57 24 1541 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4175bb268547604f5b343d9ef159c8c4.mp4 2bf2d5fd345fb20719f61902c6528fd1 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fb52ee95549874ae6660a850767e551c.pdf 46a749b08b70f06689f84b96ca03c62f PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Cliff Carlon (01:02:34) (00:50) Background Information • • • • • Cliff was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on March 14, 1921 There were six children in his family and his father had to trade their house in Grand Rapids for a farm in Wayland during the depression Cliff went to high school through fifth grade and then began working on the farm and carpentry work He later worked for the National Dairy Company in Grand Rapids Cliff was drafted into the military 6 months after Pearl Harbor was attacked; he was married and his wife was pregnant (4:05) Training • Cliff was sent to Fort Sheridan in Chicago for aptitude testing and they decided that he should be a mechanic • He then went to Augusta, Georgia for mechanic classes and was promoted twice before taking more advanced classes • He was also going through basic training but did not have to do as much work as others because they wanted him to focus on his classes • Cliff was working with Company B of the 692nd Tank Destroyer Battalion in Georgia for 3 months • He was then sent to Fort Hood in Texas for more training (9:30) Texas • They were working with WWI tanks that towed 37 mm guns that were impractical • He was later sent to Tennessee and worked with M-10 tanks that weighed about 32 tons with 50 caliber machine guns • Cliff was working with a cadre of 2 battalions and one of them was sent to North Africa while the other went to Europe • While in Texas Cliff had the rank of sergeant (13:30) Overseas • Cliff was sent to Philadelphia on a three day pass while waiting for the ship to be ready to leave from New York • The ship took longer than expected and he was able to spend 15 days in Philadelphia • They left right after D-Day on a British luxury liner and were on board with a company of nurses �They anchored in at Weymouth Bay in Southern England and left that night for Cherbourg, France (22:10) France • Their battalion was sent to a staging area near Paris around the occurrence of the Battle of the Dykes • Cliff later helped to clear the Germans out of the Netherlands so they could ship supplies North • They did not get heavy opposition in the Netherlands; the Germans knew they were losing and were dissolutioned • The people in the Netherlands were very appreciative of the US soldiers • Most of the towns were demolished in the Netherlands, France, Belgium, and Germany • There were still civilians in the Netherlands, but barely any in Germany until the actually crossed the Ruhr River • (25:45) Germany • The first town they took in Germany was Aachen • Earlier they had been in Belgium holding 3 cities during the Battle of the Bulge supporting the 104th Division • Cliff’s duties consisted of repairing tank engines and replacing old parts • They only had small damage from shrapnel and some wrecked tires, but nothing major from battle • Most of the Germans had run out of fuel and ammunition and stopped attacking • There was very little resistance once after the Battle of the Bulge and they were advancing towards the Rhine very quickly • They were not working as an attached unit and moved all over to where ever they were needed (32:10) Reconnaissance Transfer • Cliff volunteered to transfer to a reconnaissance company • He later decided that the volunteer was the worst decision he had ever made • He volunteered because he was young and foolish and did not get along well with the men in Company B • He worked ahead of the unit, always under cover and usually went out by himself, but sometimes with one other man • He used walkie-talkies to communicate and could get up to 20 miles ahead of the rest of the unit • Cliff would sometimes get pinned down in a town and would either have to take out the enemy or wait till night time to sneak out (37:15) Rhine Crossing �• • • • • Cliff actually crossed the river before the pontoon bridges were built and once he was There were many German planes scattered throughout the woods that they had abandoned once they ran out of fuel Cliff later crossed the Danube and arrived in Munich, but had gotten metal in his eye and had to be sent to a field hospital in France for 2 weeks While in Munich they cleared out the Dachau concentration camp There were about 50 car loads of bodies along the road outside of the camp and a few “walking skeletons” (41:35)Austria • Cliff was staying in a small mountainous town in the Alps working with the Army of Occupation for 90 days • They actually got to live in houses with civilians and they helped the men with their cooking and cleaning; they had time to go trout fishing • They were treated well by the civilians and they all got along well • The Austrians did not have much food and they really appreciated the men’s K and C rations (46:25) Post War • The men eventually took on so many prisoners, there were thousands and thousands of them and they did not know where to send them • The German soldiers were not in too bad of shape; they were old and young, with a couple of very old men • The SS troops were very cocky and thought that they were the epitome of a soldier • Cliff’s division only lost about 300 from about 15,00 men and they were very fortunate • Cliff did not have many points and thought that he was going to be sent to the Pacific • Just after leaving from La Havre, France he got news that Japan had been bombed (52:40) Discharged • Cliff was discharged at Camp Kilmer and began working at the dairy company again • He took some tests for the Grand Rapids Police Department and ranked in the top 10% • The GI Bill allowed him to start out at a higher position and higher pay and he eventually became captain • Cliff worked for the police for 35 years � 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 Carlon, Cliff (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Carlon, Cliff Description An account of the resource Cliff Carlon was born in 1921 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was drafted into the Army in 1942 and trained as a mechanic. He served with Company B of the 692nd Tank Destroyer Battalion in Europe, and later transferred to a reconnaissance unit. After the Germans surrendered, Cliff was part of the Army of Occupation in Austria for 90 days before he was sent back to the US. 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 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 2008-09-02 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CarlonC 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/a995c9a69305a51a5d08de8e08737cac.mp4 89c2b7fa4086f0d2f41a04c65cb244a7 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/95a726224d91fc7db4b82451d470fb20.pdf 51ae4f6bb8bc979d36be3a5f07179ff5 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Hayes Cargill World War II Total Time: 0:30:45 Childhood, Pre-Enlistment, and Post-War (00:18)        Born September 12, 1926 Attended South High and Davis Tech High School in Grand Rapids. Worked in some factories after graduation, and then went to umpire school in Cocoa, FL and then umpired minor league baseball throughout the Midwest and the south. Quit umpiring and umpired around the Grand Rapids area, and worked as an umpire for the Grand Rapids Chicks. Was drafted into the service at age 18. (23:32) Applied for and attended Junior College after the War. Is a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Training (08:40)  Attended basic training and then attended airborne school at Fort Benning, GA and this lasted six months. Was then shipped to CA and then overseas in midAugust 1945. Active Duty (11:40)              Was in the Navy part of the Army Went to the Pacific as a Parachute Replacement Was in the Philippines for six months, and then docked in Yokohama, Japan. He worked on an LCM, which ferried seamen from their ships that were in a harbor to the shore. He worked in this capacity while he was in Tokyo. On weekend leave, he would play golf in Tokyo. Then went for a time into the Philippines and remembers all of the jungle around Manila. Never saw combat. Was awarded a medal for good behavior (15:30) Worked guard duty at times. For entertainment, the men would play softball and football during the day and watch movies at night. Would sometimes play pranks on the other men as well. Went from Georgia to California and then across the ocean to the Philippines. Was home in October 1945 on leave and was discharged officially in November of 1945. � 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 Cargill, Hayes (Interview outline and video), 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cargill, Hayes Description An account of the resource Hayes Cargill was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1926, and served in the Navy during World War II. He worked primarily on craft that took men from their ships to the mainland when they were at port. He worked in both the Philippines and Japan, but he never saw combat, as they were in theses areas after the war had for the most part wound down. After the War, he worked as an umpire for minor league and women's baseball. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Stephaie Horner (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 2004-12-17 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CargillH 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/e44c6978405063b4feef61d89b27547e.mp4 d8935429d3ea62c311ef4200898c5601 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/17a2eaffb517520ffe5052a09d7c218d.pdf e7bd9bad0d83b9452c0654585a39a2bf PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project War in Iraq Ben Cardenas Interview Length: (01:27:59:00) Early Life/ Early Military Experience (00:00:07:04)  Born in 1981 in Saginaw, Michigan, where he spent his childhood (00:00:07:00)  Both parents worked in the automotive industry (00:21:00)  Grew up in a family of 4 children (00:00:34:00)  Following his graduation from Bridgeport High School in 2000, attended Grand Rapids Community College for one semester (00:00:42:00)  Joined the Marines in 2001 (00:01:05:00) o Was drawn to the idea of enlisting to follow the generational family tradition (00:01:26:22) o Significant military history within his family including Spanish- American and Mexican- American wars (00:00:40:00)  Did not expect to become heavily involved in U.S. military duties (00:02:30:26) o Wanted to keep his lifestyle by maintaining a reserve membership, not active duty (00:02:30:00)  After the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, began active training at the Marince Corps Recruitment Depot San Diego on November 13th, 2001 (00:03:11:00)  At the boot camp, they “strip you of your identity” (00:03:40:00) o Here, recruits are taught to be purely obedient (00:04:09:12) o Found it very difficult to adjust to the lifestyle (00:04:46:25) o Punishment was a collective burden to all recruits (00:05:18:00) o Camp used “incentive training” on recruits, which is similar to what is known as “hazing” (00:05:35:27)  Those in charge at the boot camp were “machines” (00:07:23:06) o Very demanding of the recruits, installing both respect and fear in new soldiers (00:07:35:00) o Appreciated his authority’s’ demeanor because at boot camp, he felt he had “something to prove” (00:07:43:00)  Certain pattern of diversity at the boot camp (00:08:00:23) o Boot camp population split largely between Michigan and Texas (00:08:01:12) o Most between ages 18 and 20. Anyone older than 20 was uncommon. (00:08:37:21)  Marine Corps boot camp lasted 13 weeks (00:08:59:19) o First week is an “administrative” week, where recruits are disciplined as a group (00:09:05:00) o Then comes “black Friday” where recruits are introduced to who and what the camp will actually involve (00:09:17:15)  By human nature, recruits would try to find “loopholes” (00:09:51:00) o Intensity must always be high, so new soldiers would “act” in a way that pleases the authorities (00:10:00:00) o Camp activities are “from sunup to sundown” (00:10:33:12) �o Camp activities are purposefully made more difficult and uncomfortable for recruits (00:10:43:00)  The goal of boot camp is to graduate as soon as possible (00:11:41:00) o Marine Corps is built on tradition and graduation ceremonies are highly respected events (00:13:10:00)  After boot camp, had 10 days of vacation and then went to the School of Infantry in Camp Pendleton for 8 weeks o More relaxed than boot camp, although it took time to detach from the boot camp mentality (00:13:58:00)  Infantry School included a significant amount of classroom time, contrary to popular belief (00:14:23:10) o Required pupils to learn things in mathematics, geometry, physics, and other fields (00:14:35:00)  Infantry school had fewer guidelines than the highly disciplined boot camp (00:15:16:00) o Authorities still managed to find ways to instill fear/respect in pupils (00:15:22:00)  There are 3 main weapon systems the platoon used: M-240G, M-2, & Bart 19 (00:15:41:24)  At the school, they were taught to handle the guns in groups(00:16:10:00) o The teams consisted of 3 members: a “Team Leader”, a “Gunner”, and the “Ammo Man”. All positions are held, respectively, according to level of experience (00:16:13:00) o The team leader, being the most experienced, deals with the most technical aspects of the weapon’s use (00:13:58:00)  The training terrain was mostly mountains and beaches, making the simulations much more treacherous (00:13:58:00)  Difficult to keep up with current events/location of deployed marines while in Infantry School (00:18:25:00) o Limited free time (00:18:27:00)  After Infantry School, you are assigned to a unit (00:21:06:04)  Went back home in May 2002 (00:21:58:00) Active Duty (00:22:30:00)  On December 26th, 2002, was alerted of mobilization (00:22:40:00) o Was only given 3 days’ notice, unlike today’s deployments, which are more scheduled (00:22:43:00)  Unit, (Alpha Company, !st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment), reported to Grand Rapids for 3 days, then was transported to Germany for a few weeks (00:23:02:00) o In Germany, the unit was simply waiting to be transported again (00:23:25:06) o Was activated quickly because of outstanding health records (00:23:31:16)  Was then sent to Djibouti (00:24:20:00) o Throughout the transportation from place to place, the unit was confused as to why they were going there (00:24:22:00) o Stayed there for 9 months doing force protection, which is simply guard duty, during which time the invasion of Iraq was already under way (00:24:44:00)  Used chartered, commercial flights to travel (00:24:52:26)  In Djibouti, everything had a menacing quality (00:25:16:09) �o The wildlife was exotic and potentially dangerous (00:25:27:00) o Very hot climate (00:25:56:00)  Used tents for most of the time, as there were no established facilities when they arrived (00:26:24:00) o Things were being built around them, but they still had to live with minimal standards (00:27:15:00) o Despite unpleasant living standards, they were the only ones doing any real work on duty and thus were able to get some “perks” (00:27:41:00)  Did many humanitarian projects while in Djibouti (00:28:03:00)  Civilians also worked on the base (00:28:12:00) o Both men and women worked, as their culture was not very strict on gender roles (00:28:23:00)  There were some places to go for leisure in the town in Djibouti (00:28:50:00) o Had supervised trips into the city to the markets/etc. (00:29:01:13)  Took 6-7 months to establish effective means of contacting people back home in the United States (00:29:20:15) o Before other ways to communicate were found, “3 phones, 3 computers for…4 thousand people” (00:29:37:00)  After 9 months in Djibouti, got to come back home in September (00:29:52:04) o Everyone in the unit wanted to be stationed in Iraq very badly because the rest of their battalion was already there (00:30:08:19)  Stayed home for about 3 years (00:30:35:26) o During this time, there were several incidents where the men were told they would be deployed to the Middle East, but this never actually happened (00:30:40:00)  At home, continued to prep for what could await them in Iraq (00:31:35:00) o Tried to educate himself by attending military courses including advanced infantry, squad leader classes and went to the Defensive Language Institute for Iraqi dialect (00:31:38:20)  In May of 2006, was sent to Camp Pendleton for 4 months before going to Iraq (00:34:05:00) o Had to fill a training requirement before able to go to Iraq (00:33:22:00) o Also had to learn about how to handle civilians (00:35:50:00) Deployment to Iraq (00:36:49:00)  In September of 2006, was sent to Fallujah (00:36:51:00) o Was flown into Kuwait first, where the unit was then put onto military planes (00:36:50:00) o Then traveled to a desert region west of Fallujah (00:37:07:00)  First thing noticed when off the military plane was the very distinct smell (00:37:18:00)  Was then loaded onto a military utility truck and drove to Fallujah, which was a very frightening experience due to the regional fighting that they had to travel through (00:37:51:15)  Upon arrival in Fallujah, was surrounded by a “parade” of security forces (00:38:37:20)  Fallujah is similar to what happens when you have a “nice middle eastern city and step on it” (00:39:10:21) o The Battle of Fallujah left “almost nothing” (00:39:15:00) �           o The population was about 300,000, were trying to repopulate the area after the battle of Fallujah (00:39:33:00) First job in Fallujah was called SASO (Security And Stability Operations) (00:39:58:00) o Job was basically “whatever they needed us to do” (00:40:05:02) o Collected a census, where they walked door- to- door and kept track of who was in each home (00:40:13:00) Because had language skills, was a military advisor as well (00:40:22:00) o Was part of a “MIT” team (Military transition team) (00:41:25:00) o Did this for two months before becoming involved in SASO (00:41:35:20) o This job involved doing “whatever the Iraqi captain wanted to do”, and operated separately from other forces (00:41:40:00) o Difficult to communicate because of the language barrier between Americans and native Iraqis (00:42:01:00) The environment was more dangerous because the equipment was not the best and they were often in the city, which was the least safe in the area (00:42:33:24) o Was called the “Iraqi Death Box” (00:42:30:00) o Area was laden with Sheiks and Sunni hostility (00:43:08:21) o Police were very corrupt (00:43:26:00) Every day at noon, their living quarters were mortared (00:44:06:27) Was happy to be attached to an Iraqi force because they were able to help make improvements (00:44:49:04) o Being in Iraqi company allowed a “loophole” for Americans that could not perform certain necessary duties (00:45:23:08) o Shared American technology with the less privileged Iraqis (00:45:40:00) The Iraqi company was then moved, so the Americans were not needed after that and he was moved back to join the rest of the American company (00:46:11:29) o Began to do the same duties as the rest of the company such as the census, patrolling, raids, and arrests (00:46:29:00) o Instead of just trying to find something to do, was now a part of the company mission (00:46:47:00) On Christmas day, had a raid mission in Alpha company (00:47:07:00) Was never able to get heavily involved in the missions of Alpha company (00:47:17:00) o Mostly assumed an advisory position, and was “never really on the offensive, I was always on the defensive” (00:47:19:09) Was with Alpha company from Christmas until late April of the following year (00:47:48:20) The company was divided into different tasks by platoon (00:48:03:09) o One task was the “long ops”, where men would “live off the land” for roughly 2 weeks and gather intelligence (00:48:08:00) o Another task was the “short ops”, where men were stationed at the FOB, [Forward Operations Base] or “base”, on Euphrates River where they would also gather intel on short missions (00:48:22:00) o Another task was FOB security (00:49:10:00) o Another task was entry control, where men were in charge of who was entering the region (00:49:19:22) Company was frequently subject to open fire (00:49:56:24) �         o According to procedure, FOB security was the first to react when under attack. This was generally the point when the opposing forces would cease fire (00:50:17:02) Difficult to get permission to use alternate sources of weaponry (00:50:41:24) o All the men stationed knew how to use firing support, but were unable to use them. Much potential for the community was lost because of this (00:50:43:10) o In time, were able to use equipment more freely (00:50:05:00) A village called Hasa was particularly hostile towards those directly involved in the fighting each time American troops went there (00:51:46:00) o Did not follow typical Iraqi fighting styles, and actually wanted to put up a fight (00:52:11:00) o In this situation, were able to call upon heavier weapons company (00:52:50:00) o Regardless of Hasa’s bold demeanor, the company was always able to maintain control in action (00:54:01:26) Company lost a total of 5 killed with another 25 wounded out of approximately 160 men (00:54:41:17) With all the basic equipment, any given man had to carry about 60 pounds of gear (00:56:20:13) o With other things such as the “daypack”, or backpack, a man’s gear weighed around 80 pounds (00:50:40:00) o All of the gear was evenly distributed on the soldier’s body, although the weight still made it difficult to move about (00:56:54:00) Large temperature fluctuations made it difficult to adapt to the environment (00:57:20:00) Uniform material was “old fashioned” and didn’t take well to moisture or provide much heat (00:57:51:10) Men were “everyday sick” (00:59:05:00) o Being “sick” did not excuse you from duty. You had to be in critical physical condition, such as loss of a limb (00:59:17:00) Dust, a geographical characteristic of Iraq, was an issue for both weaponry and the men’s’ health (01:00:01:00) o Soiled instruments and weapons were not replaced when got extremely dirty. Marines were expected to do what was necessary to keep them functional (01:00:30:00) American troops began to make “friends with the enemy” after responding to trouble in a tribal city West of Fallujah (01:01:20:00) o In one region of the city, there was an especial amount of open fire due to a lack of peace between the local leaders and the Al Qaida leaders, who were mostly foreigners, when the latter party began to try to force their beliefs on the community (01:02:07:00) o At first, did not know who the two fighting parties were because there was “no friendly party” (01:03:07:00) o Americans began to seek intel from the local Iraqis, who were technically an enemy, but not in this situation (01:03:47:00) o Was difficult to accept the same people who had tried to kill them as a source of valid information (01:05:45:00) �o This alliance quickly mended the situation and helped things get on track towards peace (01:06:32:00) o In this situation, Americans “weren’t even the targets”, as a truck full of chlorine gas drove right past some marines and detonated it in the village (01:07:50:00) o Started to trust the Iraqis at this point, and began to use language skills to form a stronger alliance with them (01:08:43:00) o Wouldn’t have done anything to gain the support of the village population or perform regular procedures because then, the Marines would have become targets and casualties would have increased (01:09:14:15) o Building an alliance with other coalitions made intel easier to gain (01:09:53:00)  Americans and Iraqi alliances would coordinate things together (01:10:27:00) o The “good bad guys” had a leader who had sit-downs with Marine leaders (01:10:30:00) o Marines would show the Iraqis the “hot spots” (01:11:00:00)  The alliance really worked (01:11:34:00) o Didn’t know if the Marines did something technically wrong, but the system worked (01:11:36:00) o “We won our war” by empowering the local government and restoring authority (01:11:40:00) Post-Deployment (01:12:30:00)  Was overseas until April 2007 (01:12:30:10)  After that, went back to California (01:12:34:00) o Did some brief training there, and then “I was done” and went back home (01:12:40:00)  After leaving Iraq, was always following current events (01:13:20:00) o Especially interested in where had been stationed (01:13:25:00)  5 months after leaving, the city of Fallujah had become peaceful (01:13:35:10) o A general was able to walk down the street without any armor (01:13:36:00) o A Kentucky Fried Chicken was built (01:13:41:00)  Had news reporters tag along while on missions (01:14:16:00) o Would “make them miserable” just for the fun of it (01:14:17:00) o Reporters were always professional and stayed out of the way of the soldiers (01:15:02:00) o Was only able to see the documentary of the Christmas Day raid (01:15:13:00) o Seemed like Baghdad always got the attention in the media, and it wasn’t really a hot spot at the time (01:15:43:00)  “I left a good example” during the time overseas (01:16:40:00) o Got to solve many problems (01:16:46:00)  Becomes a part of the VFW, or Veterans of Foreign Wars (01:017:45:00) o Works there full time after returning home (01:17:53:00) o Involved in all sorts of operations including non- profit and financing maintenance (01:18:00:00)  Would like to become educated in journalism or economics (01:18:22:00) o Before enlisting, was going for chemistry, but is not interested in that anymore (01:18:27:00) �     One hard thing about adjusting as a war veteran is losing all the authority you had overseas now that you have returned to society (01:18:56:00) o Become something of a “kid” compared to where you stood in the foreign lands (01:19:17:00) o Economically difficult too because few skills transfer over into an American trade (01:19:47:00) War is highly glamorized by popular media, especially movies (01:20:37:04) o It’s not a captain who is calling all the shots, it truly is a “corporal’s war” (01:20:45:00) Marine Corps is “forever” (01:21:37:20) o Coming out of Iraq, everything has “slowed down” compared to how life used to be (01:22:00:00) o Tough to come back and feel that you may not ever be as important as you were overseas ever again (01:22:13:10) o Veterans are now the easiest to get along with (01:22:21:00) o Feels like “I can accomplish so much that nobody really knows about." (01:23:10:00) “Older” than the people who were not Marines (01:23:48:00) o Marines do not look like they are portrayed by stereotypes. They look young (01:24:11:00) o “The world looks at us differently” (01:24:58:00) “I’m proud of what I did” (01:26:10:00) � 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 Cardenas, Benjamin (Interview outline and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cardenas, Benjamin Description An account of the resource Ben Cardenas was born and raised in Saginaw, Michigan. , he joined the Marines in 2001 after one semester at Grand Rapids Community College. Following the terrorist attacks on September 11th, he was sent to Djibouti in 2001. He remained there for 9 months where he was primarily involved in force protection. He returned home for a brief time and was deployed to Fallujah, Iraq in September of 2006. While in the Middle East, Cardenas was involved greatly in military advisory because of his advanced communication skills. He and his comrades were able to gain a level of trust within the community, which became a catalyst for the city's advancement and unification. 5 months following Cardenas' retreat to the United States, Fallujah became a completely peaceful and functional city. Cardenas stayed in Fallujah until April 2007 when he returned home. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) 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. Marine Corps Iraq War, 2003-2011--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 2011-09-08 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CardenasB1248V 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/7392f975f9ce1f738eb52c68dd2d2c60.mp4 898dd4fba5f738e8024dd620417afe2a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c12cfa2a4272cd3908f647a2afcfe5b0.pdf 28ae55d345b19ad69e74d07095ad6c5c PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project World War II Richard Cannon Interview Total Time: 34:45 Background  (00:11) Born in Gary, Indiana, in 1925 o Went to high school here also, graduated in 1943  (00:24) Dad was a custodian, mom worked in hotels  (00:42) Grew up in a ghetto-like neighborhood o Mostly Hispanic people and blacks; just a few whites  (1:10) Mentions that most people had jobs here, some people migrated from the south  (1:23) His parents came to Gary in 1922  (1:36) Remembers hearing about Pearl Harbor o In 1941, they were in an auditorium and heard the president speak about it o At that age, Mr. Cannon says he was eager to go into the war, only 17 at the time o Didn’t say anything to his parents about it Drafted/Training  (2:28) Was drafted after high school  (3:00) Worked in steel mills on weekends in high school  (3:16) Got drafted and went in sometime in July of 1943 o Reported to the Gary Armory o It was a processing station here, then he was sent to Indianapolis and inducted  (3:53) The group he was drafted with from Gary were all black men from his neighborhood, and In Indianapolis they were segregated from the white recruits  (4:28) Assigned to the Navy at Indianapolis to Company 1082, 14th regiment, 16th battalion � (4:56) Went from Indianapolis to Great Lakes, Illinois, for training  (5:30) Got a good reception at Great Lakes, it was an all black unit with a white commander o Black drill instructors  (6:16) Mr. Cannon didn’t have a problem obeying orders  (6:28) There were a lot of physical training o Calisthenics o Basic training included a lot of climbing up barriers, ropes, etc.  (7:00) Taught how to leave the ship when it was on fire  (7:16) They were taught how to firefight  (7:30) Exposed to poison gas o They were taken to a little house and had gas masks on  (7:54) Didn’t go out on the lake during basic training  (8:10) Boot camp was 6-8 weeks  (8:23) They were sent to a receiving station at Burlington, Washington o Left on a train o Remembers stopping in Butte, Montana o Missed the train after they left the stop, but a sheriff helped him catch the train o It was scary because Mr. Cannon didn’t want to be AWOL o Here, they were also segregated o Mr. Cannon mentions that he saw signs that said “No blacks allowed” o Was here a week and a half o A lot of black seamen came through First Assignment  (10:38) Then went to Whidbey Island, stationed here for quite awhile o It was mostly for PBY’s; planes that landed in water o These planes were used a lot during this era �o Taught how to signal, recognize certain planes, how to navigate small and medium sized boats  (12:44) He had a crew of 4 men, talks about a seaplane that crashed  (14:00) At this point, black men had regular Navy jobs  (14:25) During a torpedo retrieving mission o They used 30-40 ft YP boats o Torpedoes were dropped o They picked them up with ropes and brought them back to the base o One time the torpedo surfaced and hit a YP boat o They got the 4 guys off the boat before it sank o YP’s were wooden boats  (16:25) He was the only one from Gary that was assigned to the boathouse, not sure where the others came from o Mixture of whites and blacks o Wasn’t a problem here  (17:25) On Whidbey Island, nobody cared about race, but Mr. Cannon said it was bad at Burlington  (17:50) Mentions that his last 6 months of service were in Pearl Harbor  (18:00) Probably on Whidbey Island for a year  (18:18) He mostly stayed on the base o Sent money home to his wife  (18:48) Mentions that guys went into town when they weren’t supposed to; got in trouble for drinking, etc.  (19:10) Wrote letters back and forth with his wife  (19:48) They got newspapers which allowed them to keep track of the war  (20:02) They showed movies on base, including newsreels  (20:22) Learned how to splice cable ropes o Went aboard ships, scraped the deck, etc.  (20:44) Said there was a swimming test they passed at Great Lakes �o Most of the guys passed it Next Assignment  (21: 45) Went to Schumacher, California and then to Pearl Harbor  (22:07) Went on a troop transport ship to Pearl Harbor  (22:33) Ethnic mix  (22:53) Went here for maintenance, saw the USS Arizona o The oil was still coming up  (23:15) Got to go along the beaches of Hawaii o Hawaiians were very friendly  (23:31) Stayed here for a few weeks Third Assignment  (23:34) Mr. Cannon was stationed in the Marshall Islands; Eniwetok  (23:54) Mentions that going to Pearl Harbor, they went through a very rough storm o He was on the bottom bunk, the guy above him was heavier and Mr. Cannon got seasick  (25:27) Eniwetok was a big rock; lots of white sand o 120 degrees o A lot of rain o They had to desalinate the water  (26:19) Mr. Cannon was on standby here; they trained on certain boats  (26:57) He was on Eniwetok when Japan surrendered  (27:22) Life on Eniwetok was laid back; they went to church, movies, regular work, etc  (28:07) They unloaded ships here also  (28:36) After the Japanese surrendered, Mr. Cannon got to go home earlier because he was married, had more “points” �Home  (28:54) Landed in California  (29:54) He says the most challenging part of being in the Navy was being away from home, he was still very young at the time  (30:17) Wife lived with her family while he was gone  (30:39) Mr. Cannon didn’t really experience negativity because of race o This was when they started having more black officers o Mentions that there were more on Eniwetok  (32:05) Got a job with auto parts after being discharged o Worked at a Ford dealership in the parts department o A couple years later he was the manager o This has been his job for the last 50 years  (32:40) Didn’t feel any different by the time he was done in the Navy o He did feel more mature, though  (33:18) Says that while he was stationed on the boat, he was his own boss  (33:55) At the time he wasn’t encouraged to stay in the Navy, possibly because they wanted to make the armed forces smaller � 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 Cannon, Richard (Interview outline and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cannon, Richard Description An account of the resource Richard Cannon was born in Gary, Indiana in 1925. He was drafted after high school in July of 1943 as part of a group of black draftees from his neighborhood. Mr. Cannon was assigned to the Navy. After training at Great Lakes Naval Station, he was sent to Whidbey Island, Washington, where he commanded a small boat used to retrieve torpedoes from training missions. Later on, he was stationed at Pearl Harbor, and then at Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. 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. 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 2011-11-11 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CannonR1323V 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/d3b922b4e7c2fafd9089c35573954818.mp4 d8680cec09a83d2feb51ae6fb0bd6108 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6d0b4462b7556b5d0259f9a2a79cf90a.pdf 8a20d40af7db324671d7afad98ebe2a6 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans Histroy Project John Canepa (49:02) (00:01) Background Information • John was born in a small town in Massachusetts in 1930 • He went to Catholic elementary and high school for two years and then went to a secondary school at a private military academy • At the time he had been concerned with preparing for college and not the military • His father had been in the Navy during World War I • John was attending college at Harvard and near graduation when the draft went into effect • He decided to join the Navy based on his father’s experience; he would rather enlist in the Navy then be drafted into the Army (2:45) Navy Enlistment • John went through some physical testing in Boston and was accepted into the Navy one week later • He was not able to attend his graduation ceremony at Harvard and received his degree in the mail • He took a train to Rhode Island and arrived at an officer school base • The Navy Waves barracks were right across the street (5:25) Training • Training was a very big change for John; they had to get up every day at 6 am for attendance and march for one hour • They had classes all day long and then did more drilling afterwards • John went through technological training, navigation, and gunnery training • He received a demerit for not sitting up straight in class • John spent 90 days in officer school from May till September • His parents and girlfriend attended his graduation ceremony and he got married two days later (8:15) Selection of Assignment • After graduating, future assignments would be given based on specialties • John chose to join the Amphibious Force because he though it would be exciting working with the Navy, Marine Corps, and the underwater demolition teams • John then traveled to the Naval Amphibious base in San Diego for amphibious training • First he had training for survival at sea, where he trained in a swimming pool all day long, in a full uniform, for three weeks • John was then assigned to a ship in Long Beach • He had amphibious training on a landing ship, working with Marines • John was also working in an underwater demolition area �(13:40) USS Comstock • John was issued a room mate in the living quarters and began bunking with the ship’s physician • He was in charge of the Combat Information Center, or CIC • They were working on sea trials for four weeks and making necessary changes to the ship • John was in the lower part of the ship working with radar equipment • He traveled to Japan, when the Korean war had just ended • They spent two weeks in Japan and then visited Korea (20:05) French Indo-China • The French had just lost the battle at Dien Bien Phu and the Americans were helping to evacuate the French army, which took a very long time • They were also evacuating civilians that did not want to live under communist rule • Many of the French were covered with ringworm and many of them had scurvy • The Vietnamese refugees had been very oppressed and most of them were women and children • John returned to Japan again for six weeks and then traveled to Alaska to pick up some men from the Army (27:30) Transferred • John was transferred to work on a landing ship of Division 2 in the San Diego Station • He was second in command and in charge of eight ships for about six months • The Navy had been in the process of decommissioning many ships • He was transferred again to Virginia where he had a landing ship staff job • John worked with 2 divisions and 8 landing ships • He worked with the commanders of the division and traveled to Cuba (33:30) Discharged • John was discharged six weeks early and continued to work in the reserve for three years • He was promoted to the position of full lieutenant • John continued to grow in his banking position and no longer had time for the reserve • He had become a much more responsible and accountable person while in the service • John learned leadership skills and how to get along with a very diverse group of people � 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 Canepa, John (Interview outline and video), 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Canepa, John Description An account of the resource John Canepa was born in Massachusetts in 1930. He attended Harvard University and enlisted in the Navy near graduation and just barely missed the Korean War. He attended officer school in Rhode Island and was later assigned to work in the Naval Amphibious Force. John traveled to Japan, Korea, and Cuba while in the Navy. After he was discharged he remained in the reserve for three years. 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 United States. Navy 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 2004-10-14 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CanepaJ 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/ab51bbbba24af2c248d96915b2bdbdf9.mp4 4ca9a52c0c6d7985b9d476d6f75a68eb https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8fb0131c04d5d07ae1b9b0be2912ac66.pdf e900abf0a5f88a9e55c86cba5b31e17e PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Vietnam War Tex Campbell Length of Interview: 52:23 min (00:17) Background Information Born February 20, 1949 in Grand Prairie, Texas (00:20) Father in oil drilling business, moved around frequently (00:44) Father was in World War II, North African campaign (01:45) After high school worked in the oil drilling rigs (00:50) Was working in the drilling rigs when drafted by Army (00:56) (01:20) Draft/ Training Sworn into Army April 10, 1968 (02:25) Drafted at age 20, most drafted straight out of high school (01:25) Sent to Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas for basic training 8-9 weeks (02:00) Training was easy, in good physical shape from rigging and had hunted all life (03:25) Sent to Fort Ord, California for advanced individual training (05:30) Learned how to use M-16, bazooka, mortars, and fire hand guns (07:00) Training didn’t prepare him for Vietnam (09:10) (10:00) Active Duty Flew from Travis Air Force Base, California via Anchorage, Alaska, and Tokyo, Japan, to Bien Hoa, Vietnam (10:35) First impression was that is stunk; had an unforgettable smell (10:55) When the plane landed the base was under rocket attack (11:13) Issued fatigues and jungle boots put in 101st Airborne Division Delta Company (12:00) Received 5 days of preparatory training to get in Vietnam mindset (13:05) Flew to Phouc Vinh where delta company base was located (14:30) When arrived at company referred to as “fresh meat” (15:00) Put as ammo bearer and made friends with a machine gunner (16:00) During night patrol, put on listening post, and claymore went off, thought fired upon (17:10) Patrolled the Cu Chi area everyday rain or shine and sent ambushes every night (19:15) First combat assault, dropped off by helicopter, everybody fired weapons, except him because he couldn’t find the enemy (19:45) (20:00) Transfer to Camp Evans Left Phouc Vinh and transferred to Camp Evans late 1968 (21:20) Booby traps were grenades in a can with trip wires (22:27) While patrolling rice paddies encountered booby traps (23:00) In the A Shau Valley everything was uphill and covered in thick jungle (24:40) Encountered minimal opposition from enemy, sporadic fire-fights (25:45) While in the mountains carried the M-60 machine gun (26:25) Enemy would usually ambush them and then quickly retreat (27:00) �Discovered abandoned enemy training facility with wooden RPGs (28:05) When encountered enemy complexes/ bunkers destroyed them (28:50) When flying into a hot landing zone, had to get off helicopter as fast as possible (29:15) Never had any idea of their location or where to call in medical evacuation if needed (30:25) Usually in field for 90 days at a time and went to base for a 2 day break to resupply (31:41) Fire bases under attack from mortar fire and enemy would reposition target each time (33:45) Received C-rations and sundry pack (cigs, pen and paper, soap, sewing kit) on fire base (34:30) Many soldiers were infected with jungle rot infection, treated with fungicide (35:45) Got fresh water from mountain streams and bomb craters (36:30) (45:00) Post Service Vietnam tour ended in late August 1969 (40:40) Attended Combat Leadership School in Australia while on leave (41:48) Never forget first guy see killed or when best friend dies (44:00) Flew out from Bien Hoa to Okinawa, Honolulu, and Travis Air Force Base, California (45:54) Encountered protestors that spit at them when got off plane (47:05) Sent to Fort Carson, Colorado, and assigned to 50th Ordnance Company (48:02) Assigned to project transition being a carpenter’s assistant (48:45) Went to work in oil rigging after leaving service (50:00) Became emotionally closed off (51:00) � 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 Campbell, William (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Campbell, William Description An account of the resource Tex Campbell was born in Grand Prairie, Texas, in 1949, and was drafted into the Army in 1968. After training in Fort Bliss, Texas, he was sent to Vietnam and assigned to an infantry company in the 101st Airborne Division. His unit patrolled around Phuoc Vinh and Cu Chi for several months, and then moved north and operated out of Camp Evans. His unit spent most of its time in the field, and was involved in actions in the A Shau Valley in 1969. Upon his return from Vietnam, he spent the last part of his enlistment at Fort Carson, Colorado. 