the soldiers did not want to walking into the woodline because that was where they could be shoot at but if the soldiers got into the woodline, then they were able to shoot at the enemy (01:13:01:00) o If someone watches the History Channel, then they see footage of the camouflaged enemy and although sometimes the enemy was good, there were some times when they were not as good (01:13:32:00)  There were times that the soldiers caught the enemy joking around with each other (01:13:51:00)  One time, the platoon came off the river and while hacking their way through a stand of bamboo, they found three hidden Honda motorcycles; Bassett figured that the motorcycles were either stolen or the enemy’s, so the soldiers blew them up (01:14:08:00) o The soldiers continued through the bamboo and crossed a little stream when they heard talking and found three enemy soldiers sitting and smoking (01:14:45:00) o Bassett quietly brought the rest of the soldiers up before standing up and telling the soldiers to come with them; however, the soldiers chose the other option, which was the wrong option (01:15:05:00) o The platoon could get into smaller fights like the one in the bamboo or into larger fights with the enemy, including fights lasting for a couple of days (01:16:05:00)  One time, the platoon flew into a main force battalion and landed on top of them; the platoon lost the first helicopter but Bassett managed to put his people together (01:16:26:00)  If a soldier served in the Delta, he had to have a swim qualification because it was a delta, therefore near the ocean, and the tides would rise greatly (01:17:19:00)  At the end of the mission, Bassett swam some of his soldiers out on an air mattress because everything had flooded (01:17:51:00) o The fighting was in a coconut plantation with large palm trees and ditches so that as the water came up, the soldiers had to pull some of their shorter comrades up because the water was over their head (01:18:36:00)  In order to retrieve a dead soldier’s body during the fighting, Bassett had to take out an enemy machine gun; however, two other �enemy bunkers began firing, so the other soldiers began laying down covering fire against the bunkers (01:18:56:00) o The soldiers managed to get their comrade’s body but had to pull the body using ropes because they were still under fire (01:19:36:00) o As the platoon got the body, Bassett got on top of one of the bunkers and saw an enemy standing on top one of the other bunkers, pointing his weapon at Bassett but instead of firing, the enemy waved; Bassett waved back and began firing at the other bunker (01:19:43:00)  Bassett has no idea how the exchange worked but the enemy soldier allowed the platoon to retrieve the dead soldier’s body (01:20:11:00)  In one sense, the platoon landing on the enemy battalion was not an accident because they found what their commanders were looking for (01:21:04:00)  The platoon eventually fell back to a second line of bunkers and then pulled back further because there was going to be an artillery strike and that was when the soldiers had to swim out because of the tidal changes (01:21:09:00)  The soldiers in platoon were great and several formed a core in the platoon who Bassett could rely on (01:21:36:00) o During the fight, another soldier helped Bassett with the soldiers who could not swim and the equipment; Bassett would swim into the middle of the river with the air mattress then the other soldier would swim the other half, load up the mattress with soldiers and equipment and swim it back to Bassett (01:22:54:00)  The soldiers had to spend that night in the field and the water came up to their waist, so Bassett had pairs sitting back to back while flares and artillery went off during the night (01:23:19:00)  The platoon went back into the coconut plantation the next day and did not end up leaving the plantation until the third day; when the platoon went in the second time, the soldiers were told that other forces were going in as well but the soldiers were still acting by themselves and did not see any other soldiers (01:23:34:00)  The Americans pounded the area with artillery but ended up losing a gunship in the process; Bassett’s platoon found the gunship wreckage but it had burned so much that the soldiers could not tell pilot from co-pilot (01:23:48:00)  As with all guerilla wars, the VC hid their dead bodies; they weighted the bodies down, sunk them in the canals, and then went back later to get them (01:24:09:00) o Most fights were short and quick and although the platoon never came across any large force, the soldiers were always on edge (01:24:35:00) �   It reached the point that the soldiers in the platoon depended on Bassett and when the commanders finally pulled him off the line, that was when he received his greatest compliment (01:25:01:00) o The new platoon leader came in while the platoon was aboard a ship and after the new leader arrived, one of the soldiers from the platoon came up and said they wanted to talk with Bassett (01:25:19:00)  Bassett said okay and went down to where the troops stayed on the ship below deck; when he did so, the soldiers told him that they wanted him to come back and be their platoon leader because the new platoon leader was going to get all the soldiers killed (01:25:38:00)  There was no better compliment for Bassett to receive from the soldiers in the platoon (01:26:01:00) One battalion of the Riverine Force was always in the field while the other battalion was “drying out”, especially during the wet season, when it was also get cold, although not as cold as the Central Highlands; if the temperature got down to 60°, the soldiers were wet, and it was raining, then it was uncomfortable (01:26:34:00) o The battalions tended to rotate, going out for a week, coming back for a week, then repeating the process (01:27:01:00) o One of the problems the soldiers faced was immersion foot, which is what happened if a soldier’s foot got wet and did not dry out properly, the skin began to rot away (01:27:13:00)  During times when there was sun, Bassett would stop the platoon, have every other soldier take his boots off, and place their feet in the sun in order to dry out the soldiers’ feet (01:27:37:00)  When the platoon went back to the ship, they all smelled funky, which the Navy hated, so the Navy had a fire hose they used to spray the soldiers down with before allowing the soldiers back on the ship (01:27:57:00)  Once aboard the ship, the soldiers changed into fresh clothes and were under orders to wear only flip-flops and report to the medic so he could check their feet (01:28:26:00) o The only other problem the soldiers had in the field were leeches, which were interesting creatures (01:28:38:00)  The soldiers could go from one rice paddy to another with nothing then all of a sudden, each soldier had four or five leeches, although they would only know by looking for them (01:28:53:00)  In the field, there were only two ways to get the leeches off: there was spraying the insect repellant issued by the Army or someone else burning the head off with a lit cigarette (01:29:05:00)  Depending on how long a soldier waited until he checked, he could had leeches all over his body, especially if he was sitting in the water for a long period (01:29:25:00)  All the soldiers were afraid of getting leeches near their private parts, which was always a standing joke (01:29:05:00) Bassett spent around six or seven months with the battalion (01:30:03:00) � o During that time, the size of the enemy forces decreased and part of the reason for that was that the enemy was better at staying away from the soldiers; on the other hand, another explanation is the enemy units were simply smaller (01:30:25:00) o Generally, the soldiers had short bursts and encounters with the enemy, although every now and then, they ran into larger enemy forces (01:30:36:00) All the reporters Bassett encountered while in Vietnam were disingenuous people; Bassett believes that there were probably some good reporters but he did not encounter any of them (01:31:01:00) o On occasion, reporters wanted to go with the soldiers into the field but that depended on where the soldiers were and what they were doing; if there was an easy way for the reporter to get out, then he or she wanted to go along, and if there was not, then the reporter did not want to go (01:31:13:00)  One time, Bassett was on the ship with a reporter when word came down to get ready for a night insertion; one of the