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Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project
Oral History Interview
Veteran: Wendall Smits
Interviewed by James Smither
Transcribed by Grace Balog
Interviewer: We are talking today with Wendall Smits of Byron Center, Michigan, and the
interviewer is James Smither of the Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History
Project. Okay, now start us off with some background on yourself and begin with where
and when you were born.
Veteran: I was born in South Holland, Illinois, right outside of Chicago, 1936. Graduated from
school and high school in Lansing, Illinois, and at Illiana Christian High School. I had a good
friend there who had joined the Coast Guard Reserve and pestered me and pestered me to join,
and I had to get in before I was 18 to get into the program that they wanted to get, or, that he
wanted me to get in at the time. So I-Interviewer: Okay-Veteran: Go ahead.
Interviewer: Can we back up a little bit there. Born in 1936, what was your family doing
for a living when you were a kid?
Veteran: For the most part, my father, during the Korean War, worked in an aircraft engine
manufacturer. It was a Ford Plant on the South Side of Chicago. And after that, he was a truck
driver for the most part. And just to back up there in World War ll, he operated a machine in
Harvey, Illinois that made crank shafts for engines that were produced in Muskegon, Michigan
and later ended up in tanks during World War ll. (0:01:51)
�Interviewer: Right.
Veteran: In between, he was a truck driver back in…
Interviewer: Okay, do you remember much of anything about the World War ll period or
were you too young to be aware of things?
Veteran: I think the only thing that I, the only two things that I remember: one, being, you know,
the end of the war and how happy people were and what I heard on the radio. The other was that
my dad had a bad ailment in his hearing and he was off of work for about a year. He was running
what they called an upset machine to make those crank shafts, and he had to push a floor pedal
and then wait for it to form a hot block of iron into a crank shaft. And because he had this ear
problem and he would just drop over like a dead fate once in a while. He was off of work for
over a year. I do remember that. He was glad to get back to work at the end of the war and he
was glad that it was over.
Interviewer: Right. Okay, what year did you finish high school?
Veteran: 1954.
Interviewer: Okay, now you were saying then that while you were in high school, one of
your friends was after you, and so you had to actually enlist, before you turned 18?
Veteran: Mhmm.
Interviewer: But what was the program that he wanted you to get into?
Veteran: You enlisted for 6 years at that point in time, in the reserves, with an obligation that
during the 6 years, you were going to do at least a couple years of active duty. Once I was in and
down the road a little bit and getting good grades and doing what I had to do to get promoted,
�there was an edict finally that said if you stay in for 6 years, and you get all of your good grades
and you get a progression of advancement, you won’t have to do your active duty for 2 years.
Once I finished 6, I said well, maybe I’ll go another 4 and that went on and on and we got to 20
and I said well, maybe I will do 30 and that’s where I ended up, 31 years.
Interviewer: Okay, so we will go back now. So if you are enlisting when you are 17, you
needed your parents’ permission to do that?
Veteran: I did.
Interviewer: Okay, and what did your parents think of the idea?
Veteran: My mother was very nervous. My dad was relatively proud of it. He was an immigrant
from the Netherlands, and really loved this country. (0:04:11)
Interviewer: Okay, now once you enlist, now what happens? How do they process you?
Where do you go for training?
Veteran: Okay, we enlisted at the Customs House in downtown Chicago, and at that point in
time, we went to reserve units immediately the following Monday night. Those were done in the
evenings at that time. And you didn’t go to boot camp until a year later, so I didn’t actually go to
boot camp until 1955.
Interviewer: Okay. Now, were you still in high school at that point? Or did you move on to
something else?
Veteran: I had, I had graduated the previous spring, just before I enlisted.
Interviewer: Alright, and now… So what are you, in reserve, you have your evening classes
and things like that but what else were you doing at that time?
�Veteran: Oh, at the same time I was going to college in Harvey, Illinois. Just a community
college there. While I was in at the same time, I was working in the summer.
Interviewer: Okay, so during the first year when you haven’t done boot camp yet, what are
you doing in the training session?
Veteran: A couple of things, I think, that were important maybe. Lots of firearms training and
lots of classroom instruction on rescue and search activities. And that was kind of the beginning
of the career, that’s the direction it was going in.
Interviewer: Now were these classes for new recruits or were these things that all of the
reserves and all the men in the unit went to?
Veteran: The majority of the time was spent by all the people in the unit, just over and over and
over.
Interviewer: So you had Monday nights, did you have any weekends that you did training
or just those?
Veteran: Just the Monday nights at that time. It was probably 3 or 4 years before we began to do
weekends instead of Monday nights. And that was good, I always thought, because we’d have to
make 3, or 4, or 5 trips down to downtown Chicago from where I lived as opposed to one
weekend. And the other thing that I thought was good about it was that you actually became a
part time employee at a regular Coast Guard base, and much more productive and much better
learning experience than just classes in a classroom. (0:06:40)
Interviewer: Okay, so what were you, so is this part time thing, how did that work? When
were you there and what did you do?
�Veteran: For the most part, we went to local Coast Guard stations in Chicago. At that time, there
was one in Navy Pier, right on the end of Navy Pier, there was one in Calumet Harbor, there was
one in Jackson Harbor, and we’d spend the weekend right at that Coast Guard station doing
exactly what those regular Coast Guard people were doing.
Interviewer: Okay, so can I go back here, your first year you say, and then you do boot
camp then in 1955?
Veteran: Mhmm.
Interviewer: Okay, where is the boot camp?
Veteran: Over in Cape May, New Jersey. Probably one of the most humid places in the United
States, other than Jacksonville, Florida.
Interviewer: Alright, and what did boot camp consist of?
Veteran: Again, lots of firearms training, lots of swimming and life-saving instruction, and lots
of time spent in the classroom, and lots and lots of time marching out on the parade ground.
Interviewer: Okay. How much emphasis was there on discipline and spit and polish stuff?