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 2012-10-04 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CampbellT1454V 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/e9020e0be762834d7d10926988bf15bc.mp4 f3c91846aa4cd47b0a7ba9a93ab1f76b https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/56670fb4c6d22c04fa6d8d9cc266a971.pdf 65bedc2bcbe96a9f939a06546a8eba27 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Jim Campbell Vietnam War 1 hour 27 minutes 54 seconds (00:00:15) Early Life -Born on August 26, 1946 in Santa Barbara, California -Family moved to Shreveport, Louisiana shortly after he was born -Grew up there -Father was a doctor -Mother was a housewife -Graduated from high school in Shreveport in June 1964 (00:01:20) College -Went to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge -Thoroughly enjoyed it -Graduated from there in June 1968 -Majored in political science -Intended to go to law school at the University of Texas -Had been in Army ROTC (reserve officers’ training corps) at LSU -Planned on joining Navy ROTC at University of Texas (00:02:35) Enlisting in the Army -Returned to Shreveport in the summer of 1968 -Found out that a friend had been drafted -Friend wanted him to join the Army so they could be a part of the “buddy system” -They’d be able to train together and possibly be deployed together -Eventually joined the Army -Friend failed the Army physical -He passed the Army physical (00:03:56) Basic Training -Attended basic training and AIT (advanced infantry training) at Fort Dix, New Jersey -Trained with typical recruits -Men from all over the country -Most were in their late teens -Appointed squad leader because of age and ROTC experience -Had some disciplinary problems with draftees -Basic training lasted eight weeks (00:05:54) Advanced Infantry Training -AIT also took place at Fort Dix -Training was more focused on infantry training and weaponry as opposed to discipline -Because of Army ROTC at LSU he was slightly accustomed to military life -Drill sergeants had been to Vietnam -Higher ranking officers had not been to Vietnam -AIT lasted eight weeks �(00:07:57) Officer Candidate School -Took OCS at Fort Benning, Georgia -Course lasted six months -Consisted of daily harassment to break down officers and prepare them for stress -Went out on field maneuvers -Felt that he didn’t learn much -Felt that the OCS program was essentially worthless for the Vietnam War -Didn’t teach officers how to lead soldiers in fighting an insurgency -Training was more focused on how to fight a conventional war against Russia -Graduated from OCS on April 24, 1969 (00:11:15) Fort Lewis, Washington -Assigned to Fort Lewis, Washington as a rifle instructor -Assignment lasted about half a year -Taught AIT companies how to use the M-16 assault rifle -Mostly worked on the shooting range -Worked with sergeants that had been to Vietnam -Got to know them, but they didn’t really open up about Vietnam (00:13:45) Training for Vietnam -Knew nothing about Vietnam or the war prior to going over -Received orders for Vietnam and to be sent to “jungle school” in Panama -Given thirty days of leave before flying out of Charleston, South Carolina for Panama -Felt that “jungle school” was far more practical and useful for fighting in Vietnam -Taught how to read maps and how to set up ambushes in the jungle -Received training from combat experienced, Vietnam veterans (00:15:00) Deployment to Vietnam -Flew out of Travis Air Force Base, California -Landed at Bien Hoa Air Base in Vietnam -Stayed at Bien Hoa for a couple days to go through the 90th Replacement Battalion -Got assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and did orientation training at Bien Hoa -Received training with how to be deployed and extracted by helicopters -He was taken by C-130 to Phu Bai and from Phu Bai by truck to Camp Evans -Assigned to C Company,2nd of the 506th of the 101st Airborne Division -Appointed as a platoon leader -By now it was November 1969 (00:18:11) In the Field Pt. 1 -Assigned to Charlie Company and joined them at Firebase Bastogne -From there moved to Firebase O’Reilly -Troops under his command initially had anxiety due to being led by an inexperienced officer -He was cycled through the company leading each platoon -Had a black sergeant who was tremendously helpful introducing him to leading in Vietnam -Charlie Company stayed at Firebase O’Reilly until the end of December 1969 -Moved out of the foothills so that helicopters could extract them -Returned to Camp Evans for a stand down on January 1, 1970 (00:23:28) In the Field Pt. 2 -At this point Captain Vazquez takes command -No nonsense kind of man and a magnificent leader �-Shaped the company into an efficient and effective fighting force -Under his command they worked in small, tight knit groups in the field -Seldom worked as a full platoon, or as a company -Learned a lot about leadership from Captain Vazquez -Patrolled the Lowlands during the monsoon season -During this time he led the first platoon to enter the mountains -Got stranded for a couple weeks due to bad weather -Had no significant enemy contact during their time in the mountains (00:28:32) Establishing Firebase Ripcord -He was in Charlie Company when Firebase Ripcord was established -Third company to be sent in to establish a firebase there -On April 1, 1970 they established Firebase Gladiator -Supposed to support the assault to create Firebase Ripcord -Strategy didn’t work -Dropped into a landing zone east of Firebase Ripcord -Attacked Ripcord two days after that -His company was finally able to secure the hilltop and begin building Ripcord -Under Vazquez’s leadership Ripcord was designed to be nearly impenetrable -Created modified wire fences that surrounded the entire perimeter -Impossible to get over or go under due to design -Took one month of all day work to build Firebase Ripcord (00:35:46) In the Field Pt. 3 -Went back into the field in May 1970 after completing building Firebase Ripcord -Spent a few weeks in the field -Patrolled the area surrounding Ripcord -Operated as full platoons at this time -Comprised of roughly twenty five to thirty soldiers -During May there was no significant enemy contact -Started finding evidence of North Vietnamese/Viet Cong presence though -Field hospital and bunker complexes -Went to Firebase Ripcord mid-June for a stand down -Returned to the field shortly after that -Noticed a massive spike in enemy activity -Left the field after only ten days due to orders to take an R&R (00:40:43) R&R and Returning to the Field -Took his R&R in Sydney, Australia -Stayed there a week -Thought that after R&R he’d be able to go back to Vietnam and get a rear position -Returned from R&R to Camp Evans on July 6, 1970 and was sent back to the field -Greeted by a jeep that immediately took him back to his unit -His unit had been overrun and sustained heavy losses while he was gone (00:42:40) Working with Jeff Wilcox -Met Jeff Wilcox [new company commander, who replaced Capt. Hewitt, killed on 902] in the field and began working with him -Learned that his unit had taken severe losses at Hill 902 -Soldiers under his command welcomed him back due to this �-The next day they started carrying out maneuvers in the field -Had to move to where Bravo Company had established a mechanical ambush (landmines) -Bravo had returned to Ripcord without retrieving the landmines -Three soldiers from Bravo were sent out to extract the landmines -Got ambushed by the North Vietnamese, wounded, and stranded in the process -His company was responsible for extracting the wounded soldiers from Bravo Company -Worked with Jeff Wilcox during that operation on July 6, 1970 -Remembers that the Vietnamese were taking shots at the medevac helicopters coming in -By the end of all of this his company was down to thirty combat ready men (00:47:52) The Battle of Hill 1000-Insertion and Assault -On July 8, 1970 his unit was dropped into a landing zone near Hill 1000 near Firebase Ripcord -Worked with Jeff Wilcox and Delta Company to assault the hill -He questioned Colonel Lucas’s order to assault the hill -Told that it was to retrieve dead U.S. soldiers -Moved towards the hill under the cover of U.S. air strikes and artillery bombardment -By the time they reached the hill it had been turned into a wasteland -Received cover from gunships as they moved up the hill -Upon approaching the hill and moving up it they began to receive heavy enemy fire -Once he and his company reached the top of the hill he was able to create a battle plan (00:54:16) The Battle of Hill 1000-Retrieval of the Dead -After reaching the top of the hill they received orders from Colonel Lucas to move down the hill [across saddle between the 2 peaks of the hill--D Company was supposed to be coming up the other side] -Ordered to a low position that left them vulnerable was strategically insane -Met with Jeff Wilcox and tried to create a strategy that would allow Delta Company to aid them -Wilcox took charge of his company and led them down the hill -Campbell and his company provided covering fire -Had only thirty men to work with -Started taking rapid losses immediately -His medic was killed almost instantly -Able to retrieve the dead and wounded at the bottom of the hill and pull back to the top (00:59:59) The Battle of Hill 1000-Extraction -A recon helicopter flew over and alerted them of large enemy movement towards their position -Received orders from Colonel Lucas to move to an extraction point -Able to move off of Hill 1000 towards the extraction zone under covering fire -They were late getting back to the extraction point -Most of the troops were wounded, exhausted, and/or dehydrated -Colonel Lucas arrived at the extraction zone and gave orders to assault the hill again -Campbell argued that it would make no sense -Operating with only twenty soldiers and no medic -All the soldiers needed time to rest and regroup -Knew that given twenty four hours of rest they could take the hill -Wilcox exploded at Colonel Lucas for the order -The second assault was called off -Led to Wilcox being relieved of command of his company though (01:08:01) In the Field Pt. 4 �-The survivors were taken back to Firebase Ripcord to rest and provide security -He and his unit were at Firebase O’Reilly when they heard that Wilcox had been relieved -Despite the losses incurred at Hill 1000, company was sent along with D Company to rescue D Company, 1st of the 506th on July 21 -By the end of the Ripcord Campaign the battalion structure had been wiped out -Needed to be rebuilt over the course of a long stand down (01:11:46) Camp Evans -After the Ripcord Campaign he was given a rear position job at Camp Evans -Worked in the Tactical Operations Center there -Stayed there until the end of his tour -Worked as a rear liaison officer -Felt that it was a pretty useless position -Just spent his time waiting to be sent home -Enjoyed being able to eat better at Camp Evans and being allowed to drink beer -Noticed severe morale/race issues while at Camp Evans -He never had any issues with any of the black soldiers in his unit -Only one, but it was under extenuating circumstances (01:16:11) Coming Home -Boarded a plane at Camp Evans and flew down to Cam Ranh Bay -Drank with old friends from OCS at the officers’ club -Had to stay an extra day in Vietnam due to a mix up with the passenger manifest -Flew into McChord Air Force Base, Washington -Was able to go on leave without going to Fort Lewis due to officer status (01:17:47) Fort Polk and End of Service -After leave he was sent to Fort Polk to be a training officer for advanced infantry training -Tried to prepare soldiers for the reality of fighting in Vietnam -Got reprimanded by superiors for not following program guidelines -Demoralizing experience -Got offered to reenlist by a 3 star general from the Pentagon -Given option to be deployed to anywhere he wanted to be -Ultimately declined the offer (01:20:03) Life after the Army -Got discharged from the Army in March 1971 -Went to Europe for the summer of 1971 and relaxed -Went to law school in September 1971 -Didn’t pay much attention to the anti-war movement when he was home -Attended law school for three years -Graduated from law school and started practicing law in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1975 -Had no problem readjusting to civilian life -Credits that to friends back home that provided a support network for readjusting (01:21:45) Involvement with Ripcord Association and Reflections on Service -Didn’t talk about his experiences in Vietnam until later in life -In 1981 he went to the VA (Veterans’ Administration) to deal with issues from Vietnam -Friend from Delta Company gave him an old commander’s number -Got in touch with him and attended the Ripcord Reunion at Fredericksburg -Now an active member in the Ripcord Association �-Credits his success as an officer to the soldiers that served under him -Did their job and followed orders well even in terrible conditions � 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 Campbell, James (Interview outline and video), 2013 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Campbell, James Description An account of the resource Jim Campbell was born in 1946 in Santa Barbara, California, and grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. He attended Louisiana State University and graduated in 1968, and then enlisted in the Army. He did his basic training and advanced infantry training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and then went on to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia and graduated from the program on April 24, 1969. He served as an instructor at Fort Lewis, Washington until he was deployed to Vietnam in November 1969. He was assigned to the 2nd of the 506th of 101st Airborne Division as a platoon leader in C Company. He and his unit would go on to establish Firebase Ripcord and later participate in the infamous battle in the summer of 1970. After Vietnam he was stationed at Fort Polk until his service ended in March 1971. 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 Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2013-10-12 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CampbellJ1540V 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/b9440b17d053dae479fb45b800245856.mp4 12a1299fa95a3e27f9080e02fe75fc08 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9c0b2654b3af899fe83afa88d6966316.pdf 93c5bc9d8a1f27ba8b14813a5f1f2f25 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Eleanor Cameron (00:30:40) Introduction: (:30) Born in Shaker Heights, Ohio. (1:00) She went to school in Miami University school of fin arts. (1:15) Met her husband her freshman year in Miami (1:20)She got a job as a fashion illustrator in a Cleveland department store (1:35) 1941 her husband joined the national guard to do his year of service (2:10) After Pearl Harbor she decided to become a WAVE (2:44) Her husband was in Chicago (3:39) Her husband was on a train to go to California to go the Philippines there was a snow storm that held up the train so he did not go to the Philippines. (4:34) He went to Fort Benning so he went to officer candidate school (5:25) She decided to have a baby instead of being a wave he went over seas and she went home to have the baby. She did not see her husband again for two years. (7:01) She reads a story written by her husband. Her husband was in a firefight in Italy near the Rapido River crossing when he was hit by a artillery shell. The Americans who could move retreated, and he and the other badly wounded men were found in a ditch by a German patrol. The leader of the patrol spoke English, treated the wounded courteously and then moved his men on, only to return later badly wounded himself. The Germans withdrew and Americans eventually found them, so the German became a prisoner. After the war, the Mr. Cameron saw a new story about a German prisoner who had escaped from prison camp and had been living under an assumed name in Chicago, where he ran a bookstore and was raising a family. Mr. Cameron testified on his behalf at his deportation hearing, and the families stayed in touch thereafter. The German, Reinhold Pabel, eventually became a published author, and lived in the US for some time before finally retiring to Germany. �(15:43) She is discussing how they started to correspond with the German solider. Her husband was in the hospital for nine months. (17:07) After healing up he went to the Riviera where he was in charge of the rest and rehabilitation of officers. This was a good job to have. Lived in the Carlton Hotel. (17:55) He came home after this. (19:01) After the War he became a successful businessman. (20:24) She talks about following her husband around before going over seas She says that the war was an adventure traveling all over. (22:48) After going to Fort Benning she lived with all the men’s wives. She did not like living in the south. 25:00) She went back and forth between their two parents’ houses. (25:42) she talks about seeing her husband again two years later. She talks about seeing her husband at the train station. (27:28) Pearl Harbor: She did not even know where Pearl Harbor was in 1941. She was an isolationist, and did not like Roosevelt at the time. (30:40) She thought it was necessary to drop the bomb. She thinks Truman had no other choice. � 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 Cameron, Eleanor (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cameron, Eleanor Description An account of the resource Eleanor Cameron is the widow of Malcolm Cameron, 3rd Infantry Div. who served during WW II. In this interview she discusses her life as a military wife, her husband's experience and injury while serving in Europe, and their life together 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.) Video recordings United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Army spouses Military spouses 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 2007-06-03 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CameronE 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/81bf210b02c2ea1177aca9d44852785f.mp4 af2acea543852f468e205aabe1297a0d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4ab40b382017539d2b65379a4461fb57.pdf 3b0b9eb4f6e82b1c12b5b54fb9000b6a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Notes Length: 1:03:57 Glendle Gene Callahan Korean War veteran United States Army; February 1951 to November 1952 Field Artillery (0:00) Before grade school • Born in Draper, North Carolina in 1930 o Town is not there anymore; now called Eden • When 6 years old, moved near Mars Hill, NC; out in the country • Started school here • Callahan and his family met up with another family and farmed together o About ready to harvest the wheat crop when a big storm came and destroyed the crop o Callahan’s dad never farmed again (3:48) Grade school • Went to school in Mars Hill • One day, rocks fell on school and the school fell apart • Had to hold school in a different building until it was fixed • Before building was fixed, Callahan moved to Flatcreek, NC where he lived until high school • Throughout grade school, played marbles o One day Callahan played against and older boy who ended up winning all of his marbles. Callahan didn’t have his marbles with him so the boy said he would stop by Callahan’s house later to pick them up. Because Callahan didn’t want to give up his marbles, he begged his mom to ask the guy to let him keep his marbles. Callahan’s mom did ask the guy and the guy let Callahan keep his marbles. o During the winter time, Callahan would practice marbles on the bed, on the floor o He was one of the best marble shooters at school (7:35) How to play marbles • Either play ring or bull’s eye; would try to knock the other guys marbles out of the ring (9:44) High school • Played some baseball o Best “sport” was marbles, though • Very involved with theater o Got the lead role both his junior and senior year ƒ Each play was 3 hours long • Didn’t go to prom • Used to have cake walks • Used to love to watch the basketball team; went to many of the games �(17:25) Graduation • Graduated in 1948 • Got sick right before graduation • Rushed to the hospital (20 miles away) the day before graduation • Had appendicitis • The day of graduation, he was operated on • Did not attend the graduation ceremony although he was the Valedictorian; somebody else read his speech for him (19:14) Pearl Harbor • Didn’t have a TV or radio; heard about Pearl Harbor at school • Was sitting by the windows and someone said that Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor (20:21) WWII • Remembers rationing and food stamps • Didn’t have a car so the rationing of gasoline was a non-issue for his family (21:28) First job • After graduating in 1948, got a job at a department store in NC and made $18.75/week o Lived at home and paid parents $5/week for room and board (22:58) The draft for Korea • Went to Nashville, TN for a weekend with his friends • When got home, his dad handed him an envelope with a draft letter inside • Inducted into the Army February 5, 1951 (24:10) Induction • Went to Charlotte, NC and took an exam, then sent to Baltimore by train o Saw lots of guys in uniform there o Stayed there 5 or 6 days and got clothes, etc. • Sent by train to Fort Rooker, Alabama for training (26:15) Boot camp • Did a lot of marching o One day, a large group was told to march across the street double time. Some soldiers did and some soldiers didn’t; Callahan was one of the guys picked out of the group who supposedly weren’t marching double time. As punishment, Callahan and a few other men had to go to bed immediately after dinner and clean their rifles in the bed. (27:31) After boot camp • Volunteered to go to Korea o Didn’t like Alabama because too hot and the other men in his outfit were rough guys from the Dakotas (28:47) Korea • Sent to Washington (state) and marched onto the boat, which was shipped to Korea • Some people got really seasick but Callahan never got seasick • Landed in Japan and Callahan was sent to school to learn to operate a bulldozer o Didn’t want to drive bulldozer because heard too many stories of drivers getting shot at in the bulldozer �o Talked to the guy who was head of the school and said didn’t want to drive bulldozers because he had never owned a car and never driven machinery in his life and was way behind the others school (all of which was entirely true) o The head of the school conceded and sent Callahan to supply school for 4 weeks of training; then Callahan was sent to Korea • Part of Field Artillery o No. 223?, 5th army ƒ Ordered all the stuff needed by the soldiers like alcohol, cigarettes, and other supplies (34:10) Combat • Never saw combat because worked behind the lines • Spent lots of time playing horse shoes • some friends were on the front lines o Callahan met one of his school mates, who was on his way out having been wounded • Callahan got depression when over in Korea • Some days, could hardly do work • Fought depression ever since (37:10) Home • Discharged November 6, 1952, the same day Eisenhower was elected as president • Come to South Carolina by train • Stayed in SC on guard duty for 2 or 3 months (at this time, Callahan was a Sergeant First Class) (39:29) Guard duty • Most people didn’t like guard duty or felt it was necessary to participate • Callahan shares an incident that occurred during guard duty (42:00) After the service • Got a job at Cadillac Motors o day after Christmas Callahan was down at the pool hall when he ran into a guy from school o guy from school heard that there were a lot of jobs in Michigan o so Callahan and his friend drove up to Michigan o got hired by Cadillac Motors • worked there for 36 years o started as a laborer, then apprenticeship, then the die room o he worked in the plastic department as their only die maker (46:54) Marriage • Met wife at church in Michigan • Starting dating at which point he bought a car • Often they went up to Canada together • Dated a little over a year • Got married at her house in Detroit on Alexandrian Street o Her dad was retired from mining (51:26) First years of marriage �• Rented an apartment in Detroit • then moved to various places around MI • had 2 kids – a girl and a boy • he and his wife have been married almost 50 years (55:56) Masonry • Joined the Masons in January 1970 at the Temple Lodge in Detroit • Transferred to a lodge just outside of Detroit because an easier commute • Became master in 1982 (1:02:02) How the military and Masonry affected his life • In the Army, learned people skills • Masonry also helped in this area � 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 Callahan, Glendle Gene (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Callahan, Glendle Gene Description An account of the resource Glendle Callahan served in the Korean War in the United States Army from February 1951 to November 1952 in Alabama and Korea. In this interview, Callahan tells of the day he received his draft letter and why he volunteered to go to Korea after being at Camp Rooker, Alabama. Once overseas he attended supply school and became involved in the Field Artillery. 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 Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Freemasons 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 2007-05-15 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CallahanG 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/5362f3df21b05f7d53403f09c5aa84fb.mp4 995e68668a21ff729e5fc15375325269 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/88da67e21346c0a589e2d0e787a07382.pdf 3dfcd81395126ccd983fec0fce723a40 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Keath Cady (00:43:24) Introduction • Lived in Illinois prior to war. Worked at Kroger’s grocery store. Entry into Service (1:56) • First days in service were horrible. Went to a train station in Chicago, and was put in charge of getting group of people to Fort Sheridan for testing. After testing he was sent to Texas for basic training. (2:39) • Had 13 weeks of medical training in South Carolina as was certified to work in surgery and with the ill. (3:54) South Pacific (4:49) • Left San Francisco on a ship that had been dry docked for 25 years and traveled to a French island in the South Pacific where a lot of people had malaria and stayed 3 days. • When Cady arrived at Guadalcanal, malaria patients were left out in the rain. Seabees set up a large tent to house patients. Cady talks about the treatment of malaria. (5:48) • Cady talks about the back-and-forth nature of the fighting on Guadalcanal and attributes the Japanese numerical superiority there to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Briefly talks about treating wounded soldiers (6:46) • Japanese were left to starve, due to U.S. bombing of Japanese supply ships. Japanese on the island would eat bananas, hunt for wild pigs, and fish. When Japanese soldiers were very hungry, they would try to get in the mess line where they would be wrestled down by other soldiers, and sent to the stockade. (7:50) • Japanese would often yell at soldiers that they were going to cut their throats, and would sneak in at night and do so. (9:10) • Cady recalls the food being horrible except at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Cady states that there was no milk for months until some could be brought from New Zealand. The soldiers ate lots of raw coconuts, chocolate bars, and hardtack. (9:46) �• Cady talks about the Potsdam conference (11:23) • For fun the men played softball and ping-pong. Every weekend they could send V-mail. (12:22) • On Christmas, Thanksgiving, and December 7th, turkeys were brought in from New Zealand. (13:02) • Cady talks about pre-war American attitudes about themselves and the Japanese as well as God looking out for America (13:49) • Cady mentions having had 30-day furloughs if had been in the army for a while. (15:07) • Cady talks about the Philippines, General MacArthur, and the Bataan Death March (15:29) • Cady made close friends during the war that he kept in contact with, but doesn’t attend reunions because they mainly drink. (16:43) • Talks about soldiers dying from drinking a beer made from coconuts, (17:56) • Cady discusses being aboard ship and describes an opposed landing. (18:35) • Mentions that during basic training they were made to sleep with their guns if the guns weren’t clean. (19:40) • Served with 1st Division medical corps. Participated in 11 invasions. Would disembark from LST’s in waist-deep water, and pick up wounded for transportation back to ships. (20:28) • Cady says that when U.S. forces build installations on British and French Islands in the South Pacific, they had to pay a fee of $50 per tree. (21:45) • Cady describes setting up medical stations and equipment, and the duties of the Seabees. (22:37) • Describes living conditions on Guadalcanal with four men living in a tent adorned with Japanese skulls. As well as a visit from Eleanor Roosevelt who demanded that the skulls be removed and the bathrooms covered. (24:28) • Men would back water from Manila in helmets which could hold a gallon of water. Once a week on Mondays a van would come so that the men could take showers. (25:35) �• Cady tells about delivering a baby, right after which an air raid occurred. (27:02) Germany (29:15) • Cady contracted malaria in the Philippines and was sent home. After he recovered he was sent to Germany as part of the occupation force where he met his wife. • Army had taken over school and turned it into hospital. In the morning they treated soldiers, and in the afternoon civilians. When civilians wanted to work with the American government, they had to have shots and tests. At the time, if a person didn’t work, that person didn’t eat. (30:10) After Military Service (32:48) • Most memorable moment was wafting to be discharged. Cady was discharged at Fort Hamilton in New York, and was given 10 cents a mile to get home. • Cady recalls that there wasn’t any work when he got back. He worked at a Kroger grocery store, and then went to work at a drug store for $35 a week. Military Anecdotes (34:36) • Cady tells about having a pair of shoes stolen, but he couldn’t get replacements unless he had the old ones to turn in, and was told to steal some to turn in. • In the Philippines, Cady was a Staff Sergeant, and had a pass to travel 50 miles in any direction from where he was stationed. (35:50) • Describes a day in Army life (36:36) • Cady tells a story about having unexploded Japanese ordinance turned into an ashtray (37:53) • Cady gives his thoughts on U.S. foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese ability to conquer the island. Cady also talks about Japanese spies, the USS Arizona, and the Bataan Death March. (39:00) � 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 Cady, Keath (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cady, Keath Description An account of the resource Keath Cady served in the medical corps during WW II. Cady was on Guadalcanal and the Philippines and describes conditions there. After the war, he served in the army of occupation in Germany. In this interview Cady talks about treating malaria patients and setting up medical facilities during amphibious invasions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ruiz, Olivia Mercedes (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 United States. Army. Medical Corps Philippines Guadalcanal, Battle of, Solomon Islands, 1942-1943 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 2007-05-29 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CadyK 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/c78104f2e74b83d091cbddb45b3cffc0.mp4 78fb2d47b22c16f45ecacb2a3012286a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/175d619efd1f64d4421e3cc1b2c80e10.pdf 6da96e1dfb7ddfdb8285dba0cf7c85dd PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Air Force, Korean War Darwin Cutler Length of Interview (00:10:30) Background Born in St. Louis, Missouri Father was a CPA and a farmer; mother was a school teacher His older brother was also a school teacher and farmer Had family that served in different branches of military Enlisted into the Air Force  Everyone was either being drafted or enlisting Training (00:01:27) In September 12, 1950, sent for training  Had to get evaluated and medically examined  Training involved running obstacle courses, gun training, etc.  It rained often where he was training  Didn’t have any specialized training at this time Adapted pretty well to the military lifestyle  Learned a lot about mechanics and honed his problem-solving skills Served in numerous bases: Lackland AFB for basic, Mather Field in California  Mather Field: operated a library  Went to Texas, Sheppard AFB, for mechanical training  Then sent to a Duty Station near Washington to work on four-engine military air transports � Sent to the field in West Palm Beach, Florida o Would walk on the beach often Did transports to Europe; were often in the air for long periods of time  Would sit behind the Co-pilot as Flight Engineer Primarily worked as a Specialized Mechanic and would do inspections and repairs for airplanes Sometime would operate as a Flight Engineer  Always flew with different people  Operations would inform them who they were flying with Met quite a few people in the service, didn’t stay in touch with most of them afterwards After Service After the military, was glad to be home Didn’t have much to readjust to, job in the service was much like a civilian job Had to go through a lot of training after basic (00:07:00)  Learned aircraft mechanics, basic mechanical work  At his duty station, always attending school to advance his grade After the Air Force, took a four-year course in being a machinist for railroads His time in the military gave him the ability to solve problems and handle stressful situations Uses a lot of the things he learned in the service in everyday life Kept in touch with his family through letters Took trips to Alaska, delivered troops (to Korea) and merchandise � 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 Cutler, Darwin (Interview outline and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cutler, Darwin Description An account of the resource Darwin Cutler enlisted into the Air Force in September 1950 and trained as a Specialized Mechanic and sometimes operated as a Flight Engineer. His job was to work on aircraft engines and transportation during the Korean War. He was based in the United States. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Clark, Mackenzie (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Korean War, 1950-1953--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 2010-06-06 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CutlerD 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/0d60b9f6d41c5ee70575eee781a345fd.mp4 3a7dc7b4d18e50321e9edacce735b77c https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/187c5e15a432523b38f7abe76172e3bc.pdf ee54d0699a1a874edb4586aa10b96cb6 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Norman Curtis Vietnam War Total Time: 33:25 Pre-War (00:10) • • • Born in Albion, MI in 1946. Joined the Air Force in March 1966. Joined the Air Force because his older brothers were in the Air Force and he wanted to get away from school. Training (02:22) • Remembers basic training as being rough, but the instructors were fair. Active Duty (03:25) • • • • • • • • • • Served at Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base in Saigon. (3:45) Also worked as an instructor for a survival school at Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach, FL. Remembers how hot Vietnam was when he got off the plane. He worked in Vehicle Maintenance for all of the branches of the Army. He had to check the vehicles before he performed maintenance on for booby traps that the Vietcong would place. Stayed in touch with his family through recorded tapes and letters. Most of the time, he ate off base because the two times he did eat on base he got food poisoning. He, for the most part, liked his officers. He had one friend that was injured and lived, but he never saw him again. He was given the option to re-enlist, finish his service (he had 23 days left), or leave then. He chose to leave. Post-Service (19:30) • • • • He was in San Francisco when he got discharged. He went to school on the GI bill when he got back, and worked part time. He didn’t stay in contact with many of the men whom he served with. Joined the American Legion when he returned. � 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 Curtis, Norman (Interview outline and video), 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Curtis, Norman Description An account of the resource Norman Curtis served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. During his time in Vietnam, he worked at Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base in Saigon. His job was vehicle maintenance and recovery, which kept him for the most part on base but he did spend some time retrieving disabled vehicles. He also worked for a time at a survival training school at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida as an instructor. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Brenner, Allison (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. Air Force 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 2004-12-15 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CurtisN 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/b37c20fbdfda8aca71b95a3df2c4d259.mp4 fa0023d3419a92df5502f0c412992bb5 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/916466f5ea298ced70fe5ed99e5f7371.pdf 288884a0c92b00bffefe333aa8986074 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Randy Curry (02:38:00) (43:00)Washington D.C. • Born November 19, 1944 • Father was in the military for 23 years. He was the head dietician at Walter Reed Hospital • When he was two he spent 3 years in Bettelheim Germany where his father was stationed • (2:50) He began school in Germany. He took the bus to school. • He had a maid in Germany named Elsa • His parents took him for a walk and his dog was ran over by a truck • Came back on a ship to the states • (4:36) Remembers the ship was big and he was seasick • Went to Sandia Base in New Mexico • They lived in Albuquerque where he took his first communion • He started first grade here and remembers it was really hot (6:40) Fort Riley, Kansas • They lived in Junction City for 6 months before being given base housing • His father was an officer here so they lived in the officer quarters • Randy remembers that he had to eat salt tablets daily • (8:25) Remembers going to Manhattan, Kansas, close to Fort Riley • Stayed here for about 2 years (9:23) Raymond, Washington • Father was sent to Korea. They stayed with the Nevitts in Washington who had two daughters and a son • Lived here for 6 months • The school was at the end of the block. He remembers being a crossing guard for the school. (12:30) Milwaukee, Wisconsin • Randy’s dad decided to retire while in Korea, so when he came home they moved to Wisconsin • St. Peter and Paul Elementary School 1955-58 �• • • • • • Randy went to the seminary his freshman and sophomore year. His parents moved to Lacrosse, Wisconsin, during the same time. He decided that being a priest wasn’t right for him so he went back home and his dad was transferred back to Milwaukee. Started school at Pius High School and graduated in 1962. He wrote a few articles that were published in the school newspapers (17:50) Remembers at graduation having a picnic and it was hot His father retired from the Army as a Major Randy was anxious to leave home and join the service (19:00) Randy joins the Navy--Milwaukee, Wisconsin • Randy’s father signed for him to join the Navy at 17 years old even though he had apprehensions. Because he was in the military, his father was able to swear him into the Navy. His father also swore 2 of Randy’s friends in since they went in under the buddy program (20:37) San Diego California-Boot Camp • Randy and 11 other guys went first class on an airplane to California • Chief Petty Officer Pierson was his Commanding Officer • Randy became a squad leader right off the bat because of his history with the military • Remembers boot camp was vigorous: fire safety drills, procedure to wash and dry your clothes aboard a ship, drills on the blacktop, rifle training, • (23:40) After 5 weeks they go over to a camp called Camp Nimitz where they live out of cement buildings and hand wash and dry there own clothes and basically rough it • After 4 weeks they go back to main base and are allowed freedoms • At graduation they did the manual at arms and all the divisions and companies came together in a great stage • Randy put in to be in A school- torpedo man • Went home for two weeks on leave. He took a train home • (27:58)The Zephyr train had a car that you could climb upstairs in and look out at the sky through a glass dome • Randy took a plane back to San Diego (28:50) Torpedo Maintenance School • Randy attended classes teaching you the basics of electronics and electricity • Was allowed to look at the insides of dummy torpedoes but wasn’t much training on them �• • Randy passed school with an A after twelve weeks and put in for submarine school Went home again for a two week leave (29:39) New London, Connecticut--Submarine School • They had a nuclear submarine called the Nautilus • Went on board conventional submarines and learned what tight quarters are • Randy decided that he did not want to be on a submarine and that he wanted to see daylight a little more often. • He said you slept in the torpedo room and the mess hall consisted of two tables with a few chairs; you couldn’t eat with anyone since they took turns rotating • (32:00) Their training consisted of swim training, depth training from 50 to 100ft depths • Randy dropped out after 2 months (33:20) Port Mayfield, Florida • Randy was assigned to a destroyer • Randy had to request permission before boarding the ship and then he was shown his quarters in the ASW [anti-submarine warfare] compartment • His division consisted of Torpedo men and Sonar men • There was 25 men in his compartment with a 3 tier rack of beds • The beds were tubular frames with a canvas stretched over them with a 2 inch mattress that you slept on. Once on the bed there was a 6 to 7 inch space between you and the bunk above you • In the morning the guys would always say the same thing. “Heave out, Heave out…” (35:20)Aboard Ship • Each rack would turn their bed at a forty five degree angle so they could get underneath to get into their locker. • Randy was a Seaman Apprentice at this point • Up the ladder was the ‘head’-toilets, sinks, and two showers • When they woke up they had to shower, shave and clean the area for an hour before breakfast which was at 7:00a.m. • (38:00) Chow line went passed the kitchen where you ordered your eggs how you liked them, then you went to the mess hall where you were given grits or chipped beef on bread �• • • • • • • • • • Usually the new guy got mess duty where you would have to clean up the tables after people ate. You were given this duty for two weeks to a month before a rotation was done If not on mess duty you would do chores for eight hours with lunch in the middle (41:30)They had a Mark 15 and a Tripod on board and his job as a torpedo man was to maintain the 4 torpedoes inside the tripod on each side of the ship They had to undo the hatches three times a day and record the temperature, check the straps on the torpedoes so they didn’t come loose, maintain the decks by painting and repainting the boards Navy gray. They painted once every 6-7 months. They corroded quickly There was a helicopter hangar that they also had to maintain. It had mesh netting that was over the hangar, which they would have to scrape and paint black. It was a continuous process. (44:55)The sonar men had a better job and were up in the sonar room which was air conditioned. They traced sonar that reverberated off of anything in the area. There was a rubberized area that would receive those receptions. They could plot what it was, where it was going, and how close to them it was. The guys in the torpedo room would man the torpedoes and let the sonar men know that the torpedoes were ready so they sonar men could fire at targets in the area that they were in fear of either hitting or were a threat to the ship They had tests they would perform with the torpedoes where they had a submarine in the area and they would fire a torpedo at the ship, track its movements and at the point of impact it would shut down and rise to the surface for a tracking team to locate and recover with a motor whale boat. Once recovered they would have a recording ship check the torpedo to see where it went and how close it came to impact. Randy said they lost more than they recovered because of treacherous waves. (48:05) Once found they were refurbished and ready to go back out to the ships. Not necessarily the ones you sent out. They would dock at ‘GitMo” (Guantanamo Bay) for leave and go to gentlemen’s clubs and drink a lot and came back on cars called camel bars. Many times there were fights on the cars. The beaches were nice there and Randy said you could feed the iguanas popcorn and they were friendly. There were areas you couldn’t go beyond because it was under Cuban government