other companies was getting hit fairly hard, so the soldier would be picked up off the deck of the ship and taken at night to an LZ (01:31:41:00)  During that mission, the reporter did not want to go with the platoon (01:32:01:00) o Another time, Bassett was chatting with a reporter and the reporter said he had to write stories his editor wanted or he was out of a job; if the editor wanted shock and awe stories, then the reporter wrote shock and awe stories (01:32:05:00)  The reporter said that a story about soldiers mutilating enemy prisoners went immediately but a story about soldiers helping a village would never get printed (01:32:30:00) o As he was about the leave the country, Bassett did an interview with Dan Webster from CBS News (01:32:45:00)  The interview began with simple questions but before long, Webster asked Bassett how long he thought it would be before the South Vietnamese government fell (01:32:59:00)  Bassett said that question was predicated on the assumption that the South Vietnamese government was going to fall and Bassett said that he was not sure they knew that, so Webster ended the interview (01:33:20:00)  Another time, Bassett did a LIFE magazine photo-op and was asked the same question about the South Vietnamese government but in a different fashion, which was a killer for the interview (01:33:31:00)  Instead of asking how Bassett’s family was and what he missed, the reporter wanted to know when everything was going to go wrong (01:33:47:00)  Bassett gave the same answer as he gave Webster, which was not what the reporter wanted to hear (01:33:57:00) o According to Bassett the reporters were only writing what their bureau chief told them to write (01:34:07:00) o There were some great reporters but Bassett did not know them (01:34:13:00) o For a lot of reporters, their stories depended on if they wanted to leave their hotel room and go into the field or if they wanted to just take someone else’s story and use it for their own (01:35:05:00) �   Apart from watching at night, the soldiers patrolled through the villages during the day; sometimes, the villagers were in the villages and sometimes, they were not (01:36:03:00) o Usually, the villages had all the men and most of the women working in the fields; if they were not working in the fields, then a villager was either making something to sell in the market, purchasing items from the market, tending their livestock, or eating (01:36:20:00) o The villagers would be doing their business and the soldiers would either leave them alone or chat with them for a little bit (01:36:52:00)  Sometimes, villagers would tell the soldiers if there were things they did not like but all in all the soldiers did not spend too much time in the villages (01:37:02:00) o A village was a village; there were dirt strips between the buildings, large pieces of pottery that held water for the dry season and each building had a bunker inside of it (01:37:13:00)  In the Delta, whatever the composition of dirt and mud, it became concrete-like when it dried out, so the entire Delta was full of bunkers and soldiers would see old, unused bunkers all the time (01:37:37:00) Bassett’s tactics were to keep moving, not let the enemy know where he was, be erratic in his behavior and if he was aggressive, then the enemy would move away but if he was passive, he was in-active and if he was in-active, then he could be targeted (01:38:26:00) Over the six months Bassett was with the battalion, there was a turn-over amongst the soldiers and that was part of the problem of the war; the problem was that there was always three groups of people (01:38:57:00) o The first group were the short-time soldiers who only had a few months to go before going home while the second group were the soldiers who had experience and were fully trained to fight the enemy (01:39:24:00) o The final group were the soldier who had no idea what was going on, were afraid, and needed to be taught by the other soldiers; these soldiers could be very aggressive and confident but also stupid and needed to be taught (01:39:37:00)  On the other hand, the soldiers who only had a few months to go were not as likely to stick their heads out (01:40:04:00) o Bassett feels that the middle group did a good job in helping the soldiers in the final group (01:40:23:00)  Unless a soldier was a real self-starter, when stuff hit the fan and kicked off, first off, combat was noisy and nobody was going to be able to hear them (01:40:35:00) Reflections (01:41:09:00)  During one of his first major contacts, while Bassett was looking for someone to tell him what to do while everyone else was looking at him, which was a rite of passage for him (01:41:09:00) o Once he went through that experience, Bassett realized the soldiers were his and began giving orders to them (01:42:07:00) o At different points, Bassett got tuned into an environment so his senses worked for him and could tell him when something was not right; one soldier, a Colombian exchange student, said he could smell the enemy (01:42:53:00) �    For whatever reason, American dogs could not stand the smell of the Vietnamese while on the other hand, Vietnamese water buffalo could not stand the smell the soldiers (01:43:57:00)  After awhile, even the soldiers could pick up scents if the wind blew in the right direction, especially if it was a large group of people (01:44:29:00) o There were acts of God involved, such as why some people died and some people did not, that have Bassett pondering how things like happened (01:45:14:00) Bassett was never seriously injured; he took a grazing round down his back while he was crawling forward and shrapnel in his leg from a booby-trapped grenade (01:46:29:00) o One time, Bassett gave a class in how to find booby-traps to the new soldiers in an area where one of his tiger scouts nearly died from a booby-trap (01:46:52:00)  At the time, the platoon was stationed along an old French road as a security force, so Bassett took the new soldiers, some of whom had only spent days in the platoon, and told them different scenarios about where they would find booby-traps (01:47:48:00)  As he was giving the class, Bassett heard a ping sound and told them all to get down while he hit the ground; luckily, it was one of the few times he had a flak jacket on because his side was pelted with rocks (01:48:29:00)  Bassett had some shrapnel in his legs, so a helicopter picked him up and took him to a hospital, where a doctor removed the shrapnel (01:48:57:00) o However, as Bassett thinks back, the grenade might not have been booby-trapped because he remembers see someone crawling through the undergrowth and firing several rounds at them (01:49:45:00) The base camp was secondary; because the battalion was part of the Riverine Force, they were never in the base camp (01:50:21:00) o Instead, the soldiers went back to the ship, where the food was good and the Navy took care of them; living on a ship was not all that bad, although the soldiers had very little to do (01:50:30:00)  Every now and then, the soldiers had beer day, although they were not allowed to drink on the ship; instead, the soldiers went to a pontoon boat with an ammo shack on it and drank a warm beer before returning to the ship (01:50:48:00)  When aboard ship, Bassett watched the other soldiers, wrote letters home, and chat with the lieutenants he shared his quarters with (01:51:02:00) At the time, there was a deal where the soldiers could get one in-country R&R, so Bassett and a group went on Vung Tau (01:51:36:00) o There were some women there who played tic-tac-toe with the soldiers for money but Bassett did not do that; he just used the time to get away (01:52:07:00) o He eventually got sick, flew back the next morning, and was in an ambush position later that night, although he was still sick (01:52:27:00)  Behind the soldier’s position was an old village hut with roosters in the top of it; Bassett was angry because he had had a rotten night and when a rooster started to crow, he took a c-ration, threw the container and hit the rooster in the head, killing it instantly (01:53:03:00) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bassett, Dennis (Interview outline and video, 1 of 2), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bassett, Dennis Description An account of the resource Dennis Bassett was born in 1942 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After graduating from high school in 1960, Bassett decided he wanted a different