Veteran: Lots of emphasis, I guess. Everybody was required to go to chow in the morning in
their white uniform, and when you finished chow, you came back and you changed into your
dungarees and before you went to chow at noon, you did the same thing, and after chow, you did
the same thing in the evening as well. Lights were out at 10 o’clock, and the rabble rouse was at
5 o’clock in the morning and you better have your shoes shined every night and wherever you
went, you marched and a couple of petty officers and one chief petty officer ran the show. And
�the chief petty officer slept in the barracks as we did, so everybody knew to be up before revelry,
because otherwise he was at your bedside, waking you up. (0:08:38)
Interviewer: Okay. And how intense was the physical training?
Veteran: For a guy who, you know, had just finished high school, and was going to college,
probably a little soft, I learned what my mother had done for me real quickly. Wash your own
clothes with ice cold water and ivory soap and rinse them in ice cold water. Beat off the
mosquitoes in the middle of the night as you stood watch and so forth. So yeah, you learned a lot
in a big hurry.
Interviewer: Okay. Now the guys who were in there with you, did you learn anything about
them? Where they were from? What kind of backgrounds did they have?
Veteran: Yeah there, there were two guys who went to boot camp with me from my unit in
Chicago, and then the majority of the rest of the people in the boot camp were from the eastern
half of the United States, or I should say east of the Mississippi. Most of those who enlisted west
of the Mississippi went to Alameda, California for boot camp. So yeah, we got, I met people
from New York and New Orleans and Jacksonville, Florida, and all over the eastern half of the
U.S.
Interviewer: Okay. Were they pretty much all white at this point? Or did you have some
race in there--Veteran: We had some black, black folks, we had some Hispanic folks, but for the most part,
were white at that time, yeah. (0:10:01)
Interviewer: Alright. And how long did the boot camp last?
�Veteran: Our boot camp lasted two weeks.
Interviewer: Okay.
Veteran: We were at--we were there for 15 days, and when we arrived, we left on an airplane
from Chicago and went to Philadelphia, and we were going to ride the train from Philadelphia to
boot camp. They left us at the train station there for 8 hours with nothing to eat, that was all part
of the routine I guess. And then when we got to Cape May, we rode from the train station in an
old school bus and we had about 80 people in that school bus and you know that no school buses
is equipped to hold 80 people. So we were all kind of—it was in the middle of August, it was 90some degrees when we arrived there. So this was all part of the game. We had the first meal late
in the evening on Sunday, around 9:30, and it was baked beans and bread. And the chief said you
better eat it all, just go back up there and get more. If you don’t, you’ll eat it tomorrow morning.
And we thought he was kidding. The next morning, we got up and they had put it in trays, about
maybe an inch and a half to two inches thick, and had put it in the refrigerator. They cut it and
they served it like brownies, so we made sure we ate it the following morning.
Interviewer: Alright, and then you talked about weapons training. Was this just small
arms?
Veteran: Yes, rifles and pistols.
Interviewer: Okay. Alright, so they’re not the anti-aircraft guns or the big machine guns,
or things like that?
Veteran: No, no.
Interviewer: Okay, and this is all on land that you are doing this or do they—
�Veteran: Yes, it was all on land at Cape May.
Interviewer: Okay, and then having completed that, now did you just go back to your units
and—
Veteran: We went back at that time, you know, to our regular Monday night unit. And after that,
we had active duty every year for at least two weeks, except for two years when I was in, near
the end of the time I was in, Coast Guard Reserve was really hurting for money so they asked a
lot of people to take waivers, involuntary waivers, for training, which I did. And then the last
year of the 31 I was in the inactive reserve, which meant again I could be called up but I didn’t
attend any meetings. Otherwise, I went every year for two weeks. (0:12:26)
Interviewer: Okay, I got to go back here to the beginning. So initially, you were assigned to
the Coast Guard in Chicago?
Veteran: Mhmm.
Interviewer: Alright, and what, how long did you serve with them that time?
Veteran: Approximately two years there.
Interviewer: Okay.
Veteran: And then they commissioned the unit in Gary, Indiana. And I chose to go there, we
could make a choice. Having lived in Lansing, Illinois, it was easier for me really to get to Gary
than it was to get to downtown Chicago.
Interviewer: Okay.
Veteran: So they broke that unit just about in half when they started the unit in Gary. And that
would have been about 1956, -57, somewhere around there.
�Interviewer: Okay, now when you’re with your—you were with a unit in Chicago, what
was your job or your assignment?
Veteran: My assignment then was--I was leaning towards engineman training and you know,
working down in the engine room in the machinery spaces, so we had a number of classes, as I
was saying before, in small arms training, and so actual, actual small arms training was at the
armory there and we could actually fire right there in the building. But the other half was leaning
towards engineering experience, learning diesel engines and all that sort of stuff. And while I
was—after I finished the junior college, then I went to work for an organization that was making
diesel engines. So that kind of worked together between the two, what I did at work, working in
an engine test lab, and what I was doing in the reserves and that kind of got me into the
engineering phase. (0:14:00)
Interviewer: Okay, and then when you go to Gary, are you now focusing on the engineering
part?
Veteran: Yes.
Interviewer: Okay. Alright, and how long did you stay with the unit in Gary?
Veteran: 21 years.
Interviewer: Okay. Let’s kind of take us through some of the different things that you did
with them. Did you stay with engineering or did you change what your assignment was
after a while?
Veteran: No. I went to Gary as what they call a fireman, would have been an E3, and left there as
a lieutenant when I moved to Cleveland. But in between, I became a chief engineman, I was an
�E7, there was no E8 and E9 at that time. And then there was an opening in the Coast Guard for
about 10 warrant officers in the engineering group. And I don’t know, there were a couple
hundred people who took the test, and I was lucky enough to pass the test. And then went on a
Coast Guard cutter, Bramble, and got my—no, that was on the Coast Guard cutter Woodbine,
out of Grand Haven, and I was able to become a warrant officer. I did that for two years. And
then again they were looking for some people as line officers, even though you hadn’t completed
college, which I hadn’t. And again, it was a process of taking a test, and I was promoted to a
Lieutenant Junior Grade. We skipped Ensign because of our age.