and was hostile with Fidel Castro in power. (51:30) Port-Mayfield Florida • Randy was on the ship for approximately three years. �• • • • • • His home port was Mayfield, Florida. They got liberties here at night but had to be back by midnight. Weekends had 48-72hour leave unless holiday where you could get 96 hour leave. They hung out at the beaches in Florida on leave. They wore civilian clothes while they were off the ship and kept them in lockers in Florida. Sometimes they bought their civilian clothes on credit. (53:45) Randy and two other guys had an apartment in Jacksonville Beach for them to sleep at on their liberties. Only a mile to the center of town where the bars and restaurants were. Randy remembers while on leave a house behind his was on fire and it woke him up. He went to help with a garden hose and climbed up on a shed to reach the roof of the house adjacent to the house to keep it from burning down. Randy was seen by an officer in the military who wrote a letter to his superiors who gave him a commendation for doing what he did with the fire. (56:55) Randy’s compartment was just above the frozen food compartment. People were unloading turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner. Randy was going on liberty and took a frozen turkey to his apartment and had a Thanksgiving party complete with Bloody Marys to serve. Randy said the day he got out of the military he went around to the officers aboard ship and the chief cook told him he knew where that missing turkey went to. Randy finished his duty on this ship. (1:00:00) Stops out at sea • He made a cruise to the Mediterranean which took 37 days to get there. He was in the 5th Fleet and went to Sicily, the island of Malta, and Naples. He was a driver for officers who went into town for shopping or work. In France he took his captain to Normandy where they saw the landing sites. • (01:02:45)There were a lot of plaques at Normandy but not remnants. Overwhelming feeling of pride with Randy as he walked on the shores. • Randy said 10 guys who originally jumped off a plane in 1944 on Normandy shores re-qualified in 1998 for a 50th anniversary of Normandy where they jumped again and landing on the shores. One of the guys was Roger Williams. • Went to Nassau, St. Thomas, Guantanamo Bay, Key West (1:04:35) Midshipman Cruise • They went across the east coast picking up guys who were going to become officers in the Navy. They were treated very well, did work aboard ship, but were a class above enlisted crewmen. Went to Oslo, Norway, on the cruise. Randy said it was beautiful. Had to be on the ship by 11:00p.m. There were no real bars in Oslo. �• • • • (01:06:45) From there they went to Le Havre, France. Then off to Antwerp, Belgium, where the tides were 12-17 ft every day. Portsmouth, England, was the next stop. They got an overnight liberty here. The locals did not often see men off ship here. Randy went to a restaurant called Wimpy’s while they were there. (01:09:00) Florida Due to get out on November 18 1965, the day before his 21st birthday. Unfortunately, he was involuntarily extended for 4 months because of Vietnam. He received a notice telling him. Randy got out on March 16 1966 and signed out with the officers. The captain told him that if ever in a war he wanted him by his side but he wasn’t much of a peace time sailor. (1:10:45) Released from the Navy • Randy headed back to Halo Michigan where he had met a friend’s younger sister and had corresponded with her while he was aboard ship and asked her to marry him. • On April 2 he married Connie Stoll. He then phoned his parents and told them that he was home and had got married. (1:12:04) Ionia, Michigan • Lived here for a year and worked for his father at Gibson’s in Greenville, Michigan • He took parts off a line and painted them • His brother worked for Pesky Packaging Company so he left to here for better money. He put up orders for Petal Trucks to head to stores around Michigan • Worked here for about a year • Put in to go to school in Wisconsin (1:13:30) Milwaukee Wisconsin June 1967 • Lived in an apartment working for Dictaphone phone company repairing instruments making $50 dollars a week • Went to night school with the GI Bill to become an architect • Starts working for Western States Envelope Company as an engineer making envelopes in Sept 1967 making $80 dollars a week • (01:15:36) They had their first son in January 1969 • Lived on 76th and Morgan • Randy was offered a job as a salesperson in Inside Sales in the office • Promoted to Outside Sales in Michigan-January 1970 �• • (01:18:30) Randy increased sales 40% but was on the road 90% subsequently was separated from his wife Randy resigned from his job to try to patch things up with his wife (1:19:50) Enterprise Envelope, Grand Rapids Michigan • Randy returned to sales after 1 ½ years • Randy did end up getting a divorce (1:20:25) Western States Envelope Company Milwaukee, Wisconsin • Returned to Inside Sales with the company • Randy could not get an Outside Sales job with the company so he quit (1:20:45) Continental Envelope Minnesota • Salesman here • Met Nancy Goldwasser and married after a year in May 1978 • Randy seen an ad for sales manager in Idaho and applied (1:22:20) Porter Printing Company, Rexburg, Idaho • Department manager for the company • Lived for 2 years here in a Mormon community (1:23:45) William House Incorporated, Denver, Colorado • Randy took a job here as plant manager • Moved here in February 1981 • Worked her for 3 years • Lived in Aurora • Worked here till 1986 till company closed down (1:25:38) American Fiber Envelope Company, Gurnee, Illinois • Randy took a job as a 3rd shift plant manager • Worked here for a year before being offered a job in Milwaukee (1:26:38) Milwaukee, Wisconsin • Took over a plant in Toledo, Ohio, and one in Kentucky • Randy turned over the company in a year before it started making money • Moved his wife and him down to Kentucky and bought a 30 acre farm (01:28:30) Union, Kentucky • Randy took over plant here and was supervisor over it �• • • His job was to make sure the plant made money Lived here for 8 years Moved to St. Louis to take care of his mother-in-law (01:30:20) St. Louis Missouri • Randy started his own distribution company here printing and packaging supplies • His mother-in-law passed away 2 years later and ultimately divorced his wife in 2001 • Stayed here till 2003 (01:31:45) Grand Rapids Michigan • Randy had three of his children living in Lake Odessa • He got a job as a telemarketer in Grand Rapids for two years before moving (01:32:10) Lake Odessa Michigan • Randy moved here to be near his kids • Worked for a liquidation company and a bean and vegetable processor • He ran out of money and moved in with son for 6 months • (01:36:00) Randy checked himself into the Veterans facility in Battle Creek because of severe depression in Ward 39 • Randy learned here that he could go to the Veterans Home in Grand Rapids • July 24th he moved to the Veterans Home in Grand Rapids • (01:38:30) Randy is very happy that he found a home here where people understand his situation and care about what happens to him • (01:41:15) Randy said he is determined to recover by taking part in all the activities at the home • Randy is 62 years old now and is planning on moving on out of the facility • Randy wants to move down to San Jose Costa Rica in July of 2007 and has the encouragement of his children (01:46:30) Randy’s children • Son Sean (39) has Megan who has two children, Lindsey, Tyler, in Schuyler, Michigan • Daughter Shannon (34) Colleen lives in Woodland, Michigan with daughter Macy • Son Kevin (32) lives in Michigan with wife Marcy and son Caleb and daughter Anna • His son Kevin owns K&M Concrete in Lake Odessa • Shannon and his ex wife own a restaurant in Lake Odessa called C&R and she waitresses here �• • • Kevin lives in St. Louis, Missouri sells cell phones and is divorced from wife (01:51:00) Randy had no children from his second wife (01:54:45) Randy has a sister named Sandy married to Mike Dolak, sister Karen was killed in a auto accident, brother Doug married Ann live in Florida, brother Mark married to Lori in Wisconsin � 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 Curry, Randall Lee (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Curry, Randall Lee Description An account of the resource Randy Curry enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1962 when he was 17 years old. He served on a destroyer as a torpedo man. His ship sailed to the Caribbean, Mediterranean and Norway. He spent an extra 4 months in the service due to Vietnam and signed out after that. 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 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 2007-01-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CurryR 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/2cb965488f7741c1f00cad3a5ab80f88.mp4 b7a9a7a318d408d3002e27c954042e58 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/79489fd425c69301c1b56dd954703356.pdf c30c9b743abbe1654e87c23e38cd8770 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: Vietnam, Cold War Interviewee: Linda Crumback Length of Interview: 01:06:54 Background                    She was born September 27, 1947 in East Grand Rapids. She grew up in Caledonia and her family has lived there since 1865. She still lives in the house her grandfather built, but the farmland has since been sold off. She went to high school in Caledonia and graduated in 1965. When she graduated, she went immediately to Grand Valley State College for the summer. She would get a job there as a lab technician in the biology department. At the time, they did have the lake complex, but the bridge wasn’t built. They did however have Loutit Hall, where she spent most of her time, for physics, biology and chemistry. While she was going to school she lived at home and drove 40 miles every day to school and was glad when she was done, because she had had 3 close calls driving over there. But she didn’t mind driving. She attended GVSC from the summer of 1965 and graduated August of 1968. There wasn’t much going on at GVSC as far as war protests. Most of the conflict she had was with siblings. The closest one was 9 years difference from her. She focused on her studies and didn’t really get involved in politics, though she had her opinions on some things. Once she graduated, she went into pre-med and was going to medical school. She discovered that it was hard to get loans, so she tried getting jobs at different labs with no success. Soon she discovered that the military would help you go to medical school, so she decided that was the route she was going to take. So she took the different tests for the different branches and was finally accepted by the Air Force. She enlisted in the Air Force in 1970. The family was proud and thought it was a good thing to do. Her brothers who had all been in the Army had said to her “Don’t volunteer” and her friends didn’t say much. They thought it was an interesting thing to do. When she signed up for it, she thought that she was going to see the world and get some training. Things were not what they appeared to be, but more than anything she just wanted to get in and get into medical school. When she signed up for it she did not think of it in any connection to the War in Vietnam. (6:55) �     She did go in and had the 10 week wonders, officer candidate school in 10 weeks instead of the usual 12. While she was there, one of the people in charge had asked who was there because they got their papers and about half raised their hand. It was not the easiest thing to get into and she was actually rejected for it twice before. But she finally got a call from her recruiting officer letting her know that she had got in. She was surprised. She just assumed that she wasn’t going. That had taken pictures of the women, but not of the men. Training (9:05)             They had sent her to Lackland Air Force Base, in San Antonio, for Officer’s training School. At that time, the women were a separate squadron. There were about 60 women. When they had classroom studies, they would have it with the men, but any physical training they did, they did separately. The exercises they did were different as well. They had to do 5 BX, which were jumping jacks, sit-ups and things like that. Classroom work consisted of military history, training and speaking. They also emphasized discipline. When you first got there you had chicken stripes, which meant that you had to salute everything with stripes. Adjusting to military life was not difficult for her. Being away from home was the hardest part. It was fun being with the gals. There were no problems with the male cadets. The men and women would eat together as well. They all had 15 minutes to eat. This first stage of training would last 12 weeks. After that she went home. Her family came down for the graduation ceremony and she drove back home with them while she was on leave. After that she would get her first assignment, in Florida Active Duty (12:30) Florida        She would be placed at the McDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FL. She got on the job training at the time. She did not get the course she should have had; she would get it later, after she knew what she was doing. She was in a little Aero Space Defense Command and worked on a 2 person crew and basically they watched for sea launched ballistic missiles. She lived off base and worked shift work, 8 hour shifts 5 days a week. Given her solitary job, she did not have much interaction with other people on the base. She was the only woman in that detachment. The maintenance crew was all men. �         The computers were new to her. So when they came in and said they had to replace a card in the computer. Of course the only card she knew of was made of paper, but when they opened it up and showed her she got the idea. She doesn’t remember a lot of false alarms. But she does remember times when there would be alarms caused when the people near New Orleans burned their sugar fields. For some reason that would set off alarms for them. It was an interesting time, with a 2 person crew, waiting for nothing to happen. She did have a couple people tell her that they thought women shouldn’t be in the Air Force. She thinks she convinced them otherwise. She would converse with the enlisted men that she worked with to help pass the time. The enlisted men would have to do the watching, while the officer was there mostly to make decisions. She had that job for about a year and a half. During that time, while off duty there would be get togethers with other members of the attachment and she went to see the sights of Florida. After that year and a half she went to Denver, Colorado, to the 2nd Communications Squadron. Colorado (17:30)             At the time, she couldn’t have said much about it, but now she can tell us that it is the defense support program. They use the satellites that were in geo-synchronous orbit to watch the world for missile launches. This was quite a bit bigger than what she had experienced in Florida. There were about 500 people there. There were other women there and one of them she went through OTS was there as well. She got there just before she had, and there were a few others but not many. While she was there she was the Deputy Director on D crew. There were 12 people in D crew, sitting there receiving the data from the satellites and sending out all the necessary data to where it needed to go. There was much more to know working there than her old job. You had to know how everything worked and operated, not just how to operated it. When she first got there, there was only one satellite in orbit, so they would only get data every couple of hours. During that time, a civilian would train the crew. She would have training before that to help her, a four week course. She ended up living in off base housing again, because the officer’s quarters were full. Not one time in 22 years did she have to live on base. She did not run into any friction of her being a female in the armed forces. The crew was all about the same age, except for the enlisted, they might have been a little older. She and her friend ended up being the Senior Directors of two of the worst units. It was difficult working in them, but she made it through. She was told by her previous Senior Director that she was given the job because they believed that she could do the job and keep it going. �     It was interesting, as far as the operations, they were all standard and nothing really exciting happened during that time. The morale level at the bases she worked at was good. The officers were qualified and there was a new system and it was fun to explore. She was doing an operation and everything was supposed to go ok and suddenly there were arrows up everywhere. Her director was there for the whole thing and SAC was called, and they tried to decide if they wanted to bring in bombers, but nothing came of it. When she left Colorado, she was three years into the four. After that she was sent to Shemya Air Force Base, which is on one of the islands in the Aleutians. She and another woman were the first women ever assigned there. Alaska (26:15)                    The island was two by four miles. It was all men except for the general electric girls there, who welcomed them and told them what to expect. There were about 2,000 people there when she first arrived. The majority of the people there were taking care of the rest who actually had the operations there, and a lot of the operations at the time were monitoring Russia. She was also space tracking. She was flown out there on Reeves Aleutians Airlines. It was quite an experience as it is foggy most of the time and very cold. The pilots were really good at their job. When you wanted to go on leave, you would leave on military transports, which would be the only way they got fresh food and things that they needed. They would bring in barges during the summer months to bring in other things, like trucks. A semi came off the barge, it was strange. Collecting bottles off the shore would be one of their pastimes. They would collect 1950’s Coke bottles and they would find sake bottles along the shore. There was nothing to do there, so that entertained them. Almost everything was in a single building, from administration, to sleeping quarters, to the mess hall, everything. They did have an NCO club that was relatively new and it was nice. All the organizations on the base had their own little building. One of them was built with two little huts put together and a fireplace was put in it. It’s where the squadron got together. That’s where they spent their off time was in those places. She would be stationed there for a year. That ended right around the same time as her enlistment term. She didn’t think about getting out at all. She just got her next assignment, which brought her back to Denver. The range of the temperatures was 50-20 degrees. They were not allowed to go too far off base or you could fall and freeze out there. The flowers there were very beautiful. The wind made everything very cold. There was snow, in varying amounts. They would have tremors there too once in a while. �              The General Electric girls were there as maintenance. They came from a general contractor and worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Their job was maintaining the antenna and the ladies came to work as secretaries. The job she had there was very interesting. The equipment there was older, which made the job more hands on. Later, when new equipment was brought in, it just wasn’t the same. It was also interesting to see the men when they were getting ready to go home, especially in the last two weeks. They probably did some things they wouldn’t normally have done. When they were going there, there was a sign that said “Welcome Linda and Terry”, well Alaska’s only congressman was on the plane, so their names came down and his went up. There was no trouble with her squadron about her being a woman in the Air Force, but there was one other woman who came up, who was assigned alone in the administration and she had some trouble. There was one individual who should not have been sent to the island. He had already been in some trouble on the mainland. He was an African American. He got upset with her and asked if he was different and there was tension that way, so instead of letting her handle it, one of the men told the individual that he owed her an apology. Well, this was the wrong thing to say, because this individual got really upset and that night he came into the room and tried to stab the man who had talked to him, and accidentally stabbed his roommate instead. She had planned on going to a movie the next day and was advised against it. But she felt it was necessary for people to know that she was not going to put up with that kind of stuff. There had also been rumors going around that they had all been flown out of there immediately, and she wanted to make sure those rumors were put to rest. (36:50) She ended up going to the movies with four men and there were not any African Americans in the movie that night. The individual who stabbed the man was eventually caught and put into custody. The man who was stabbed was taken to the mainland so he could recover. She believes that if they had just let her do her job, things would have been ok. That was the first time she saw that kind of racial tension and the only time she would deal with something to that magnitude. After Alaska she was sent back to Colorado, to 2nd Com, but this time she would work as a computer programmer. Colorado (40:00)    The job she had before was not to her liking. So she changed careers, which was not really available to women at the time, but they managed to get her switched. Her job would be to do the software and testing the software of the system. The biggest thing she can see is the difference in capacity, between now and then. She worked with a system that had 2 meg of high speed and 1 meg low speed. She had 64kb to herself. �                      Nowadays, in your telephone you probably have more memory to work with. The changes in hardware since then have simply been amazing. She had a training course for it right there and she was the only gal in it. She was never the kind of person to get up early to go to class, but the guys seemed to want it that way. So she would fall asleep at night, while writing her program. The operators would have this wild printer going and the paper would just shoot out. It would turn out to be one of the trainees not doing something right and they would quickly turn off the printer to avoid mass chaos. She was there for 5 years. During that time, she remained a captain, but rose from a computer software developer to chief of software development. They did one project, where they did the software instead of contracting it out. They got compliments on what a good job they did. By the end, she was in charge of 25 people. Most of them were officers. There were not too many enlisted that worked there. She made a lot of friends and had a lot of fun and she really loved Denver. She completed that in 1980. After the Soviet threat starts to diminish, the Air Force begins cutting down on people. But this would be after she got out and would not have to worry about those kinds of things. It was not a typical thing to work in one place for so long, but they wanted her to stay there because she was training others. She thinks it didn’t hurt any either, because she was able to make the next rank. After she finished that, they selected her to get a Master’s degree. So she was sent out Monterey, California to the Naval Post Graduate School. It was not a bad assignment by any means. They have their own campus after they acquired the Delmont Hotel and built a military base, with housing that she did not get, yet again. At that time, you went to the college as a civilian and there were a lot of foreigners there. The degree she was getting was sponsored by the Joint Command Control Communication. She was a little more senior than most of the others at the college. She took a few classes in each of the required topics, but they were not experts in any one thing. The program lasted 18 months. Since most of them had been out of college for a while, they gave them classes to get them back into the swing of things. Once she had her degree, she was really involved in looking at the National Command Control and how to improve it. She would return to a staffing job. Her system was taken over by the SAC, Strategic Air Command, so she was sent to SAC headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base, in Omaha, Nebraska. Nebraska (48:00) �                   When she got there and there were some of the people she had worked with were there. They informed her that they were creating airspace and many of them would be transferred soon. She would work there for a year and then be transferred to Space Command. She would do planning for new software while she was there. Her area was warning and tracking systems. She was there from 1983-1986. Things were discussed about the Soviets, but there was no real concern about going to war and most things kind of stayed on the same level. By that time, things had really changed for women and the military service. When she went in, you couldn’t have children. Now you can. There are also more fields opening for women at the time as well. There was nothing during that time that really stood out. From there, she went to the Naval Post Graduate School again, as a curriculum officer for the classes she had taken. It was an interesting job as she would work for the Navy and not the Air Force. She would work there for three years. While she was there she had a bomb threat to the school. There wasn’t much difference in what she saw in the Navy, but the attitudes for the importance of rank were very different than the Air Force. She could sense a difference, but can’t really put it into words. She worked just as an administrator and spent her time writing reports on finances and the curriculum and keeping the programs up to date. The relations between the military and civilians were always good, no matter where she was. Of the different places that she lived, she really liked Colorado. After Monterey, she was sent to Sacramento, where she worked at a joint job, working with the different military branches. She had to train and keep the software going for the system there. It was not the most exciting job, but it was an important job. There wasn’t a lot to do, except preparing for exercises. After this, she would decide to leave the Air Force. She had her mother living with her and she decided that it was time to get out, so they moved back to MI. Post Duty (1:00:15)     Since she left the Air Force, she’s retired with a pension, so she didn’t need a job. So she volunteers her time for different things. When people found out she was in the Air Force, people were surprised and she never had any negative reactions. Most people are interested and excited to learn about it. She notices a constant recognition and admiration for the military nowadays. They didn’t have that back then. She worked with a lot of veterans who worked in wars and it was interesting to see and hear their reactions to military life. �  She didn’t have a plan to make it a career, but since she didn’t have to reenlist, so all she had to do was take the next assignment. She would not be in the Air Force today, as they do not offer her job anymore. They contracted it out. � 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 Crumback, Linda (Interview outline and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Crumback, Linda Description An account of the resource Linda Crumback was one of the first women to go through the Air Force ROTC School. She would serve her country for 22 years, initially monitoring missile launches, and later working with computers and computer software. She served on bases in Florida, Colorado, Alaska and California, and worked with officers from other branches, especially while serving as an instructor at the Naval Post Graduate School. 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 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 2011-01-11 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CrumbackL 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/b280f848497c9430a60931d1c0e1c7df.mp4 a54f5554793e55357bddb0c6a68dc710 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/269d47184b3b6aa1f94e7203eec658e0.pdf 4fa9ed81737b1f70dc3fa0b902b467ac PDF Text Text Mary Crowell Interview Transcript Interviewer: Charles Collins Transcribed by Emilee Johnson Length: 1:16:41 Charles Collins: Well, Mary, I’m Charles Collins and today we’re going to do your oral history, actually your whole lifetime. So Mary, let us start out by me asking you your full name, your maiden name as well as your married name, where, and when you were born. Mary: My name is Mary Louise Mitchell Crowell. Mitchell is my maiden name. And I was born near East LeRoy, well, between East LeRoy and Pine Creek, those were two little villages, so I was actually born in the country in August of 1926, the last day of August. Charles Collins: Nineteen twenty—? Mary: Six. Charles Collins: Six? Mary: Mmhmm. That dates me. [laughs] Charles Collins: Yes it does, doesn’t you? It makes you be a nice young lady. Mary: A little. [laughs] Charles Collins: Mary, tell me what you remember about before you went to school. Mary: 1:00 Well, I was raised on a farm, the fourth of…well, I had two brothers and a sister older than myself, and then there was a sister and two brothers younger. There’s four years difference between my older sister and myself. My mother thought that, one time we were at home talking about children and at that time abortions, and my mother made the remark, “Well, I thought I had my family until you came along.” And I acted a little shocked at that remark and I said, “Well, Mom, I’m terribly sorry that I upset your plans.” Which, I said, “I’m a little confused, I’m not sure if I was a very good baby or if I was a bad baby that you had to have two more boys 2:00 and a girl to corral me!” But she said, “No, I’m glad I had you.” So from that point on, I would always get a dozen gladiolas and give to her on my birthday. Charles Collins: Aw, good! Mary: And tell her, I’m thankful that you had me. [laughs] And I think she said she was too. �Charles Collins: So tell me the names of your siblings. Mary: My oldest brother was Eldon Mitchell. Eldon…well, let’s see…gosh, he’s been gone a few years and I’ve forgotten his middle name! [laughs] Eldon …well, let’s say Eldon Mitchell. Charles Collins: Ok Mary: And Leon Mitchell, and Marcille Mitchell Wayne, that was her married name, and then my younger sister was Fern Mitchell Bishop, and my next brother was Gordon Mitchell, and then Franklin Mitchell was our youngest. Charles Collins: So your mother had 3:00 seven children. Mary: That’s correct, and they were all born at home, delivered by the same doctor which was Dr. Funk. I was born on the last day of August and they were harvesting oats at my father’s farm. And, of course, there were many men gathered for the process of, thrashing oats, and my mother had two sister-in-laws there, helping her with the dinner that day, and they had dinner for the men. And, she said that she got washed up, and got freshened up a little bit, went to bed and then they called Dr. Funk because I was on the way! [laughs] So I was born right after they harvested and were thrashing oats. Charles Collins: Well, now, tell me, did she get up do dishes afterwards too? [laughs] Mary: [laughs] No, I think she took the excuse to stay in bed a few days! [laughs] Charles Collins: [laughs] Oh my! Mary: 4:00 So that’s how women…we were all born at home. Charles Collins: That’s very interesting, I’m sure your grandchildren will be very interested to hear that. Mary: They’ll be quite surprised. Charles Collins: Yes. Mary, tell us a little bit about the things you did before you went to grade school. Mary: Well, my younger sister and I had a play house in the grape arbor. It wasn’t built, you know, with wood and ladders and things like kids have today, but it was just how the grapes grew over the framework of wire, and we would fix our little playhouse in that grape arbor. Well, we had seen our mother as she baked cakes and so forth, and crack eggs and stir them into the batter, and for some reason or other one day, my sister and I decided we would go out to the henhouse 5:00 and get a few eggs and put them in with our mud pies. We thought that was great fun. But when it came the end of the week, when my mother usually took the eggs and the �cream into Athens and sell them, and that money went towards buying flour and sugar and things like that that we needed, she discovered that her eggs were short that week. [laughs] So as she looks around, and then she went to the grape arbor, she found shucks. So, I think that answered where the eggs went that week. [laughs] Charles Collins: And what did she say about that? Mary: Well, she was a very mild-mannered woman, and I think she knew that we probably saw the repercussions from what happened and so, we didn’t get a spanking for it but we knew that we weren’t to do that again. [laughs] Probably some of the 6:00 games we used to play? Charles Collins: Yes! Mary: We had a two-story house, farmhouse, and we would play Andy-I-over. Charles Collins: Ok. Mary: And that’s where we took a ball and threw it over the roof, and you tried to catch the people on the other side before they caught the ball. So that was a game— Charles Collins: That was a fun game. Mary: Yes, it was, and not only that but we were getting our aerobics and our exercise at the same time. [laughs] And we had hopscotch and I can remember as a child, my dad thrashed wheat and corn…or, wheat and rye, and oats, and then he had a corn husker that he used for doing custom corn husking for the farmers, and as the thrashing machine was parked in our yard, we kids used to climb up on that and jump off. Well, that was really, five feet, 7:00 I would say, that we kids used to jump off of there. And we just thought that was great fun, running and jumping up on that machinery and jumping off. Until our legs got to aching and then we decided it was time to quit. [laughs] And another thing that we used to do was walk on stilts. We had, you probably know what those are like, a couple of sticks with a little wedge nailed to it, and we would get on those stilts and see who could walk the furthest. Charles Collins: Without falling off. Mary: Without falling off. And one time when our grandchildren were home, and Jim had built some stilts for them, why they were having difficulty trying to even stand up on those. So I said, “Oh, I think Grandma’d better show you how to do that.” Well, they looked at me in disbelief, that Grandma could get on 8:00 two things like that and walk around. But I showed them Grandma could still do it. [laughs] Charles Collins: [laughs] Well, that’s rather interesting isn’t it? Mary: [laughs] That’s jumping ahead a few years. �Charles Collins: Couple days anyway? Mary: Yes. So another thing that we used to do in play, we would take an old tire with a stick. And we would see how long we could keep that tire rotating as we would keep pushing it along with a stick. Now, I don’t know if anyone else ever had a game like that or not, but we had a lot of fun doing it. And we also had a horse that we would ride. Charles Collins: That was fun, wasn’t it? Mary: Bareback. Charles Collins: Oh, you rode bareback? Aha! Mary: Yes. One time when I was riding bareback, the horse leaned over to eat, and of course, I slid over the neck of the horse, and my foot caught in the bridle, and I hung head-down. 9:00 And I just hung there for a while because I didn’t know how to get myself back out of that situation. But I had an older brother that came and rescued me. So some of that play could be a little— Charles Collins: Could be a little bit dangerous, couldn’t it? Mary: Yes. And we always would hop out of the hay mow too. Jump in and out of the hay mow, so that fun. Charles Collins: And that was in a fairly good-sized barn at that time. Mary: Yes it was. Charles Collins: How large a farm did your family have? Mary: Well, my dad was farming about 10 to 40 acres, cause he would do some custom farming too. Charles Collins: Was that his full-time job, farming? Mary: Well he did farming and then he did the custom harvesting for some farmers, and then he also had a saw mill. And he sawed ties for the New York Central Railroad. Charles Collins: Ok. Mary: And one time when they were just finishing, a order for the New York Central Railroad, 10:00 the truck was loaded with the ties, and he was just using…he was left-handed, so he was using a little stick-like or board to kind of move some of the saw dust away from the saw, so it could be carried off to the pile where they carried it away. Charles Collins: Sure. �Mary: And he bumped his elbow and it threw his arm against the idling saw and cut it almost off completely. Charles Collins: Oh my! Mary: Mmhmm, so they rushed him with that load of ties and the truck, to the nearest farmhouse and they got in…they happened to catch the man at home, and he transported him to the hospital in Battle Creek, and the man that had just drove into the yard happened to be the man…he wanted to go with them, he was the man that donated the blood to my 11:00 father. Charles Collins: Wow! Mary: But Dad did lose his arm. Charles Collins: Did lose his arm? Mary: Yes, just about six inches below the left elbow. Charles Collins: And, how old was he at that time? Mary: Oh, he was probably in his late fifties. Charles Collins: Ok. Well, that was kind of a traumatic thing for you to see and to understand wasn’t it? Mary: Yes, but he was a determined gentleman. And, when he came home from the hospital, the first thing he did was get on the tractor and drive to East LeRoy to just show himself that he could operate the tractor. Charles Collins: Still could do that. [laughs] Mary: Could still operate the tractor! Charles Collins: Well, now, Mary, as…as life went along, and you started school, where did you start school at? Mary: I started school, it was just about a mile from where we lived, and it was a one-room school, 12:00 we went through the 8th grade there. , I had a teacher that was a cousin, at one time, and my older, next to my oldest brother, attended, my sister was there, and myself. And I can remember a picture that we had taken of that school, and I was sitting on the front row. And I had, it must’ve been early spring, because I had a ridge around my ankles, and I realize that I must’ve had my over…my winter underwear still on. Cause Mom wouldn’t let us leave the house until it got warm enough to take that underwear off. [laughs] So, that’s what we wore for warm clothing was some underwear. �Charles Collins: What were the winters like there, at your area? Mary: Some were very cold, we may have snow up to the fence rows, 13:00 and I can remember that my…our mothers sent warm meals to school with us. And that meant that my mother one day, fixed some vegetable beef stew and took it off the wood-burning stove that we had, that’s what she cooked with, a wood-burning stove, and we carried that to, about a mile, to our one-room school. By the time we got to the school it had begun to ice around the edge. [laughs] And so, that was a cold winter. Charles Collins: Yes it was! Did the school have a stove you could put it on then and keep it warm? Mary: Yes, we had a stove. It was a large, wood-burning…I think it was wood-burning completely, stove, and the teacher would put that pot of stew on there. And that’s what we had for lunch. Another thing that our teacher would do, they had a willow stick, 14:00 wooden stick that would lean…well, I’d say it was probably about five feet tall. And they had it leaning back in the corner, back of the wood-burning stove. And every kid knew, if they misbehaved, they would get that willow stick, probably, on their behind. But I never once saw it used. Charles Collins: Oh, wow! Mary: Never once. Charles Collins: It was just there for— Mary: It was there and people knew what it could be used for. Charles Collins: For information, they knew what it did! [laughs] Mary: Yes, yes. [laughs] And we, of course, being a one-room school, we, when we got our work done, we could listen to the class ahead of us, at what they were studying. And spelling was always a subject that interested me. And we had what was called spelling bees. Charles Collins: Yes. Mary: And we would go around to the different schools and have our spelling bees. 15:00 Well, I had to be in the 4th grade before they would let me go to any of the spelling bees. And one spelling bee was held at a school which was called The Little Red Schoolhouse. And the last two people still standing at the end of that spelling bee was my older sister and myself. And I thought, “Oh gosh, I got to be against Marcille!” And of course, I was challenged to speak the word…or to spell the word, acquaintance. And I was just so sure of myself, I just said “H-u-q-ui-n-t-i-n-c-e.” And my sister said, “She forgot the c.” So my sister won! [laughs] So that’s the way it was spelled then, anyway. �Charles Collins: Ok. Mary: But, it was interesting. And 16:00 as I look back on history, I feel fortunate that I went to a one-room school because it was fun. Charles Collins: And you learned so much in advance that the next grade was a little bit easier for you wasn’t it? Mary: Yes, yes. And we could play ball and different things at school. And to show you what the economic times were like, at that time, I recall one child coming to school and they must’ve had two penny suckers. Now, a penny sucker would be pretty good size, probably a little smaller than a golf ball. But it was good size for a penny. Charles Collins: Pretty close. Mary: Yes. So, we didn’t have candy at disposal like kids have candy today. But I sucked on that candy bar…or, that candy sucker for a while, 17:00 and then I saw my sister around, and I gave it to my younger sister to finish…finish the sucker. [laughs] Charles Collins: [laughs] Ok! Mary: So, there was a feeling that you shared. Charles Collins: What kind of games did you play while you was at school? Mary: Well, we played ball. And some, we did have a friend…a couple of girls that had bicycles. Charles Collins: Ok, that was fun. Mary: Now that was really, they had to be rich to have a bicycle. Charles Collins: Yes they did. Mary: At least in my eyes. And I learned to ride on one of their bicycles. So we had bikes that we could share and kids would learn to ride on. Then as winter came, we could slide downhill. So there were…we made our own fun. Charles Collins: That’s true and …it was fun. And as you went on through 18:00 your schooling, did you have a 8th grade graduation ceremony? Mary: Yes, we did. But there’s one thing I’d like to say about the one-room school. We didn’t have flush toilets or anything like that that you have in schools today. We had to go outside. Charles Collins: To an outhouse. �Mary: To an outhouse. Winter and summer. Yes. But , yes, we had graduation from the 8th grade. That was recognized. And we used to have programs, especially at Christmas time, so that we gained some experience in performing. Charles Collins: Could you recall any of those special programs that you participated in? Mary: Well, I can recall the Christmas programs but I cannot recall what I did! [laughs] Charles Collins: Ok. Mary, as you went on through school, what year was it that you graduated from the 8th grade? Do you remember that? Mary: Let’s see. 19:00 Well, I graduated in 1944 from high school. So about 1940. Charles Collins: So it must’ve been 1940. Mary: Yes. Charles Collins: Ok. Mary: And , then when we graduated we went into Athens, which was a larger village. And , my first day in Athens high school, I sat in the farthest corner because I was very shy, and I thought that looked like Grand Canyon to come into that building. And um, I just sat in the corner, and sort of looked out the window because I was afraid to look across that assembly hall. It looked so huge. And um, finally, I kind of turned around in my seat and looked off across the building at the [SKIPPED] looking over that freshman class. Well, I must confess that one of those boys 20:00 turned out to be my husband. Charles Collins: Oh! Is that right? Mary: There was him and his 3 friends. Charles Collins: And they were checking out the freshmen. Mary: And they were checking out the freshmen, so I don’t know whether he had his eye on me at that time or not. [laughs] Charles Collins: Well he must have for a little bit cause he was looking that way. Mary: Yeah. Yes he was. Charles Collins: Well now as you went to high school in 1940— Mary: Yes. Charles Collins: Tell me a little bit about what was happening in the world at that time, do you remember? �Mary: Well, I remember that we, some came to school by car, they would sort of carpool. In other words, my brothers had a car and they might have a few they would transport. Charles Collins: That would ride with them. Mary: Yes. But I came in town and stayed with a family. So then I walked from their home to school. 