direction for his life, so he enlisted in the Army. After completing both his basic and advanced training at Fort Knox in Kentucky, Bassett deployed to Korea, where he worked at a medical depot. Once he finished his tour in Korea, Bassett returned to the United States and worked with a Ranger training company in Georgia before receiving his discharge. Following his discharge, Bassett went through four years of college, with the final two years in ROTC and as a result of his time in the ROTC, after his graduation, received a Regular Army commission. After receiving the commission, Bassett went back through Ranger school and deployed to Vietnam, where he served with the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta region as part of the Riverine Force, and served as a platoon leader in the 3/60 Infantry for the first half of his tour. (see Part 2 for the rest of the story) Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Kentwood Historic Preservation Commission (Kentwood, Mich.) WKTV WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-04-26 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BassettD1107V1 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/97abe5a2473cf2a3dd6a79e21dda0c7e.mp4 0c038bbd487d3c891f27fb2698ed0fcc https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2cbb3fe0700937985d3aef6c3fa80011.pdf edaa8af9ad1d761db6a3400db65f2d2a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project John Barwacz (01:53:59) (00:20) Background Information • John was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on June 3, 1921 • His father immigrated from Russia and his mother immigrated from Poland • The Depression was tough on his family and there was not much food to eat • They received government aid for food • John went to Catholic school and had no time for sports because he had to work to help support his family (9:50) After High School • John had not paid much attention to the news when he was in high school • He did not know a whole lot about Hitler or Europe because he could not afford to buy a newspaper • John dropped out of high school in his last year to work full time • He remembered hearing the news of Pearl Harbor on the radio and everyone had been shocked (18:35) Navy Enlistment August 18, 1942 • John enlisted in the Navy and was sent to Detroit for physicals • He then took a train with many others to Great Lakes Naval Academy in Chicago, Illinois • They began boot camp and it was very strict; they had to get up every day at 4 am • John then had advanced training at the University of Kansas for 16 weeks where he took engineering courses • After advanced training he took a train to San Francisco to a staging area (25:20) Heading North • John was on board a destroyer that burned 2,000 gallons of oil an hour • They headed for Seattle where they picked up heavier clothes because their next stop was the Aleutian Islands • John spent time working in the boiler room, with guns on deck, and also was a lookout • They then headed for Kiska; there were many Japanese Aleutian islands and the Navy had been shelling the islands to try to drive them out (35:55) Pearl Harbor • Pearl Harbor was much nicer than the foggy and stormy weather of the Aleutians • They put together a task force with cruisers, destroyers, and air craft carriers to bombard Wake Island • They left quickly toward the island, while John was on lookout the whole trip �• They zig zagged on course to avoid any Japanese submarines and began shelling the island (40:30) Gilbert Islands • They moved along other Pacific islands to take them back from the Japanese • It usually only took a few days to secure the islands • After they left, a Japanese submarine sunk a brand new air craft carrier • They were only able to pick up 14 survivors, and then headed back to the patrol station for submarine guard (44:15) Marshall Islands • Here the Navy was bombarding and screening for submarines and other Japanese ships • They were able to go ashore for lunch and to have some beer on a base • They found that the US Army had hid a bunch of K-rations underground and marked them as graves; they were saving them for an emergency (50:50) Marianas Islands • They traveled around Tinian, Saipan, and Guam, continuing to bomb, shell, and screen for Japanese • A large Japanese fleet had been launched against them • The Americans shot down about 400 Japanese planes, but John never got a chance to see any of the excitement because he had been working in the boiler room the whole time • They left the Marianas Islands and headed back to Pearl Harbor and then to Seattle for 30 day leave (1:00:15) Ship Life • On the USS Hull they had to refuel every 3-4 days from an aircraft carrier or battle ship • They saved many pilots that had crashed into the water; when they returned the pilots to another ship, they usually received a giant drum of ice cream in return • They usually had pretty good food, but never on Sundays (1:09:30) Fire Control School • John was transferred to a school in Seattle where he trained in fire fighting for 4 weeks • He was then assigned to an attack transport ship, APA 166 • They loaded the ship with marines, tanks, and other equipment • The ship was larger than a destroyer and had bunks stacked 6 deep • The ship was brand new and just been commissioned outside of Oregon (1:18:45) Okinawa • They traveled to Okinawa in April and unloaded the Marines • US planes were performing many air raids • John was there for about a week and there were many kamikaze attacks �• • After he left, they stopped once in Guam and then went back to Seattle They loaded up with more Marines and headed for Japan (1:22:55) Japan • John was on the first ship to reach the harbor and they began removing mines • The Marines first went ashore to secure the area • The sailors went ashore the next day and all the Japanese saluted them • John later went back to Guam and much of the island had been destroyed • They began loading the ships with troops to bring back to the US • John later learned that after he had been transferred to fire school, the USS Hull had sunk and only about 1/5 of the men had survived (1:35:25) Discharged • John had two other brothers in the service and they had not known that he had been transferred; they thought he had died on the USS Hull • John was sent back to Chicago to be discharged, but they had lost his papers and sent him back to Michigan until they could find them • He was discharged about two weeks later on December 24, 1945 • John later received 9 battle stars and 6 medals for his time in the service • Both of his brothers were in good health and began working right away, but he took some time off • John later began working at a manufacturing company and got married • He had four children and now has 2 grandchildren � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Barwacz, John (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Barwacz, John Description An account of the resource John Barwacz was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1921 and enlisted in the Navy on August 18, 1942. John went through basic training at Great Lakes Naval Academy in Chicago, Illinois and then had advanced engineer training at the University of Kansas. While in the Navy, John worked on the destroyer USS Hull as an engineer in the boiler room, as a lookout, and also handled guns on deck. Later took fire control training and served on an attack transport ship. He traveled all over the Pacific to the Aleutian Islands, Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Hawaii, Okinawa, and Japan. John was discharged on December 24, 1945. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-09-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BarwaczJ Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/56ae77fb48fb096052b44415e4154cb0.mp4 3d53218ff2832fc65b0ffed0429ec2dd https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e0a6b1fb8cf3b206c1532d00fc669d0a.pdf f2822048b93ca4eb298909ffb90d5b5a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran History Project Emerson Barrone (00:49:36) Introduction (00:00) Childhood and Pre-War (00:10) • • • • • • • • Born November 5, 1922 in Hubbardston, MI Remembers playing with the neighbor children Attended same school in Hubbardston for all years of schooling. Father was a farmer and a roofer. He was a roofer until World War II, and then became a farmer. (06:08) Was an only child. Graduated High School in 1940 (09:00) Was driving his car between Hubbardston and Detroit when he heard about Pearl Harbor. (09:51) After High School, stayed with uncle in Detroit and worked first at Ford, and then at Stinson Aircraft. Was a welder there for about a year and a half. Also worked at Ford in Ypsilanti, MI. (10:50) Enlistment, Training and Active Duty (12:30) • • • • • • • • • • • • • Went into the Army on February 6, 1943. (12:30) Was Drafted. Got a postcard in the mail notifying him he was drafted (13:50) Went to Fort Custer for three weeks, and was then shipped out to Fort Leonard Wood. Stayed there for one full year to be a medic and ambulance driver. (15:00) December, 1943 he was shipped to England. Was transported on a French ship that was converted to a troop transport. Was followed by submarines on the trip over. (16:15) Landed at Liverpool, England. Lived in a Quonset hut while there. (17:58) Landed in Normandy on D-Day plus one. Landed at Utah beach with an ambulance that they had to take inland. (20:30) Went on into France and remembers a man with a parachute hanging on the belfry of a church. The people there did not really like them Went on then to Carentan. (24:10) Job was to wait for the call to go into a battle and bring men back, but never went into a battle. Was in the Battle of the Bulge. Was on the edge of the battle, but never went in. (25:20) Came pretty close to the German lines on several occasions. He was waiting to go into Berlin when he heard that the War was over (28:00) �• • • The ship that he was on crossed the Atlantic on its own, not in a convoy. The worst experience he had was his friend was riding a 2 ½ ton truck, and the truck hit a mine, and he was nearly taken in half. He lived for 24 hours. (45:55) Was shot at a couple times, but nobody ever got shot (47:10) Post-War (29:50) • • • • • • • • • Returned home on December 2, 1945 (30:00) Had 80 points Landed at Fort Dix, New Jersey, shipped from there to Camp Atterbury, Indiana. (30:35) Got married in 1954. Got laid off from Real Motor Company in Lansing a couple days before he got married. Started in Saint Johns, MI working for Federal Mogul as a Quality Control person, and then was transferred to Mooresville, IN. Wife worked for various companies in Indiana and Michigan. Had one child, a boy, born on December 4, 1955. Became a mason in 1956. (40:20) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Barrone, Emerson (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Barrone, Emerson Description An account of the resource Emerson Barrone was a medic and ambulance driver in World War II. He was drafted in 1942 into the Army and spent time training in Missouri. He was then shipped of to England at the end of 1943. He landed on Utah Beach one day after D-Day. His job was to drive ambulances, and he was on the fringes of several major battles, including the Battle of the Bulge, but he never got into the fighting. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-05-24 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BarroneE Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/72c261b24a37c0005986006015fe6ec1.mp4 1af3ded37d7ea77289eeb8f34b2ed6bb https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/797451a4b4a88dc37b327e982b3fffca.pdf 5abdc7466ef963c58df75c37f2548450 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Robert Barker (00:33:19) Pre-Enlistment • Lived in Six Lakes, Michigan • Grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1926 (00:27) • Father was a barber, and mother was a beautician (00:33) • Moved around a lot as a child (00:45) • Father died when he was seven years old (00:55) • Mom had family in Lakeview, Michigan and they moved back there after the father’s death (01:09) • Went to school in Lakeview (01:20) • Moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan • Was here when Pearl Harbor occurred (01:33) • He did not think the war would last long enough for him to enter in to it, so he didn’t think much about the war (01:50) Enlistment • He got drafted at age 17 (02:05) • Got a job at General Motors in Grand Rapids, and worked there for 32 years after the war (02:34) • Had a few months in between the end of high school and before he got drafted, he enjoyed his youth (02:49) • Got drafted in 1944(03:09) Training • Went to Fort McClellan, Alabama for training (03:17) • Seventeen weeks of basic training (03:25) • Went to Texas with the 13th Armored Division, and was assigned to an armored infantry unit. (03:30) • Straight infantry training trained in every weapon one can think of, basic marches and procedures, etc. (03:40) • Drill sergeants were okay, pretty nice even • One was ready to retire after he trained Barker’s regiment (04:00) • 20 mile hike at the end of the training o It’s hot in Alabama, he wasn’t used to the weather yet (04:21) • Still regular infantry training in basic (04:53) • Had weekend passes to go off the bases o Ice cream, beers, small town, free bus rides to and from the base (05:07) • Only trained in good weather in Texas o Not so great for real time experience (06:00) • Regular training in the 13th Armored division (06:37) �Was just training, not very hard Rifleman, trained with everything, mortars, flamethrowers, etc. (07:33) 6 in a half track Backpacks had a lot of weight (07:55) Was in the panhandle of Texas Nice weather Had a lot of fun along with his training (08:26) The officer who was training his unit didn’t have combat experience or at least he doesn’t remember the officers in charge of his training having combat experience (08:51) Deployment • Sent everyone over 18 overseas o He wasn’t over 18 so he stayed (09:18) • He was 19 when he was deployed • Winter of 1944 (09:50) • Snowing in France when he arrived (10:25) • Ocean trip was bad for some people, sea sickness mostly (10:33) • Used to being in and on water because he lived on a lake in Michigan (10:52) • Can’t think of the name or type of the ship he was on during his transportation (11:08) • Traveled in a large convoy, nice weather during the transport as well (11:34) • Thought he was being attacked during the voyage, but wasn’t and got over fine (12:09) • Arrived in the November-December time period, doesn’t remember exact date (12:22) • Still with the 13th Armored Division (12:45) • Shipped to some barns in the country side for some period of time before they saw any action (12:59) Battle • Sent into battle, they were not told what they were going to be doing or where they were going, just told to pack up and head out. (13:15) • Doesn’t remember the location but they were basically the “clean up crew” (13:37) • Dealt with a lot of Prisoners of War (13:47) • Was sent to Germany • Very difficult to cross over the Rhine (14:00) • The P.O.W.s were mostly younger and older men, “had a funny smell to them” • The German soldiers were pretty nice (14:40) • His division was in charge of escorting the P.O.W.s to the camps behind the Allied lines (15:00) • Traveled around a lot (15:25) • The French people were nice and friendly • They seemed very behind in the times concerning technology o Plowing with wooden sledges is an example • • • • • • • • �• The Germans seemed more industrialized o Idea of Germans taking the French people’s technology (16:00) Did not have a lot to do with the German populace, they did not like the Americans that much (16:27) • There always seemed to be some type of gunfire on the Allied armies at some point in the day o Lost a friend at one point to the gunfire (17:00) • Comments on the cement towers the Germans built to keep the Allied tanks out o It was a “sight to see” (17:27) • Other divisions had already gone through the areas before his division got there (17:38) • Never faced a big fight because his division came in at the end of the battles (18:08) • Had to dig in at one point due to German artillery firing (18:32) • Camped in empty houses were the local population evacuated • Camped in a training ground that the Germans used to train their officers • Slept in a bathtub (19:00) • Helped themselves to ”loot” in houses • When he returned he had to let the higher up officials look through his “loot” and take what they wanted (19:50) • Mostly passed through destroyed towns, didn’t stay anywhere long (20:54) • Went through the Alps (21:25) • Not much damage was done to the towns he went through in the Alps and southern Germany (22:25) • Went into Austria for a bit (23:15) • War was still going on when he was in Berchtesgaden • Did a lot of traveling around mostly looking for people to arrest or escort