Interviewer: Okay, so how common—I mean, you seemed to have moved pretty well
through the ranks here in this career. Was that normal for a reservist or were you a little
unusual?
Veteran: There were some people who stuck with the reserve as I did, if that’s the way to say it,
and then there were others who enlisted for 4 years and moved on and said I’ve had enough of
this, I am done, and they moved on. But for those folks who stuck with it, and as I was saying
before, if they did what they had to do to get promoted, there was kind of an unwritten
timeframe: you know you go from E3 to E4 to E5 to E6 and on up the line. And if you became
stagnant in a particular level, the top officers were looking for you and saying hey, either move
on up or get out. However, all of those promotions, all the way from E1 to E7, were all on a
written test. And not all of the services have that, most of the tests were about 150 questions,
very specific to your particular rank as an engineman and so forth. (0:16:49)
Interviewer: Okay, so you had to do well enough on the test as you were going through, so
there’s a kind of weed out process going on, it’s not just whether you, you don’t get it just
for showing up?
�Veteran: No, absolutely not.
Interviewer: You have to earn that. Alright, now in the—you’re in the Coast Guard a long
time, and a variety of different incidents happen or come up along the way. One of them,
you had—so you initially, it’s the Cold War, and there were different things that would
flare up in different parts of the world, then eventually Vietnam happens, and so forth.
And then, in the latter part of your service, Ronald Reagan becomes president and
incidents happen then too. So, you probably have kind of an up and down period of
sometimes when things might happen and other times they seem quiet.
Veteran: Yes.
Interviewer: Now to go back, kind of the early stages of your service, what kind of stands
out for you, like in the period when you were an enlisted man: training assignments or any
active duty work or anything else like that? What particular things stand out? (0:18:02)
Veteran: Okay, in the early part after moving to Gary, there was a normal progression there in
the enlisted ranks up. And as it was for me as a chief engineman, once I became E6, which
would be 1st class petty officer, and E7, I was responsible for the training of other enginemen in
our unit. And then after we, after I had the promotion to warrant officer, which was also an
engineering rank, but now as an engineering warrant officer, you’re responsible for boilers and
all of the other things that were on ships at that time. I was responsible for some training at the
unit and also responsible for some training at lifeboat stations. Younger enginemen who were
just learning the trade so to speak, what to do in a 40-foot boat when the engine quit running and
so forth. So, I enjoyed the time away from the unit as much as I did the time at the unit.
�Interviewer: Okay. And then, where would you go for like your, you had these two week
training assignments in the summers or whatever?
Veteran: Yes.
Interviewer: What places did you go for those?
Veteran: I think, well I went to, 12 or 13 times, to Yorktown, Virginia. And Yorktown was a
reserve base, and at that time it was only reserves, and most of that was for school and advanced
school, and other school, there was engineman school there, there was water pollution school,
explosive loading school. Leadership school, I was at there twice as an enlisted man, once as an
officer. And I really enjoyed going back every other year almost, to school. In between we went
to operating bases. I was at Great Lakes, Illinois a couple of times, Jacksonville, Florida. I was in
New York at the capital at the port twice, once when it was on Governor’s Island, and once when
it was in Manhattan, right near the battery park there. I was in Concord, California at explosive
loading school. That was during the time when we were bombing Cambodia, and we were
loading ships with 500 pound bombs that were all the way stacked in the hold and about 12 high
on the deck. And they would run the ships out through the river, and out past San Francisco but
they would stop in San Francisco to load provisions. And just before I got there, one of those
loaded freighters had hit the pier in San Francisco and put a 12-foot gash in the bow. So while I
was there, they started loading provisions way back at Concord, and they ran them right straight
out of the river, so. But that was a busy time. We worked about 18 hours a day, loading ships
with bombs at that time. (0:21:04)
Interviewer: Okay. Now you’re, you’re in a long time and you are in kind of through—I
guess before we get to sort of the Vietnam era, you get—there’s some Cold War crises that
�happen. I mean there actually have been trouble in Lebanon in the late 50s which wasn’t
directly Cold War, but that was one thing that put some units in some places on alert, but
then you’ve got things like the Berlin Wall crisis and the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile
crisis. Did any of those things have ripple effects that made it to your Coast Guard unit?
Veteran: I think only at that time, any of those things that you just mentioned, only that we were
living under a little more rigid alert. Reminded again that, you know, that we had orders in our
pocket that if anybody was called up, they were expected to be at their location, at their base
within 24 hours. Most of the time, I carried orders in my pocket to be in Juneau, Alaska within
24 hours after I got a phone call. (0:22:07)
Interviewer: Alright. Had you ever been to Juneau, Alaska?
Veteran: Yes, I had.
Interviewer: Okay, so what was up there?
Veteran: I was just there once on a cruise, so I don’t know.
Interviewer: Okay, you hadn’t gone there and you hadn’t seen the base or anything like
that?
Veteran: No, no it would have been brand new for me to, you know, to go to the base. I had been
in Juneau, but not at the base there.
Interviewer: Okay. And then when Kennedy is assassinated in 63, did that, was that, did
that just kind of work the same way?
Veteran: Yeah, it worked the same way. We just would be on a regular high alert, if that’s the
way to say it. It often reminds me when I hear about the people in homeland security today being
�on a high alert. There’s various different levels of alert. It was much the same in the reserves at
that time.
Interviewer: Okay. Now in 65, the Vietnam war becomes a ground war and we begin
drafting large numbers of people and there had been a draft in place taking some people
but then that accelerated quite a bit in the next several years. And you had a lot of people
trying to enlist in something other than the army, or get into reserve units, or do different
things to kind of avoid Vietnam. Did you notice any of the effects of that in terms of what
kinds of men were coming into your units? Did you have people who seemed to be trying to
avoid Vietnam or did they just seem like the guys you always got?