21:00 And um, we didn’t have but one major sport, either…in the fall it would be football, and in the winter, basketball, and in the spring it would be baseball. And I was not taking part in any of those sports because girls really were not involved in sports at that time. Charles Collins: They…did they have cheerleaders at that time? Mary: Yes they did. But I was too shy. Charles Collins: Sure. Mary: You know, I was so shy that…finally, it must’ve been sophomore or junior year… Because when the teacher would ask us to maybe read aloud in class, that frightened me terribly, I’d just think, well I can’t do that, you know, with all these kids. 22:00 But gradually I realized I didn’t want to be so shy. And um, so one time when they were trying out for cheerleaders, I thought, there’s one way to start getting myself out of this and that’s forcing myself. So I thought, I’m just going to try out for cheerleading. So I did, and I got chosen as a cheerleader. Charles Collins: Oh boy! Mary: So [laughs] that started me a little bit in getting over the shyness. Charles Collins: Yes, I bet it did. Mary: Then I’d take part in plays and so forth. Charles Collins: Do you remember any of the plays that you took part in? The names of them or what you did? Mary: Well, of course, I’d play some part. I don’t recall that I played a major part in any. But my goodness, I can’t remember any of those plays. Charles Collins: So tell us, did you get involved in any of the school dances? Mary: Oh, that was something I loved to do. I loved to dance. Because at one time, we lived just 23:00 a few doors, in Pine Creek, and we were about two doors from a dance hall. Charles Collins: Oh my! �Mary: Just around the corner. And my mother would let my younger sister and myself go to the dance hall because we had two brothers and a sister there that were older than we. And we danced every dance. That was our exercise. Charles Collins: Oh, that was fun, wasn’t it? Mary: It was wonderful fun. And I look at the kids today and I think, oh, I wish you could enjoy the fun I had dancing! [laughs] But yes, I did, I always took an opportunity to go to a dance that I could. Charles Collins: Mary, do you remember in 1941, where you were at when Pearl Harbor happened? Mary: Well, I was of course in school, at that time. Charles Collins: You’d be sophomore. Mary: And I remember of hearing that on the radio and realizing that we were at war. 24:00 Yes. Charles Collins: Probably as a young sophomore in high school, it didn’t really come home to affect you that much or did it? Mary: Well it didn’t until after I realized that…I had started dating Jim, and that he had enlisted, and was going off to the service. Charles Collins: Yes. Mary: So then I kept closer contact with the war. Charles Collins: Sure. What did you do as a high school teenager in those early years of the war, did you do anything special? Mary: Well, of course, many of the boys in my class, especially our graduating class, were already in service or enlisting, and so much of it was left to we girls to have our own fun. 25:00 I can recall a friend of mine, driving to our house, and this was just before the term, before the fall term started in school. And we decided we would drive from there into Athens and come back home, just for something to do. Well, on the way there, everything went fine, but on the way home, we had two flat tires. And course, we managed to get the tires changed, but it was quite a chore. [laughs] Charles Collins: I bet it was! Mary: Two girls! Inexperienced. But we managed to do that. But for our senior year, this same friend and I, Eleanor Hayward, was her name, and she and I had a room rented in Battle Creek �and we worked as waitresses 26:00 in a restaurant, that summer. And earned…this is back when you got a nickel tip. Charles Collins: Yes, it was a lot. Mary: Or a dime, if you were really making money. And we were paid $16 a week. And then our tips on that probably got us somewhere around $20-25 a week. Charles Collins: That was big money then. Mary: Oh, yes, that was… But we had earned enough money that summer that I was able to buy my class ring and my pictures, my senior pictures, paid for those. Charles Collins: Yourself. Mary: Myself. Yes. Charles Collins: That’s interesting. Mary: Yes, because we tried to be as independent as we could because we knew our folks didn’t have much money. Charles Collins: Well that’s what I was going to think, possibly had you not done that, you wouldn’t have had a class ring or senior pictures. Mary: That’s true, that’s true. Because when 27:00 I graduated from high school, I was offered a $300 scholarship and I was planning on going into the Nursing Cadet Corps. At that time, you know, during the war. Charles Collins: Yes. Mary: We had the Cadet Corps forming, and I thought, well, that’s a good way for me to get a nursing degree and , maybe I can do it that way. Because my folks didn’t have the means to send me on to school. Charles Collins: Ok. Mary: So, I was 17 years old when I graduated. And of course they would not take you in the Nursing Cadet Corps until you were 18. Well, my birthday being the last of August, I had to wait a while. But I wasn’t one to sit around, so I went to work for Civil Service. And I worked at 28:00 Percy Jones General Hospital briefly, then I was working as a clerk typist out at Fort Custer. And this is where I got a vision of what it was like with these gentlemen coming back from way, some of them coming back oh, maybe 36 hours from the battlefield. And they came and then went to Percy Jones General Hospital. The critical ones went right there first, but there were some that needed psychiatric care, and they were still housed there at Fort Custer. And we �also had the prisoners of war, the German prisoners of war, housed at Fort Custer. So that was my experience through World War II working in the supply office. Charles Collins: Did you have much contact with the prisoners of war? Mary: No, I didn’t because I was in the office working as a clerk typist. 29:00 But I knew that they were there. Then shortly after the war was over, I was working for Equable Life Insurance Company and that was downtown Battle Creek. Charles Collins: Ok. Mary, do you remember VE Day? When it happened and where you were at? Mary: Well, I remember again, I remember hearing this on TV…not on TV, on the radio, and reading about it in the paper. But I can remember that it was a happy day because we knew that that was the end of World War II. Charles Collins: For Germany. And then VJ Day was the end of the war. Mary: Yes. Charles Collins: Do you recall hearing about and reading about us bombing the Japanese with the atom bombs? Mary: Yes, 30:00 I do. Charles Collins: And, what did you think about that? Mary: Well, I thought, when I saw some of the pictures that were printed out that was a horrible thing for civilians to be destroyed in that large a quantity. But then I also realized that we…the war would just continue because there didn’t seem to be much let up and that we had to do something drastic. But at the same time, we put faith in our leadership that our leaders knew best what needed to be done. So we trusted them that this is what had to be done. Charles Collins: And as VJ day happened, where were you? Mary: Oh, I was in Battle Creek. Charles Collins: And did you experience any of the revelry or…what happened that day? Mary: No, I guess I just came home and thought I’d stay where it was safe! [laughs] Charles Collins: 31:00 Probably was a wise idea! [laughs] During that wartime period, tell us what happened as far as rationing was concerned, and that type of thing. �Mary: Yes, we had books of course that rationed sugar and so forth, and gas, and so there was much, where we would share things together like transportation and so forth, it was shared to cut down on the consumption of gasoline. And I can remember silk hose—we couldn’t buy silk hose anymore during the war because the silk went into making parachutes and so forth. And we girls used to get a colored lotion and we’d put that on our legs, shave our legs and put this colored lotion on, and draw a black strip up you know, 32:00 with eyebrow liner, to make it look like we had a seam in the back! [laughs] And that would make it look like we had hose on. Charles Collins: To make it look like you had silk hose on. Mary: So those were some of the things and it was an all-out effort for the war. We did everything we could. Saved oil or saved lard, and tin cans, anything that we could do to help the war effort. Charles Collins: Being in Battle Creek, there obviously was some USO things happening and so on, did you go to any of those dances since you liked to dance? Mary: Yes, occasionally we would, and, when I was serving as a clerk typist at Fort Custer, at our place where we’d usually go to eat, there was a 33:00 gentleman there kind of tapping around and dancing like and we girls said, “Oh, he’s just trying to show off,” because there’s a group of us girls eating there. Well, later we found out that he was with the USO and he came to our table and he said, “Well, do any of you girls like to dance?” And course I spoke up and said, “Yes, I do.” And, a couple of the other girls did too. So he said, “Well, we’d like to use you in a routine that we’re doing. Would that be ok with you girls? We’re going to practice on such and such a night.” So we had gone and we’d practiced the steps and what the routine was going to be. And we thought, gosh we’re going to be able perform in one of the…one of these performances for the servicemen here. But they were shipped out before we could ever perform! [laughs] Charles Collins: Do you 34:00 know what the man’s name was? Mary: I don’t recall that. Husband: Colabrusco. Mary: Pardon? Husband: Colabrusco. Charles Collins: Colabrusco? See there? Mary: Colabrusco! Well, I had to get that from my husband! [laughs] He has a better memory than I do. �Charles Collins: Yeah, obviously. Did you happen to see any of the headliners at that time, at the USO performances and so on? Any of the big-name bands, or anything like that? Mary: Well, I’m sure I did. You see, I haven’t rehearsed this over the years like my husband with his, calls and reunions and so forth. Charles Collins: Well, that’s ok. Mary: But I’m sure many of the name bands were there. Charles Collins: So as you continued on with your life after the Second World War, what did you do? 35:00 Mary: Well, of course, Jim and I married— Charles Collins: Tell us about that, how you met him after the war, and dating and so on. Mary: Well, of course, as soon as he came home, he sought me out, and of course, he had proposed. He had sent me money for a cedar chest and the cedar chest was at my parents’ home. So, when I came to their home, why, he happened to be there to surprise me. And, so after talking a certain length of time, with the family and all, and I said, “Well, you’d probably like to see where some of your money went.” So I took him upstairs to my bedroom to show him the cedar chest. So while we were up there, he 36:00 pulls these…the ring out and said would I marry him. Charles Collins: And of course you said, “No!” [laughs] Mary: [laughs] Well, I said, that looked pretty sincere, so I said “yes!” [laughs] Charles Collins: And you still have those rings. Mary: And they were purchased in Pearl Harbor. Charles Collins: Isn’t that something? Mary: Yes. Charles Collins: Yeah. So tell us about your wedding. Mary: So our wedding was May the 18th, and this May the 18th it’ll be 61 years ago. Charles Collins: Wow. Mary: So that’s a long time. Charles Collins: Yep. �Mary: He was a slow learner—took me a long time to break him in! [laughs] Charles Collins: Did you ever get in a fight? Mary: Oh, any married couple, you get in squabbles! [laughs] But none sincere. Charles Collins: Obviously not too serious, right? [laughs] Mary: Right. But the day that we were married, I had made the wedding dresses and so forth, and my wedding dress, I could only find 37:00 enough satin, now this is in 1946, and I could only find enough satin to make the bodice part of the dress and the rest had to be made out of netting. And so, I did the best I could with the material I had. And then, the day of the wedding, we went to the woods, which is across the road from my folks’ property, and it had many dogwood in blossom. Charles Collins: Oh, yes! Mary: And I thought, those dogwood are so beautiful! And we gathered the dogwood and put them in baskets that we had got from the greenhouse and used those as our alter flowers. And they were beautiful. Charles Collins: And you made your own wedding dress. Mary: And I made my own wedding dress and veil and the flower girl and the ring bearer and the pillow. And the pillow that 38:00 I made, I have refurbished that and our granddaughter used that! Charles Collins: Oh, isn’t that neat? Mary: Yes. But so it was an evening wedding in the Congregational Church at Athens and Reverend Perrin performed the ceremony and his three brothers [nods toward husband] were in the service and my two brothers at that time, were in the wedding. And of course a nephew and a little niece and two of Jim’s nieces were in the wedding and my sister was the maid of honor and then I had 3 that were the bridesmaids. Charles Collins: So did you have a big crowd? Mary: Yes. I come from a large family! [laughs] But it was one of the first weddings held in a church 39:00 there in that community in a long, long time, that I remember. In fact, some of the people said, “Oh, you had a fancy wedding.” Well I didn’t think it was so fancy, I don’t think it cost much over $150! [laughs] Charles Collins: [laughs] Nowadays it’s $10,000! Well, Mary, as you were married, where did you and your husband live? �Mary: We lived in a two-room apartment, upstairs apartment, in Battle Creek. And our transportation was a Model A Ford. My folks had never had a Model A Ford. [SKIP] Jim said he was going to buy a Model A Ford, I thought, my word, he’s taking me back to the horse and buggy days almost. 40:00 But in World War II you had to have your name, after World War II, you had to have your name on a list to even get a used car! Charles Collins: That’s right. Mary: So, this car, my brother knew someone who had a car they would be willing to sell and that was this Model A Ford. And it had leather bucket seats, and well I call them bucket seats, and yellow spoke wheels! [laughs] Charles Collins: Oh wow! Pretty neat, huh? Mary: So we wish we had it today! [laughs] So that was our first car and it served the purpose well. Charles Collins: And did you work then or—? Mary: Yes, I did. Charles Collins: Or did you become a homemaker? Mary: No, I worked at the Equable Life Insurance Company, and that was on the 11th floor of the Security National Bank Building, downtown Battle Creek. And Jim was going to [unintelligible] Business School at that time. I came 41:00 home from work one day, and here was Jim and the books were all over the living room floor and I thought, what happened? You know, that here the books are and he looks like he’s not going on to school, you know, what’s happening here? What have I married, you know? Somebody’s [unintelligible] in the middle of things? [laughs] But he found that he was feeling changes adjusting to civilian life, married life and now, whether he wanted to go on to school or not. And he didn’t want to see himself sitting inside the rest of his life doing nothing, well, doing something, rather, the rest of his life. He just didn’t know quite sure what. But anyway he went to work for Sinclair Oil Company in Battle Creek, so we worked there 42:00 until he and his brother decided to join in business in Athens. Charles Collins: And did you continue to work for the insurance company? Mary: I worked until I became about 3 or 4 months pregnant. Charles Collins: Ok. Mary: And then I quit because back then you didn’t work till delivery time. Charles Collins: Right. �Mary: You just worked until you began to show, as they call it. And then you quit your work. So then I stayed home and became a mother and was a mother for 2 children: a daughter and a son. And we were living in Athens. And of course, I was an independent person at that period of time in my life, I liked to do everything myself, kind of like a 2-year-old kid. And I didn’t want everybody to know my business and I thought, if I go and live in Athens, I’m going to be 43:00 where everybody knows my business and I didn’t move to Athens very happy. You know, I really didn’t think I’d like it. But I thought, well, that’s where he seems to be destined to go. So I went. And spent our time there rearing the children and becoming involved in community. I was quite a volunteer or, they twisted your arm, as they say. And then as time moved on and the kids grew up through their stages of life, why, I saw that Athens was the best place to raise them. I thought he had chosen well. But in the meantime, our son was just starting school 44:00 and I was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Charles Collins: Ok. So you spent a little time recovering from that. Mary: Yes, back at that time, you had to be hospitalized. Charles Collins: Yes. Mary: It didn’t matter if your [prognosis] was negative or not, you had to be hospitalized. So, I had quite a rest period [laughs] for 11 months. Charles Collins: What hospital did you go to? Mary: Kimble Sanitarium. At that time, it was a sanitarium at Battle Creek. People came from Detroit, I had a roommate that was from Detroit when I first went in. And of course that was quite an experience, to think, oh my goodness, I’m leaving two young kids here at home! And have to worry about them. Charles Collins: So for a while, Jim was mother and father both! Mary: Yes, I think so! 45:00 [laughs] But a girl that we had that babysat for the children, which was infrequent, I didn’t leave them much, she came. In fact, her mother was working for us in the business. She was doing some office work. And one day when Jim went to the office, she said, “Well, why don’t you have Ruth Ellen just come and stay with the children and she can take them to school, and be there with them.” And it was the perfect set-up because then the children were able to be at home. Charles Collins: Sure. Mary: And we had a grandma in the area, which was the mother of friends of ours and she would take our son in the afternoon. Course, our son, at that time, he was reading, 46:00 and he �seemed to grasp words well. And he liked to read the Funnies. And so he would get the Funnies [laughs] as soon as they came, and read them, and then go back out and play. __________: Was this before kindergarten? Mary: This was before kindergarten. __________: Whoa! Mary: So the kids, where he stayed after school, you know, they thought it was fun to see him read the Funnies to them. So they let him read the Funnies [laughs]. But it was years later that I learned the teacher that he had in kindergarten, that one day she was reading a story to the children, and of course, Rod was standing at her elbow, reading along with her, that is, visually, and she was 47:00 embellishing the story to make it and he finally, after she read several pages, he stepped back and looked at her and said, “Mrs. [unintelligible], don’t you know how to read?” [laughs] Charles Collins: [laughs] Cause she…there was words coming out that he didn’t see on the paper, right? Mary: Yes. [laughs] So I was happy for her to share that because I had missed out on his kindergarten completely, I wasn’t home. So I was glad to know that little incident that the teacher had to experience. Charles Collins: So, while you were at the sanatorium, there, did you form any friends? Mary: Yes, I did. And one of the girls came from Detroit, and she was with me several months. Because my involvement was in the lower right lobe, it wasn’t throughout the rest of the lung. 48:00 It was there. And they kept me in bed because it would be like swinging a broken arm, they couldn’t have the diaphragm hitting the lungs and have me walking around. So, bedtime 24 hours a day for 5 months. Charles Collins: 5 months. Mary: Well, really it was 6 months, because I’d gone to Ann Arbor for lung surgery and they excised that from my lung. Charles Collins: Ok. Yes. Mary: And so it was 6 months before they would let me out of bed once a day. _______: So you had to learn how to walk all over again. Mary: Well, this was an experience, for sure. But when I was in Ann Arbor, they said, “Well, you can call your husband, and let him know what time you’re going to have surgery 49:00 �tomorrow.” Well, the part that [laughs]…there wasn’t a telephone in the room, you know, and it was probably the distance of, oh, the front door here to probably the windows in the kitchen area here. I don’t know how many feet is that? Charles Collins: Oh, about 20. Mary: 20? Well, it was about 20 feet from my bed to down the hall where the phone was. And the nurses were busy because there were 4 of us in this room. And they couldn’t be in there, they knew we were all going to surgery sometime the following day. So I thought, well, Lord, I guess it’s you and me down that hall. I gotta make a call. So I got out of bed, stood up, course I’d been getting out of bed 50:00 to stand and move to a chair that had a bed pan on it and then back to my bed. That was my toilet facilities. So I thought, well here we go. Went down that hall, just fine, came back, didn’t tremble, didn’t get wobbly, or nothing. Charles Collins: Good. ________Female voice: Wow! After 5-6 months. Charles Collins: So now you’ve spent 5 months in bed, or 6 total. Mary: Six, well, another month when I got back cause I went to Ann Arbor, and another month back to the hospital. Charles Collins: And after that time, what did you do? Mary: Course when we were in the hospital, we did crafts, you know? Charles Collins: Sure. Mary: Occupational crafts. Ceramics, and needlework, and that type thing. But I’m an avid reader, 51:00 so I read a great deal. And of course you had a roommate. And the room was kind of U-shaped, so there would be really 5 girls that could kind of chat back and forth a little bit. Charles Collins: Sure. So, you were there 6 months and you had about 5 months more to go. Mary: Yes, well, that’s right. I went there 11 months. Because then you sort of came…your exercise [unintelligible] Charles Collins: So you went through a rehab period of time. Mary: Yes, so that was— Charles Collins: Then you had the opportunity to get done and go home. �Mary: Yes, but I think for…you see, when I went in, I would think, now, you know, I wanted to be a good mother, I want to stay home with my kids. And how come that lady, who was a neighbor, 52:00 she can go up to the tavern and leave her kids and everything else and Lord, you’re putting me in the hospital and here she is out there ramming around. I had that kind of little tension there, you know? But I thought, well, you don’t get well with a bad attitude. That was one of the first things they said to us. Charles Collins: Ok. Mary: That your mental attitude has a lot to do with your recovery. Charles Collins: And it does. Mary: It does. Because, there was a lady that was around in the other section, and every day she cried. Because she couldn’t be home and spend her time with her family. But I felt that I had to trust that I would be taken care of. Charles Collins: And as you got well and left 53:00 for home, what did you do? Mary: Well first of all, I had to get used to hearing the refrigerator run! [laughs] I had to get used to someone sleeping with me! [laughs] Charles Collins: Sure! _________: Which is odd! Mary: Yes, it is, when you’re used to sleeping alone! [laughs] Charles Collins: Sure. Mary: And all the noises, you’d be surprised at the noises that are in a home that all of a sudden you have to get used to. _________: You take them for granted. Mary: And they’re taken for granted. And I realized how weak I was when I would get up and try to get breakfast. And then, I would get breakfast and the kids would get off to school, and I would sit down or lie down and rest a while. _______: Did you have anybody in to help you? Mary: I could have but I didn’t have because I knew that that was part 54:00 of my rehabilitation. That I needed to regain the strength. And it was the right thing to do that because I just gradually…at first I thought maybe I’ll never be strong again, but gradually I grew. �_____: How did the kids get along when you was gone? Mary: Well, I think they did fairly well because they had the same babysitter and they had the same home setting. It’s just that mom wasn’t there. ______: Did they have a problem getting reacquainted with you after 11 months? Mary: I don’t think so. I didn’t sense it. No, I didn’t sense it. And Jim’s shaking his head no. ________: I was going to say because they were quite young. Mary: Yes. Yes. Kindergarten and first grade. ______: That’s a long time for a child that age. To you know, not to see somebody. _____Mary Martha?: Had they been allowed to visit you? 55:00 Mary: Yes, well, they could come and visit outside. See, they weren’t allowed to come into the facility itself. Charles Collins: Right. Mary: But when it was summer weather, and I could go outside, then they came. _____: Oh, then they got to see you during that 11 months. Mary: Well first it was through the winter months, from August on through till the following spring and then they could come. But then, let’s see, at Thanksgiving time, I was allowed at 24 hour visit home. But now that 24 hours included going home and getting back. And institutionalization is an interesting thing because you become institutionalized when you spend that much time in a building and with a group of people. So I found that when I went home, 56:00 I didn’t sleep well because there were noises and so forth I wasn’t used to. I was glad to be home but at the same time I knew I had to get back to the institution to get well. To have them let me go home. Charles Collins: So after that 11 months and you got home, what went on? Mary: Well, of course it was the adjustment to getting back to home life and everything, and we had built a garage house, and I’ll put that into its perspective, but when our children were very, very small, we had built this garage house with the anticipation 57:00 of building a house there. And it was a new development in Athens. Charles Collins: OK. �Mary: But we needed a double-car garage and we thought, well, we can do that with the funds we have. And we borrowed $1,800 from a brother, and he graciously loaned us that, and we paid it back with a monthly pay. And then there was a lady who had lost her husband, and she called one day wondering if we would be willing to sell our garage house. Well, we had never thought about it, and so I said, “Well, let us think about it.” And then a little bit later, she called again. And I thought, well, she’s quite sincere about this. So we thought well, if we could 58:00 possibly get some land that we had looked at, but the man who owned the land had the name of Shingledecker [laughs]—that’s quite a name! Charles Collins: Yeah! Mary: He just didn’t want to sell any land because he might want to raise some potatoes at 90 years of age. Well, anyway, we finally decided we would sell the house and we rented a small house, out at the edge of town. And it was while we lived in that small house, that I was then admitted to the hospital and discovered that I had TB. And so you see how God seems to work things in sequences and so the fact that we moved to the larger place, it had 2 bedrooms, that gave 59:00 the girl staying with the children a bedroom, and she and our daughter had that bedroom and Jim and our son had the other bedroom. And Jim came in, I remember, one time he said, Rodney didn’t like to sleep on that one pillow because it had “Hers” on it! [laughs] Charles Collins: [laughs] Ok. Mary: Oh, so much for his reading. So, kind of after this stint in the hospital, then we were in the process of thinking about building. And thought, well, we did have a chance to buy the property that we wanted out of town, so we thought that would be a good place to maybe build a house. And so it’s out in the country, we call it the suburbs of Athens. And we built our home, 1:00:00 but we couldn’t get all of the money for the mortgage because it didn’t have a fire hydrant next to it. But it had a river flowing through the backyard. [laughs] Charles Collins: [laughs] Ok! Mary: So as the home progressed, we did have some financing where we could get the shell of it up. Charles Collins: Ok. Mary: And we thought, well, we’ll let it set through the winter until the following spring and see if we can get it financed and finished. So, we did. And so we were able to build in a spot where we really thought we could enjoy living in. And we have, we’ve enjoyed it very much. Charles Collins: And you still live in that same home? Mary: We still live in that same 1:01:00 home. �Charles Collins: Wow! So you lived there, 40-some years. Mary: Close to 50, about 49 years. Yes. Charles Collins: I bet that’d be fun to move. Mary: Oh! I only plan to move feet first. [laughs] But in all the years of the kids growing up through school, we became involved in volunteer work, and after I got out of the san, I felt a strong urge to become more involved in the church. So we became church leaders or youth leaders, as it’s called. [laughs] And Mary Martha was one of our young people in the group. Charles Collins: All right! Mary: And we used to take retreats in the fall and go up to Pilgrim Haven or Silver…Lake 1:02:00 and spend a weekend there with the youth and that was really a very pleasant thing for us to do, but now, as you think about it, with the responsibilities with children and things happening and lawsuits, it would be a challenge to do. But they were a wonderful group to work with. And we did that about ten years, so we’ve been involved in church work a great deal. And I think the church work has permeated through our children because our daughter has become a major in music and both vocal and keyboard, she plays for churches and so forth. Charles Collins: Good! Mary: And our son is a pastor so I think that work probably influenced them and I think Mary Martha was a real influence on our son behaving in class. [laughs] I think she made him write 100 times or more that he would not be making…he would not be 1:03:00 talking so much in class? Was that it? [looks toward Mary Martha] Mary Martha: Something to that affect, yes. He was in my first teaching class when I graduated from college. Mary: And so that I have in his scrapbook. He kept that all the years and gave it back to us, it’s in his scrapbook. So with all of that and I became very active in the TB Association, became their Christmas Seal chairperson. Charles Collins: Oh right! Mary: And then their president. So, for the Calhoun Country Tuberculosis Association. So that gave me quite a bit of experience in… Because it was through their x-ray machine, that they used to do x-rays throughout the county that my TB was discovered. And the classmate that I used to run around with when I was admitted to Kimble Sanitarium, 1:04:00 she was one of the girls that worked there. Charles Collins: All right! �Mary: So that was a comfort too. But being involved in the TB Association and church and other organizations that seemed to come along, that was a way of expressing my gratitude for the people. That was something that sort of bothered me, I thought, well how do you repay so many people? Charles Collins: Yes! Mary: You know, just like a light bulb one day, it said, pass it on! Charles Collins: [laughs] Pass it on. Mary: Pass it on. Charles Collins: Help somebody else. Mary: That’s right. Charles Collins: That’s right. Mary: That’s right. Charles Collins: How do you repay it on? You help somebody else. Mary: That’s right, you pass it on. So then as our children were graduating from college, and our son was still in college, I thought, you know, I’ve done so much volunteer work, 1:05:00 I guess I’ll do something a little different, I’ll take a class over at K…Kellogg Community College was giving adult classes over at Union City. So I thought, well, I guess I’ll go over there just for fun and take a class at night. So I signed up for English 101, that’s usually what everybody takes when they start college. So I took a class in English and I kept taking another class and another class and finally the prof said, well, you folks need to go visit Kellogg Community College and see what you think of it, and you should continue on with your courses, because there were some kids, most of them, 1:06:00 were college-age kids and there was just one other gentleman and myself that were adults in this class. In fact, the very first class session we had, it was Chuck Spore who ran the John Deere Implement business in Athens and his daughter was in the class, and she said, “Well, Mrs. Crowell,” she said, “my dad would like to come to this class, but he didn’t want to come and be the only adult.” So, she says, “I’m gonna go home and tell him you’re here!” So she did, so he came! Charles Collins: All right! Mary: So we had, at one point in our English, we had to write some poetry. And we had gone into Battle Creek to visit KCC at that time, but I had left our car at the filling station to be serviced, so 1:07:00 we all rode in his car to Battle Creek. And when we came back, I said, “Well, if you’d just let me off at the filling station, I’ll pick up our car.” And he said, “Ok.” So �we pulled into the filling station which is after hours, you know, it was dark outside and using the car lights and so forth, and he said, “Well, just a minute, I’d like to read you all the poem I wrote.” So we said, “Ok.” So as we sat there with the dome light on in the car, and he was starting to read his poetry, a police car drives up! [laughs] And the police says, “Oh, I was wondering what was going on here.” [laughs] Well, of course we told him, the gentleman is letting me off to pick up my car, because what policeman would believe 1:08:00 that you were reading poetry? [laughs] Well anyway, it was a lot of fun! ____: If he’d believed it, you really want him to be a policeman! [laughs] Mary: [laughs] So anyway, as I was progressing on through these one-course stints, you know, through college material, I was talking with our daughter one weekend, and she said, “Well, Mom,” she said, “You’re getting enough credits, you ought to do something with it.” Well, of course the instructor had told me the same thing. And I thought, well, I was doing this just for fun. But she said, “Well, you thought about being a nurse at one time. Why don’t you look into that?” So I thought, well, I guess I will. So I looked 1:09:00 into nursing and I started taking nursing courses. ________: Now how old was you then? Mary: In my mid-40s, about 47-8. So I thought, well, you know. So I was taking all the courses, prerequisites and so forth. But I transferred because my daughter was getting married and my schedule was pretty heavy because we also had a paper route, that we had for our son to have in the summer or weekend so he could have a job to help…Because we didn’t believe in just handing everything to our children. We believed in kind of having them have a part in it. So you see, when I would go to KCC for a particular class, I’d always schedule that in the morning. 1:10:00 Then I’d go the Inquire and pick up the bundles that needed to be dropped off for the people out through our area, so I became a bundle… _______: A bundle lady! [laughs] Mary: [laughs] I guess, they called me bundle lady ever since, I guess. Anyway, so that kind of worked just fine, to do that for a while. But again, I took time off when our daughter got married, she got married in December. Then when I got ready to go back to KCC, they said, “Well we don’t have any openings.” And they had assured me there’d be an opening. And I thought, well, now what do I do. Well I was kind of devastated to think, you know I could do that, but again, you know, the Lord has a hand in it. So I thought, well, I’m going over to 1:11:00 KVCC in Kalamazoo, that means a longer drive, but just see what things are. So I went over to KVCC and continued my courses. And you know, how happy I was, because I got clinical experience at Borgess and Bronson and saw open heart surgery, all those things I wouldn’t have seen in Battle �Creek. Now, I don’t mean to put Battle Creek down, it’s just that they were different types of hospitals at that time. ___: Yes. Mary: So I got my nursing, I finished an LPN degree, wrote state boards to see if I could do it, you know, in a certain length of time, I passed it OK, went on a year more for my RN and passed that. ____: Oh my goodness. Mary: First time. So then I thought, well, now I can start work. Well I did and how 1:12:00 great it seemed to get a paycheck for what I was paying to learn! [laughs] Well, I worked about 6 years in the hospital and then I wanted to go into home nursing, visiting nurse, and that I thoroughly enjoyed because that fit me very well. ___: You just worked when you wanted to then, didn’t you? Mary: Well, I worked steady. So I was on the road, driving, in all kinds of weather to see patients. And now my hospitalization fit in. You know, my experience in the hospital, I knew exactly what a patient was going through. But I never talked about my stint, you know, I never let that on to any patient, because we didn’t talk about ourselves, or we didn’t talk about politics. But you know, 1:13:00 there would just seem to be a ???? that a patient and I had. _____: Well, you know or you’d been through just about whatever they had. You can relate to it. Mary: Yes. So I could see that my time was valuable. Charles Collins: So how long did you spend as a home nurse? Mary: Oh, it was about 18 years. Charles Collins: Really? ____: Wow. Charles Collins: So are you still doing that? Mary: Well, I keep my licenses current. I keep writing my exams to stay current. I still keep getting calls to come work. I even got one from Alaska! Charles Collins: Really? So that’s too bad you didn’t take that! [laughs] �Mary: It wasn’t a call, you know, it was not an audible call but it was an appeal, Alaska needed nurses. And if I were younger, yes, I’d do that, but I could 1:14:00 still do part time nursing if I wanted to but I feel we still need to have our time together. Charles Collins: Sure you do. Mary: So that’s kind of where we’re at right now. And of course our children are in Texas and Kansas and that lends itself to travel. Charles Collins: Well now, it’s been a pleasure doing your interview! And you know, for a lady that said she didn’t have much to say, an hour and a half is pretty good isn’t it? Mary: Well I’d like to say I still, I’m still doing community work. Charles Collins: Good! Mary: I’m a board member for Calhoun County Senior Allocation Committee. This is a millage that’s been voted in for service to seniors. And there a board that’s been formed by commissioners, we have commissioners representing each facet of the county. So 1:15:00 I am privileged to serve on that board as we allocate funds for other people serving the public. So I’m still— Charles Collins: That’s great. Mary: Filling a need. Charles Collins: And you still teach Sunday School, yes? Mary: Oh, yes, I’ve been trying to get out of that job! [laughs] Charles Collins: That’s a fun job! ___: Now you haven’t covered other talents you have. I hear you’re pretty good in art. Mary: Well, I guess, when Jim does his sawing, I do my work on the other end of the ping pong table and I do weaving of rugs, which I an inter-braiding, so that I find a good winter-time hobby. ___: And you sew. Mary: And I sew. Yes. Charles Collins: Well you learned to sew rather early in life, being that you made your wedding dress. �Mary: Yes, in fact, my sister and I would always buy material 1:16:00 just alike and we dressed alike every day of school and people thought we were twins. Because we dressed alike. But we did it merely because we could cut to an advantage, having one bolt or 2 or 3 yards of material making our dresses and skirts and so forth. ___: Now what do you do with the rugs and stuff that you make? Mary: Those, I usually have given those away. And I don’t think Mary Martha has one yet. [laughs] Mary Martha: Not yet! Charles Collins: Well it’s time. Mary: Well I guess she’s got her bid in. [laughs] 1:16:41 � 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 Crowell, Mary Louise Mitchell (Interview transcript and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Crowell, Mary Louise Mitchell Description An account of the resource Mary Louise Crowell shares what life was like at home prior to, during, and after WW II. With the US involvement in WW II, Mary explains what it meant to take an active role in the war at home like saving lard, oil, tin cans, and using ration books. During the war, Mary worked for the Civil Service at Fort Custer as a clerk typist and attended many of the USO events. When WW II ended, Mary married her soldier, Jim Crowell, and together they raised two children. 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.) Video recordings United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Navy spouses Military spouses Civil service Veterans United Service Organizations (U.S.) 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 2007-05-15 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CrowellM 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/f8788da4d778c78be375ac3cb9dbf71b.mp4 ee1c9c981f864bcf693829f4c4b42137 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f0265b605310ab6ae9b95734c72293de.pdf d5e365c00d61544ab4e6de6c457cbc24 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project James Hugh Crowell (01:58:49) (0:00) Early years • Born in McArthur, Ohio 1924 (0:50) School • Rode a horse and buggy to school • 3-4 miles away from home o Horse stayed all day; boys had to bring food for the horse • 3 older brothers (went to school with 2 of them) • 1-room school house set back from a railroad stop • All 8 grades were in school • Had some female teachers and one male teacher • Remembers the male teacher using a willow whip on the boy next to him o A piece of the willow whip broke off and flew in between the barely open window; almost broke the window panes (3:01) Games • Tag • Little sponge ball • Had boots with jack knife o With the jack knife, used to play a game called “mumblely pig,” where you would take the knife and flip or throw it • Many kids had a pair of 4 Buckle Arnies (4:50) The Depression • Crowell’s father worked for the WPA o Father never told family what job was because he didn’t want his family to know that he went on welfare in order to provide for them o One comment (made by one of father’s work friends) Crowell will never forget: “When it came time to work, he would pick up the shovel and not put it down until it was time to quit.” • WPA o Projects run by the government like art work, forestry, etc. • Crowell’s mom stayed at home • Later, father worked for Ohio gas company (7:03) Meals prepared by mom • Baked bread once a week • Whenever would bake bread, would make bean soup o One time Crowell was carrying the bowl of bean soup to the table but dropped it because it was too hot so there was no bean soup for supper! (8:04) High school • Played baseball, basketball, and football �o o o o Liked baseball the best Played everything but catcher Lost championship game 2 – 0 Mother came and watched some games; father died of a heart attack when Crowell was 12 (9:52) Dances • Where met his wife (Mary Crowell) • Played three numbers, two slow songs and one fast one o Mary got him to dance all three numbers! (10:42) The death of his father • His mom, brothers, and himself lived with a doctor and his family o Mom kept house for them • Mom then went into practical nursing o When boys were in high school, would be gone for 2 weeks at a time • 4 boys o Elmer (oldest), Acen(?), Phil, and Jim (11:36) Current events during high school years • Crowell paid attention to the political arena • Used to get a current events magazine o Knew that the Japanese was secretly building up their navy; o Battleships had 18 inch rifles, which was against the League of Nations (which only allowed 16 inch rifles) • League of Nations o Useless because makes laws but cannot enforce them • Germany o Obvious that building up for war • Many US lawmakers were isolationists o FDR – Crowell had no love for him but respects what he did ƒ Started Lend Lease program • At the start of the WWII draft, many soldiers practiced with broomsticks because all the rifles from WWI and other ammunitions had been sent overseas to England • Press was often misleading • Other current events o Amelia Earhart o Lindenburgh’s kidnapped baby • In the 1930s, remembers that Hitler took over Poland and the smaller countries and Mussolini took over Ethiopia and Albania (16:56) Pearl Harbor • Sunday night o Crowell was staying with his brother in Kalamazoo and he would hitchhike back and forth from Athens [Michigan] o Stood at corner of where M-78 runs through Athens o A sailor came and ended up hitchhiking with him o The sailor had just arrived home on leave but got a telegram saying to report back immediately for duty. �o A salesman in a Ford Coupe picked them up and dropped Crowell off in Kalamazoo o Sailor was going to continue to Great Lakes, IL o News came on the radio saying that Pearl Harbor had been hit o Soldier said, “I know where I’m going now.” • The next day Crowell heard all the speeches, including FDR’s “a day that will live in infamy” (18:42) After Pearl Harbor • Graduated in June of 1942 • Enlisted in the Navy in September 1942 • Prior to enlisting, worked in Kalamazoo at NYA, which was training for shop work • Started working in Kalamazoo then went to Battle Creek • Had trouble enlisting because of a bad hand (20:16) Enlistment • Went to Detroit for a physical o Had to sign a waiver and wait a few weeks • Was sworn into the Navy • First Navy meal was beans! • Boarded train in Grand Rapids and traveled to Great Lakes, IL o Traveled on an old coach with a steam engine (21:49) After boot camp • Went to Jacksonville, FL radio school • Seattle, WA for gunnery school o On way to Seattle, train stopped in Chicago where Crowell got to see his mom, brothers, and girlfriend (Mary) for the last time before the end of the war • Went from Seattle to San Francisco on a train called a “40 and 8,” meaning that the car could carry 40 men or 8 mules. o Kerosene lights that would swing back and forth o Hot so would open the sliding wooden doors but then the dust would be incredible o One time, a little boy who was selling peaches jumped aboard their car; he sold the soldiers peaches and then had the soldiers hold him by the hands over the ground so that he could “run off” the train instead of jumping off. (24:12) First day at Great Lakes • Fastest haircut in life • When entered, each soldier was given $5, which ended up all being spent on the haircut, razor, toothbrush, and other required Navy items • Received a huge uniform (size 38 when he was a size 34 or smaller) (28:28) Boot camp • Barracks o Slept in hammocks o Tables were always in the middle �o Barracks were built in the shape of an ‘H’ where the center would be the laundry room and the toilets o One time, Crowell was assigned to introduce his barracks for inspection, making sure to salute the officers; the first officer through the door was Mickey Cochrane! • Testing o Took various test to see which school you were best suited for o Crowell loved flying but he couldn’t make it into flight school so decided to do aviation radio o Went to Jacksonville, FL for training (28:35) Jacksonville, FL • At the Naval Air Station, learned radio theory, worked with tube radios, learned Morse Code, and radar (which was brand new) o Wrote a letter home to parents talking about working with “radar” but his parents thought he kept misspelling “radio” • Explains the workings of radar o The machine pulsed 600 times a second (33:20) Friends • Cosby, a tall, thin boy from West Virginia (34:28) After gunnery school • Went to Seattle where trained with 12 inch shotguns • Crowell was 4th out of 100 in shooting skills • Learned how to fire machine guns, both .30 and .50 caliber (37:26) Alameda, CA • Became a part of CASU - 6 o Carrier Aircraft Service Unit • When VB-18 was formed, he was assigned to that unit in August 1943 o dive bombing squadron • trained until November then went to Watsonville, CA for more training • Flew with pilot steady named Art Chevelle o Randomly assigned to go on a practice flight with Chevelle during training o every so often, Crowell would be assigned another training flight with Chevelle o one night, Crowell couldn’t sleep and got this feeling that Chevelle was the pilot he needed to fly with o went down to the hanger and Chevelle if he could fly with him o Chevelle and Crowell made 266 flights together; the last 22 flights were made in combat • Talks about a softball game between officers and other Navy men • E-5 plane had controls in the backseat so if the pilot became injured, the gunner could fly the plane • After Thanksgiving, went to Crow’s Nest, CA for more training o Crowell turned down offer for NAP because liked what he was doing and who he was flying with (48:52) Hawaii �• Went on Lexington Carrier to Pearl Harbor where transferred using Jacob’s Ladders to the Ann Sheridan troop ship • Trained to navigate by radar • Night flight with Chevelle o Training flight operation was cancelled that day because of the weather o Chevelle and Crowell went out to practice o A few months later, Chevelle and Crowell needed to make a landing on carrier in a bad storm, which because of training, they successfully did (54:14) More about training • Crowell and Chevelle were making a navigation hop with Watkins and Fussell o Crowell and Chevelle were the tracking plane where the followed and checked the other plane for navigation • There was a really bad rain storm and Chevelle and Crowell began to think the other plane was lost • Crowell called radio, etc.; he did everything to try and get through to the gunner but the gunner couldn’t read code • Crowell wrote on a piece of paper “ARE YOU LOST?” and put it up against the window • The other plane motioned yes • Crowell used EB Adapter to get back on track o Used radio beacon and found signal o 2 days earlier, walked into an operations building and on the chalkboard was: “new EB frequency…55 kilos” o Crowell had written that down on a piece of paper and put it in his pocket o The day of the storm, that was the frequency Crowell needed to use to find the signal o Corrected plane direction by 10 degrees and they made if safely back • How the radio beacon works o If fly out of beacon, the radio signal will die o If fly into the beacon, the radio signal gets stronger TAPE 2 (0:00) Carrier operations • Lost 3 men in 4 months due to crashes • When joined VB-18 squadron, first thing you did was make a will (2:15) Combat • Started over Palau Islands, east of the Philippines • Above Babelthaup saw first burst of anti-aircraft fire • Watched a bomb hit a hill then slide down the hill into a forest where it blew up • In the southern Philippines (Mindanao), got into some real anti-aircraft fire • Burned the city of Lalle? the second day o The day before, threw out literature telling the people to clear out • Chevelle started in on dive but the smoke was so intense that he pulled out at 4,000 or 5,000 feet • Came in on a big cement wharf �• So close to the water, Crowell thought that the ripples were created by their plane however they were actually created by enemy machine gun fire (5:28) Landing accident • Crowell and Chevelle torn plane to pieces landing one time • When landed, plane bounced over 3 cables and hit the turrets, which snapped the plane in two • Crowell was thrown 100 -150 feet forward; bit through lip, had a hole in his elbow and knee and dislocated arm • Chevelle had a huge bump on his head • A motion picture has been made about this accident (8:27) More about combat • Heavy fire at a distance • Flying over Formosa to Okinawa October 1944 • Crowell, like always, rode backwards and saw the enemy crossfire o Looked like red straws of a broom (10:16) Battle of Leyte Gulf • Ship anti-aircraft is different from land anti-aircraft fire • Flying back to the Philippines when found Japanese fleet • Crowell’s ship was the only mainland carrier in striking distance of fleet until late afternoon • 28 planes versus the 29 Japanese ships o 1 ship has the anti-aircraft capacity to hold off 12 planes • At 18,000 feet, anti-aircraft fire was everywhere o Each ship had its own color of anti-aircraft fire so would know where bursts were going; looked like fireworks • An out of body experience o At one point, Crowell remembers seeing himself struggling against the gunner shoulder straps as if a strait jacket but he could do anything about it; couldn’t stop self o Then heard music of a hymn “Be Still My Soul” and the most comfortable feeling imaginable fell over him o Crowell was put at ease in the midst of fire and noise o Was relaxed even though the rest of the flight was wild • During the flight, 40 mm were blowing by them so close, it was as if you could catch them • Chevelle hit a Japanese battleship dead center and it exploded • In total, lost 2 planes • Squadron leader did a rendezvous to round up the planes that were left • Heard and saw huge splashes below • The Japanese were still firing but using their big guns; they had figured out the range but not the correct elevation • When Crowell got back, looked up hymn in hymnal and sure enough, “Be Still My Soul” was there (17:25) October 25, 1944 �• Decoy task force of carriers drew their plane feet while the real Japanese ships snuck through and shelled troops on • October 26, Panay, Palawan (west Philippines) • Ben Preston led the flight and found fleet of Japanese • Chevelle and Crowell asked for permission to pullout because couldn’t see target through the cloud cover • Permission granted so found another target and went back down • Crowell decided to look through the front window and found self looking down 2 gun turrets shooting at them • All 4 bursts hit behind Crowell and Chevelle, so close that their plane shook • Chevelle and Crowell dove again and just nearly missed hitting the ship with their fire o But hit close enough to ship where still caused some damage • When Chevelle and Crowell came back up, found themselves lost because in flying into the operation, their plane was a “wingman,” meaning that the pilot was focusing on flying the plane wing to wing as opposed to navigation • Worked their way to the Eastern Philippines • Met up with 3 other planes (WASPs) headed north • Strangely, could not communicate with them at all • Tried to pick up radio beacon from ship and failed • Crowell just leaned his head over and prayed • When opened his eyes, full blown signal on EB Adapter o It was a full blown signal right away, an answer to a prayer • Called pilot and peeled off, left the three planes alone • Found carrier and landed • When landed, plane died; there was NO fuel left • Crowell and Chevelle surprisingly beat the other planes from the squadron back to the carrier • Many planes went into the water because out of fuel; all pilots were rescued (31:23) Dogfights over Manila (37:47) Massive air attack • November 25, 1944 • 2 suicide planes hit the carrier as well as a 1000 pound bomb • Ship and task group was firing o Took off during the attack o One fighter pilot took off from the elevator just seconds before the bomb landed on that spot o When that pilot took off, the deck was swinging about • Group landed at Leyte because the carrier was hit badly and couldn’t be used in operation (39:22) Back to the United States • Lost 15% training and lost another 40% to combat • Traveled back on the carrier Intrepid • Chevelle went to fly fighter planes – “Bearcats” which were the fastest propeller driven aircraft �• Crowell went to Jacksonville, FL and then down by Key West until February 1946 • Chevelle nominated Crowell for the Yorktown’s Combat Air Crewman’s Roll of Honor and Crowell was sworn in (43:42) More information on rescuing pilots • Destroyers would go out and pick up pilots whose planes lost fuel before landing • Pilots would ride in life rafts which were in the plane; they also wore Mae Wests • Rescued soldiers would get to carrier by Jacobs Ladder seat (46:18) Suicide Planes • Crowell was in the Torpedo Defense room, located below the hanger deck at the aft of the ship • Sounded general quarters, which meant under attack • Scrambled to deck and saw a Japanese torpedo plane right in his face • Ran like crazy • Torpedo did not hit or was a dud because there was no explosion (48:46) Navy discharge • Discharged at Jacksonville, FL • Went to Ohio to visit relatives • Then lived with his girlfriend’s brother and wife • Started business school on the GI Bill • Got married • During the war, he and Mary wrote letters back and forth many times (53:25) Marriage • Church wedding • Proposed to Mary in her bedroom, when she had brought him there to show him the cedar chest she had purchased with the money he had been sending her • Inside the pocket of his uniform, he had rings he had bought in Pearl Harbor on his way back to the states • Worked as a clerk for Sinclair Refining Co. • Later, he and his brother started own business • In 1967 switched to selling wholesale hardware (59:26) Kids • Had 2 children of his own • Has many grandchildren and a few great-grand children • He and Mary have been married for over 60 years � 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 Crowell, James Hugh (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Crowell, James Hugh Description An account of the resource James Crowell is a WW II veteran who served in the United States Navy from November 1942 to February 1946 in the South Pacific. In this interview, Crowell shares with great detail his time in combat, including the Battle of Leyte Gulf, dogfights over Manila, suicide attacks, a massive air attack on November 25, 1944, and a landing accident that threw Crowell 150 feet from his plane. This accident, which both Crowell and his pilot survived, was made part of a motion picture. 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 World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Naval gunners 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 2007-05-15 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CrowellJ 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/998dd80c9c7787de011b8b2ef3270207.mp4 c9bac4dc9c8348e4187e48eeea95fbc5 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0454662fdcf15d6aee597880ab741372.pdf 2d3eba0957bf3e5b80242109a23b7d40 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview War on Terror--USS Cole James Croft Length of interview (26:46) (0:25) Background Born in Gainesville, Florida on November 29, 1977 (0:27) Graduated from high school in 1996 played sports and was in band (0:35) Decided he wanted to join the military during his senior year of high school (1:02) First looked at Air Force; didn’t have the job he wanted so joined the Navy (1:22) (1:29) Training Went to basic training in Great Lakes, Illinois (1:45) Did a lot of physical and mental training and learned about history of Navy (1:50) The training course lasted for about eight weeks (2:01) Stayed in Great Lakes and received additional training in electronics (2:15) Lived on base until able to bring family then lived off base (2:41) Orders were chosen based on grades and class rank (3:00) Chose orders to go to Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia (3:33) (3:45) Active Duty Assigned to work on the USS Cole (DDG-67) (3:51) First impression of the ship was amazement at the size and complexity (4:21) Duties included ship maintenance cleaning of the ship (4:30) Once he finished his tasks he was pretty much done for the day (4:45) Guided Missile Destroyer; carried lots of firepower and had many guns (5:30) Ship was able to carry 90 missiles, not including torpedoes (6:00) Never had to fire missiles on enemy, but did missile training (6:47) Ship went to Caribbean, Europe, and Middle East; Spain was his favorite (7:04) Sometimes allowed to leave the ship and visit locations (7:30) Did not interact with locals very much; mostly restaurant employees (7:50) (8:00) Attack Ship went to Yemen for refueling to boost their economy (8:06) While in port the ship was torpedoed by an Al-Qaeda ship [attacked by bombers in a small boat] (8:40) Sailors beneath the deck thought that there was a fueling explosion (8:53) Smaller boats around ship were collecting trash and were all authorized (9:25) He was sleeping during the attack and immediately knew something was up (9:45) Ship was hit near the galley and officer quarters; those areas became flooded (10:28) Attack took out major communications lines and caused significant damage (10:45) All the training paid off; everybody knew what to do immediately (11:15) Repairs were made; sailors had to stand watch to make sure repair stayed (11:56) Once the repair shafts broke the ship was in danger of sinking (12:12) �Felt that all the training had prepared crew adequately for the situation (13:03) Ship’s commander was the fall guy; didn’t think that this was fair (13:15) Crew stayed on the ship for about 3 weeks after bombing (13:30) Ship stayed in the harbor until Navy decided how to transport it back home (14:06) Used a semi-submersible ship to go under wrecked battleship (14:27) Crew moved to another ship to get hot showers and food (15:36) Sent to army base in desert before flying to Germany then back home (15:37) While ship was being repaired; in charge of monitoring contractors (16:25) It took about 14 months for the ship to be repaired (17:16) (17:20) Next Assignment Got temporary assignment in Norfolk, Virginia transporting prisoners (17:25) Next worked security for a company that overlooked ship repairs (17:49) Main duty was night security and transporting prisoners from brig (18:34) Worked with this job until he got out of the Navy (18:45) Thought about making the Navy a career but his wife was against it (19:00) 5 million dollar reward offered for capturing the ship’s attackers (19:12) (19:15) Post Service 10th anniversary of USS Cole’s bombing in coming up (19:20) Receives email every time the USS Cole is mentioned in the news (19:48) He is going to try to make it to the 10 year reunion in Norfolk, Virginia (19:50) Thinks the navy definitely was positive influence on his life (20:05) Military and electronic knowledge helped him get his current job (20:07) Completed a six year tour learning interior electronics (20:35) Moved back home to Gainesville, Florida after being discharged (22:10) Works in a manufacturing company testing MRI machine parts (24:32) While repairing an MRI machine discovered he had brain tumor (25:40) Had tumor removed and went back to work (25:45) Currently going to school for a business degree; plans on getting masters (25:50) Encourages all young men to join the service (26:20) � 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 Croft, James (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Croft, James Description An account of the resource James Croft was born in Gainesville, Florida, in 1977 and enlisted in the Navy after high school in 1996. He was assigned to the guided missile destroyer USS Cole and sailed with her to the Mediterranean. The ship then went on to Yemen, and was attacked by Al Qaeda bombers there. He remained assigned to the ship while it was under repair, and completed his enlistment at Norfolk, Virginia. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Snyder, Elaine (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 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 2012-04-11 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CroftJ1559V 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/8448ba0d2e22b211c5cfb49c46b211df.mp4 4c93aeece1a99fac420db8222c6e4947 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/be45ef49fe08d2f0ae64ef9b1753efeb.pdf 6c75353c5a97dfa347021eceaa57a3d5 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Vietnam Anthony Critchlow Total Time – (01:44:30) Background · · · · He was born in Boise, Idaho on November 9, 1948 (00:26) He did not leave Boise until he joined the military He graduated from Borah High School in Boise, Idaho in 1967 (00:38) His dad passed away when he was ten years old o He was an auto body mechanic o His mom worked odd jobs after his father passed away · When he was in high school he was aware of Vietnam but did not pay much attention to it (01:37) · After high school he went to work as a dishwasher at the restaurant his mother worked at o He was nineteen and knew the draft was going to call on him so he went and enlisted (01:54) Enlistment/Training – (02:02) · When he went to enlist, he took a test and received a high score o They told him he could pick what job he wanted to have (02:21) § He chose to be a cook § The recruiter was slightly dumbfounded because of the high score on the ASVAB test (02:44) · He signed up around the beginning of November of 1967 (03:14) · He went to basic training at Fort Lewis, Washington (03:20) · The facility at Fort Lewis was essentially World War II barracks · The soldiers were “only one step above pond scum” (03:38) · When soldiers first go in, they get more shots, take more tests, given a speedreading on Morse Code, and taught all of the basic skills o They were also taught how to dress properly · If soldiers did anything wrong, it was automatically 20-25 push-ups (04:23) o There was never a level of punishment beyond push-ups · It was not very difficult to adapt to military life · He was always the slowest person because of his weight (05:12) �· Many of the men that had problems were men that were drafted (05:47) o They would always bicker and not do what they were supposed to · Within his training unit, they would sometimes have “blanket parties” for people who caused problems for the unit o They would roll someone up and “beat the crap out of you” (06:26) · He was in basic training for eight weeks (07:09) o He was sent home for Christmas · He was told that everyone was supposed to be infantry (07:49) · He then received his orders to go to Fort Lee, Virginia, for Advanced Individual Training (07:55) · It was culture shock when he first got there o He worked with a lot of black men · He was trained by blacks and whites (08:31) · Cook training consisted of how to read a recipe, how to read the worksheets, how to make the food, etc. (08:43) · He was at the Advanced Individual Training for eight weeks · Soldiers were allowed to leave the base on some weekends (09:46) o He made three or four trips to Washington D.C. · When on tours through Washington D.C., soldiers wore their Class A uniforms (10:35) · He never had any problems in Washington D.C. for being a soldier Active Duty – Part I – (12:10) · He was assigned to Frankfurt, Germany o He went home for a wedding and then flew to Germany (12:15) § He flew out of Fort Dix, New Jersey · When he got to Germany the soldier he was replacing had re-enlisted so they sent him to Vicenza, Italy (12:43) · When he landed in Vicenza, the cook had re-enlisted there as well (13:02) · They then sent him to Verona, Italy where he stayed for one year (13:11) · In Verona, it was 24 hours on, 24 hours off with every other weekend free (13:28) · He was able to take his time and travel through Europe o He wore civilian clothes when traveling · The Italians liked the soldiers as people, but they hated them as Americans (14:09) · When he would cook for the Army, he was told how to and what to prepare · He volunteered to go to Vietnam (15:11) · He thought that Italy was boring and that there were better choices in life than to be in Italy for three years and get out of the service · During this time he was paying attention to the Vietnam war and knew that it was where the action was (15:41) · He was in Italy for almost exactly one year �· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · o He was sent home for 30 days before leaving for Vietnam (16:03) He then went to Fort Lewis and went through preparatory training They then flew out of Fort McCord, Washington (16:31) He flew on a charter civilian craft They flew in to Alaska where they refueled the plane before flying to Japan and then on to Vietnam (16:58) He landed in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam (17:05) The mood on the plane was relatively calm o Men were reading, smoking, chatting, etc. o When they got off the plane, the stewardesses were crying (17:30) His first impression was that sand was everywhere o It was extremely hot and muggy (18:01) Once the soldiers were off the plane, they went to a reception center until they were told where to go (18:34) o He was there for nearly three days He was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and his in-country training was in Bien Hoa, Vietnam (19:32) o He was there for nearly one week § They did a lot of guard duty, fake jungle patrols, fake Vietnamese attacks with blanks, and how to load people onto helicopters o Everyone received the training (20:39) He then boarded a C-130 and went to Camp Evans (20:52) At Camp Evans it was extremely bright and extremely hot (22:15) The soldiers got their orders and shifts that they would be working The food in Vietnam was primarily roast beef, chicken, or some turkey on holidays (23:40) o There were also canned vegetables and potatoes The cooks would get up extremely early every day He noticed that the African American men hated the white men and tension existed (25:46) o They would never hang out together no matter how much they tried The racial split was predominantly in the lower ranked servicemen Most of the cooks were on their first tour (26:44) o Many of them were going to retire immediately after Vietnam o Some of them were fairly old There was a lot of drug abuse on the military base (27:23) Some of the men smoked OJ’s – an opium and marijuana laced cigarette (28:21) o The drugs would sometimes affect job performance but all the jobs would get done If soldiers took one step off of the road they were immediately court-martialed They were not allowed to go to any bars or visit any ladies (30:07) When at Camp Evans, there were rockets that landed within the camp but they never made any contact with buildings on the base He began volunteering to join units that would relieve another company or unit in �· · · · · · · · · · · · the field because he did not want to stay at base the whole time (31:26) o He wanted to see more action The cooks were called “RIMF’s” (Retarded Ignorant Mother Fucker) (32:09) The first firebase that he went to was Firebase Blaze (32:24) o This was still in 1969 o He stayed at Firebase Blaze for nearly a month His unit put all of its supplies on a military mule [basically a platform on tracks used for moving supplies on a base] and loaded it onto the helicopter The firebase was very dusty and dirty (34:24) The soldiers lived in a hole in the ground that was big enough for a cot (34:36) The base never saw any attack when he was there He experienced his first “mad minute” where soldiers were ordered to just fire any ammunition that they had (35:55) o They would just shoot anywhere o They did this in case the enemy was sneaking in – it served as a deterrent (36:28) The weather was extremely hot and muggy – it would get cooler in the evenings because it was in the mountains C-rations were only used for lunch and there was always a hot breakfast and dinner (38:38) He would follow a similar routine at every firebase – he went to Firebase Bastogne, Firebase Birmingham, and some others (39:25) He remembers the monsoon weather at some of the firebases o He saw a typhoon around January o The military hooches stayed fairly dry during this weather (40:22) He remained with the same group for the majority of the time – they were the ones that always wanted to volunteer (40:51) Active Duty – Part I – Ripcord – (41:13) · He went to Firebase Ripcord on May 13, 1970 (41:59) o The Vietnamese artillery were on the lower side and the Americans were on top · The field kitchen was originally in a trench that was next to the helicopter pad (43:02) o They then decided to make a hole in the ground that was 10x12 ft. o They put sand bags on top to make sure it was waterproof (43:51) o It was only big enough for soldiers to come through and get their food but not to sit and eat · During his time there he was told that the enemy was around them (44:59) · There were times when there was so much fog that they believed an attack would happen · When he returned from R&R, Ripcord was getting hit with one mortar in the �· · · · · · · · · · · · · · morning and one at night (45:45) o The following day it was two in the morning and two at night – the day after that was three in the morning and three at night o There was much more activity as he was about to leave All of the cooks were replaced with new cooks (46:46) o There were two cooks on the firebase that were injured He remembers seeing one of the fellow cooks walking with shrapnel in his face and another cook's brains all over him (49:14) He went to Sydney, Australia for his R&R because it was the furthest location from Vietnam that he could go The Australians would try to convince the Americans to not go back (50:05) He feels that R&R was a chance to see something that he would never be able to see otherwise (50:50) When he was at Ripcord he could walk around and do what he wanted There was a cave on a mountain below Ripcord from where a Vietnamese soldier shot down an American helicopter (52:45) When he left Ripcord he was ready to leave (54:52) He went to the kitchen that had been blown up to get his stuff before leaving – this is when he saw his friend covered in another soldiers brains He then traveled back to Camp Evans (56:25) He stayed at Camp Evans until he left for Cam Ranh Bay where he stayed until he left for Fort Lewis (56:35) The trip back to Fort Lewis was extremely cheerful (56:58) On the trip back, they landed in Japan where they were told not to buy anything because they might cause the plane to weigh too much for takeoff o He bought a camera lens in Japan (57:29) He then landed in Fort Lewis where he received all of his tests and medical exams Discharge/After the Service – (57:55) · He was discharged at Fort Lewis (58:13) · When he landed at the airport they were told not to look at anyone in the eye, not to talk to anyone, and not to say hi because they would get spit on by protestors · The soldiers were still in uniform at this time (58:47) · When he landed, his mother met him, he found civilian clothes and flew home · When he got home he got a job as a delivery car driver for eyeglasses (59:36) o He stayed at this job for nearly three years Reenlistment – Active Duty – Part II – (59:51) · He then reenlisted into the Army because the Boise economy was bad (59:59) · He talked to a recruiter at the state fair where he was told how much money he could make �· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · o He realized he would double his current pay When he reenlisted, he remained a cook (01:00:41) o He had to remain a cook to keep his rank He got married and then talked to his wife about his reenlistment (01:02:02) He remained in the United States when he reenlisted and was stationed at Fort Eustis, Virginia (01:03:13) o He fed all of the MP’s and instructors for the school at Fort Eustis The food was much better than in Vietnam (01:03:38) o There were fresh vegetables His wife was able to go along with him during this assignment where they lived off the military base (01:04:03) o She got a job at Dunkin Donuts They remained at Fort Eustis for nearly a year until he received his orders to go to Europe (01:04:38) In Germany the soldiers took a lot of race-relations courses He received more orders for Germany (01:06:31) He was assigned to Stuttgart, Germany (01:07:12) o He showed up with his wife so they had to be put up in a hotel because the military housing was full § This lasted for 39 days (01:07:43) During this time they had to find a car, find a house, and get their drivers licenses o At this point he was an E-5 (sergeant) When he initially returned to the service, he felt like all of the fellow servicemen were terrible (01:09:52) o No one wanted to do their work There was a different attitude between the volunteers and those that were drafted (01:10:19) When he was in his assignment in Germany, he was moved from Stuttgart to Nellingen, Germany (01:11:15) o It was a joint Army and Air Force base He and his wife were able to stay in the same apartment – they simply had an extra twenty minutes of driving time to work They bought an American car and were able to travel around Europe (01:12:43) After Germany, he received orders for Fort Hood, Texas (01:13:15) o Between Germany and Texas, he was sent for advanced training to be a cook § He learned supervising skills, how to take care of soldiers, how to read a map, etc. (01:13:41) In Texas he was in the 2nd Armored Division (01:14:02) He was in a Deuce and a Half truck and would drive all over with standard field kitchen equipment (01:14:34) He became an E-6 rank and was in charge of a mess team He spent one year at Fort Hood (01:16:11) His battalion was chosen to go back to Germany for another three years in �· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Karlstedt (01:16:30) o He lived in a town off of the base He was extremely disappointed to live back in Germany (01:17:32) Karlstedt was a depressing time because they did not want to be there After Karlstedt, he was given the option of Fort Hood or Fort Polk (01:19:52) o He had heard a lot of bad things at Fort Polk so he went to Fort Hood (01:20:23) At Fort Hood he became a part of the 110th Aviation (01:20:34) o He worked with helicopters in this unit When he would have to set up a field site, he would be flown to the site instead of driving He remained at Fort Hood for three years (01:21:10) He then received orders to go to Korea for a one year tour (01:21:21) o His wife stayed at Fort Hood In Korea he was stationed in Yongju-gol, Korea (01:21:35) He was an E-7 so he ran the mess hall and never had to cook He felt that Korea was beautiful and cold He was able to have a lot of contact with Koreans (01:22:36) o Nearly all of the Koreans spoke English Sunday was his one day off every week He went to Seoul, Korea for a couple of times (01:23:19) After Yongju-gol, Korea, he was moved to a base at Uijeongbu, Korea (01:23:39) o Every Sunday off he would go to Seoul to eat at McDonalds, KFC, or Dunkin Donuts (01:23:58) His time in Uijeongbu was much safer than at Yongju-gol The Koreans loved the Americans as long as they were spending money (01:25:10) He was able to call home once a week He was in Korea from 1985-1986 In Germany there were ammo bunkers in Denmark that they worked to protect from the Russians (01:27:48) There was a sense that there were still dangers and security was very important Some of the American tanks were shot at by the East Germans (01:28:34) After his overseas tours, he returned to Fort Hood (01:29:16) o He was placed into the 3rd Signal Brigade (01:29:18) He worked with nearly eighty cooks in the mess hall (01:29:37) He ran shifts and towards the end he was the training NCO and maintenance NCO (01:29:52) He finished out his Army career in this position Retirement – (01:30:36) · He retired from the military in 1990 (01:30:37) �· He went on convalescent leave in the summer of 1990 because he tore his meniscus · He took this time to look for jobs, find a home, etc. · During this time a start-up company named Micron were hiring so he took in an application (01:31:16) o He found a house during this time · Micron offered him a job (01:32:29) o He worked as a machine operator making computer memory chips o He stayed with the company for nearly seventeen years (01:32:58) o He was laid off from Micron in 2008 (01:33:44) · He then received an interview EDS (Electronic Data System) and was offered the job o He worked for them for two and a half years until it was bought out by Hewlett-Packard (HP) (01:34:52) o When HP took over his scores dropped with their system § He was then fired from the company (01:35:50) · He then applied for unemployment and received it · He got a job with the U.S. Census (01:37:10) · He still collects his military pension · The military food remained primarily the same during his twenty-three years of service (01:37:43) · His sole goal was to receive his retirement (01:40:11) · He found a way to work with all kinds of people · When the war in Iraq started, he was told that he was going to go to Iraq, but he said no o He did not place an extension for his service · He never received his medal for retiring (01:43:02) o They refused to give him his medal because he refused to go to Iraq · His highest medal is the Bronze Star (01:43:44) � 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 Critchlow, Anthony (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Critchlow, Anthony Description An account of the resource Anthony Critchlow was born in Boise, Idaho in 1948. When he was nineteen years old he decided to enlist in November of 1967 as a cook in the military. He went to basic training at Fort Lewis, Washington for eight weeks before going to Fort Lee, Virginia for another eight weeks of Advanced Individual Training. Anthony was then assigned to Frankfurt, Germany but was eventually sent to Verona, Italy where he remained for one year. He volunteered to serve in Vietnam and, after addition training at Fort Lewis, he was sent to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. Anthony was sent to Fort Evans until he volunteered to serve as a replacement for Firebases. He initially served at Firebase Blaze until he was sent through Firebase Bastogne and Firebase Birmingham. His final Firebase came in May of 1970 when he was sent to Firebase Ripcord. He worked in a small field Kitchen at Firebase Ripcord until he was sent home. He re-enlisted three years later and stayed in the Army until 1990, serving in Germany, Denmark and Korea, as well as at Fort Hood, Texas. 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 Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2012-10-03 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CritchlowA1458V 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/eaca64acb08a5474f767577e5505e26c.mp4 366be8a7c84afbd1033693f19300dc36 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f336ddfa0fb39eb68bd4b9ff1bd4db86.pdf 79cc3954ad2066ee96fc10da1499ab7a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Arch Crist (00:17:34) (00:44) Pre-enlistment: • Graduated high school in 1945 • Lived in River Falls, WI • When to River Falls State Teachers College; which is now part of Wisconsin University • After a year of school he decided to enlist instead of being drafted • If he was drafted he would have lost some of his college credits • He had little money to pay for school so the GI Bill was another reason for joining (2:40) Enlistment: • He chose the Army when he enlisted • Was inducted at Fort Snelling near Minneapolis, MN • Went to Fort Sheridan, IL for deployment to basic training • Basic training took place at Fort Lewis, WA in 1946 • After basic he was allowed leave to go back home • Was sent to San Francisco to get on a troop ship to Japan • Stopped in Guam before going into a harbor in Yokohama • Took a train into Tokyo, were he stayed at a replacement depot (temporary Army camp) (4:30) Troop ship/Trip: • After going under the Golden Gate Bridge the swell of the ocean affected many soldiers, and caused a lot of them to become sea sick • Had bolted down standup tables were you would eat your food • Spent time in Guam at a Navy recreational center on the beach, had some cold beer (6:16) Military Occupational Service (MOS): • He was in the 1st Cavalry Division, 8th Regiment • 8th Regiment was the sister regiment to General Custer’s 7th regiment • The 1st Cavalry Division was an armored infantry division • Basic training was in Tokyo and then moved to Omiya; which was about 30 minutes away • Started a camp newspaper and a drum and bugle corp. in Omiya • Marched in a parade in downtown Tokyo on the Imperial Palace grounds in front of General MacArthur �• • • • Woke up early for daily calisthenics, and emergency drills They had to practice at the firing range with multiple firearms He was the best marksman with the Browning Automatic Rifle in the 1st Cavalry Division He had to attend instructional classes and forced marches (9:02) Friends: • Meet one of his best friends in Omiya, and eventually Arch went on to be his best man in his wedding • Arch also decided to follow his friend by joining his fraternity at University of Illinois (10:01) War Crimes Trials: • When he was on pass he went down to the courts to watch the war crimes trials of Tojo and Suzuki (10:40) Free Time: • He would do a lot of reading, tennis, and swimming • They would go into Tokyo on the weekends • Generally they were usually so busy they only had the weekends to enjoy some free time (11:01) Holidays: • Spent this first Christmas on the troop ship off of Guam • The only thing done to celebrate was to put a small Christmas tree on top of the Ship • Celebrated another Christmas in Japan (11:46) Fear: • When he landed at Yokosuka, an old Japanese naval station, in Yokohama they had to get on trains that were run by Japanese ex-military personal. • The replacement depot near Tokyo was surrounded by barbered wire and so when they went out at night on the town they thought they should carry 45 caliber hand gun for protection • After a few months they stopped carrying their firearms because the US did not prosecute the Japanese Emperor Hirohito (13:48) Lessons learned/Opportunities • Got his college paid for with the GI Bill • Experiences while being in the Army in Japan gave him a perspective on life that he might not have otherwise had • His military experience was a very positive one, but of course that had a lot to do the fact that the war was over �• • Ended military experience at a Private 1st class, and did not go on to further military service He felt lucky that he did not reenlist because he would have been sent onto Korea, and the 1st Cavalry Division played a major role in halting the Chinese/North Korean counter attack (15:49) After the Military: • Went to University of Illinois and joined Beta Theta Pi, and graduated with a bachelors in Journalism • He then went to Minneapolis and was hired by their local paper the Star & Tribune • He then went into advertising in the Twin Cities � 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 Crist, Arch (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Crist, Arch Description An account of the resource Arch Crist joined the US Army in 1946 and left after a year and a half. He spent his training time in the U.S. at Fort Snelling, Fort Sheridan, and in Fort Lewis. He was shipped out from San Francisco to Japan where he was part of the occupational force. Before getting to Japan he stopped in Guam where he celebrated Christmas. He tells of his experiences in Japan while in Yokohama harbor, and while at the base in Omiya. He attended the War Crimes Trials in Tokyo, and took part in a parade on the Imperial Palace grounds. General MacArthur was watching the processions at the Imperial Palace that day. He talks about the close friendships he made while in Omiya. He also mentions how his experience in Japan was shaped by the US government's decision to let Hirohito escape trial. He went on to be a journalist and then an advertising executive in Minneapolis. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Crist, Karl (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 World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2007-05-20 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CristA 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/028a52801362e0b2657db835e0160a74.mp4 2224af2cf554c623380d5b26e1caa198 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d086f2594e65749e6afa3fcee87263cb.pdf d5a3fdfcad1a9e9706baa49fa6a3debc PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW DON CRIPPS 126th Infantry Regiment, Red Arrow Division WWII Born: Battle Creek, Michigan Resides: Battle Creek Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, August 5, 2011 Interviewer: Mr. Cripps, can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself. For instance, where were you born? I was born in Battle Creek, Michigan and when I was nine years old we moved to the little town of Athens. That was during the depression and it was a little cheaper to live. My father worked at what they call the Federal Center now, it was the Battle Creek Sanitarium and my whole family worked at the Battle Creek Sanitarium and I worked different jobs throughout my lifetime too. I met a lot of famous people, Mrs. Roosevelt and lots of people. I had good contacts and when I—I always wanted to be a doctor, but there was no money to be had and I didn’t know what I was going to do, so—I was an athlete in school, football, I got letters in football, basketball and track. 1:05 Interviewer: When did you graduate from high school? 1939, in Athens, Michigan and then I want back to Battle Creek and I worked in the sanitarium there. For jobs, I worked at the main desk, I bell hopped and I worked on the sanitarium farm. I was in charge of the orchard one year and I had a number of different jobs. I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I stayed even though they were going into bankruptcy. The sanitarium was going broke and I lived at 1102, the tallest building there, for one year. I had my friend that I went to school with in Athens, we were always good friends, but I’ll be darned if he didn’t have a job at the sanitarium also. 1:58 The 1 �historian wants to interview me now because I can tell them things about the sanitarium that they don’t even have a record of. I’ve been to places they don’t even know were there. He is going to do it soon, but I can’t think of his name anyway. My friend said, “were going to be drafted”, and I couldn’t go on to college, so my dad knew a retired professor at the University of Michigan, but he also stayed at the sanitarium. He said, “if you like, I’ll start him on his career now until he gets the money or whatever he’s going to do”, so I started there and for that whole year I studied at the University of Michigan. 2:44 I took two subjects and still worked. When my friend said, “we might as well join the National Guard or we’ll be drafted”, so we—I joined with him knowing that I was going to be drafted. I was only in the guard for about a month and a half. We trained in Kalamazoo on the streets. Interviewer: When you were training in Kalamazoo, did you have weapons or anything like that? We went right back to WWI, I had the leggings that you—the windup leggings you know. Interviewer: The WWI uniforms? WWI, .03 rifles, which I had never seen an 03 rifle until we got down in Louisiana and we had campaign hats, the old WWI helmets, everything was WWI equipment.3:38 We marched up and down the streets and things like that and the fellow that was in there at that time , Captain Walker, I guess he was a WWI veteran and we had a 1st. Lieutenant, Fitzgerald, he was a WWI veteran, and then we had a 2nd Lieutenant and that was the only officers we had, and the 2nd Lieutenant’s name was Bush. He was a First Sergeant and he went up through the ranks and to the officer’s school with the guards. 4:16 Most 2 �of these young guys that came in were around twenty years old and in that area because there was no work anyway. They trained in [Camp] McCoy, Wisconsin and the next year it would be at [Camp] Grayling, Michigan, and to them it was like a big vacation anyway. We got twenty-one dollars per month at that time and then they federalized us, and we got on a train to Camp Beauregard, Louisiana. 4:56 Interviewer: So, you were federalized on October 15th 1940? Yes, 1940 Interviewer: They load you on a train to Camp Beauregard. The whole group is the history of the men-- the dentist is taking care of was the whole group that was on that train. [this sentence is probably garbled, so check it against the original] There were no draftees yet. Interviewer: About how many men were in your company initially? There were supposed to be two hundred, but there were seventy or something like that. There wasn’t a full train. 5:22 We went to Camp Beauregard, which was used in WWI as a training camp and there is nothing, it is just a monument, we had no place to go. We were going to go there and they were going to build us a camp, Camp Livingston, was going to be built and it had already been started. We trained in a tent there and had a real rugged time, even the cook had a homemade stove he had to use and we marched out each day with a band and trained. That was like our boot camp. 6:04 That’s how I can describe it. We were there about six months I think, I don’t know for sure the exact time. Camp Livingston, which is near Alexandria, Louisiana, that’s the nearest town. We moved in and that was a luxury compared to what we were used to being in. Interviewer: What did the training itself consist of? What were you doing? 3 �Because they had the, well they didn’t know about the Japanese at first. 6:45 I was on leave on Pearl Harbor day in New Orleans and the loud speaker came on and said for all the soldiers to get back to camp right now. That was Pearl Harbor and then they decided they were going to train us for general warfare and the never had anyone train for general warfare. 7:08 Interviewer: Were they giving you any jungle training in Louisiana or did that wait until Australia? No, actually we had very little jungle training anyplace. We went into action before we should have gone. Anyway, we had no equipment, no machine guns everything was simulated. In fact, one time we marched all over the Louisiana swamp and that was like where we were going to fight. We just had the old 03 rifles and gradually they gave us the equipment they had now and while we were down there we finally got the Garand rifle, and we used that going right into the war zone. 8:00 Then I—the conditions around there were still pretty much—the blacks were still--they had drinking fountains for blacks and they rode in the back of the buses and it was a new world opened up. That was more or less the training there. Interviewer: Tell me just a little bit more about the jobs there; what physically did you have to do? Were you marching? Were you shooting? We had some target practice, but not very much. Each day we marched out behind a band out to about three or four miles out in the country, at Camp Livingston and Camp Beauregard both, we did the same thing, marched behind the band. We had our flag with our unit on it and in fact, we still got that flag, it’s in the museum in Kalamazoo now. 9:02 They probably told you about that. General Harding was our general at that time 4 �and then all of a sudden they decided we were going to go to Europe. It was pretty rough training if you’re not used to anything like that, so we went to Camp Devens, in Massachusetts and we trained there for a while. Of course, there we had barracks and we weren’t used to that sort of thing. I guess MacArthur wanted Harding’s division, so they shipped us clear across the United States and we didn’t know we were going to Australia. We went to San Francisco. Interviewer: What was that train ride like? 9:58 It was—in fact, it was kind of fun and most of us have never done anything like that. We went on the train and we got to San Francisco and they put us in the Cow Palace. I don’t know if you—that’s where they held animal shows and stuff like that. It was rather new at that time and we all stayed in the stalls of the animals. I happened to have one particular assignment and I was a corporal by that time and a corporal was in charge of a squad at that time. A buck sergeant, he was the platoon sergeant. Those ranks went up over the years from staff sergeant to tech sergeant. A lot of them went AWOL and I was on assignment to look at all the guys around and see if I could find our soldiers and actually, we didn’t care if we found them or not, it was that much fun. 11:03 We were there about a week or so, I think about a week, and then we got on the Lurline. The Lurline was a passenger boat between the Hawaiian Islands, a luxury passenger boat, between the Hawaiian Islands and the United States. They had filled in the decks with bunks four high and there were about five thousand troops going on that boat and they still had the civilian crew on the boat. 11:41 Interviewer: How many bunks were piled on top of each other? 5 �I think it was about—it was either three or four and at the end of the thing they made temporary toilets and they were putrid anyway. I was sick, it took three weeks to get to Australia and I was sick the whole time and you had to line up so many people around that boat that you had to line up two hours before you would eat in order to get your hand on your food. I was too sick to eat, so I just took some fruit and went back to my bunk again. That was quite and experience for us. We arrived in Port Adelaide in south Australia and the reason we went to Port Adelaide—we didn’t know at that time that we were headed for New Guinea eventually. 12:44 We were going to train for jungle warfare and actually what we were going to do was train to protect the Australians. They figured the Japanese were going to come in and take Australia because all the Australian troops were over in the Middle East. We went to the Port Adelaide and they parked us right near a winery, that was a bad place to put a bunch of soldiers, and I think it was about October at that time. It’s semi-tropical and the have orange trees and tropical trees. I can remember the pails we had and we had regular tents and fold up cots that you put up yourself. The Australians, being that they were a big sheep country, there number one meat was mutton and they thought, we’ll give the American the mutton and we’ll have the beef. 13:51 We could smell that mutton ten miles away and we couldn’t eat it, so got to sneaking out and going to the farms and bringing food home and cooking it ourselves. Eventually they let us have beef. We trained there for a few weeks while they were building a camp in Brisbane, Australia to continue our training. We had to go crosscountry by train because the Japanese submarines were all around. Most of our equipment was going by boat around—if you’re familiar with Australia and the shape of it, around Port Moresby [Melbourne] and Sydney to Brisbane. 14:46 On that trip, the 6 �first man in our division was killed. I just had his name and I’ll tell ya—he was from Battle Creek, Michigan. I had the name and I thought I could tell ya, but maybe I’ll think of it. Interviewer: Was he killed in an accident or how? He was shot at from the subs, so they named that training place—it was an unusual trip to take because each train in Australia has a different railroad gauge and you have to get out at the end of each station and go onto another train. It was an experience there alone, and then we got up to Brisbane. 15:44 We trained there for a short—it wasn’t going to be too long a time and then they decided they were going to ship us—while I was in Adelaide I happened to go to a school down there and I made friends that we have kept in touch with for sixty years. We’ve kept in contact constantly all the time. What I went to school for was, we thought we were going to have to live on the land and we had to go out in the center of Australia, which is a desert, and from the Aborigines we learned we could eat the grubs and stuff like that and where the water was in certain plants. We thought we were going to have to fend off the land. That’s a bit of background and when we were ready to go they put us on Liberty ships and they were new, not the old Liberty ships 16:51. We got on the Liberty ships-Interviewer: Now, before they sent you over to New Guinea, did you get any kind of jungle training or what they called jungle training? We had some, but it was nothing like what we actually did. We never had the proper equipment in the first place and what they had to do for camouflage, they didn’t have camouflage, so they took our uniforms and sprayed them green and by spraying them you couldn’t get any air through them. When we were actually in jungle warfare every time 7 �we would get to a stream we would take them off and try to scrub the paint off of them. When we landed, under very dangerous times at Port Moresby, we stayed there for, I don’t know, several weeks or not that long. 17:52 Interviewer: What sort of place was Port Moresby at that time? Port Moresby is the only place in New Guinea that looked just like an Australian town. Australians, of course, it’s one of their possessions, and it would be like any little Australian town, but we were outside of the town and we never got into the town much. At our camp we got diarrhea terrible and we couldn’t eat and our cooks, no way could you eat the food. In Port Moresby, we were at the foot of the Owen Stanley Mountains, which are twelve to thirteen thousand feet high and they figured, the Australian figured, that the Japanese could never get over that mountain, but they were starting to trickle over and those that got over weren’t worth much anyway. 19:01 We were bombed by Japanese planes. They had air superiority most of the time, so every night they tried to show us, from our foxhole, a big movie. They would show it to us, but that’s as far as we could go anyway with the diarrhea. They would turn the lights out and show it and then you would dive back in your hole. They got ready and they decided that part of them were going to go over the mountain and before I forget it, at first our Colonel of the 126th Infantry, a full Colonel, I did know his name, but I can’t think of it. He was making a survey over New Guinea before we actually went into action and he was shot down and got killed. 20:04 Part of us, our particular company, we got separated from most of the fighting in New Guinea, I probably told you that. We were on a different side than the rest of them were. Then they decided—the whole thing was getting Buna and the airstrip. MacArthur said to take Buna no matter who was killed or what and he never set 8 �foot in New Guinea at that time. He just said, “you take them”, and most of the men in that division, the 32nd Division, from Wisconsin and Michigan were killed, wounded or got diseases. 21:00 There was a lot of disease. I had malaria six times and most of the men that you interviewed all had malaria too. Interviewer: What sort of effects does malaria have on you? It’s a high, high fever and you just can’t move. A lot of men died over there because there was no one to take you out. Eventually--we didn’t have any medicine and all we had was quinine, in fact, at that time. There was an Atabrine; the Germans had it, which would have helped us a lot. We didn’t have it and the Germans being our enemy, we didn’t have Atabrine at that time. You just more or less laid down and stayed there until you could move again because there was no way of getting you out. After a while your fever keeps going down. 21:58 Eventually, while I was there, we got the Atabrine somehow. Whether they made there own formula or what, I don’t know. It helped, but it wasn’t any cure. I use to have to stand my men up and make sure they put the pill in their mouth because they wanted to go home. Everybody was yellow looking and all that. That’s how it affects your body. Interviewer: The Atabrine would also make that. Yes Interviewer: Back up a little bit now. Originally the division is basically mostly in place at Port Moresby and part of your regiment is assigned to walk over the mountains. Now, the part that you were with, how did you get over? 22:50 They decided—there was a little strip on the northern shore there, I think it was near Pongani, there was a strip they thought they could get an airplane into, but it wasn’t a 9 �strip at all, it was just an open field. I think one of the planes crash-landed there. Part of us got in that plane and I was one of them. From then on it was jungle walking and we hadn’t met any enemy yet. It was along the coast with all the coconut palms and all that. It was along that coast. The only food we got was by airplane and, of course, the Japanese had air superiority and we might get the food and we might not. Most of it was C rations and sometimes we got the Australian corned beef and hard tack. 23:56 Sometimes we got their food and sometimes we would go as high as three days and never get any food. You couldn’t build a fire or anything because the Japanese would be after you. The only equipment you had—you had a shelter half. It rained every night almost, terrible temperature, mosquitoes, we had to wear a net over there. The Garand rifle we had—in each squad there would be a Browning automatic and they finally got—one in each squad got the little hand machine gun with a drum of either fifty or twenty and we wouldn’t use the fifties because they rattle. 24:50 We hadn’t seen any enemy yet. Interviewer: Were you seeing any natives in that area? Well, there were some natives, yes. A lot of natives took some of our equipment and you couldn’t trust them. They were apt to take you right into the woods and dump you and the only pay they got was some of our c rations and that’s how we paid them. We were told not to go into any of the villages because those people would starve to death because they don’t know enough to keep food. They had little gardens and stuff and they didn’t want you near their women, which nobody would want to be anyway. 25:50 The animals—the only animals you got—you got the alligators and a lot of poison snakes, but we didn’t—with all the troops there I didn’t hardly see a snake, but some of them did and some didn’t. We also had that problem on our Louisiana maneuvers with the Coral 10 �snake. We lost several people down there. We were going along the coast towards where we were going to make contact with them and the first think--you still didn’t think you were in a war and all of a sudden—along that coast there was a sort of a backwater and river and the Australians had a little boat trying to get closer to the front and all of sudden we saw hundreds of bloated bodies of Australians. That was the first realization that we were in a war and, of course, that shook us all. 26:47 Interviewer: What happened after you came on that scene? Then we kept right on going and we couldn’t get boats in there either, so we couldn’t do anything about it. All we could do was continue and along with that there were some Australians too. We kept on going on up the coast and you couldn’t dig holes because six inches down there was water. The only water you had to drink was brackish water. We put a pill in it to purify it, but you couldn’t quench your thirst any of the time. Sometimes you quenched your thirst with the coconut palms. You could open up the coconuts and drink it and if you did you got diarrhea. 27:41 Interviewer: Could you do anything to catch the rainwater? We weren’t in one place long enough to catch any rainwater, no. There were little streams you could go into and we tore our clothes all off and scrubbed them in the sand because that’s the only way you could keep them clean. We didn’t have any heavy equipment outside of 60mm mortars and the machine guns. Interviewer: You basically had what you could carry. What you could carry and they said later they had tanks, but we had no, not any, big guns. Mostly mortars and machine guns. Then we got up there where they figured the enemy was and that we were going to have contact with the enemy the next day. They 11 �said for me to take the men a hundred yards up the road and assemble up there and I got up there and I didn’t have any men there. They all went back the other way, so we went back and reorganized and jabbed them a bit and started over again. 28:56 The team, before we went up there, the supply sergeant, he went berserk and he got into a hole and was shooting at everybody. He finally got killed and that was in the beginning of the action.. From then on we had a jungle path—there’s no communications, only a runner and no radios or nothing like that in there. We had different incidents and it’s kind of boring in a way, yet you didn’t see the soldiers and in the night two guys would sleep together so one stayed awake while the other slept. You could hear the Japanese make noise at night and say English things to get us out. 29:58 We didn’t take any—the Australians wouldn’t take any prisoners, but we took a few prisoners. We didn’t want— if we did the Australians would kill them before they got back to be questioned. We found some of our men that were taken prisoners and they bayoneted them against a tree. I’m trying to think—there was all this long grass and every time an airplane came over they didn’t know where we were either and it was a scary thought. 30:40 Interviewer: Do you remember the first time you actually encountered the Japanese or were fired on by them? When we got off the line we were constantly being fired at with mortars. The jungle’s hard to see people and the Japanese had been there enough time ahead of us, they were in pillboxes and with the equipment we had it was almost impossible against the pillbox. I’d been on a lot of patrols and sent my men on patrols and around the pillboxes there would be wire fence with cans on it so they could hear you coming. It was impossible to do anything against the pillboxes with the equipment we had. The Australians, they 12 �would tell them they had to take that pillbox and they would try to take the pillboxes and the guys would get killed. 31:48 Interviewer: Now, did you have Australian soldiers serving right along side of you? No, they were just close by and we were not side-by-side. They were just a few feet from us. Interviewer: They were sort of the next section of the line? Yes, and that’s the way we fought to clear up the place until we got near Buna. Actually I was on the outskirts of Buna and when I took cigarettes to my men a sniper got me with a 25-caliber bullet, that’s what they had, and they were exploding bullets, which were supposed to be outlawed by the Geneva Convention, but the Japanese don’t go by anything like that. 32:48 It exploded in me, in my heart and my lungs, but I never was out. They had to get natives; there were no Americans, no Americans there to haul you out, so they had natives. They couldn’t use any equipment we had, so they had to make something on poles. Interviewer: Did your own men get you back off the front line first? There was no front line really, that’s another thing, there’s no front line. They could be behind you, beside you, you would never know where they were. I got cigarettes to my men and at that time I didn’t care if I got wounded or not. It’s not like Vietnam, you know you got to be there for a year, and here you didn’t know if you were going to be there was ten years or not. You never knew the end of it. 33:49 When I was up there, right on the coast of Buna, all the big generals, General Eichelberger, they came up there and two or three other generals. Their bright Chino clothes stood out like a thumb you know, and as soon as they got back we really got peppered. They were supposed to have 13 �brought us a Christmas dinner and if they did I never got it, but I have my doubts that they did. Interviewer: You got hit on December 22nd didn’t you? December 26 and that’s one date I did not forget, 1942. Interviewer: So, they got the natives to take you back, and did you got to an aid station at that point? Yeah, they had to take me back—there was a little strip on the coast down there. They had an aid station and they got some little planes in there and all they do is give you first aid stuff. 34:55 They got little planes in there and they took you out one at a time and flew you to Port Moresby. I went to Port Moresby and they had a big tent hospital there. That’s where you went until they could get you back to Australia. I was shot up so bad that my folks got the telegram that I was seriously wounded in action. They didn’t know if I would make it and they had to operate on me and take these pieces of shrapnel out of my heart and without any pain killer. Then I was too sick to fly back, some of them could fly back, but I was too sick to fly. They had a hospital ship called Wannanilla and mostly it was meant for Australia to take them back to New Guinea. 36.04 They had room for a couple Americans I guess, so we got on that boat and went back to Cairns and the hospital was full, so we went back to Townsville and the hospitals were full. We went right down the coast and in Brisbane the hospitals were full and we got to Sydney and they let a couple guys off there and I was one of them and then they were going to Melbourne and they got you out there weren’t any hospitals built either, so they sent us clear up in the mountains in a resort that was like a little hotel with rooms separate. 14 �36:50 I was in one of those rooms and I was there for quite some time and would see the doctor and nurses and Red Cross. I didn’t see anybody else up there. Interviewer: How well did they take care of you there? I was taken care of well, but you never see anybody and there’s nothing to do. I couldn’t move around and I was going to be there until—they were building a new hospital in Australia, in Sydney. After the Americans started using their hospitals they looked alike. They finally got that built and I was sent down there and finally I went to—I don’t know how many months I was there and then I went to Prince Alfred Hospital and was one of the main hospitals in Sydney and it was right downtown. 37:47 I would keep getting malaria and it takes about six weeks to treat you each time you get malaria. Downtown I thought I was going to go back home and they said—they needed help over there and if you want to go back, and actually I did, if I didn’t have to go back and fight again I’d just as soon stay there, so they sent me out to—they decided they were going to—that same hospital is where my son was born—they were going to send me out to a place where you recover and it was called Warwick Farm out in the outskirts of Sydney and actually it was a horse track, a horserace track. They had a tent city there, so we went back there to be treated. 38:39 Interviewer: Now, at this point could you walk and get around at all? I could walk around then, but I was limited and couldn’t do too much. I didn’t know what they were going to do with me and then they finally interviewed and they got me a job in Sydney in MacArthur’s headquarters. The Grace Building was the tallest building in Sydney and that’s only eleven floors high. They believed tall buildings in the earthquake zone were dangerous. I was put in charge, because I had some experience 15 �like that working at the sanitarium, they put me in charge as the chief clerk they called it, the chief clerk, and I had about thirty people working for me, some civilian and some army. 39:35 Interviewer: What rank were you at that point? I was a Staff Sergeant and they made me a Tech Sergeant, but if you look at the records, I was a platoon sergeant because all the officers were killed and the platoon sergeant was killed and several officers killed, and they were going to give me a battlefield commission, but I got shot up. Our Captain, and they probably never say much about it, his name was Captain Fryerson, he took over from the push, the push fight, and he stayed over there and became a Major, but Fryerson was a coward and he had to go back and be tried and all they did to him was make him a First Lieutenant and kept him in Hawaii, so I don’t know if he did better or worse. 40:34 Interviewer: Now, you’ve been assigned to MacArthur’s headquarters. When was that? I can’t tell you the exact date because a lot of that stuff has slipped out of me. Interviewer: Was it still in 1943? It must have been in 1943. I was in the hospital for quite some time. Of course the people that worked there, none of them liked MacArthur. His little kid would be in the hotel across the road and you would see him playing out there with a Philippine woman looking after him. All the people in my office were all people that had been wounded and the Captain was too. Then they decided to move back to Brisbane, so we went back to Brisbane. 41: 38 Before I went there I had a leave, a week off, and I went to the middle of the city to a hotel there and they had what they called a Trocadero, it was a 16 �dance hall and it had two orchestras, American soldiers, and a revolving stage. The Australian girls were to meet us there and dance with us to get acquainted. On the very first night I met my wife and they weren’t supposed to have anything to do with you on the outside, they leave you at the door. I went every night that week and I continued to go and visit her at her house while I stayed at this Warwick Farm, and then we decided to get married. No one had gotten married in those days; they didn’t allow the American to get married. 42:35 Interviewer: How did you manage it? I had to go see the commanding general of Sydney, I remember General Raleigh, a Brigadier General. My money had never caught up with me since I’d been wounded. He interviewed us and said he would have the Red Cross interview us. He said, “Have you got any money?” I said, “I’ve got a three pound note that I kept throughout the war, but I still haven’t been paid”, and he took money out of his pocket and gave it to me. That was one of the first ones and I had to go through a lot of red tape. Eventually there was thirty thousand Americans marrying Australians. I went back to Brisbane again and my wife came up to Brisbane too and we stayed there for about six months. 43:36 I went back to Sydney again to MacArthur’s headquarters and stayed there for a while and my wife had a baby, my son was born there. Then I went back to Brisbane again, and she couldn’t go up there this time and I was only there a short time. MacArthur’s headquarters was moving to Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea, so we went up there. It’s a different situation when you’re in MacArthur’s headquarters you live like a king. That was all right up there and the point systems came out and I had points in that whole area. I’d been over there long enough in all the conditions and they said I could go home if I wanted to. 17 �They offered me a warrant officer’s job again, but I said I wanted to go home. 44:39 They said, being in MacArthur’s headquarters, I could either fly home or go on the boat. I said I didn’t want to go on the boat because I was sick for three weeks. I had to island hop and sty for two or three days until I could get a plane, and I finally got back to the United States, back to Chicago to be discharged. I went in there to be discharged and they said for me to go home on a month leave and come back and they would discharge me. Interviewer: At that point was your wife able to come with you? My wife wasn’t able—the war wasn’t over yet in Japan and she had to wait a year. She came back on the Lurline, the same beat that we took over. There were about five hundred wives and three hundred babies and the called it the “brides ship”. 45:42 They had an experience when they had that big storm on the ocean and in Hawaii the towns were flattened. Interviewer: While you were stationed at MacArthur’s headquarters, what kind of work were you doing there? It was in the Adjutant General’s Publication Division and we were the ones that printed all of your army regulations books and manuals and assembled them and shipped them out to the different units, to each one of them, to their headquarters. It was an interesting job and I was a supervisor and I was the top non-commissioned officer. 46:45 That particular place was right in Brisbane, the last place I was at before we went to Hollandia. You’ve never been to Australia, but there’s a big town hall there and it’s still there, the town hall, and we had a little separate building right beside it where the Adjutant General’s Publication Division was. It was an interesting job and we had to make all the 18 �corrections in all the army manuals and everything else and make sure that all these units got them throughout all the SW Pacific. We were going to go— MacArthur, while we were up there in Hollandia, had a cabin or a house built up there just for his wife and we were all ready to go to Manila when I had this chance to get out. 47:51 Interviewer: Did you get to see much of MacArthur himself or were you far enough away? He was just in and out. I’d see him in and out all the time and I’d see his little kid playing at the hotel across there, but he wasn’t too popular among the men that worked there and even the other generals. Interviewer: As far as you could tell, why was that? He was a show off kind of a man. Like when he went to New Guinea and he said he didn’t care if every man gets killed, you stay there until you take Buna. He never went up there once. He went to a lot of the places, but he never went there. Then he relieved Harding because they weren’t getting things done fast enough and they put in Eichelberger after that. 48:57 A lot of these famous people--a lot of incidents on the road going up there. One time, all the food was dropped by air and sometimes you go two or three days with no food because you got to keep on going to the next stop and one time everybody had moved out, but part of our company, they dropped a battalion's worth of food on us. All we did was stuff ourselves and they had chocolate bars and they had never perfected chocolate then that wouldn’t melt, so we stuffed our pockets full of it and it melted and got insects and weird incidents like that. We ate grass, but you couldn’t cook anything because you have mortars right on top of you. 49:48 We saw soldiers, 19 �Japanese, they wouldn’t be taken prisoners and they would run out into the ocean and kill themselves with bayonets or grenades so they wouldn’t be taken. . Interviewer: In that period when you were in that Buna sector where the Japanese were, was your unit ever able to move forward at all or make what you would call progress? They made progress, but very slow, you might make a hundred yards and things like that. The main thing was the mortar. I sent one patrol out from my platoon and I’ll never forget that. It was the nighttime and they came back, what few of them did come back and I went on a few of those myself because you can’t make men go if you can’t do it yourself. 50:50 One of the guys in the patrol came back and had no face at all; all he had was holes in his face. Back on Port Moresby I happened to meet him again, but he died. We had a lot—not just malaria, but the dengue fever, the black water fever, and all those, jungle rot and all that and most of the division was killed or wounded. Interviewer: They weren’t all killed, but ninety percent of them were either dead or unfit for duty. That’s right, they weren’t all killed. Interviewer: For a lot of them, Buna was the war even if they survived. 51:46 It doesn’t seem like it was worth it for what—every little step that you had going toward Japan, because they were island hopping from then on and a lot of this—it was all along the coast, but you’re in your own little shelter and you only had half a company and our Captain, he’s be right in the middle with his men all around him because there was no front line. No food, no conditions and it was horrible thoughts when you start seeing your men get killed one after another, 20 �Interviewer: In the longer run they did learn some things from it. MacArthur didn’t do quite that same kind of thing again; they had better equipment and better supplies and medicine. You guys were the guinea pigs. 52:44 We were there before we should have been there and the equipment we had—the BAR’s would rust and it was hard to keep your equipment. In every squad you had one 03 rifle from WWI because we could launch grenades with it, so we had one in every squad. Whoever had that machine gun, sub machine gun; he would get killed right off the bat because they hated him. In fact, finally I got one too and I took it from my men because nobody wanted to carry it. 53:31 Interviewer: Was that a Thompson sub-machine gun? Yes, with a 20 drum. We had fifty drums, fifty shells, but they rattled. Interviewer: Those were the gangster movie ones right? Yeah, but they were troublesome too, they wouldn’t always work. You got equipment— you didn’t have any equipment to take care of stuff like that. No supplies except what was carried up by natives and no contact because there were no radios and stuff. Eventually they had a few tanks in there, but we never saw any tanks. It probably shows you in the records that there were, but I never saw a tank there at all. 54:15 Interviewer: Most of that stuff comes in later. The Japanese had those 37 mm’s and we didn’t get them until later. We didn’t have anything big and we couldn’t fight against those pillboxes. The mortars wouldn’t touch them and machine guns wouldn’t touch them. Interviewer: You would have to get up very close with grenades and get lucky. 21 �I didn’t want to have to—you slept at night with your buddy and we were awake all night. You had several men who were killed. They killed each other because they thought it was a Jap. You would wake up and it was too late. Interviewer: Did you manage to catch any Japanese trying to sneak into your position? There were dead ones all around, rotten and smelly. 55:09 They were all around us because we couldn’t get up. You couldn’t dig down to make a slick trench because there was water. Those kinds of conditions were just horrible. I saw a lot of our men get killed. Interviewer: Now, to kind of move here back out at the other end. You finally get back to the states and have been discharged etc. What did you do at that point? Then I—because I didn’t know what I was going to do, and of course I had a son and a wife, and the year that I had training in college wasn’t enough and I had to get a job fast. So, at that time, I had to go around and check out different places and in fact I wanted to—I had enough cash to buy a new car, but they wouldn’t sell you a new car if you didn’t have an old one to turn in. 56:18 I was going to get a Ford, but at they time it was only $700.00 for a new Ford, but they wouldn’t sell it to you. I had to borrow my dad’s car until later on I got another car, but being interviewed I got to the Sinclair Refining company and I got a job there. It was a dress-up job in the office and the man that had the job before hadn’t gotten out of the army yet and he let it be known that he didn’t want to come back there again, so I got that job. 57:09 The boss was a real eager beaver guy and he had me belong to every organization and things like that. Then I’ll be darned if the guy didn’t come back and he said he wanted his job back and according to 22 �the government I had to give it up. Then I went to work for the Kellogg Company. They wanted me to be in the office, but there weren’t any vacancies yet, so I worked six months in the plant. I got in the office and I ended up in the research at Kellogg’s, which was interesting and from then on I worked there for thirty-four years in different capacities, but mostly in the engineering offices and planning section because of the experience I had in MacArthur’s headquarters. 58:09 A lot of that helped me. I just stayed there and I had four children and I belong to a lot of different organization and active in the church and active—I’ve been a DAV, American Legion, I belong to them all. Now, all of my children are grown up and my son was a full Colonel and my son in law was a full Colonel, they were in Vietnam. I had one grand kid go to West Point and she had to go to Iraq twice as a Captain where she met her husband to be who was a Major and two weeks ago, on the holiday, they had a big wedding in Pennsylvania at the was college. It was a big outfit with three hundred people there. They had the crossed swords you know how they do? 59:13 My son keeps up—he probably knows as much about the 32nd Division as I do. He’s an ardent reader of history and he was a deputy commander at Fort Carson, the last job he had. He’s still dealing with the army. They sent him overseas and they send him to Washington every now and then. They want his opinion because he was on airplanes and disposing of equipment and because of the technical knowledge that he has. He’s well known all around and he knows all the generals. He should have been a general—he had a brigade command for one term, but because the army got cut back, the Colonel’s, had to do a brigadier’s job. :11 That’s how close he got to it. 23 �Interviewer: To look back on the whole thing now, how do you think your time in the service had an effect on you? You talked about the experience you got in Macarthur’s headquarters. What else do you think you carried with you out of all that? Well there was one thing—our original group is back to seven men now and I think we had about a hundred and seventy men and their all gone now and there was better comradeship What I find is people have their college friends, high school friends, and people you work with, but I think people that you fight with and protect each other is a different feeling. You have a different comradeship. These people are life long friends and not like the rest of them. I can’t compare them with the high school people or people you worked with or church people or whoever else, so in general, as I look back on it now, it was a good experience. 1:28 Interviewer: Thank you very much for talking to me today and that finishes the tape. 24 �25 � 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 Cripps, Donald (Interview transcript and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cripps, Donald Description An account of the resource Donald Cripps joined the Michigan National Guard in 1940 and served in Company C of the 126th Infantry Regiment, 32nd (Red Arrow) Division during World War II. He describes training in Louisiana, service in Australia and New Guinea. He was wounded at Buna in New Guinea and then was stationed in Australia after he recovered. 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--National Guard 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 2008-06-05 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CrippsD 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/8b7d6f61a8a81aa6f5a30e9853379510.mp4 ce14421eaec07983fd14625c0f7dcaa4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9296b7bfcc129925e2acb22e73f1bfe8.pdf d264f69033d9a116c41d698829ac2df8 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Wade C. Cratsenberg (00:54: 15) (0:00) Growing up • Born Wilcox Hospital, MI • first of seven kids • kindergarten through grade school went to a lot of different country schools o dad drove truck so moved a lot (2:20) Losing a finger • At 12 years old, lost 2nd finger on left hand at first joint • When enlisting, Cratsenberg had to have 2 or 3 sets of fingerprints taken because the officers couldn’t decide if they wanted to print his stub of a finger or leave the box blank • During enlistment, a lieutenant told Cratsenberg he was going to get a medical discharge due to his finger • Cratsenberg was angry and said that it wasn’t his trigger finger and that he was right handed and could shoot with either hand (5:54) High school • Attended 1 or 2 country schools • Graduated from high school in 1964 (7:23) After high school • Enlisted in the Navy o Aviation and metalsmith with a cross training in hydraulics • After the Navy, went into general mechanic work (8:12) First days of basic training and the Navy uniform • Basic was at Great Lakes, IL • Had a hell of a time passing swimming – “swam like a rock” • Every part of naval uniform is designed to be a floatation device o Hat = if snap the brim down and put between legs, it will keep your lower half afloat o Pants = tie a knot in each cuff and can be used as water wings o Blue shirt = if blow it up with air, it will keep you afloat (10:07) More about basic training • Learned to tie all kinds of knots and splice a rope or line o Slip, half hitch, square, etc. • Firefighting around naval air • Learned how to put petroleum fire out with water • Had to go through a “smoke house” for training o Learned to put on gas mask with in the smoke house that was so filled with smoke, could not see your hand (15:30) Barracks �• Same as the ones used in WWII • 1 sheet board, bunks • 150 people in a barracks • 3 doors in the entire place • Shower and bathrooms = no privacy (17:11) After basic training • Went to metalsmith school in Millington, TN for 2-3 months • went to Naval Air Station on southern tip of San Francisco Bay, CA • 3 squadrons – VR8, VR7, VR22 o VR8 (Mofit Field) was maintenance o VR7 and VR22 were flying squadrons • Cratsenberg was a part of VR8 o utilized and C-130s , which were some of the old military transport services (aka military airlift command) o the planes and supplies = Air Force o bases = Navy (19:37) Advanced training on a typical day • Learned every aspect of how to make a patch using a doubler, how to put in rivets, etc. • In depth discussion of putting in rivets and how air planes were patched (26:28) Transitioning to VR7 • Took A-7 course at Naval Air Station 42 miles out of Fresno toward coast of CA • Became part of the training squadron o Trained maintenance and pilots on A7 course prior to going over to Vietnam ƒ Trained maintenance in how to maintain and repair planes ƒ Trained pilots how to fly, take off and land on aircraft carriers (30:03) Aircraft carriers • Would be out on the carriers for 2 weeks at a time • Job on the carrier was the “final check” o Check tail hooks and grease before the take off o Very dangerous position ƒ If pilots miss arresting cable when the come in, the have “a wild plane” coming at you ƒ If plane fails to take off, it would blow up next to you • On the biggest aircraft carriers the military had at that time o Coral Sea o Kitty Hawk o Ranger (32:44) Living quarters on the aircraft carriers • Sleeping spaces had ceilings not over 8 feet tall and bunks stacked 3 high • 3 decks on the ship (35:10) Duties on aircraft carriers • Served three 2-week stints on the carriers • In between stints, back at naval base �• Discusses in great detail the work done on planes (45:13) Discharge • Once discharged, took a bus from Lemark, CA to MI o Big homecoming (47:02) Impact of the Navy • Used training in hydraulics and metal smithing for years • Worked close to home o Garages and truck shops ƒ Did a lot of work on diesel engines ƒ In high school, worked for Detroit Diesel when it was called GM Diesel (50:00) Life now • In late 1980s, took a fall that left him paralyzed from the waist down • Last 5 or 6 years the injury has extended to being neck down � 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 Cratsenberg, Wade C. (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cratsensberg, Wade C. Description An account of the resource Wade Cratsenberg is a Vietnam veteran who served in the United States Navy from November 1964 to November 1970 in California. In this interview, Cratsenberg discusses the behind-the-scene work done by the Navy during Vietnam. As part of the VR7 and VR8 squadrons, Cratsenberg was responsible for the aircraft carriers, carrying out both plane maintenance and pilot maintenance training. He provides detailed accounts of the work he did on planes as well as the usefulness of the Navy uniform, and the lifestyle and dangers of working on an aircraft carrier. 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 Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Aircraft carriers 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 2007-05-07 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CratsenbergW 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/f1e6667b5edd128ab834a85f67f67564.mp4 81f1e59fc7d05bbd6a80ed24bf11f594 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ac4ea816a58bd8566302f1dda6c6356d.pdf a3a5b9989099dc90598008557b74011b PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW KOLLEEN CRANE Born: Midland, Texas Resides: Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project Transcribed by: Claire Herhold, February 2, 2013 Interviewer: 00:58 Basically, what I’d like to do here will be to just start out and I’ll ask you kind of where you were and what you were doing at the time when the war started and so we can get your background, and tell us something about where you lived, and then that at that point you can introduce the story of how you met your husband and we can just follow the two of you after that. I was a telephone operator and I had been midnight to six at Abilene Christian College, and I’d gone home for the summer and was on the switchboard between the long-distance calls and the local calls. In those days you picked up a cord and punched it in one to the other to get them connected. And all of the sudden both boards lit up like a Christmas tree and we couldn’t imagine what’s going on and out chief operator finally got around to us to say that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. 2:01 It was an exciting time. I mean, we were stunned, you know, that this would happen. Interviewer: And what happened in the community after that? I don’t remember. Interviewer: So Pearl Harbor hits and you remember where you were and what you were doing. You were at the switchboard then. How much longer was it between when that started and when you met your husband? You know, I can’t remember. I know there were three of us girls from church that went bowling on Sunday afternoon and we’d been paying for it ever since. But then the three fellows came in �and we asked them to teach us how to keep score, so they did. And then we’d invite them to go to church with us and then come home with me and so they all came out to the house to meet my parents. 3:01 Interviewer: So was there an air base in town? Oh yes, Midland Air Force Base came in there. The first bunch of troops came in, not for the Air Force, but for the weather that would be the driest of any in our country over the summer time. And we had the hardest rain we had had for years and Daddy got out his little canoe and we paddled down the street in front of our house, it was so hard. Interviewer: Do you know why they wanted the dry weather? It was so the troops could camp out any way. I don’t remember. Interviewer: That would make sense because there were troop camps all over the South in that period, and so we’re familiar with that. Did you go back to school after that? No, I didn’t go back. Interviewer: So you continued to work for the phone company? 4:01 Right, everywhere I went, I got a job, didn’t have any trouble. I think I had six hundred dollars in the bank when we got married. And we did real well. When we went to Massachusetts we found that people were friendly and warm and very generous and helpful to us. I had thought those Northerners would be cold. Interviewers: Yankees aren’t all bad. Let’s go back to the time when you met your husband-to-be, that is. Do you remember about how long it was between the time you met him and when you got married? It was about a year later. Interviewer: And what was he doing during that year? �He was a crew chief for the Air Force. Interviewer: And what did that mean? B-24s, to take care of the mechanical equipment. He served as a tail bomber too on some of the training just to be ready in case he was needed. 5:03 Interviewer: Was his job to train other men to do these jobs or just to maintain the planes while they were training in them? Right. Interviewer: Do you know why it was that he wasn’t sent for service overseas? The war ended in Europe. He was in cadet training by that time when the war ended. Interviewer: Do you remember what year you got married in? February 14th or 15th, ’41. Interviewer: Okay, well ’41, now that would be… That was Pearl Harbor Day. I’m not really… Interviewer: Well, Pearl Harbor was December of 1941, so the Army would have set up in early in ’42. So maybe ’43? Even ’44. Interviewer: ’44. And that might make sense in terms of our time frame here. February ’44. Interviewer: What was it like to be married to somebody in the service at this time? 6:03 Well, I guess I was young enough I really didn’t see how bad things were in our world. Just to be together, do my job… Interviewer: So did you continue to work for the phone company in these places? Oh no, oh no. When I came to Michigan I had a family and busy on the farm. �Interviewer: But during that year when you were moving around? Yes, every place I went I got a job with the phone company. Interviewer: In your hometown, how did the people there view or deal with the guys at the air base? What kind of relationship was there between the town and the base? I think because the troopers that had come in first misused the friendliness, that people were really careful about the Air Force men that came in. Interviewer: How did they misuse the friendliness? What kind of things were going on? 7:04 Take advantage of the girls and things like that. Interviewer: Did things improve later on in terms of how the men conducted themselves? I think things went fine after that group left. Interviewer: Do you know if they were Army soldiers or if they were just men who were building the base to start with? I’m not sure what their duty was there. I just know they got rained out. Interviewer: When he went then to training at Ouachita college, what was that experience like? What did he do? What did you do? He was very regimented and classes and everything but he was free to come home at night. There was some foolishness going on. The men were swinging out over the river, Ouachita river, and the officers put a stop to that in a hurry. 8:03 We’re not going to have something happen to these men we’ve invested so much in already. Interviewer: And how long were you there? Maybe six months? Nine months? �Interviewer: And do you recall what kind of classes was he taking? Was he taking college courses or military training? For officership training. I don’t know. I know the plans later at South Carolina were for, they were testing gasoline usage of the planes and the bomb site was fairly new at that time, so they were working with that too. Then when things slowed down in Europe they put him to doing hurricane hunters, they were groups of planes that did that. 9:05 They’d fly into the eye of the hurricane. Interviewer: What kind of aircraft were they using? B-24. Interviewer: And did he describe that or tell you what that was like? No, it was just very interesting to realize you were getting into the center where it was still. I guess it was still. That was the feeling I got from his description. Interviewer: Did they act as if that job were particularly dangerous or was that just routine? Yes, that was very dangerous. He lost five buddies of a box around him. One above him and two on each side. One plane crash. That really touched us all. Interviewer: We’ll go back again to Ouachita college while you’re staying there. What were you doing while he was in training or in class? 10:07 I was at the telephone company. We had an apartment there and we just lived like a family with our meals there and everything. Interviewer: Now was there a different relationship between the local community and the men staying at the college than you had back at the air base? The only thing I know, the church just opened us with arms. So good. �Interviewer: Did they like having married couples come as opposed to all these single men? I don’t remember any difficulty. Interviewer: Then when you went up to Massachusetts, what was his assignment up there? I don’t know. I know we arrived in a record-breaking blizzard. Interviewer: And how did you get there? 11:02 Did you take a train? I think we were on a train. We did most of our traveling by train in those days. And finally he got together with his group and they went out to the field there, Westover Field, I think. And I found an apartment with a couple and just really felt at home with them. They were wonderful people. They welcomed the soldiers in. Interviewer: What part of Massachusetts was that in? Do you remember? Springfield. Interviewer: Okay, so western Massachusetts then. Was this a large base at this time? I’m not sure. I didn’t get out to the base. It seemed like we were just days or weeks there and then shipped down to South Carolina. Interviewer: And then how long was he stationed in South Carolina? 12:00 This all happened in a couple of years. I don’t think he was there that long. Maybe nine months. Interviewer: Do you think that his experience in the military and training, was that something that kind of followed him through the rest of his life? Yes, he learned the big engine care and his father purchased a speed sprayer, and it’s made with the propellers like an air plane and he used that for throwing the mist up in the air as you drove through the orchards, sprayed the trees. Interviewer: So then, what kind of career did he have? What was he doing? He was an orchard man. He’s a fruit grower. �Interviewer: Did you have your own orchard out in Fennville? Yes, generations have been there. Still his cousins are still at it. 13:01 Interviewer: When we study the history of the war on the homefront and so forth, we get a lot of stuff about shortages and rationing and all of these kinds of things, and sort of how difficult it was just to run a household and that kind of thing. What kind of experiences did you have with that? How was the war period different for you than what came after just in terms of how you took care of things? I guess after the war is when I learned, well during the war I visited Fennville several times, but Dick’s father was not one to complain at all, but he did say he saw people misusing the tires where the farmers really need to get their fruit to market. That was one thing that was a hardship. The gasoline shortage, I think we were very careful. 14:01 I don’t remember too much about the food and the sugar and those things. I remember one time my little garden had an abundant crop of leaf lettuce and so the groceryman told me, “Would you bring in a supply?” and I needed soap, so he traded me a bushel basket of leaf lettuce for a box of Tide or Oxydol. Interviewer: Did you have to look after yourself and live on your own before you got married? Or when you got married was that the first time that you sort of set up a household for yourself? Oh, it was the first time for both of us, and as we travelled we just rented an apartment. One place we bought the furniture and as we were ready to leave we sold it. That was a good education for me. 15:00 Interviewer: Did your husband feel like he was sort of doing his job or what needed to be done or did he think that he should be serving overseas? �He was ready to go overseas. Twice. Because we went out to Boise after Arkansas and I had told you a little bit about the hunting, the incendiary balloons there. Interviewer: Why don’t you tell me a little more about that? What was going on and what was he doing with that? He was flying in the plane to hunt for those and to shoot them down if necessary, or, I don’t know how they would handle it if they saw one or if they saw one where the balloon had started a fire, to alert the others to it. Interviewer: And did he see any balloons or any fires? He was threatened with death if they told anything that they saw, so I still to this day, I don’t know. Interviewer: We’ll have to go look that up. 16:02 Now, just some miscellaneous details. What was your husband’s first name? Richard. Interviewer: And do you know what his highest rank was? He was a staff sergeant, crew chief. Interviewer: We’ll put them both down because they are both... Voice offscreen: Crew chief is a billet. It’s like an MOS. I apologize. Interviewer: Now you’re getting into really modern terms there. What that does, though, those are two different things that will tell somebody searching a database what to look for so that’s sort of helpful in terms of piecing things together. There were two men from Michigan that left here with him. They didn’t get back together. They didn’t get in the same group. 17:03 Interviewer: And did he see them after the war do you know? �Oh yes. We visited Howard Beagle from Fennville, and he tells about the invasion of France and dropping the paratroopers on and seeing them shot out of the air. He turned white overnight. It was really terrible, and he met his wife in the hospital there where she had, she was nursing. Then they came back to her hometown in Louisiana, and we visited them. We’d go down to Texas to see my folks and swing by Louisiana. Interviewer: Do you have other memories of those war years or things that stick in your mind out of that period just about what life was like or what your husband was doing? 18:03 The anxiety and just trusting him to God when he was in danger, and not knowing what danger he was in. So you didn’t dwell on it. I got by pretty well that way. Interviewer: Aside from when he was doing the hurricane hunting were there other periods or phases in his service where you were, you felt like he was in danger or he acted that way? Yes, well swinging on a rope over the Ouachita River. Interviewer: Well, all right. No they had to be children for a while when there was that much tension. Interviewer: But was the rest of his duty particularly dangerous? Or were there a lot of accidents on these bases? Did people crash the planes or other things like that? Probably there were things, a lot of things that I didn’t hear about. 19:02 Interviewer: When he’d come home or wherever at night from his days of training and flying, did he talk about what he was doing or did he just talk about other things? �Oh, he was a communicator and he talked all the time, but I don’t remember his telling about the…he was so shaken up about those five that he lost around him but that’s the only thing that really stuck in my mind. Interviewer: All right, then. I think that pretty well covers the basic set of things for us. I’ll just quickly go here to see. What do you say when they’re drafted and then they’re delayed? His actually going in was delayed? 20:04 Interviewer: It’s called “deferred.” Because they let him and Howard Beagle stay home and get the harvest in that year because the farmers were in such need of help. I guess that’s all I had. Interviewer: Thank you very 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 Crane, Kolleen (Interview transcript and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Crane, Kolleen Description An account of the resource Kolleen Crane is the widow of WW II veteran Richard Crane. In the interview she tells of being a telephone operator when Pearl Harbor was attacked. She met her husband at Midland (TX) Air Force base, where he served as a B-24 crew chief, responsible for maintaining the air craft. He was sent to school at Washtenaw College as part of the Officer Training program. After leaving Washtenaw they went to Massachusetts, then to South Carolina where they spent the rest of his enlistment. 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 Army spouses Military spouses Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Video recordings 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 2007-05-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CraneK 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/e29d4de22335a63e613e31262256c8a2.mp4 0cac149c94c4ebfed62cd294f09e57a4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/45512b256a3fcfc4420c29417f15aa65.pdf bd3735181e468a98334912ecc8da4243 PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW TONY COX Born: Indianapolis, Indiana Resides: Indianapolis Interviewed by: Mike McGregor, GVSU Veterans History Project, Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, January 8, 2013 Interviewer: Tony, to get started I just want to get a little background information. When and where were you born? In Indianapolis, Indiana Interviewer: And when were you born? August the 31st of 1949 Interviewer: Did you grow up in Indianapolis? Yes I did, I’ve lived my whole life here. Interviewer: You attended high school? Yes Interviewer: Tell me about growing up in Indianapolis? How would you describe your childhood? It was typical Midwest, you know, as far as growing up and stuff. I just went to high school and after high school it was the thing to get a job and have a good time. Of course there was always the draft and the Vietnam War was always on our minds and stuff. 1:00 We use to kid each other about that about maybe being cannon fodder or something because you knew you were going to get drafted or whatever. That was basically it, just a typical young man growing up. Trying to chase after the women and wasn’t too successful at that, by the way. You know, just having fun. 1 �Interviewer: What did your parents do? My father worked and my mother, she stayed at home. There were six of us in the family. Interviewer: What did your dad do? He was a—he worked for the Linkbelt Manufacturing Company here on the south side of Indianapolis. He was a chain assembler and he worked pretty hard all his life. We made do, we didn’t have a lot of things, as far as stuff, but as far as quality of life, when I look back, it was pretty good. Interviewer: So, when you graduated from high school you said you got a job? 2:00 I got a job and I started working, probably, right after my birthday in 1967 when I turned eighteen, I was able to get a full time job. That’s basically what I did. I got a job with benefits, you know, so I could move out of the house and get my own set of wheels, start partying and have a good time. A single man’s dream, you know, that was basically it. Interviewer: At that time were you following the events in Vietnam? Well, yes up to a point because I had a brother who served in Vietnam, and he was two years older than me, two years older than me, Tom, and he served in Vietnam too. He served with the engineer brigade over there. He was over there about two years prior to me. Interviewer: Was he drafted? Yes, he was drafted. Interviewer: So, you were kind of concerned about the draft, and did you get your draft notice then? 2 �Yes, and I got my draft notice and then that’s when all of a sudden I said, ―Well, I better do something about this, what can I do?‖ So, of course, it was pretty late then, so I called—made a few calls about getting in the National Guard, the Reserves, and all that, but they were all full. 3:14 They were full way before then, so I thought, ―Huh, my brother was drafted and he went, so I can do the same thing.‖ So, for some reason I found out that the Marines were drafting and I didn’t want to be drafted by the Marines. I was nineteen years old and I just didn’t want to be a Marine, so I don’t know, I talked to a recruiter and he said, ―You can sign up for two years‖, so I enlisted for two years. It was something they had going on at that time, because most times, when you signed up, you had to go for three years. Interviewer: When did you enlist then? 4:00 The same day I would have been drafted, May 7th of 1969. Interviewer: And you reported to basic training then? Basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky and I had taken—of course, when you enlist you take the battery—you take these tests and talking with the recruiter, ―Oh you’d do real well on all these tests‖, and I did. He said, ―Oh, you can do any job in the army. You qualify for about any job in the army‖, so I said, ―Okay‖, but it was still two years. Like I said, I went to Fort Knox and then basic training. Interviewer: At Fort Knox you went through the reception center? The reception center, yes, of course, first. Interviewer: Did they assign you your MOS at that point? No, you didn’t learn your MOS until, probably, gee, I would say maybe two weeks. When you first got your orders, I don’t think you knew until you got your orders. 5:03 3 �Interviewer: Really? Yeah, if I’m not mistaken Interviewer: I went through basic in 1966 and in the reception center and off the bus, they stopped you dead and told you what you were going to do. I don’t—you know, you could be right, it’s been a while. Interviewer: You were three years after me. Yeah, and I want to say that it wasn’t until later, you know, later on in your training that you got your orders. You know, when you got your orders and you were in a particular fort, you would know what your MOS was. You didn’t have to have anybody tell you. Interviewer: AIT at Fort Polk Yes sir, you go, ―Oh, Oh, is this North Fort or South Fort?‖ ―It’s South Fort.‖ ―Oh, okay‖ Interviewer: So, at the end of basic you got your orders? I got my orders. Interviewer: For AIT? For AIT, and it was Light Weapons Infantry, 11 Bravo, at Fort Polk, Louisiana, which they called ―Little Vietnam‖, and also, ―The armpit of the United States Army‖. 6:11 But, anyway I went there and went for my training and, of course you know, I wasn’t too happy with the situation, and thought, ―Gee, how did I end up in this?‖ I know how I did now, but that’s water under the bridge. So, I went through training and while I was in training, or after my AIT, they told me I was staying for an extra two weeks. I was going to a leadership preparation course down there at Fort Polk, so I stayed two weeks for that. Then they said, ―Now, you’re going to the NCO school, NCOIC School in Fort Banning, 4 �Georgia‖. 7:01 I said, ―Okay, I’m not going to Vietnam yet, I’ll go to that too‖. So, I went down to Fort Benning then, from September or early October through, probably, March of 1970 down there. Let me go back. I spent twelve weeks at Fort Banning, Georgia training. After that we went to an AIT unit back at fort Polk. So, that’s basically what I did and what my training consisted of. I look back on that training I got through the NCO school and it was pretty good. They trained you how they were fighting over in Vietnam. 8:01 I think by this time I had resigned myself to the fact that, you know, I was going to be in the infantry and I was going to go over there, so I thought, ―Well, I can get this extra training, so let’s go ahead and get it and maybe put it to good use and help me survive‖. Interviewer: So, you had, basically, your two month infantry AIT at Fort Polk, and then you went to Fort Benning and did the, we use to call it, “shake and bake” ? Yes, ―shake and bake‖, yeah, I went there Interviewer: You did that and then how did that training—you said it was more enhanced than the training you had at Fort Polk? Well yeah, when you went through AIT that was like—it was more—well, at Fort Polk they did get into some of the—let’s go back. Fort Knox was conventional warfare. You know your teams and your squads and everything, you know, and then when you got into AIT, at Fort Polk, they got more into the jungle warfare, you know, and stuff. 9:06 then it was even more advanced in the NCO School. So, we went through a lot of training there. We were out there in the field a lot at NCO School. Interviewer: Did you do a lot of land navigation and that kind of thing? 5 �Oh yeah, all that, which I enjoyed, I enjoyed land navigation, you know, and stuff, and I probably did pretty good. I was never lost, even in Vietnam, disorientated, maybe, but never lost. So, I did that and went back to Fort Polk. Interviewer: When you graduated from NCO School were you promoted to and E5? Yes, to an E5—when you went to the NCO School you were promoted to an E4, and then after you graduate you were promoted to either an E5 or E6 depending on how well you did overall. I was promoted to an E5. 10:02 Interviewer: Then back to Fort Polk as a training unit? Yes, a training unit, and I did that for eight or nine weeks, I think. One cycle, and then from there you got your orders for Vietnam and also you—I don’t—I think I might have got a thirty day break, maybe, I’m trying to remember. Interviewer: Was that the first break you had in training? Yes Interviewer: So, you went to basic, AIT, NCO School and then you got a leave? Then I got a leave, yeah, thirty days a year is what I think Interviewer: You were in almost a half a year then before you got a leave? Yes—well, we use to get in training, when I was at Fort Knox, I was only a hundred and fifty miles from home and I got one week-end pass and that was it. 11:00 then when I got down to Fort Polk, you know the training was more intense and it was hot, very hot and if you didn’t mess up, you know, I remember the drill sergeant was pretty good. He was tough on you, but he was good too, and you ended up getting a lot of passes, but there was no place to go. I think one time I went to, I think it was Lake Charles, 6 �Louisiana. I took a bus and went down to Lake Charles, maybe spend the night and come back the next day. Interviewer: Just to get away? Yes, just to get away, and there were other places to go too, but we won’t get into that. Anyway, that’s basically what I did when I was stationed down there and then when I went through the NCO School I went home---wait a minute, let me back off—I know what it was, I went to Fort Benning and then Christmas time came around—wait a minute—I did have my car down there, so maybe I did get a leave between AIT and going and reporting to Fort Benning because I did have a car. 12:10 I went and got my car and brought it down there with me. Really the first time on my own, well, a couple times I’ve gone somewhere like a road trip. A buddy of mine, his car broke down and I said, ―I’m never going on a trip with him again‖. One lesson I learned is to have the car prepared for a road trip. Yeah, then I came home for Christmas, so I had a leave then, and after Christmas and New Year’s, I think two weeks probably, we went back for training after that. Interviewer: When I think back It’s pretty customary that training commands shut down at Christmas time, I think two weeks Interviewer: Two weeks or ten days, something like that. So, that’s what we probably had. Interviewer: So, now you got orders for Vietnam at Polk, and you’re a cadre in AIT unit. Did they have any other special training for you at Polk before you left? 13:08 7 �There was training available to me. I didn’t go through it, like Ranger training, jump school, and I thought, ―Nah, that’s okay‖. Interviewer: Was there any more Vietnam appropriate training/ Well, the whole thing was orientated towards the Vietnam War. Interviewer: What I mean is, once you got your orders is there anything that you had to go through? Like in my case when we got orders to Vietnam we had the whole nine yards of, you know, we had ambush procedures and making out a will, and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, we had to do stuff like that, but we didn’t have those procedures. I think basically, if I remember correctly, we just went home on leave and then reported to the Oakland Army Terminal. Interviewer: You reported to Oakland, California, and how long were you in Oakland then? 14:04 Two days—I got there and I said, ―I want to see San Francisco‖. I’d heard about San Francisco, the scene there and I wanted to see some of it, and I did. Interviewer: In Oakland did they tell you when you were going to ship out? Did they still make you do the four or five formations a day? We did the four or five formations a day if I remember correctly and yeah, I had that. Interviewer: Did they call off people’s names? Yeah, it basically worked like that, yeah. Interviewer: So, you’re in Oakland and they call your name and did you shop out of Travis Air Force Base? Yeah, I guess it would be there by Oakland. From there we flew to Alaska. 8 �Interviewer: Did you fly commercial or on a military flight? It was a charter flight. Interviewer: A charter flight. 15:03 We flew from there to Alaska, and if I’m not mistaken, we flew from Alaska all the way—is that possible? To Japan and from Japan to Vietnam--I never really thought about it. Interviewer: That’s probably the—I left out of Oakland and Travis and we went from California to Hawaii to Japan to Vietnam. I remember going through Alaska, I do remember that because I remember landing there in Anchorage. I guess it was the sunset and there was snow on the mountains, and this is April, April of 1970. It was beautiful, and I never saw those mountains before and to this day I remember saying, ―Wow, this is beautiful‖, and it was, it was awesome, it was almost kind of eerie because there is all this red coming at you, you know. But I do remember that and then we went to Japan and we had a little break there for a while like we did in Alaska. 16:04 I don’t remember a lot of that, you know, and stuff, and then we went to Vietnam. Interviewer: Where did you land in country then, near Saigon? Yes, Hoa Bien I think it was Hoa Bien [Bien Hoa]. I remember flying over the countryside and seeing the bomb craters and stuff like that and thinking, ―Oh my gosh, oh, oh‖, so we landed. I remember them taking us out of the plane and kind of hustling us along and getting us on these buses, school buses, which maybe some type of what do you call it around the windows? Interviewer: Fencing or screening or something like that? 9 �Yeah, and the bus took us to the what do you call it where you check in there at the replacement--17:01 Interviewer: Replacement Depot. I spent some time there and it didn’t seem like it was very long. Interviewer: Now to back track, when you got your orders were you just ordered to that replacement unit or did you have an idea where you were going to be assigned to? No, no, I did not know where I was going to be assigned to. I remember that real well because when I was over there the replacement company—we heard rumors about what was going on and, of course, there were men who were coming back from the bush who would tell you. I remember two specifically, it was the 1st Cav, and about the 101st and they said, ―You don’t want to go to the 101st because they’re getting their ass kicked. Nor do you want to go to the 1st Cav because they’re getting their ass kicked‖. I’m thinking to myself, ―I’m going to either one of those‖. Okay, if I may back track just a little bit. 18:02 On the way over to Vietnam, the men I had been with through all this training, a lot of them I went over to Vietnam with, we all went over there together. So, different people, a couple of names I remember is Dan Davis, he was from Illinois, and Darrell Dickey who was from Kansas, because we did a lot of our training together, which might have included AIT and the NCO School, and then going to the training unit back at Fort Polk, so we knew each other and stuff. Those two went to the 1st Cav and I went to the 101st. Interviewer: At the replacement depot then they just called your name out and said where you were going to go? 10 �It was just like in Oakland, you just get in line formation again, or something like that, if I remember, and they would call your name out. 19:01 That’s when you got your orders and they said, ―Okay, you got to go here‖. You jump on some mode of transportation and you go to the airfield and probably got on a C130 and went up there. Interviewer: To backtrack just a little bit. In Oakland did they give you your jungle fatigues and that kind of thing, or did you travel in Khakis and have to draw them when you got in country? I want to say we got them in country. That’s a good point, but I want to say in country is when we got them. Interviewer: So from the, was it the 90th Replacement Depot in Saigon? I’m not sure. Ok, the 101st, so they trooped you over to an airport and you got on a plane and where did you go? 20:00 We ended up at Camp Eagle and then we went into the replacement company there. We went into what they called SERTS and there they would give you some training. Interviewer: What kind of training would they give you there? Oh, they would just like review and go over your training. Zero your weapon, and they would take you out and zero your weapon in as best you could, and some refresher courses in what we were trained to do, and everyone went through this. Interviewer: This was at Camp Eagle? Yes, this was at Camp Eagle. Interviewer: This was the division’s base camp? That was their main base camp, that’s right and that was the headquarters for the 101st, right. 11 �Interviewer: How long did that training last? I don’t know, some people say a week, I don’t know, it flew by. Interviewer: So, you zeroed your weapon and they warranted you to the country to get use to the heat and humidity? 21:04 I don’t know, maybe back up a minute—as far as zeroing, maybe I’m getting that mixed up. When you zeroed your weapon it was after you got to your unit. That makes sense, right? You get your weapon after you get to your company area. That’s when they assign you to the supply room, and I’m probably getting mixed up with that. But, I think we went through some refresher training and stuff like that, probably, except for that part of it. After I left SERTS I went up to my unit and got in my unit and then--Interviewer: Then you were assigned and you went up to Delta Company to the 506? [D/1/506} Yes Interviewer: Now, at that point, the 101st wasn’t—I know airborne is in your name, but you didn’t have to be a jumper? No, they were air mobile at this time. They quit jumping, I guess, in 1968. It didn’t work out too well for them, so they added this Air Mobile and, in fact, when you would sign your address you would put 101st Airborne Division (Air Mobile) in parenthesis. 22:05 Today it’s known as the 101st Airborne Air Assault, and we were the fore runner of the air assault. Interviewer: So, now you’re assigned to your company, where was the company at? The company was out in the jungle and the company had really been through some hard times. They had just had a platoon virtually wiped out. They had been under a lot of 12 �heavy contact on an abandoned firebase, and I’m going to say a couple of days later I was sent out there to the bush. I want to say, I went out there with this one guy names James Fowler. I always say we went out into the bush together and he disagrees with me. Anyway, we go out there together and I’m thinking, ―Oh my gosh, what have I gotten into?‖ Interviewer: Now, you went out on a regular logbird or whatever? 23:03 On a longbird, yes, went out there on the logbird and got off at the helicopter LZ and I thought, ―Oh my goodness, look at all this, trees blown away‖, and, of course, you see all the craters and everything, and bald tops of mountains that were once maybe firebases. Beautiful country by the way, I really thought it was great. We go out there and I thought, ―Oh, my gosh‖. I met the company commander, he was there. They took us back and we got off the bird and then they went and they took in who met us and we met the company commander, his name was Don Workman, his call sign was ―Ranger’ at the time, so everyone called him ―Ranger’. If I remember correctly he said something like ―Do you know how to hunt?‖ I go, ―Yeah, I’ve done some hunting and stuff‖, and he goes, ―Basically, all you’re doing is you’re hunting‖. 24:02 I said, ―Well, okay‖, and I remember Kish because he didn’t come out there. They had been on a rec, and they had come out and were talking about the reconnaissance patrol they had been on and overhearing some of that, and then I was assigned to what was left of my platoon and there were about five guys left. They were the ones who had taken the—maybe a couple of days earlier had been in that one battle for their lives. I remember Gibb and Dean, John, Ernie Banks, machine gunner, and a couple more and that was about it. 25:03 So, I became--what happened what was left of the 2nd platoon became an extra squad of the 13 �third. The 101st operated three platoons, two squads per platoon, so with what happened with the second platoon they made an extra squad in the third platoon. We had an extra squad until we got new recruits in, which I was one. Interviewer: Were you joined as a squad leader? No, they had a squad leader. Gib Rossiter was an E5 and he was the squad leader at that time. So, I joined them and Merle Dean Finch was given the assignment of showing me the ropes, you know and stuff, you know. 26:00 So from that day on, and there was a lot of enemy activity in that area, so it wasn’t long before we were in fire fights or contact with the enemy, light contact that happened before to them, and these guys, I remember them being real serious because of what they had been through and survived that battle and stuff, they were hardened, which is understandable. Great guys, great guys, I know them well now and they are good friends. Interviewer: Were you received well at initially or did you have to— Reserved reservations, with reservations Interviewer: You had to pay your dues first? Well of course, of course, you know and stuff, and then—so, we’re going on these missions, you know, setting up ambushes and stuff like that going on, and every once in a while making contact. 27:00 Going about the day to day business of being infantrymen out in the boonies and stuff like that and we stayed out in the bush a long time. Interviewer: Now, you’re in I Corps, were you in the heavy, heavy stuff like the hills? Yeah, in the mountains, and at that time we were off what they called Moraine ridgeline and we were just working that ridgeline and there was a lot of enemy activity in the way. 14 �There were just things off and on that would happen, and some of it I’ve forgotten. I remember one time they were calling in Napalm and it almost landed on us, you know and stuff. Things like that and they were bringing new men in. 28:00 We were constantly getting new men in. Some were with us and some of them might have been a replacement for 3rd platoon, because they suffered some casualties. They got ambushed trying to go to the aid of the 2nd platoon. They suffered casualties and 1st platoon suffered casualties, but I would say probably the majority were coming to 2nd platoon. I think Merle DeLaGrange came in at that time and Merle and I have remained friends throughout that time. Like I said, we were just humping the boonies getting fire—search and destroy missions, firefights, call in support, mostly artillery, gunships, airstrikes, a pretty hot area. Interviewer: With the fights, your contact then, would you consider it major or minor? It was minor, but it was very intense, you know. 29:05 Interviewer: That’s what happens, and was anything pitched at that point? No, not at that time, it was we’d just get in these firefights and we’d just learn, you know, I’d just follow along trying to learn—―Shoot‖, ―oh, okay‖, you know. At that time, that’s what we would do, just try, you know. Interviewer: I would like to get on record basically what you carried. What was your basic load? I carried an M16 with three ammo belts, 7 clips per belt, so about twenty one magazines. In those magazines, we never loaded them up to twenty. We put maybe sixteen, seventeen rounds to keep them from jamming, right? 30:02 15 �Interviewer: Right I learned that and I was taught that, and was kind of told, ―You don’t need this and you don’t need to carry that‖, and stuff like that, because it was kicking my ass carrying that rucksack, because you carried your house with you. You carried you C rations with you, your water, very important water, very hot. Interviewer: How many canteens did you carry? I would say, at least, maybe five, maybe six, and some of these canteens were like bladders and they would hold more, but they were more apt to leak on you too. You think you got this, and they would hold, maybe two quarts, ―Oh boy, I got this water left‖, and the next thing you know it’s all wet and it’s leaked and you’re without water. I tried to keep the old style plastic canteens and stuff, you know, and we’d just go on the missions and stuff. 31:04 We would stay out in the bush a long time. Interviewer: Now, were you required to hump some extra ammo for the machine guns? No, I wasn’t, I carried just what I was supposed to. I might have at some time, but I’ve just forgotten you know, and stuff. Your claymores and frags, lots of frags, and I just made a base like the light infantrymen and tried to learn the ropes as best I could. Interviewer: Would you keep most of your frags in the tubes or would you have them out? I think we had them out, because you had to understand where we were at was very active with enemy activity. I never really saw that many, of course, being new and fortunately we had a good point man and slack man and stuff, you know, that kind of helped you out there. 32:02 Like I said, I’m just learning the ropes. I’m kind of like, 16 �―OH, what was that noise?‖ Someone would say, ―You dumb ass, get down‖, you know. They’re shouting and that’s the nice words they were saying, anyway that’s it basically. Interviewer: How much did your equipment weigh, everything that you had to hump that you had? A bunch, it was never weighed, but I know it was a bunch because you—the thing that it is with the 101st is when you would go, your missions—I know some divisions would go out on missions anywhere from three to five days and they would come back, maybe to base camp, I know that’s how some of them worked, and I don’t know how you guys worked with the 1st Cav, but when we went out on a mission, our missions lasted anywhere, I would say, from forty-five to sixty days, a long time. The only reason the mission might be aborted, or anything, is heavy contact and lots of casualties, or something like that. 33:09 Otherwise we stayed out there and there was a reason we stayed out there, there was a reason they kept us out there. It was because there was a drug problem back at Camp Evans, and from what I’ve read in the book ―Hell on the Hilltop‖ by General Harrison, I think there’s a passage in there that states—that talks about that, about leaving us out there that long to keep us away from the drugs and stuff. There was some violence back there too, I understand, so I never spent much time at Camp Evans. Interviewer: Was there any drug use out in the field? No, we wouldn’t allow it. It was not allowed and if somebody—I know it’s been seen that later on in the years of 1969 and 1970 guys blowing through a shotgun and inhaling it, no that was not allowed, never. 34:06 The area was too hot and there was a major buildup by the NVA there. They were getting ready for the big push there, and of course, 17 �with what happened with the focusing all their attention on that far support base Ripcord, they did not want it open. The A Shau Valley was their base camp and they did not want any Americans in that and, of course, all the things going on in the war too, you know. There were troops coming home, Camp Sunrest at home and the protest, Kent State happened, I think when I was over there. Didn’t that happen in 1970? Interviewer: I’m not sure when it happened. It might have happened around that time. Yeah, I think it did, so you know, it was very volatile back then, as far as the protest. 35:05 So, basically it focused on the protest back home, you know, and stuff, and of course we were sad to hear about the loss of people on the campus and stuff, and everybody gets the National Guardsmen, or something, some of these guys that just got back from Vietnam or something, so they claim. I really haven’t checked that out and stuff like that. You know, some of the veterans who were in the National Guard or still on active duty. Maybe not National Guard, but an active duty unit, but that’s basically what we did, it all came down to survival and looking after your buddy. Interviewer: It was tough, we went there in 1968. 36:00 Yeah, and it’s still tough, and it was tough in 1969 from what I understand too, you know, with Hamburger Hill and all that stuff too. Interviewer: So, you’re basically out on extended operations? Yes, search and destroy missions, you know, and that’s basically all we did. What do they call it, ―moments of boredom followed by sheer moments of terror‖, and that was basically it, you know. 18 �Interviewer: On the whole, I mean if you can quantify it, how many men did you have in your company at any one time?  The most that I can remember was in the eighties, and that’s after—we had suffered a lot of casualties after I’d first gotten over there, so what the battalion did—okay, everyone had an AO, area of operation and that usually involved a firebase. 37:10 The 2nd Battalion of the 506 had Ripcord firebase, the 1st Battalion of the 506 had the Kathryn, Firebase Kathryn, and you would work the area around there that the guns could cover. They would always bring, of course they had to bring the guns out to the jungle because they’re not going to shoot from the lowlands, they can’t do that, so that’s basically how we worked. It happened at that one time, as far as Ripcord is concerned, the NVA decided they don’t want Ripcord there, it’s on the edge of the A Shau and we don’t want anybody. We don’t want American troops, and of course they’re trying to kill off American troops too to put even more pressure on the administration to get them out of there. 38:00 The more they can kill the better off it is, you know. Like when the 1st Cav went into Cambodia, that took a lot of the spotlight, if you want to call it, away from us and all of it was focused on the 1st Cav. Up with us was a major thing too because we went into their sanctuary, it’s their base camp, the A Shau. I remember one time, I was told by a company commander of another company that we were basically—we were set down in there childlike, that’s what he said to me, because of where we landed at, we were in the A Shau Valley in those two days, July of 1970. 19 �Interviewer: During that time I don’t believe there was any other American division up that way. 39:01 No, the 101st took over for--I think it was the 5th Mech was attached to that. Interviewer: The Marines had left and the 5th Mech was running around the coast over there. Right, down by there and the 101st was stretched thin and I think at one time the Ripcord operation involved about four hundred troops against many thousand NVA, I learned later in life. They’re trying against the 101st and they had to have that spring offensive in 1970, you know. To be honest with you, I thought, well you know, they’re pulling troops out, I had been over there, so I’m twenty years old and what the hell do I know and I’m thinking, ―Well, it might not be too bad‖, we were talking to a friend before I went over to Vietnam, talking to a couple of my buddies, and stuff, that I grew up with, ―Maybe when you get over there it won’t be so bad‖. 40:01 I get over there and I get with the 101st and they’re trying to—and they have a major offensive in A Shau and it’s not working because the NVA did not want us in there, so there was a lot of stuff going on, and these offensives always started in the springtime, you know. Interviewer: Because of rain Because of rain you’re socked in the mountains and you’re not coming in. Basically their monsoon season was during our winter season and they’re monsooned and it happened, so they could—but they were out there all year. We were back in the lowlands, the first ridgeline, maybe and stuff like that, and they’re back up in there doing a lot of work. They’re working every day, I understand. It slowed down maybe. 20 �Interviewer: Just to put it in perspective, when we went to A Shau we went with two brigades, plus there was a Marine regiment and an ARVN group that was coming up from the south. 41:03 I can’t believe it, and two years later they fortified it a lot more than they had and you know how that Ripcord thing went. Now you’ve been in the field for a while, did you then become a squad leader? Yeah, eventually I became a squad leader. I remember being on firebase Kathryn and we had to build up the firebase defenses. I remember being down there, I remember being in charge of the detail that was spreading the concertina around, you know and stuff like that, fortified positions and stuff like that. We did that for about three weeks and as we were doing that, we were also getting new men, ―Cherries‖, as they were called; they were coming in and everything. We were—you take by late June we were basically a new unit. 42:09 We had, I think, maybe eighty, eighty-five people total you know. Interviewer: What was your TOE strength, A hundred and fifty or so? Yeah, so—and the squads—two squads per platoon, plus the CP, so that’s basically how it broke down with the three platoons and everything, and at that time we were thinking, ―We’re getting a lot of guys‖, but later you learn we’re still only at half strength, and that’s all they were committing to them. Interviewer: How did you feel, obviously having new people coming in, but also the rotation policy? 43:01 People leaving after a year, people going back on R&R, coming back, people trying to pull various scams to get out of the field for a little while, how did you feel that affected your, if you will, combat effectiveness? It’s something that was and it affected it a lot. You know, you build up—when you’re working together you build cohesions and everything and that was lost. You know, you 21 �take me coming in as a new guy, and everything, and some of the people who were there, who learned all the experience and everything, all of a sudden they leave. That happened with me. I built up experience, I had survived, I built up this experience and the next thing, I’m going, you know, but at that time things had kind of quieted down. 44:00 They had that one major offensive when the Vietnamese, South Vietnamese, you know, were part of that major offensive, but we were in a secondary position. We were basically in a defensive mode then. Yeah, sure, I can look back now and say, ―Yeah, sure‖, and it’s kind of easy to look back as a fifty or sixty year old man just look at the actions of a twenty or twenty-five year old, maybe even a forty year old and say, ‖Whew, that wasn’t very smart, you know‖. It would be nice, but I don’t get into that, we were what we were and we did the best we could. I know from my perspective I tried to do the best that I could against some overwhelming odd, you know. When I got into a position of leadership, well the thing you wanted to do, you didn’t want to see anybody die, they did, but I can look back and say, ―Well, I tried to do my best. I didn’t want to get anybody killed‖. 45:05 Interviewer: Now you were wounded, would you care to address those circumstances? Okay, after we had been on Firebase Kathryn, which we were up to relative strength, and they sent us to the rear. At this time, the 2nd of the 506 Interviewer: The rear being? Camp Evans, I think we were sent to the rear there, and then at this time we were sent to the rear, we were pulled off of Kathryn and we went back and we had a cookout, and all that stuff, and all of a sudden we found out we were going to be going on a mission. I 22 �remember Captain Workman, Don Workman, was real serious about this being some bad stuff we were going to get into. 46:00 You know, you’re supposed to go around and double check and make sure everyone had everything they needed and worked, and everybody was in pretty good shape and all this stuff, yeah, because we knew we were going to hit it. We didn’t know how or why, because at the time, the military didn’t really let you know a whole lot, just enough that they thought you needed to know. And it might have been that if they let everybody know the truth, a lot of them might not have went, which is possible. So, we were—basically what happened was the 2nd of the 506, I told you they were AO, they worked around this Firebase Ripcord, and I told you the NVA did not like that firebase being there, put in simple terms from me. Anyway, then what happened is they were just suffering a lot of casualties. 47:04 All three or four companies and the recon, they had sustained a lot of casualties, so what it was, was they needed the battalion commander, Lucas was his name, he needed more people, he needed more soldiers. So, during this time, it happened before us, along some of these units, the 501st, the 502, there were many opconed to the 506 command, the 2nd of the 506 command, and we were one of them. This was towards the end and it was really heating up, and getting pretty hot. 48:01 A lot of casualties, everybody had suffered a lot of casualties. We were told, and this is what ended up, we ended up going to report AO and they had like Triple Hill, Hill 902, Hill 805, 1000, and these were really some hot sports, and then what it was, where they put ripcord was not the most ideal area. The 1st Cav had used it as a firebase I think too, but it wasn’t-Interviewer: I’m not sure of that. [it had been a Marine base] 23 �I had heard that it had been, so anyway, what ended up is we got sent out to their AO. We flew out to the Triple Hill area, and I don’t remember any contact, or it was light contact. 49:00 I remember seeing a lot of bandages. A lot of people had been wounded around the LZ. We stayed there, maybe, a day and then from there we combat assaulted into an area south and east of hill 805. What we were supposed to do, I think it was in the joint operation of another company, I think it was Alpha 2nd of 506, and we were supposed to have a joint operation going up the ridgeline back up to hill 805 on search and destroy missions looking for intelligence, anything. They went up one side of it and we went up the other. Well, needless to say, when we landed at the LZ, on the 20th of July, after about the second or third bird we started getting hot LZ or maybe it was after the second or first bird, it was a hot LZ. 50:12 So, we got in there and tried to get everybody together and make sure no one was going to do badly and I don’t think anyone was at that point. I remember, with my platoon, setting up a defensive perimeter around the LZ, I think. I’m trying to remember like if we came in at twelve o’clock when the birds came into the LZ. I think maybe at three o’clock was a ridgeline up to a knoll and I think maybe 2nd platoon and maybe 3rd platoon were all secure in that area and in the nine o’clock position on the other side of the LZ, 1st platoon was securing that area. 51:04 This is where I get kind of mixed up. I haven’t read the book in a while, the Ripcord book, or anything, but I do know that’s when we started getting in firefights and we had to clear that saddle, I guess, we had to clear that saddle to that knoll. But, in the meantime 1st platoon was running riffs off, recons, off the other side and they made contact and heavy contact. They didn’t really know it at the time, but they suffered four killed in action on that day. So, we went up, the other platoons went up close to the knoll 24 �and set up a NDP site and then some of them had to go back down and try to rescue those casualties from 1st platoon. 52:09 I can’t really say a lot about 1st platoon because I wasn’t in it in that spot there. You get some guys from 1st platoon, and I don’t know if there is anybody here, but they could say a lot about that, and they’ve got a lot to say too. One of the guys couldn’t make it. But anyway, we secured that area from the knoll down to the LZ, then on the hot spot basically we were where 1st platoon was. We were trying to get the men from 1st platoon, trying to recover them and we were pinned down by fire. We couldn’t go anywhere, we were pinned down. Of course by this time the choppers had left and everything, so you couldn’t cross that LZ, you were going to get shot up, you know. A lot of incoming, 51 caliber—they had some pretty big stuff in that area. 53:05 They had been waiting and you could tell they were really prepared. So, what happened, we couldn’t get to them, down to them. Some of them made it back, but we couldn’t get to them, we just couldn’t get it, so everybody regrouped on that knoll that evening. We were up there on that knoll, some of us had dug fighting positions, but it was rock and we did what we could, so we set up on this knoll, what was left of the company and, of course put LP’s out and stuff like that. We were probed during the night, and then I remember the next day, the next morning, all of a sudden you heard that. 54:06 We were getting prepared to move out and move back down to the LZ, and then all of a sudden you hear ―thump‖, ―thump‖, and you kind of like, ―What’s this? Is this coming from—it could be from Ripcord‖, because we weren’t far from the firebase itself. ―Thump’, continuously, I guess and the next thing you know we’re taking incoming at our NDP site, and we suffered a lot of casualties there. A lot of wounded, they may have killed three or four in that area. We had to try to get back down to the LZ, so we had to 25 �hurry up and get our equipment, and I mean this is in a short period of time. We had guys dying, we tried to help them stop the bleeding, and stuff, in fact, I carried Doc Heyges down to the LZ, to get a medevac and stuff. 55:08 We had to set up a perimeter down there and set up out positions down there, secure the LZ, while we’re getting-Interviewer: Were you still under fire? Yes, that whole—from the knoll through to the LZ, I think they said, I read it in the book, that we took eighty rounds, someone counted eighty mortar rounds hitting our NDP site, so, of course, a lot of casualties, a lot of guys wounded. So, what we did, and I think that’s when I got it too, so we all made it down to the LZ to secure the area for ourselves and there we were in battles all day. We got gassed, we got rockets and we were in the old saying, ―a world of hurt‖. 56:03 Interviewer: Did they use CS? Yes Interviewer: Did you guys have gas masks? Yeah, I don’t know where mine was though, in all the confusion that was going on I didn’t know where the hell my rucksack was at. I just knew I had my ammo, and my frags, you know, I had that with me. Interviewer: Did you have your weapon? Yes, yes, of course the weapon, the weapon was very important, and we went back down, like I said, and tried to secure the area and we got into a battle. We were in a day long battle with them and gradually taking casualties because were getting incoming and we’re still getting more. Interviewer: At this point you were wounded right? 26 �Yes, I got shrapnel in the back and those that were more seriously wounded, we got them out. We got them out and I stayed back there and I asked somebody if they could—my back was burning, I knew that. 57:05 But, with the intensity of the battle you just kind of, you know, forget about the adrenalin, and stuff. Interviewer: Right Sometimes there would be a pause, you know and kind of go, ―Oh, what is this?‖ I remember it happening up there, but you had to get out of there and stuff, and like I said, sometimes there’s kind of a lull and it stopped me, maybe. But I continued to stay out there and all the men got medevaced out and we just stayed there a tried to maintain our position the best that we could, in a defensive position. Then it got really bad and gradually we were getting more casualties and everything, and the medevacs were super, my hats off to those guys for what they do. 58:00 then what happened—I remember going on a little reconnaissance patrol taking three or four guys, and we went up trying to get our dead, we left a couple of bodies up there. I think on that first one, we brought some—we found one and couldn’t find the other, so we came back down and we had to go back up. We went back up and got ambushed on the way back up. Now, this is happening over a period of time, and we got ambushed. One of the guys with me was Paul Muir, he was walking point and I was kind of like slack and one time we had two guys behind us and I happened to turn around and they were gone, so here’s Paul and I out there by ourselves on a two man patrol. Interviewer: And you’re wounded. Yes, and Paul’s probably wounded too and maybe the other guys were too, you know. 59:06 I think by the time it was all over there were more wounded than weren’t 27 �wounded. So we went back and ―Well, you’re going to have to go back up‖. There were dead, and that’s one thing, we try to find our dead. Then we kind of got into an argument with our CO because at this time I think our platoon leaders were wounded and I think one of them, Lieutenant Smith was still out there, he was with our platoon, he was still out there, so Captain Workman said, ―Well, you guys ought to go back up there‖, so at this time, me and another guy named George Porchow, and a couple other guys, went back up there and got—I had to walk point this time and we went back up there. 00:11 We went back up there to see what equipment, bodies, if we could, retrieve our dead and so we went back up there and we got—what happened, the enemy, as I’m walking around the NEP site, the enemy’s coming up behind me to my left and I think as the guy— George hollered out and he turned around and he fired him up before he could get me. And at that time we see more coming up over the hill and I fired at them. I don’t know if they went down because I hit them or because they were ducking or something, and the next thing you know everybody’s gone back to the NEP site. I’m, ―Well, wait for me, I’m coming back too‖, and we went back down there, so that’s how it was, and we were just surrounded. We had many, many, NVA surrounding us. 1:06 Interviewer: How, eventually did you get out of there? You’re at this hot LZ and all this firefight and pinned down, how did you get extracted and when? Well, if I may back up some, a little bit. We got to the point where the company commander, Captain Workman, I can remember some conversation of him having and one even to the effect—something was said about we were going to have to take—they didn’t have anybody to come in and help us and we were going to have to stay there. 28 �And by this time we’re running out of ammo, fortunately we had an ammo drop. A lot of guys risked their lives to go out on that LZ because that LZ was zeroed in. 2:00 Interviewer: You had an ammo drop and, obviously, people risked their wellbeing to go out on the LZ. It was dangerous to cross that LZ because it was zeroed in. It was taking incoming mortars, 51 caliber fire, whatever they could throw at us, rockets, we were getting rocketed, in fact, they came to a time after being there for such a period of time that you kind of got an ear for it, if I may say. 3:06 You could kind of tell, at least I could, I could kind of tell when they were close, you know, after having all this incoming. I remember him telling us that we were going to have to spend the night, he didn’t know if we would make it through the night, there was a lot of enemy in the area, in the thousands, and we were going to have to spend the night there and it might get down to ―every man for himself’. I can remember having conversations with people about being taken alive. 4:00 Then what happened, evidently the battalion commander of the 2nd of the 506 , Colonel Lucas, Lieutenant Colonel Lucas, decided he was going to bring D Company of the 2nd of the 506 and C Company of the 2nd of the 506, he was going to have them come in and help us, you know, to help us out. So while C Company secured the LZ, I think it was, D Company came in and humped to us from another LZ and that was a hot LZ. So they—I want to make sure I get these events—sometimes I, over the years, trying to forget,--so they came over and I remember them coming in, and they found our--they had contact, but they found our dead and brought them down close to the LZ, which I was grateful for. 5:03 Interviewer: Were these the ones you went out a couple of times trying to retrieve? 29 �Yes, yes, yes, and then they came down and helped us. So, we were going to try to extract everybody from the LZ, and for some reason our company commander—there was a lot more going on and I know I’ve missed a lot of it, but I’m just basing it on what I know from my unit. He decided that we were going to get out and he left some of us back and he got maybe the second or third bird out and what had happened was the bird—the birds were coming in, the first one came loaded up and got out, the second one came in—6:05 Interviewer: Was it just a one ship LZ? Yes, and now I need, okay, I need to back up there again. There already had been a medevac ship shot down, I think it was one, there might have been two shot down already, you know, but oh, okay, what I’m leading to—the process of getting everyone out, he got out, he was going to go out on the third bird, I think it was, and the rest of us were securing the area, plus waiting for our turn. A lot of incoming, alright, and what happened was that bird had come in and he, you’d have to read the book, the chopper that was coming in to land for him was actually crash landing, it was not under power, and we didn’t know that. 7:01 I’ve been in touch with a guy and I can’t remember Larry’s last name, but it was coming in for a crash landing and it had been shot up. He had no place to go and he couldn’t make it back to Camp Evans, he probably couldn’t have made it out of the jungle, so okay, where do you go, back to the LZ. Interviewer: Was this after he picked up some guys and was leaving? Yeah, I think he was like the third bird. One, two had come in and I think in the process what happened when he came in there was kind of like a holdup. I think what happened was when the choppers got ready to take off, they had to come up and reverse and go 30 �back the way they came in and in the process that held him up and some of the others and I guess he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and they really shot him up. 8:03 Alright, so he couldn’t land then, so he said, ―Hey, I’m shot up so I’m going to have to go and try to make it back to Evans‖, well he wasn’t going to, his bird was all fired and everything, so he came back around and unbeknownst to us, he was crash landing, and we thought he was landing. He don’t pick up, so most of the guys who were getting on there, including the company commander, when they see it coming down they go out there to catch the bird and the bird is kind of wobbling coming in, and the next thing you know, I can’t remember what side it landed on, but it landed on and one of the rotors, or a couple of them, broke off and cut our company commander in half. It got him across this way (diagonally). I remember seeing what I thought was, maybe, a rucksack going through the air and it was parts of his body. 9:04 So, needless to say, after that happened I thought, ―Oh my gosh, what more can happen here?‖ I think he was the only one killed there. There might have been a couple of wounded, but I think they all got out, including the guys in the helicopter, the majority. A couple of guys had to, a couple of our guys had to go down there and dig out—someone was pinned underneath the chopper, and a couple of guys went down and got him out from underneath the chopper and brought him back out, and to the relative safety of the three o’clock position on the LZ. Now, we couldn’t use that, there were two helicopters shot down and we could use that LZ. What we had to do was turn around and walk, and this is where it’s all kind of like a blur. 10:08 We had to go to another LZ. There was another LZ to go to, so we had to hump to it and we couldn’t take our dead. There was no way we could take our dead, the company commander of D Company of the 506, said we had to leave him, 31 �we didn’t have enough men. They had casualties D Company of the 2nd, Charlie Company of the 2nd; they were down to half a company, maybe less, you know, maybe thirty guys or forty guys. I always thanked those guys for coming in and helping us out because you know that’s something else when you have to go in there and rescue somebody else when you’re in dire straits yourself, you know. So, we had to hump back to this hilltop, and I want to say it was hill 605 that comes to mind. 11:09 You could get shot up even—that was a hot LZ. We got shot up, we got on the bird and I’m trying to remember who I was with. My buddy Dean was on there and kind of guided me through and helped me out as part of becoming the squad leader. He was on there, and I can’t remember—I remember Dean and I remember getting on the chopper and they finally got us out, and we went back to Camp Evans and landed. I remember guys coming out to greet us and I remember this one in particular, his name was Servanti, he was in my squad. 12:05 Coming out there and he was telling me, ―Tony, I’m really glad you made it out‖ and I said, ―I’m glad you made it out too Craig‖ , so that’s basically how it ended for us. Interviewer: Then what happened to you? You were wounded and did you get medical attention? I went to the 326 Evac, I think it was. I went back there to see what was going on because I still had the back thing and now the pain comes back again, so I went back there and they stitched me up and fixed me up and they said, ―We’re going to put you in for a purple heart back there‖, so I said, ―Okay‖, and at that time it didn’t really mean anything. 13:05 Interviewer: Did you return to duty? 32 �After a couple of weeks, and I can’t remember what all they did, but they were superficial wounds and not like some of the guys who got medevaced out and I never saw again. At that time, that was basically how I remember that, and rebuild the company again. Interviewer: I was going to ask you, because you said when you committed to that action the company was considered at pretty full strength. Pretty good strength Interviewer: You had eighty five guys as opposed to whatever. What was your—do you have any idea what your effective strength was when you were evacuated out of there? Fifteen to twenty maybe not even that. 14:03 I can remember someone saying that— who else was with the 1st Battalion of the 506, saying something about that they had a battalion formation and when they got out there was no one from B Company out there, I do remember that. Like I said, after that it just kind of—I stayed in the rear, the company was regrouping and we ended up going to a firebase. There were a lot of us who probably were wounded like I was, you know and stuff, and probably went back to the company, which wasn’t unusual. I think Dean was injured too, and that was probably his second or third purple heart. Interviewer: Did you stay; medically did you just stay at Evans? 15:01 Yeah, I stayed at Evans, light duty probably, going and having the bandages changed and stuff like that because you had to worry about infection, which was rampant. Interviewer: Any problem with you with infection? No, I seemed to heal pretty well. The only problem with me, I got badly sunburned, I got badly sunburned and my lips were even sunburned. 33 �Interviewer: At Camp Evans? No, at Kathryn, in the jungle, I got really badly sunburned and now I have skin cancer on my face. That’s all I’m treated for, not on the rest of my body, just my face and occasionally on my hands. Then I think, ―What was I wearing then during those times?‖ Jungle fatigues rolled up to about here, your fatigue shirt, right? 16:00 In your face, so I’ve had two battles with skin cancer, but I remember being badly burned on the lips and I think that got infected too. They would bust open and bleed and stuff and then we went to the rear and got some medication for that and everything. I had a constant problem with that and that was just July or the first of August and still I had to go back out in the jungle. They brought in a bunch of new troops, but unfortunately for some of the troops down south whose divisions were going home, guess what? Instead of going home they got transferred to the 101st, and that happened before—that happened even before and it happened even more so after what happened to us in that battle. 17:00 It was something else and you know it’s kind of funny—I know we were in kind of minor skirmishes and stuff like that, but nothing compared to what we went through at that battle of July 19th, that lives with me always, and a lot of the other stuff. I can remember from May to August first or the end of July pretty well, but after that it kind of fades, and I know we— people have told me that we were in battles then after that. After—I had been in the 2nd platoon, and I guess because of the many casualties in the 3rd platoon, I was transferred to the third platoon as a squad leader, and I ended up with the 3rd platoon for the rest of my tour over there. I was still a squad leader. I basically remained a squad leader for the majority of my time and occasional—I think there for two or three weeks I became a platoon leader for the 3rd platoon, you know. 18:10 We still suffered casualties and 34 �stuff, and even in that position it was even more you didn’t want anybody hurt, and you wonder about the futility of it all, all these battles and stuff. Interviewer: What was the morale of the guys? Obviously they know the U.S. is winding down in its commitment and this and that, is that an issue? You know for some it could be bad. I know there’s times it was probably bad for me, but considering what we went through and the psychological effect of that period of time, very volatile for our country, I don’t think it was that bad. 19:02 It could have been better, sure, sure it could have, but at that time all you did was try to, because you didn’t know in war, in battle, it’s to help your brother. Interviewer: Make the best of a worse situation. Yes, right, that’s all you could do basically. I look back on it now and that’s basically what we did. Every one of us from platoon leader, squad leader on down is to help save each other if we had to, so in the end you create that strong special bond of an infantry man that had been through battle, and that’s why you get that, and a lot of people can’t understand it unless you went through it. Interviewer: What was the racial makeup of the unit when you were there do you recall? 20:06 I’m thinking probably close to what the, maybe, what the racial makeup of the country was, maybe Interviewer: About eight or ten percent, maybe? I would say maybe that and I know we had a lot of problems in the rear with people not wanting to go out into the bush and there was some racial strife back there too, but I guess in the end that works with the division commander wanting to keep the best troops 35 �out in the bush to keep us away from that. I would say that worked out pretty good, not to say that when we got to the rear there was nothing wrong with a nice cold beer and a ―doobie‖ to go along with it, but that was recreational use it was not like how it was, you know, you’re a Vietnam vet, you come back from Vietnam, you’re the expert when it comes to ―pot‖, no. 21:07 It was for recreational use, it was a way to wind down, just a beer and pot went together and you could use it to, maybe, get high and feel good in certain circumstances. But I would say for the most part, when I was in the position like I was and we went out to the bush we had our act together. We weren’t going to go out—and I don’t ever remember that being out there, it might have been, but I can’t ever remember that being out there when we were out there, we wouldn’t allow it. Especially when we were with the 3rd platoon we never got it. Merle was a squad leader and I was a squad leader and we just wouldn’t allow that stuff, no. Interviewer: There was no racial tension out in the field? Some people said there was. 22:02 I don’t remember a whole lot, I’m not saying it didn’t, but I, maybe, didn’t see that much, and there could be some in the squad, but I told you about--Jiggs Falery went out in the bush with me when we were in the same platoon and I became the squad leader, he was a black man, and he’s a good friend of mine today. He used my machine gun and he had a way to temper that. James joined, joined the military, so he was in for a while and I think, maybe, three or four years, I can’t remember, so maybe in that respect he helped temper that with me and there was some guy saying, ―Oh, he’s just picking on us‖, and stuff like that and James would come in and say, ―Oh, you know‖, which would work to our advantage of the whole squad. Interviewer: Sure 36 �And he’s a dear friend today. I wish he could have made it up here, but he couldn’t. 23:00 We have kept in touch over the years, you know, and stuff after losing contact with everybody about the first over ten years. I finally decided to start getting in contact with everybody and started looking for people through organizations and through luck, you know, and everything. I remember him quite well. Interviewer: Now, your year is winding down, tell me about your deross process. Okay, I got a drop—my deros would have been April 20—no, no, I’m trying to think how long before you---I was going to ETS out of the army because of all the training I went through. I went to that for nine months, had a good time, came back and immediately tried to put in for a leave and was denied. 24:00 I thought at one time I might get a real job, you know, in some position, and that didn’t pan out either, so I spent my whole time out in the bush. When it came close to deros, I was a squad leader, we had a platoon leader and a platoon sergeant, and I was a squad leader and Merle was too and they brought a new squad leader in to take my place. He was Batts, a good guy and he had served a tour in Vietnam with the exact same company. I guess, I don’t know if he had requested to go back to Delta Company, but he was back with Delta Company, 1st of the 506, and he was a buck sergeant. 25:00 He took over the squad and I was basically relieved of duty. I was just another grunt now—basically when he came I had to kind of show him the ropes, you know, and stuff like that, and he finally took over control of the squad. The day I was supposed to get out of the bush they cancelled—they cancelled it and I had to wait an extra day. We were in the lowland at the time. We were like around the first ridgeline around Camp Evans, patrolling the area, secured for this, because this is when that other operation was going on that we talked about earlier, and 37 �so I finally got out of the bush. 26:00 I had two weeks to be home, two weeks prior to going home I got out of the bush, maybe not even that long. It seem like by the time I turned in my equipment, for a couple of days humping out of the area and going down to the replacement company down at Cam Ranh Bay this time. I got there, got on a bird, the bird took of and everybody let out a big cheer, I remember that. A long flight back and we flew to Japan. I think at that time, maybe because of the airplanes they were using, it was a charter plane, I think by the time we got on the—I think we flew from Japan all the way to Fort Lewis, Washington. I remember coming in and we’re getting close, and seeing the ocean, and all of a sudden you see the United States coming into view, and everybody let out a big cheer. 27:04 You could see the coastline and that was always a wonderful site, and we got to see Mt. Rainier, which I thought, ―Man that’s a wonderful site‖. We flew to Fort Lewis and I got ETSed out of the army. Interviewer: How long were you in Fort Lewis? Three days, maybe, so I got out, I think, the 5th of April 1971 I want to say. My parents didn’t know I was coming home. Instead of going military standby, I think I changed clothes and put on some civilian clothes I had from R&R. I put them on after I ETSed, got a cab, waited for a couple other guys and we all took a ride down to the Tacoma, Seatac Airport. 28:08 I went there and got me a flight, and I had to fly from Seattle to Chicago and get a connecting flight from Chicago to Indianapolis, and I went first class. I said, ―To hell with military standby‖, and I was on a 747 at the time, and I’m going to say it was a double decker. Some people said, ―No, it wasn’t‖, but I’m pretty sure that it was, and I remember a very nice flight and they would say, ―What would you like?‖ I said, ―Give me a whiskey and water or on the rocks‖, or something like that, so that was 38 �nice and I’m sitting there relaxing, and there were movies on and stuff. I think I finished with that and had one more and I passed out, so needless to say, I did not enjoy the rest of my flight. 29:00 They had to wake me up when we got to Chicago, ―You’re here‖, so I had to hurry up and run to get my flight going. Interviewer: I didn’t get to ask you, where did you go on R&R? Taiwan, Taipei, single guy, I didn’t have anyone in my life at the time. I went there and had a good time, I went with a Marine, he was on R&R too and we were probably both from the Midwest or something and I said, ―Let’s go together‖, so we did, and we had a great time. We were on R&R together and had a good time and came back and I thought maybe I’d get me a real job and, ―No, you’re going back out in the bush‖, and I said, ―Hey god, what you saw back there, forget about it‖ Interviewer: “I was just testing your forgiveness”. Yes, ―I’m testing your forgiveness‖, yeah. Interviewer: So, you get back to Indianapolis, surprise the family? No, I didn’t tell them. 30:02 They knew I was coming home. They thought maybe I – which would have been around—later on in April. Interviewer: You had about a two week drop? Three, yeah, twenty one—twenty two days it ended up. So, I came home and I surprised them. I got to Indianapolis and tried to get a cab to my house, which was probably, where my parents lived at that time five miles from the airport. I couldn’t get a cab because there were a lot of planes coming in, soldiers going to AIT at Fort Benjamin Harrison there in Indianapolis, AIT at Fort Ben Interviewer: Bean counter AIT 39 �Yes, yes, and it was hard for me to get a cab and I remember I was getting ―pissed‖, but I finally got one and went home and surprised them, and of course, they were happy to see me. I remember there for a while I guess I just got depressed. 31:06 I didn’t write anybody, my parents got upset, and the next thing you know I got a letter from a congressman or senator, and the company commander said, ―You go write a letter to your parents now‖, so I had to write a letter to them. After what I had been through it took me a while to get back and then I started writing again. That’s basically it, came home, run around for a while, got married, had kids, got divorced, it didn’t work out, your 2000, so I’ve been on my own. I got a good relationship with my son. Interviewer: Well, thanks for sharing your story, it was fantastic and we appreciate it. All right 31:59 40 � 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 Cox, Anthony (Interview transcript and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cox, Anthony Description An account of the resource Tony Cox was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on August 31st, 1949. He received basic training at Ft. Knox, Kentucky and AIT at Ft. Polk, Lousiana. He also went to NCO school in Ft. Benning Georgia. He was assigned to Delta Company, 1st of the 506. He became squad leader after being in the field a while. In the battle around Firebase Ripcord in July, 1970, his company got into trouble in an area southeast of Hill 805. It was a very hot LZ and there were many casualties and many wounded. Mr. Cox went back to the bush after being treated for a gunshot wound, transferred to the 3rd platoon as a squad leader for the rest of his tour. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McGregor, Michael (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2011-10-06 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CoxT1278V 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/9ffc13182965efca451378dd6436dbcb.mp4 179b8f2d67091a672885f8f564da65ef https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/82f917ee5541d7007ce2a70aa8771885.pdf 9c301748c821fbc59fddad8ee69cac6f PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Kendrick Coryell Vietnam War/Cold War Total Time: 1:07:29 Childhood and Pre-Service (0:00:00) • • • • • • • Born in Victoria, Kansas, but grew up on a farm in Blain County, Oklahoma. He decided that he wanted to join the Air Force when he saw bombers flying over his farm from their base. Attended Oklahoma State and obtained an Aerospace Engineering degree. He attended college for 4 ½ years so that he could join the ROTC. He was able to go to Bartow, Florida on a C-47 while in ROTC. This was his first ever flight on an airplane. He dropped ROTC after 2 ½ years so he could take more classes, and then he joined up again so he could graduate while he was in the ROTC program. (0:07:10) He graduated in June 1956 and entered the Air Force at this point. He had a 3 month waiting period after graduation while he was waiting for the Air Force to assign him to a base. During this time he worked at Convair in Dallas, Texas. Training (0:08:43) • • • Was sent to Lackland AFB to have a physical and basic training. (0:11:30) He was then sent to Moore, Texas where he had his initial flight training. He was first trained on a small propeller plane and then moved up to a larger one. (12:14) Was then sent to Bryan, Texas where he attended jet training school. He flew the T-33 while there. Active Duty (0:13:50) • Because of his high class standing, he was able to choose his assignment. He chose to train pilots at Bryan because he loved to fly. • (0:14:45) The base at Bryan was closed after the first class he graduated, so he went to Panama City, Florida, where he provided targets for ground controllers to train with. He stayed at that base for 2 ½ years. • (0:17:48) In 1961, he was selected to attend squadron officer’s school at Maxwell AFB. • (0:18:10) After squadron officer’s school, was assigned to a base in Great Falls, Montana where he worked with the Minuteman missile program. He worked 24 hour shifts at this job. • (0:21:35) While working this job he was able to get his Masters Degree in Engineering. �• He was at Great Falls for 3 years. He lived on base for most of the time he was there. • He adopted a daughter and had a son while he was on the base. • He trained almost daily for different scenarios with the missiles. However, he was pretty sure that nothing was going to happen. • (0:26:30) Left Great Falls in 1965 and went to reconnaissance training in England. He trained with specially equipped F-4 aircraft. • They ran some training runs in Spain. • (0:29:45) He was selected, while in England, to participate in the NATO fly-off, which was a contest for NATO reconnaissance crews. • (0:31:30) After his time in England, attended Middle Management Training in Maxwell AFB. • (0:32:09) In 1969, attended a refresher course in reconnaissance flying. He also attended water, jungle, and POW survival schools. • (0:36:40) Was sent to Thailand to fly reconnaissance missions over Cambodia and Vietnam. He was in Thailand from November 1970 to November 1971. • (0:38:55) he spent a month of his tour aboard the carrier USS Ranger briefing the Navy on the activity of the Air Force. • He would at times have to use tankers to refuel while he was in Thailand. • (0:42:35) When he flew missions over Cambodia and Vietnam he did not encounter any enemy aircraft or anti-aircraft fire. • (0:44:48) He then moved to Austin, Texas, however he was soon given the opportunity to participate in NATO Senior Service School in Rome, Italy in 1972. • (0:46:50) The purpose of the school was to train students in the backgrounds of the NATO countries so they would be better able to function during joint operations. • (0:47:10) He was then sent to Naples to work in reconnaissance. He planned joint exercises on the southern end of NATO. These were generally exercises in communication between the allies. He was in Naples from 1973-1976. • (0:53:40) He worked at Ramstein AFB and worked for intelligence. He also worked to speed up the process of getting reconnaissance pictures from the developers to the commanders. He was there from 1976-1979. • (0:57:45) He was then promoted to Colonel, and assigned to the Pentagon to work in program research and development. He worked to develop a cooperative upgrade of the KC-135 tanker aircraft with France. • He worked at the Pentagon for 3 years in both research and development and quality control. • (1:00:40) He retired after 30 years in the Air Force. Post-Service (1:01:01) • • After retiring from the Air Force, he learned coding and got a job with Boeing working in quality assurance. Retired from Boeing in 1999. � 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 Coryell, Kendrick (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Coryell, Kendrick Description An account of the resource Kendrick Coryell was born in Kansas, but grew up on a farm in rural Oklahoma. He joined the Air Force upon graduation from college in 1956, and started as a flight instructor. He worked most of his career in reconnaissance, including flying from a base in Thailand to fly reconnaissance over Cambodia and Vietnam during the Vietnam War. He also worked in the Minuteman Missile program in Montana, and had multiple assignments in Europe over the course of a 30-year career. 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. Air Force 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 2009-06-23 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CoryellK 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