back to camp (23:40) End of the War • Doesn’t remember when he heard the war was over (23:55) • People happy to see the Allies in towns after the surrender (24:28) • A lot of people were out and about when there was no fighting going on around the area (24:50) • Scheduled to go to CBI (China Burma India) after the European war was over (25:26) • Went back home before transferred, got out of the army (25:48) • The 13th Armored Division was disbanded, changed over to the 5th division, then changed again into the 3rd army (25:55) • All of them going back home were sent to a camp before going back home (27:07) • Camps were named after cigarette brands (27:30) Going Home • Doesn’t remember much about the trip home o He did run into an inactive mine on the boat though (27:39) • �• • • Got a state dinner when he arrived back in the US Went home straight after (28:16) Re-enlisted into the basic army so he could be home for Christmas (28:42) • 1946 actually got out of the army he thinks (29:00) Post War Life • He got married in 1946 and was out of the army for a while before that (29:23) • Made a lot of good friends during his service • A lot of good exercise and good times (30:03) • He was with the same people he trained with during the war o He was with people from allover the country (30:40) • Paraded through Cincinnati, while in the basic army o Doesn’t remember what it was for (31:48) • Doesn’t remember where he was based in during his last year in the army o Somewhere in Cincinnati or Nashville (32:30) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Barker, Robert M. (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Barker, Robert M. Description An account of the resource Robert Barker was born in 1926 and was drafted into the army early in 1944. He trained in Alabama and Texas with the 13th Armored Division and was shipped to Europe late in the year. He served as an armored infantryman, with his unit serving mostly in "clean-up" roles during the advance into Germany in 1945. His unit was in Austria when the war ended, and captured a large number of prisoners. His division was disbanded in 1945 and he switched into the 5th Infantry Division. He remained in the army until mustering out in 1946. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-01-24 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BarkerR Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/697abab5002241d609d5bcd4db0d69e4.mp4 0e5ee0713d48237fcc8255a0b9be44b5 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b81f11db56c164b7903c5ffbc13a9fe4.pdf 4b4b38514940c10fdba2cb98ff378f9b PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview World War II Albert Barker Total Time – (42:31) Background · He was born in Stanton, Michigan, on February 17, 1925 · He was raised on a farm (00:40) · There were five children in the family o Three boys and two girls § He was the youngest · His family was able to keep the farm during the 1930’s (01:02) · He went to school through the 8th grade (01:27) · After he dropped out of school, he worked for local farmers · He learned about Pearl Harbor from a friend's radio · Before this, he did not pay much attention to the world news (02:31) Enlistment/Training – (02:42) · He was drafted into the Navy in 1943 (03:21) · He went to Great Lakes, Illinois, for boot camp (03:33) · The boot camp was relatively nice o It had a gym, swimming pool, and other facilities · It was not very difficult for him (04:05) o Boot camp was difficult for some · There were boat exercises · They were forced to swim (05:18) o There were some men that could not swim · There was classroom training (05:59) · Boot camp lasted 8 weeks – could never leave the base · After boot camp, soldiers were given a couple of days off before their next location (06:38) · He was then shipped to Pleasanton, California (06:51) o It was a holding station for troops o Was stationed here for a very short time Active Duty – (06:58) · They then shipped him out for the South Pacific (07:00) �· Many of the men got sick on their first voyage · It took 17 days to go from San Francisco, California to Noumea, New Caledonia (07:26) · They traveled alone, not with a convoy – it was some kind of cargo ship (07:46) · There were nearly several thousand on the ship (08:24) · They had left to replace other units · When they get off in New Caledonia, they stayed there for some time at a base (08:46) · From New Caledonia, they were sent by ship to Rendova Island (08:57) · This is where he joined with his PT boat squadron – he was essentially an extra hand (09:21) · Rendova Island had a dry dock that was made of tanks · When they were out on patrol, there was not much Japanese activity (11:29) · They would sometimes catch Japanese moving troops and ammunition o There were two boats on every mission and they would circle around the Japanese – there were two rounds of PT boats o They did not use torpedoes o The Japanese were using small boats as well (12:23) · He was initially assigned to PT 288 where he was assigned to be a loader on a 20 mm gun (13:14) o It was a two man crew – one for firing and one for loading · There were probably 17-18 men on their PT boat o They were really only meant for 7-10 (13:38) o When there were extra men, there were extra guns · They sometimes had to carry dignitaries on board · After leaving Rendova, he traveled to Green Island, Treasure Island, Bougainville Island, etc. – They were part of the Solomon Islands (15:34) · There was an encounter with a single bomber (17:35) · He got malaria at one point – he was given atabrine to take (17:52) o He was sick with malaria for nearly two weeks o He was taken off the boat by being placed on a stretcher § After getting off the mattress there was an imprint of sweat (19:01) o The military took care of those that got sick o He was given a lot of different medicines to cure the malaria · While with the PT boats, they do not hear that much about what else is going on in the war (20:02) · When he was in the Solomon Islands, there was a general routine o Taking care of the deck, doing painting, etc. (21:46) · They would get to leave at 4 in the afternoon – they would only rest when they got back to the base (22:11) · There were 12 boats in the squadron and only two would go out together (22:32) · On the off days you would just hang out and do some hobbies that you enjoyed doing · There was a great amount of entertainment on the island (23:41) �· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · o He was able to see Bob Hope and Jerry Colonna (23:45) o They were able to go and see movies also From Bougainville Island he went to the Philippines (24:45) Periods of time where they did not have a military base, they served next to a PT Tender (25:11) He was always fed very well in the service The PT boat were approximately 79-82 feet in length and with a loaded cargo, they weighed nearly 50 ton (25:58) o The PT boats had 3, 12 cylinder Packard engines (26:11) o Two were always ready and the 3rd was a reserve § They rarely ran all three at one time o PT boats are made of plywood and mahogany (26:28) § The wood had to be continuously cleaned and cared for § He always felt safe in the boat even though it was made of wood When in the Philippines, he feels that there were less Japanese than before (27:33) On their patrols they would sometimes go to Borneo o There was a boat that was damaged during a patrol § After this, two boats were assigned to go back in daylight When on the islands, there was little contact with the natives (28:52) o There was much more contact in the Philippines § He believes that the Philippine people were more intelligent He traded his t-shirt for a knife (30:22) He remembers an engineer killed in action (31:39) o There were two other individuals that were cleaning a rope locker on a boat with gasoline § It ignited and caused a flash fire § He remembers their skin peeling off when someone tried to grab them § They died the next day He was able to leave the Pacific before the end of the war (33:36) He knew he was getting close to leaving when guys ahead of him were beginning to leave He flew a C-47 to where he boarded a large transport ship to go home (34:57) o There was a burial at sea when a soldier had died § The soldier was on a platform underneath the flag The trip was very easy and nice while coming home o He strung up his hammock underneath a lifeboat (35:59) He was coming home in the beginning of 1945 When he arrived, he went to a Naval holding station