Veteran: There was no question there was some people there to avoid Vietnam, and there were
some people who were there because they were proud to be Americans. That created a bit of a
conflict in some units. A number of these people were very outspoken about they were only there
to put in their time so they didn’t have to go to Vietnam, I only enlisted, for example they would
say to me, I only enlisted so that I don’t have to go over there, and yet I know you have to train
me so let’s do the best you can but I am not really going to do anything. And we had two
brothers, twins, in our unit in Gary, and we knew we were going to have an inspection. And at
that time, they wore the old Navy uniform: it was exactly the same as the Navy uniform so you
had your rating badge on your left sleeve. And they had taken their rating badge off of their
sleeve and had obtained, I don’t know where, but had obtained a badge that looked like it
belonged on their sleeve and it had the peace symbol, if you know what that looks like. And we
had an inspection from the district office, and I can tell you that the commanding officer from the
district office, I thought he was going to kill these two kids when he walked by them. He just
�walked over to their uniform just literally ripped it off of their sleeve. And, but they did their 4
years and they were gone. That’s all they really cared, you know. (0:24:52)
Interviewer: Now did you have people who were sort of actively interested in actually doing
kind of home front, Coast Guard things, I mean just the rescue stuff and that sort of—did
you have people who actually wanted to go and do those things or would those people go
active duty instead?
Veteran: We had a lot of folks who were very anxious to learn lifesaving duties and so forth you
know, especially when we started that augmentation of the regular reserve units. They were very
anxious to be boat coxswains and to be enginemen on board the small boats, really enjoyed it. I
did too. When I did some active duty in Chicago, a couple times there at the Coast Guard
stations, we went out on search and rescues any old time of the day or night. The whistle would
go off, we ran down to the boat after we put our clothes on and usually we slept with our clothes
on, even in the middle of the summer, run down to the boat and be gone within a few minutes,
much like airline pilots do today, and so forth.
Interviewer: Okay. And then, while you are doing that kind of work with the boats and so
forth, are there particular events or things that kind of stand out in your memory?
(0:26:03)
Veteran: Only two times, I guess, both of which were recoveries of bodies. It was in Lake
Michigan and that’s a tough job for some people. It’s a smelly job. And we had one incident in
Chicago where a guy had gone overboard off of a ship in November and his body was floating in
April. So I won’t get any deeper than that but you can imagine what it was like. Everybody had
to bury their clothes after we got back to the base, because of the odor. You can’t get it out of
�your clothes, so. His body came apart in pieces when we picked him up, so. But, we had a lot of
rescues.
Interviewer: Okay.
Veteran: The beaches in Chicago are always busy this time of the year. And people get out just
like they do here on Lake Michigan, and don’t watch the red flag, or ignore it, or want to say I
guess I’m better, I don’t have to notice that it’s there, and they go out, you know, and go
swimming. But we had a lot of rescues there. There’s a strong undertow in Chicago, even
stronger than it is here. I don’t know if that’s, you know, because of the way the lake moves or
what it is, but a lot of people were pulled under by the undertow there.
Interviewer: Okay, and you have people close enough to be able to actually help or—
Veteran: Yeah, when I, at that time, at least in Calumet Park, and they did also at Navy Pier, they
had a large tower. It went up probably I guess three and a half or four stories high and we could
watch the entire beach. And for weekends in particular, and that’s when we were there for
training, weekends in particular at that time, the Coast Guard boats would patrol back and forth
and north and south and back again on the beach, and watch for swimmers so we had an active
presence, and it didn’t take us but a couple minutes to get to somebody if they were in trouble.
Interviewer: Okay, because yeah it has to be pretty quick if they’re going under…
Veteran: It has to be if they’re going under. (0:28:18)
Interviewer: Alright. Now did you have to kind of go out in bad weather conditions? The
famous Coast Guard stuff was often the little boat in the giant waves kind of thing.
�Veteran: Yeah, I guess the—we were out in some small boats at that time. They were 40-footers.
Most of that wasn’t bad, but I remember when we went across on the Bramble, when I was there
for warrant officer evaluation, went on there and we left in November. There was a buoy that had
come loose in Chicago and the Bramble was responsible for the entire bottom of the lake, all the
way up to and including Chicago, and the buoy had come loose in Chicago. We left from Grand
Haven and it’s hard for some people to believe, but when we left the river there, the water was
splashing on the glass in the lighthouse there. And we know of, I know of one chief electrician
who was not sick, and we don’t know about the captain because he never came out of his cabin.
The other 40 guys were sick. And when I got to Chicago and got off, my legs were like rubber,
and it was that way for a couple days. Now people talk about being seasick in the ocean, but
there is a difference on the lake. It comes up in just a couple of minutes and it was—it took us
about nine and a half hours from Grand Haven to Chicago and that’s not even 40 miles across the
lake so, it was a rough trip.
Interviewer: Okay, did you manage to fix the buoy?
Veteran: Yeah, we did fix the buoy. We had another buoy with us and we placed that one in the
right position and we picked up the broken one and towed it into Chicago, so. (0:30:06)
Interviewer: Alright, and you also mentioned that at one point, when you were in Lake
Michigan, there was a massive oil spill in Chicago?
Veteran: Yes. I don’t remember exactly what year that was but it started early in the morning on
the 4th of July and there was an oil tankard that had come into Calumet Harbor there, or at the
east Chicago Indiana harbor where the refineries are there, and it was a Polish vessel. He was
upset with something that had happened and he purposely pumped the bilges into Lake
�Michigan. And that was during the Cold War period yet, and gobs of oil as big as your fist began
to roll up on the beach on the 4th of July as the sun rose. And you can imagine millions of people
that wanted to go to the beach…and so we were called up for three days. And I was awake on the
boat for probably between 36 and 48 hours. Most of us guys were out on the boat. We messed up
a screw on one of the boats so I had to go underneath the water and change the screw. It’s a
tough job even when you’re above water. So you go down for maybe three, four minutes with a
mask and all of the gear that you need you know, but it was really difficult to work underneath
the water and I don’t take any credit for any of that any more than anybody else that was on the
boat. Everybody had a tough job.
Interviewer: Alright. Were you still an enlisted man at that point? During that-Veteran: Yes, I was.
Interviewer: So yeah, you’re the engine guy, okay you go down and do—
Veteran: You go down and do this, that’s right.
Interviewer: Had you been trained to do that sort of work?
Veteran: I had been trained to change those screws, but not to do it underwater. That was a whole
new experience. And you had to learn pretty quick that, you know, you can only be down for so
long and your arms were fatigued and you had to come up for some air. (0:32:01)
Interviewer: So you had an oxygen tank but you, was it still just physically moving
underwater?
Veteran: Underwater was tough, all the resistance from the water itself, you know, yeah. Trying
to operate wrenches and screwdrivers and so forth underwater. I dropped the screwdriver,
�dropped the wrench a couple of times, it was gone. Had to get another one from the boat, and so
forth.
Interviewer: Alright. Now when you make the shift from enlisted to warrant officer, I guess
first of all, not everyone is going to know what a warrant officer is, it’s kind of a peculiar
rank, so can you explain what that was?
Veteran: Yeah, a warrant officer in a naval service, whether it be U.S. Navy or the Coast Guard,
is a specialist in his own right. If I look once in a while at people, in the Army for example, a lot
of helicopter pilots are warrant officers. But in the naval service, you’re considered a specialist in
a particular field. Mine was engineering. The other people who are, you know, operate up on a
bridge, or whatever it happens to be. And I guess I looked, once that opening was there to be a
warrant officer, I said this is a chance to expand what I am doing. I was a chief engineman and
that was a lot of fun and there was a little prestige involved there. You could go to chief club,
you couldn’t do that before, and so forth. But this was a chance to do something more than I did
as a chief. So an engine—on the Bramble, for example, and the Woodbine that was here in
Grand Haven, the Bramble was out of Detroit, a warrant officer was the head of the engineering
department on that ship. So it was a chance to do something more.
Interviewer: Okay. What differentiates a warrant officer from a line officer?
Veteran: A line officer, usually, expected to be more general in nature, as opposed to a warrant
officer being a specialist. That’s about the best way I can describe it, I guess. (0:34:09)
Interviewer: And so it’s a separate category in between conventional officer—a warrant
officer is kind of in between that and the enlisted?
�Veteran: Yeah it’s a peculiar situation in the Navy. When you’re a chief, at that time E7 was the
highest, when you’re a chief, you are welcome in the chief’s club and there’s an aura about being
a chief that he’s the guy who knows. If you’re a young officer, you go to the chief to learn what’s
going on. And then you become a warrant officer, you’re no longer welcome in the chief’s club,
you’re kind of looked down upon in the officer’s club, and I had some strange experiences as a
warrant officer. Just a little harassment. You know, the kind of thing that kids might do in
college to freshmen and so forth. Went to the officer’s club one day and it was in the
summertime and people were dressed either in khakis or in whites but you, it was all white from
head to toe, or all khaki from head to toe, and one of the line officers who was in there
recognized me as being a new warrant officer. And he arranged to have my white cap stolen
from the rack and brought my khaki one there, so I had to go back to the barracks with a white
uniform and a khaki hat so that kind of thing, but we got passed it. We had a lot of fun.
Interviewer: How long did you stay at warrant officer rank?
Veteran: Two years.
Interviewer: Okay.
Veteran: Approximately two years.
Interviewer: Alright, but you decided it would be a good thing to do to move up to the next
level?
Veteran: Yeah, I did. Again, as a chance to do something more. And that opened the door for me
in three different units where I was a training officer, and I was able to actually operate the entire
training program in the unit and schedule all the people in the unit for their annual active duty.
So it was a chance to make sure that people were going to active duty that was intentional for
�their rank. And by that I mean if a guy wanted to be an engineman, he went to engineman school
or a related school, leadership school, or you know, that sort of thing. So you ran the entire
training program of the unit. The unit in Gary had, at one time, had well over a hundred men, so
it was a pretty responsible job to make sure that all these people got the proper training all the
time to move up, especially those who wanted to move up, if that’s the way to say it. (0:36:54)
Interviewer: Okay. Now aside from Gary, I mean where else did you serve as an officer?
Veteran: After Gary, I went to Cleveland, Ohio. I had moved on a civilian job and was in a unit
there for about a year, in an engineering unit, which was really foreign to me. I say engineering,
it was the kind of engineering that goes along with inspections of vessels before they are
commissioned, all the drawings and the building of a vessel. That was completely foreign to me.
I had no training in that and requested early on that I be moved to a port security unit there in
Cleveland. And then I took a job in Owosso, Michigan here, and had to leave Cleveland so the
only opening at that point in time was in Chicago again. So I was living in Ada here at that time,
and drove one weekend a month to Chicago to do my active duty on the weekend. And then
there was a unit in Grand Rapids, at that time, and it was in the Naval Armory on the north side,
in Monroe, and I made application to move to that unit. And it was okayed. And a month before I
was to move to that unit, the unit moved to Muskegon. So I had to drive from here to Muskegon
for some time in the last year that I was in. But again, it was a chance for an advancement. I
became an executive officer there. I was responsible for the operations of the unit. (0:38:30)
Interviewer: Alright. Now, you had mentioned, before the interview, that you had sort of
one kind of other crisis situation or almost crisis situation that you had gotten into, and
that was toward the end of your service. When Reagan was president—
�Veteran: Yes. When Reagan was president, and they had the prisoners in Lebanon, or the
hostages in Lebanon, and they were concerned about getting them out, we were called up at the
unit. In fact, I was at work that day and I got a call 1:30, 2 o’clock in the afternoon to be in
Chicago the following morning at Great Lakes. And we went to Great Lakes and they herded our
entire unit, and a couple of other units, we had probably well over 300 hundred people there.
When we left, we were told to make sure our insurance was up to date, our will was up to date,
because we were going to the Middle East. When we got there, they pulled the black shades. And
we had a couple days of instruction and towards the end of the second day they told us that
they’d be issuing khaki uniforms for us, and that was unheard of in the Coast Guard, any
camouflage.
Interviewer: And so not khaki uniforms but camouflage uniforms?
Veteran: But a camouflage uniform, yeah. And that was unheard of at that point in time, you
know, we wore blue dungarees and whatever. And one of the guys in the crew asked the
commanding officer why are we wearing these? And he said, well, you are going to the desert.
And this kid said but we weren’t trained for the desert, we were trained for water. And he said
well, you will only be there a few days. And he said, and the kid said, are we going there before
the Marines get there and we’re cannon fodder? And the commanding officer said, yeah, that’s
probably a good way to describe it. A couple hours later, they told us we could pack up our gear
and go home without ever telling us why, what happened, but there must have been something
going on behind the scenes that they decided they no longer needed the Coast Guard or anybody
like us over there, so. (0:40:38)
Interviewer: Okay. Now, during the Vietnam era, did the Coast Guard take any sort of
heat from the anti-war movement? Or did people not associate you with Vietnam?
�Veteran: I never was privy to see any demonstrations or anything at our unit. It didn’t happen at
the unit or any place that I was ever at. We had some people in the unit that I mentioned before
that were not so happy to be there but…No, I really never saw any demonstrations.
Interviewer: Okay. Now if you were just out in public wearing a uniform, you didn’t get—
it didn’t get a negative reaction anywhere?
Veteran: No. No, because most of those reserve units that we were in, we ate off site. We ate our
lunch off site, we would go to a restaurant. It would be 120, 130 guys eating in a restaurant all
with our uniforms on. Nobody ever bothered us.
Interviewer: They might not bother 120 or 130 guys all at once, either.
Veteran: No, that’s probably true. That’s probably true.
Interviewer: That part at least you didn’t necessarily observe. Alright, now the port
security thing, was that something that you only went to once you were in Cleveland or had
you done that kind of work earlier?
Veteran: I had done that when we started in Chicago. The emphasis was more on rescue and
search, and that lasted about 2, 3 years. And then there began to morph into, you know, what are
we going to do with the port in Chicago? You know people think, well, the port in Chicago,
what’s that? Well it’s not much and it wasn’t much at that time, but we began to see some
activities already that were a little disconcerting. And, what do we do with these people on the
pier who are half drunk and laying around and do we observe some people on the pier who
appear to be drunk but they’re not and they are just acting like they are, and that sort of stuff. So
we began, the captain of the port in Chicago, began very actively to train port security people on
what to do in a port and on the facilities. And that just grew, and all the time, almost all the time
�that I spent in Gary, I was involved in port security and that continued in Cleveland and the other
units, except for that one year in Cleveland when I was in the engineering unit. (0:42:53)
Interviewer: Okay. And then, so the port security, was that mostly just dealing with
ordinary people wandering around or did you have to deal with criminal activity, or other
things like that?
Veteran: Yeah, we dealt with a lot of criminal activity, particularly in New York when I was
there a couple of times and New Orleans as well. When I was in New Orleans, we had one night
that the training officer in New Orleans—my object when I got to New Orleans was to become
completely certified as a port safety officer. And the training officer there went on leave without
me knowing it, and I was supposed to work with him the entire two weeks. I got a knock on my
door about 3 o’clock in the morning that said get up, we’re going up to Baton Rouge. And I said,
what happened? I got dressed, I said what happened. There was an enlisted man there. And that
was, as I, you know, mentioned before, you asked the enlisted man what’s going on if you’re the
officer to make sure and you’re new on the place. He said well there’s a Russian vessel that left
from Cuba three days early. He was supposed to stop in New Orleans and let lots of people
aboard, like the state department and the agriculture department and whatever, he was going to
load grain. And he roared right through New Orleans and didn’t stop. So he said we’re going up
there. So we went up there and it was early, just about dawn, when we got to Baton Rouge. And
to make a long story short, eventually the captain and the entire crew of that Russian vessel was
detained, he would not allow them off the ship. And the state department was there, the
agriculture department and the FBI and I don’t know who all, including us. So it was a very new
experience for me. Very tense aboard that ship when the captain was told that he was not allowed
to go ashore. He wanted people to go to a doctor, and on his crew manifest, he had two doctors.
�He wanted people to go to a dentist and he had a dentist on the crew manifest, all of which were
bogus, you know. He had a crew list of more than twice the number of people that was required
to run that ship. So you know what was going on, we all know what was going on at that point in
time. And he loaded grain eventually in Baton Rouge, and he was escorted with Coast Guard
vessels in front and behind, all the way to 90 miles into the gulf. So it was a rough night and a
rough day…but a lot of fun. (0:45:44)
Interviewer: Okay. Now if you’re in a place like New York or New Orleans, do you have to
worry about smuggling activities or organized crime activities?
Veteran: Yeah, a lot of the work in New York was on the piers. At that time, the old wood piers.
We were concerned a whole lot with activities of the longshore men, and I don’t mean to knock
the longshore men, it’s their job. But the old story on the longshore men in New York was the
first ten percent that comes off the ship belongs to the longshore men. And no smoking on the
pier. We were on one pier in New York when I was there the second time where we caught a guy
smoking and he was reported immediately to the supervisor. And when it happens twice, that’s
grounds for dismissal: you lose your job. And we told him about it. There were three of us guys.
We told him that he had one warning, and if there was another, he was gone. We went aboard the
ship to inspect the ship. At that point in time, a lot of those inspections were for radioactive
material and so forth aboard the ship and we had all of the instruments necessary to do that.
Checked all the papers with the officers on the ship and so forth. We came back off and this guy
was smoking again. And the guy who was with me, he said to him I am going to your supervisor,
and you just lost your job. And as we walked towards the supervisor’s office, I heard a scream by
the guy who was on my right, and this guy who had just been caught smoking for the second
time took what they call a bale hook, kind of a round hook that they would hook nets to pull
�things off the ship, and he put it right through his back and it came out of his chest. And luckily
we got him to the hospital before he bled to death or anything, but those are the kind of people
that worked on the piers sometimes in New York so. (0:47:48)
Interviewer: Okay, so presumably he lost his job at that point…
Veteran: Yeah, he did lose his job and went to prison, I understand, for some years besides,
which… So it, you know, wasn’t combat but it was—it could be very dangerous. It could be very
dangerous.
Interviewer: I mean did you encounter any kind of drug smuggling issues or things like
that?
Veteran: No, I don’t think that at that point in time the Coast Guard was much involved in it. At
least not that I knew of…Like they are today. It’s a big part of their job today.
Interviewer: But as far as the port security, it was not necessarily that kind of detective
work so much it was—
Veteran: No, it was kind of a--almost a law enforcement activity at that point in time. Here’s
what we are looking for, if we find it, here’s what the punishment is or you know what’s going to
happen to you folks that are involved in it. (0:48:41)
Interviewer: Okay, now you mentioned the looking for radioactive materials. That seems
kind of odd…Did you get stuff going in, coming out? Any idea what that was about?
Veteran: There was a concern I think at that time in the Coast Guard that there might be, you
know there was--we already had atomic bombs, and was there any smuggling of radioactivity,
radioactive material, that was either coming in or going out. That was one of the concerns when
�we went on board the ship. Who’s trying to build a bomb that we don’t want building a bomb.
And we have that same problem today, right?
Interviewer: Alright.
Veteran: It’s never stopped.
Interviewer: Okay, let’s see now, did you get any kind of awards or commendations, kind
of beyond the stuff you get for showing up?
Veteran: Yeah, I got the—you know the pistol marksman, and the rifle marksman and so forth,
but the one that I enjoyed the most was the Coast Guard Achievement Medal.
Interviewer: Okay.
Veteran: And after spending 21 years in one unit, there were a lot of things I was able to do. One
of my tours of active duty was right at that unit for two weeks. And one other fellow and myself
spent the entire two weeks, probably close to 70 hours a week for those two weeks, rewriting
engineering programs and engineering training manuals for the entire 9th district. And that’s what
the achievement medal was for. (0:50:19)
Interviewer: Okay. Alright, now while you were—you had your career as a Coast Guard
reservist, what kind of work were you doing in civilian life?
Veteran: When I was living in Illinois for the most part, it was marketing support, and the same
in Cleveland. And then when I moved here to Michigan, mostly how do I support the sales
people in the organization that I am working for. It had to do with advertising and sales meetings
and all that sort of thing.
Interviewer: Okay. And out of what company did you work for the longest, do you think?
�Veteran: The longest would have been Allis-Chalmers in Illinois. I worked there 23 years. At
that time, they were building engines in Harvey, Illinois and lift trucks when I first started there.
And then they built a new engine plant in Harvey and they built a new lift truck plant in
Matteson, Illinois, so I worked there for a while before I moved on to Cleveland.
Interviewer: Okay. And then did you stay with sort of heavy equipment manufacturers, or
did you do other things?
Veteran: Yeah, when I moved to Cleveland, we moved to a competitor there. There were 12
people that, over a period of about a year and a half, left Allis-Chalmers and went to Baker
Material Handling in Cleveland. And they built lift trucks just like we did there. We saw the
handwriting on the wall I think in—at Allis-Chalmers. Had a beautiful plant, had a great product.
We sold more lift trucks to the U.S. government than any other manufacturer in the United
States, but we saw the handwriting on the wall that they were slowly deteriorating as an
organization, Allis-Chalmers in general, whether it be farm trucks, construction machinery, lift
trucks, engines, whatever. About a year after I left, the business was sold to a dealer in Ohio,
who ultimately peddled it to a place in Sweden, and it no longer exists so we went to a
competitor. And then one of the folks at Baker, who knew me from Allis-Chalmers, said I am
moving to Midland Heavy Duty brake in Owosso, do you want to come with me? I really didn’t
want to move again, I was only in Cleveland for three years. But I did, and then later on, in 1988,
they were sold and they were building a new headquarters in Kansas City, and my wife and
family said, do we really want to move again? I said well I do, but I knew they didn’t so then I
went to work for a petroleum manufacturer here in—or a petroleum distributer here in Grand
Rapids, and spent the rest of my time there. (0:53:13)
Interviewer: Alright. Are you retired now?
�Veteran: Yes.
Interviewer: So when did you retire then?
Veteran: Last I really worked was about 2 years ago. After I retired on a full-time basis, I worked
as a consultant for 4, 5 years and then drove cars for Hertz Corporation between airports between
Grand Rapids and Detroit, Traverse City and so forth. But about two years ago I said, hey I am
78 years old, that’s enough, I got enough.
Interviewer: Alright. Look back on your career in the Coast Guard, are there other
memories or events or things that kind of stand out? Anything you’ve got on your list there
that, I guess, we haven’t covered?
Veteran: No, I think you pretty much covered everything. There was one, one quick thing that
happened maybe in—when I was in the unit in Gary. Just kind of a funny thing if we’ve got time
for that? (0:54:09)
Interviewer: Yep, yep, yep, oh yeah.
Veteran: I was teaching a class, I was a chief engineman at that time, I was teaching a class and
there was an announcement over the loud speaker system that there was an emergency phone call
for me, so I turned the class over to another fellow, grabbed the phone. And it was my wife. We
had just moved into a house that we had bought, it was an old house, and had fixed it up and just
painted the bedroom and all of that sort of stuff and it was white and she had a new bedspread
and so forth. So she said there’s a bird in the bedroom. I said I am 22 miles away, what do you
want me to do with the bird? So she called her father who lived next door. He came over with a
broom. He was going to beat it to death in the bedroom. She said no you aren’t. So we knew that
the police department had, I forgot what they call that, a gun that kills—or doesn’t kill animals…
�Interviewer: Like a tranquilizer, or something like that?
Veteran: Yeah, a tranquilizer, we knew that. So she said, and when I hung up, I said what do you
want me to do? She said I will take care of it. So she dialed the police and said I’ve got a bird in
my bedroom, can you bring the tranquilizer gun over? And the cop said, lady, this is not for
birds, this is for animals. And she said well, what do you want me to do? And he said open the
window. And she did and the bird flew out. So I’ll never forget it, I’ll never forget what I was
doing that day. It was really—I could go on about that story for hours but, that’s it.
Interviewer: Alright, now overall, what do you think you took out of your time with the
Coast Guard? What did you learn from it or how did it effect you?
Veteran: I think that leadership was the most important thing. It went hand in hand with my
civilian job. The last civilian job that I had at Midland, we purchased 9 companies in 8 years and
melded them into the organization. So there was a constant turmoil, a change of people to work
with. My boss at one time, who was my boss for all except about 6 months at Midland, when we
had bought—we had purchased a company in Syracuse, New York. He moved to Syracuse and
was there for about a year and a half, so our only communication was every two or three months.
We’d meet at an airport somewhere to discuss what was going on, otherwise everything
happened on the phone, and I think the Coast Guard really contributed to that. Being able to be a
leader and at the same time, as an officer, in some cases to act on your own, which I then did in
civilian life. (0:56:56)
Interviewer: Okay.
Veteran: But I think overall, a love of country was really the main factor.
�Interviewer: Alright. But now you’ve reminded me of another question I wanted to kind of
bring in…You’ve, as an enlisted man staying in one place for a long time, you would
have—and then eventually as an officer—but you would have seen a lot of changes in
command and things like that. How common was it for, say, you were in Gary for 21 years,
for base commanders or high-ranking people, to kind of move on or change positions?
Veteran: Commanding officers of most of the reserve units at that time had a job for about three
years, so I saw about five or six, maybe seven in that time that I was there. But that was kind of
an unwritten rule: every three years, we had a new commanding officer. And there was a way for
those folks to move on too. They then became inspectors for the district office, became training
people for the district office, where they would write training programs and so forth. So many of
those folks got 20, 25 years in as well. (0:58:09)
Interviewer: Okay. Now, was it always kind of an adventure when a new guy came in? Did
they kind of come in and want to show who’s boss? Or did they just want to fit in or--?
Veteran: A little bit of everything, I guess. But for the most part, you knew who those people
were because they would be an executive officer before being promoted to be the commanding
officer of a unit. So if you were there with them, as I was, you knew those folks for at least 5, 6
years before they became commanding officer. Training unit, and then executive officer, and
then commanding officer.
Interviewer: Okay, so it’s not like they are usually coming in from the outside? Or are total
unknowns when they come in.
Veteran: Rarely, rarely. That did happen at the unit in Muskegon. The commanding officer there
lived in Detroit, so he drove from Detroit to Muskegon for his weekends. And I lived in Ada and
�drove over there. There was another officer, training officer, who drove from Flint. So, and those
were all—all three of us were new at that unit. All at the same time, all on the same day. That
was a little hairy.
Interviewer: So when you go into a situation like that, how do you handle it, or deal with
the personnel who are already there?
Veteran: I guess at that point in time, you know, I had been in for 29 years, and I often thought
about it on the active duty that you went on each year for two weeks. My feeling was that when
you arrive there on Sunday, you better find out who you are living with and who you can live
with and who you don’t think you can live with, because you are going to be sleeping in the
same place for two weeks, you’re going to eat with them, you’re going to go on liberty with them
and whatever. So by that time you had done it so many times, it really didn’t bother you.
(1:00:01)
Interviewer: Now does it help that the Coast Guard is a relatively small group? Is there
kind of a standard way of doing things that’s pretty common, from one place to another?
Veteran: Yeah, if you get transferred from one ship to another, many of the things are the same.
Or if you get transferred from one base to another, things are pretty much the same. I have been
at the Coast Guard bases as a civilian, I’ve been on Maui and in Honolulu, and they operate the
same as they do in Chicago or over here in Grand Haven. (1:00:34)
Interviewer: Alright. Well, you’ve got a good story and you lay it out very nicely for us, so
I’d just like to close here by thanking you for taking the time to come in and share it today.
Veteran: I appreciate it, and I hope it inspires some other folks to join. (1:00:46)
��
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
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1914-
Rights
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<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
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
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RHC-27
Language
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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/.
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RHC-27_SmitsW2141V
Title
A name given to the resource
Smits, Wendall (Interview transcript and video), 2017
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-06
Description
An account of the resource
Wendall Smits was born in South Holland, Illinois in 1936. After graduating high school, a friend convinced him to join the Coast Guard Reserve at the age of 17. He completed two weeks of boot camp in 1955 at Cape May, New Jersey and became an engineman for the Coast Guard aboard various ships. He then became a chief engineman and, later, a lieutenant with a unit in Chicago before transferring to a Coast Guard unit in Gary, Indiana. After moving to Cleveland, Ohio, he was promoted to the position of warrant officer, and then to a Lieutenant Junior Grade. Smits primarily worked for port security at the various bases bases he was stationed at and also trained recruits for his Coast Guard units as a training officer. He was later awarded the Coast Guard Achievement Medal for his work rewriting engineering programs and engineering training manuals for the entire 9th district in Gary, Indiana.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Smits, Wendall L.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American
United States. Coast Guard
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Source
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Veterans History Project collection, RHC-27
Rights
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<a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401.
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Language
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eng