in San Francisco, California where they were replenished with new clothing, etc. (36:34) He went straight from California to his home for a 30 day leave After leave, he reported to the Fargo building in Boston, Massachusetts (37:05) He remembers spending a day with two girls that had a brother in the service (37:52) �· After Boston, he traveled around – just waiting to get out of the military After the Service – (39:20) · Went to Bainbridge, Maryland where he was discharged - 1946 (39:29) o He went and bought a nice suit and went home in that instead of his uniform · Once he was home, he hung out for a while before he decided to go to work (40:04) · He went to Federal-Mogul in Greenville, Michigan and was hired in to the plating department o He worked there for 33 years (40:24) · Looking back at his time in the service, he believes it was the greatest thing that any young man could face (42:18) o You are forced to get along with others � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Barker, Albert (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Barker, Albert Description An account of the resource Albert Barker was born in 1925 in Stanton, Michigan. Albert grew up on a farm and was doing farm work when he was drafted into the Navy in 1943 and was then sent to Great Lakes, Illinois where he spent eight weeks in basic training. After his training, Albert was sent to the South Pacific where he met up with his PT squadron in New Caledonia. After being in New Caledonia, he was sent to Rendova Island where he patrolled waters against the Japanese. After Rendova, he was sent through the Solomon Islands until he was eventually sent to the Philippines. Albert was sent home from the Philippines and was discharged in Bainbridge, Maryland in 1946. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Kentwood Historic Preservation Commission (Kentwood, Mich.) WKTV WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-07-02 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BarkerA1388V Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b90731e56fd80685c3c8b2325162a716.mp4 9292be4bce895ad3a09df82ec3789a0e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0eed3fd55c2b49a4203cd3a084060cfe.pdf f31677d0f666f1dff231c1464e798214 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Scott Barber (15:43) (0:00) Before the service • Living in Grand Rapids, MI • Enlisted last 3 months of high school • Birthday made him miss the draft by 4 months • Chose to join the Navy because the college benefits, adventure, and opportunities to see the world o Really enjoyed the Navy (1:07) First day of service • Homesick • 18 years old • Went on a train to boot camp at Great Lakes, IL • Was trained as an aircraft mechanic but was chosen to become a Seal after 18 months (1:53) Combat • Saw combat in Iran and Panama, although in Panama it was due to drug issues as opposed to war • Part of the Iran Hostage Crisis rescue (2:24) Most memorable moment • In Iran during Hostage rescue • Realized there was a very likely chance would be killed • Became a man that night; grew up o Barber was in a chopper that went down (2:47) Free time • No comment (3:02) Holidays • Celebrated all holidays because in the Navy for 5 years • Celebrated with his unit o One time he was in Africa during Christmas so participated in the services there; did not resemble Christmas (3:30) Impact on life • Became a better person • More mature and with the realization that there are things in life bigger than one’s self • Made a lot of friends; kind of like college (4:32) After the service • Went to college at Grand Valley, Davenport • The service helped him in his civilian career in many ways o Respected because a veteran • Would enlist in the Navy again and now wishes that he had stayed longer �(5:38) Jobs while in the service • 18 months as a mechanic • Part of the hostage rescue mission o Involved 2 years of planning and testing o 130 units, 12 people per team o In this mission, he was a driver and engine mechanic (6:26) Iran Hostage Crisis • Can talk about it now because the 20 year confidentiality agreement Barber had to sign has expired • Barber’s unit was chosen to go on mission because specialized in the helicopters that would be used in the desert that night o Specially chosen because unit had best record with handling that equipment • Spent 6 months training for the original plan which consisted of flying a C-130 into the middle of town and landing in an enclosed soccer field o Burned up an airplane doing it • Used rocket assisted take-off to see if could get off the ground in 100 yards or 150 yards but didn’t work • Practiced landing and take-offs for several weeks, also trained on small weapons • The first mission (1980) o Landed in the desert at night; it was very dark o Didn’t have intelligence so didn’t what the resistance would be on the ground upon landing o Lots of helicopters broke down because of the sand; a few fell out of the sky because of the sand o Did not make it to the city o Turned around and went back because saw several school buses with the tops cut off with Iranian regulars in them coming to stop their rescue attempt o Did not get the hostages; too much equipment trouble and resistance (9:11) Combat • Saw combat that night of the mission • Iranian regulars armed with axes, hatchets, small arms, RPGs, etc. • Lost 2 men from his unit; several were injured (9:39) Panama • Drug intervention o Destroyed several boats, ships, and airplanes that were used to transport illegal drugs • Story o Patrol Boat (PT Boat), 70 feet long o Had to destroy it o One of Barber’s friends was in charge of the demolition o Attached mines to the bottom of the boat; blew up the boat so badly that when performing a UDA (Upon Damage Assessment) the next day, found only the engines a mile away. �o Mission took place in 1981 or 1982; no casualties; took 7- 8 days to get there but finished mission in one night (11:30) Thailand • Had to spend 6-8 days living in a dumpster with monkeys, drinking out of a sewer because of an issue with martial law (12:12) Basic training at Seal Beach • When Barber was a Seal, only 346 Seals in the entire world o 3 miles swim every morning; put on a helicopter and drop you into the water off the coast of California o Suffered sleep and food deprivation o Training lasted 9 weeks; took Barber two times to get through it (14:07) Training for Iran • 7-8 months but didn’t know it would be their unit until 3-4 weeks before mission (14:40) More on the service • Really enjoyed the Navy • Liked working on planes but was especially honored to be one of the few units chosen to undergo Seal training � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Barber, Scott (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Barber, Scott Description An account of the resource Scott Barber is a Veteran who served in the United States Navy for five years from the late 1970s until the early 1980s in California, Iran, Thailand, and Panama. Because of skill and good military record, Barber's unit was assigned to the first rescue attempt of the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1980. In this interview, Barber discusses the training involved in preparing for this mission as well as the equipment failures and combat that took place that night. Barber also shares stories of his time in Panama, where his unit was responsible for destroying boats and planes used to transport illegal drugs, and his time in Thailand, where he spent over six days living in a dumpster. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Barber, Ashley (Interviewer) Forest Hills Eastern High School (Ada, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Navy Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-06-07 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BarberS Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eed8858389f6439d098a9aedd51c0091.mp4 aedcd4bb6b1c7fff9805def69ed23aeb https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/037691b9e513343747466f2f203a8e9c.pdf 3a295e121fc94f6c41eb89202c58e892 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project John Bantjes (00:38:47) (00:30) Background Information • • • • • John was born in Illinois and moved to Indiana when he was very young John was born in 1929 and grew up during the depression His father had been an accountant, but lost his job Both his parents were Dutch immigrants and decided to move back with John’s grandparents in the Netherlands during the depression They moved to the central Netherlands and his father became an adjuster for an insurance company (2:30) War in the Netherlands • John was 11 years old when the war broke out and it lasted for 5 years • The Germans occupied the Netherlands; they were nice at first but became more mean as the war progressed • Over the years the food supply dwindled and the Netherlands seemed to be cut off from the rest of the world • Many people were starving to death and forced to work for the Germans • John had dual citizenship and decided to go back to the US after the war (5:55) Back in the US • John moved to Byron Center, Michigan and was later drafted into the Army in January of 1951 during the Korean War • John was inducted in Detroit and then went to Fort Sheridan in Chicago • He later trained in Camp Carson, Colorado and became part of the South Dakota National Guard (8:45) Operation Totem Pole • John was part of a Regimental Combat Team of about 5,000 men that were sent to Anchorage, Alaska for Operation Totem Pole • Their goal was to train to defend Alaska and the rest of the country in the face of a Russian attack • They continued to train in Alaska from January to July • They were living near an old construction site and simulating tactical warfare (14:20) Working in Alaska �• • • • John was working as a rifleman in a rifle squad in Alaska for 18 months They mostly trained, got lots of exercise, and worked on guard duty There were always alerts going off at odd times and the men would have to guard the perimeter around the Army base John often had time off to go fishing and weekends off to travel around Alaska (19:30) Alaskan Weather • The men camped in 5-man tents with gas stoves; it was not that cold inside • At night it would get to negative 40 degrees and was about 20 degrees during the day • Sometimes John would sleep outside in a very large, down-filled, arctic sleeping bag • There were some moose in Alaska that were very aggressive that would attack their jeeps • They were allowed about one weekend off a month to go around Alaska, but the prices in the small towns were very high (27:10) Discharged • John was in the Army for 23 months and back home just in time for Christmas • They hit a typhoon in the ship on the way home from Alaska and were stuck for a while • There was an outbreak of chicken pox on the shit because some of the men had brought their families with them to Alaska • John was discharged at Fort Custer in Battle Creek, Michigan � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bantjes, John (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bantjes, John Description An account of the resource John Bantjes was born in Illinois in 1929 to Dutch immigrants who decided to move back to the Netherlands during the Depression. John lived through the entirety of World War II in the Netherlands. When the war was over he moved back to the US and was later drafted during the Korean War. John spent his time in the service training for a Russian attack in Alaska. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Moore, Debra (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-07-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BantjesJ Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4f772595fbbe983dedecca030956dcc9.mp4 37a3999983ca55181757ae38230faad4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/95e274c50c1393b862764780f842938a.pdf ab2accd81a3a525b2e1475dea61434b1 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Dr. Gordon Balyeat (1:42:25) (00:25) Background Information • • • • • • • • Gordon was born in Michigan in 1911 and grew up in Sparta He enjoyed hunting, fishing, scouting and was very interested in sports In high school Gordon played football, basketball, ran in track, tennis, and field hockey He graduated in 1928 and went to Kalamazoo College in Michigan Gordon then went on to pre-med at the University of Michigan He was attending college at the time of the prohibition and depression They often drank at underground bars that were very secretive and illegal Gordon received his medical degree in 1935 and continued instructing at the University (12:00) Internship • • • Gordon received an internship opportunity and chose to get involved in practicing medicine rather than surgery There were not very many breakthroughs in medicine during the 30s Gordon then received a position at a clinic in Seattle and he resigned from the University (20:15) New York City • • Gordon was helping in city hospitals and ambulances The hospitals were very busy and diverse (28:00) Practice in Michigan • • Gordon began working with patients at Saint Mary’s hospital and Butterworth hospital He remembered Pearl Harbor being attacked, noting that it was hard to digest and not being able to predict what would happen next (31:20) Draft Board Work • Gordon began working for the Draft Board in Michigan, inspecting draftees and giving them diagnostic tests (34:10) Gordon is Called to Active Duty • Gordon was a lieutenant in the Navy at the Navy Pier in Chicago in 1943 • He was working with the Northwestern Medical Unit, which covered about 10,000 men • He had a great medical experience working here for 9 months • Gordon was then sent to Navy Medical School in Washington (38:15) Brooklyn Navy Yard • Gordon never understood why he was sent here �• He stayed with his wife in an apartment for 10 days and was then ordered to ship back to Great Lakes Naval base in Chicago (39:50) San Francisco • Gordon went from Chicago to San Francisco to board a ship to travel through the Pacific • Gordon help set up a hospital in the Russell Islands with the help of enlisted men and natives (49:50) Hospital Work • Gordon was testing and doing lab work, especially with malaria • He took many pictures, though bringing a camera was an offense punishable by court martial (57:40) The Trip to New Zealand • Gordon liked fishing and had wanted to take his time off in New Zealand • He went with a friend and his girlfriend and they took a Jeep to do some touring • They stayed in a famous and now very expensive and exclusive resort hotel and lodge (1:02:05) Russell Islands • They Navy had been planning to move the hospital to Japan during the invasion • Gordon worked with more patients that had been wounded in combat then those that had diseases • He also worked with more marines than with men from the Navy • Gordon was sent to several Seabee units to help with their hospitals • He was sent to Peleliu island after the hospital was shut down (1:05:40) The End of His Service • Gordon received a letter stating that he was being discharged, but he had to remain on the island for 5 more weeks • He left with many others to wait at Henderson Field, where they finally boarded a plane back to the US • Gordon landed in Pearl Harbor and then took an air craft carrier to San Francisco • He traveled to Chicago and went to work in a Navy hospital for four months before being discharged � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Balyeat, Gordon (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Balyeat, Gordon Description An account of the resource Dr. Gordon Balyeat was born in Michigan in 1911 and grew up in the small town of Sparta. He graduated from high school in 1928 and went to Kalamazoo College and the University of Michigan. Gordon attended college during the prohibition and the depression. After receiving his medical degree, Gordon worked in various hospitals from Seattle to New York. He joined the Navy in 1942 and worked with the Northwestern Medical Unit. Gordon was sent to the Russell Islands in the Pacific in 1943 to set up a hospital, where he tended many Marines wounded in battle. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-04-21 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BalyeatG Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4e7a39dd47678435e682a70c5e2f2edb.mp4 6557dfd93dbdd0ea0f903f1b01f2d04d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2fa32cf16540f2041bd72746c54c9768.pdf 04c8088a959296bbe148e4673ab3f261 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Carl Ballard Length: 1:16:57 (03:00) Background Information • • • • Carl was born on October 16, 1932 in Kent County, Michigan He went to Wayland high school and graduated in 1951 Carl expected that he would be drafted; many of his friends had received their draft notice before even graduating Before the war started Carl had not even heard of Korea and did not know of its location (5:10) Enlistment in Army • Carl was able to enlist in the Army for 2 years instead of the standard 3 years • He enlisted when he was 19 years old in 1952 • Carl began training with the 101st Airborne Division at Camp Breckenridge in Kentucky • It was a very large camp and the first two weeks was just spent getting the new people organized • Each day they would get up very early and get harassed by drill sergeants • They spent a lot of time drilling, marching and doing other menial work that did not make sense • They began to develop a routine and started training with weapons • Carl spent 16 weeks in basic training (14:30) Leadership School • Carl volunteered for leadership school and spent 8 weeks working in the same area of Kentucky • He had volunteered because he thought he would receive 30 days leave • The time off on leave was cancelled and Carl was given 7 days to report to California after completing leadership school • Carl spent his time off visiting family and got engaged to his girlfriend (18:10) Trip to Korea • Carl spent 2 weeks at a camp in California just waiting around until they were going to leave • They left San Francisco on a troop ship and Carl was very sick for the first 3 days of the trip • He would have felt better if he would have been allowed to sleep, but they were always made to go up on deck and work �(23:25) Korea • When they arrived the area was secure and reservists were training on the rifle range • Everyone had got off the ship and assigned as replacements to various divisions • They had arrived in January and it was very cold • There were many children in the area begging the men for money and food • Carl was assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division, 9th Infantry Regiment • They stayed in tents in the reserve area • Carl was put on guard duty to secure a large hill in the area • They had good winter gear and were never too cold (34:40) Fighting Chinese • The first night in Korea was like a dream; it was not scary, but Carl felt that it was like walking in a fog • He got accustomed to things after a while and did become more fearful because he knew of the dangers that laid ahead • They only patrolled at night and practices on similar, safe terrain during the day • Carl’s first encounter with the enemy was in March while he was working on an outpost with a squad • His mission had been to warm the company if they were attacked and then delay the enemy in action while the company pulled back • The Chinese cut their communication, but Carl was able to launch a grenade at them • They got into a fight with mortars and artillery and Carl took cover in a fox hole • It was very dark and they had no idea how many people they were up against (48:30) Living in Korea • They received mail every day and Carl often wrote to his fiancée • They had three meals a day and only one of them was hot; they otherwise ate C-rations • They wore very heavy clothes for the weather, but often found themselves sweating • The men received a fresh pair of socks every day to prevent trench foot • They were never again attacked by the Chinese (53:50) Back to Reserves • Carl was sent to live in the reserve area and they were living in tents in a small village • He spent one day a week training and the rest of time he was on guard duty • They did not have much interaction with the South Koreans civilians, but worked with the South Korean soldiers (58:15) Heavy Weapons Platoon �• • • Carl was transferred to the Heavy Weapons Platoon where he worked with 60 mm mortars and 57 mm recoilist rifles He was a squad leader and no longer had to patrol at night because they maintained a permanent position Their job was to knock out the enemy from a distance during any battles that took place (1:03:20) The End of the War • After the cease fire it was strange and very quiet at night • All the firing had stopped and they were able to hear the sounds of the forest around them • Carl had enough points in April to rotate back to the US • He once again boarded a troop ship and was sick for the first few days of the trip • His family had not been expecting him • They landed in San Francisco and took a train to Chicago, and then a bus to Grand Rapids � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ballard, Carl (Interview outline and video), 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ballard, Carl Description An account of the resource Carl Ballard was born on October 16, 1932 in Kent County, Michigan. He graduated from high school in 1951 and then enlisted in the Army. Carl trained in Kentucky and went through leadership school after basic. He was then sent to South Korea where he joined the 2nd Infantry Division and went on patrols at night. Carl was later transferred to the Heavy Weapons company where he worked as a squad leader. Carl had received enough points to return home a few months after the cease fire. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (Interviewer) Michigan Military Preservation Society (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004-10-27 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BallardC Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b20af89654a26c51e35e652608ef7a6a.mp4 eb9869c7668fcf74e6224f85a60e783c https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a970d3cbaeb1b4b571470a5d497ea884.pdf 8582dc1571385f77531152701c5c6800 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Kenneth Ball Length: 36:22 (00:25) Background Information • • • Kenneth was born in Byron Township, Michigan and lived on a dairy farm He graduated from high school in 1952 and went to community college for a year before attending at the University of Michigan for architecture Kenneth got an architecture job in 1955 and was drafted into the Army in 1956 (2:15) Basic Training • Kenneth was sent to Fort Carson in Colorado where they lived in WWII vintage barracks • They began working on rifle handling, physical training, marching, maneuvers, and bib whacking • Kenneth was 23 years old and the oldest man training; most of the other men were 18 years old • Kenneth trained for 8 weeks and then went through advanced training at Fort Smith in Arkansas for 9 weeks • He had been training to be a supply sergeant, but never ended up using any of that training (6:55) Korea • Kenneth was shipped out on a troop carrier with about 1200 other men outside of Seattle • They were going over to Korea as replacement troops • Kenneth was assigned to the 8th Army Aircraft Maintenance Division • They were working in Repairs and utilities • Kenneth’s officer found out that he had worked as an architect and asked him to build a theater • The theater took 4 months to build and then Kenneth was rewarded with a week of R & R in Japan (15:30) Living in Korea • Kenneth was made corporal when he got back from Japan and continued working on new buildings • He worked with the Corps of Engineers and Korean civilians helped them also • Kenneth had to travel to Seoul once a week to purchase building supplies • The armistice had been in place and they were not ever worried about being attacked • Occasionally there would be a few shots going off at the DMZ �• Kenneth was in South Korea for 16 months while the government had been rebuilding and restructuring the country (22:50) Back to the US • Kenneth had 88 days left of his service time, but was not discharged right away • He was assigned to Fort Sheridan in Chicago where he waited for his time to expire, working on laundry duty • Kenneth was released in November and went into the active reserve and back to work • He was then in the inactive reserve in about a year and completely finished with his time in the Army in 1964 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ball, Kenneth (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ball, Kenneth Description An account of the resource Kenneth Ball was born in Byron Center, Michigan and graduated from high school in 1952. After high school he spent a year at community college before going to the University of Michigan for architecture. Kenneth was drafted into the Army in 1956 went through basic training in Colorado. He then went through advanced training to be a supply sergeant in Arkansas. After training Kenneth was sent to Korea during the armistice where he helped put up buildings for 16 months. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-10-07 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BallK Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives