872 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5f6ee5162ed18cfaa293a133a1e129f0.jpg aad7131282c2766820b240be4662d138 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SeegerMary_Photo12 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 Title A name given to the resource Seeger, Mary Description An account of the resource Mary Seeger, German Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng 1991s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/367bc245b72830bdbf6a9d43597b88a2.jpg 4a1211d45c046d6a8e6710a15e97bf95 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SeegerMary_Photo13 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 Title A name given to the resource Seeger, Mary Description An account of the resource Mary Seeger, German Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng 1991s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6ea7342ff4fa15013a55709c6afd1e4f.jpg be2bcf13ee3b7cdef863b9792e215fca 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SeegerMary_Photo14 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Seeger, Mary Description An account of the resource Mary Seeger, German Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/91cf1a5e6e8ba86dd5ac4b8704aba519.jpg 39603e3dc32e0429ca4d5625e8f36e52 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SeegerMary_Photo15 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Seeger, Mary Description An account of the resource Mary Seeger, German Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/744f360b26ddd28ed69fbdba8b6dd212.jpg 39b46fb360511303937ec04ad030a141 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SeegerMary_Photo16 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Seeger, Mary Description An account of the resource Mary Seeger, German Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e179584cb073cc48f1f76cbf6f26f41a.jpg 85a031a02c4acbd2ef9bee0073f0b510 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SeegerWilhelm_Photo01 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Seeger, Wilhelm Description An account of the resource Wilhelm Seeger, German Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c863bd850676082280e859441ecbe930.jpg 53245cfe8f65569d72ba64cdf605a3e2 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SeegerWilhelm_Photo02 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Seeger, Wilhelm Description An account of the resource Wilhelm Seeger, German Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/40b34967deffa4695482858890e5e0cd.jpg 2f3a77d27a523edd7a09176af69866a1 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SeegerWilhelm_Photo03 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Seeger, Wilhelm Description An account of the resource Wilhelm Seeger, German Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f6eaae78266b52a4547f615ea8c1a806.jpg 2068c0d7bd78dee03e28de4153f6b71d 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SeegerWilhelm_Photo04 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Seeger, Wilhelm Description An account of the resource Wilhelm Seeger, German Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6860515fc67169272a5c339b7ab8aa85.pdf 0036cd5c6b0a7a441e19a5d847982bd3 PDF Text Text Seeing is Believing Text: Kings 6:17; John 14:9 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany II, January 16, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon “...O Lord, open his eyes and let him see.”    Kings  6:17   “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”    John  14:9     Popular folk wisdom says, "Seeing is believing." Is that your creed? Is that your philosophy? Well, I dare say it is. It's really the way all of us operate, almost inevitably. "Seeing is Believing." In other words, prove it to me, demonstrate it to me, give me verification. They say all of us operate that way because we are all the children of western civilization, of western culture. We are at the end of a couple of centuries of scientific investigation and research in which the scientific method has been perfected. It has yielded tremendous success, and given us understanding. It has given us insight into unraveling the technological mysteries of the universe. We are simply people, who through the very lens with which we see reality, live and act and breathe and think as empiricists (a school of philosophy named empiricism). Empiricism is simply a philosophy that says that knowledge, truth, is derived only from sensory experience - what I can touch, what I can taste, what I can hear, what I can see. Sensory experience is the access to truth and to knowledge. Everything that is not reducible to sensory experience is simply questionable. We are children of a philosophy that has trickled down to the average person and has become now our shared common wisdom. That is the way we operate. I don't want to deprecate that. Observe all the wonders of the modem world that we enjoy. Look at the technological advances. Look at how life has been transformed through the application of empirical research and that philosophy: "Seeing is Believing." There are those who observe the human scene who have said that we are at a hinge point in the human story. We are at the end of that modern age, which is characterized by the Enlightenment, by the Age of Reason. We are also at the end of this age characterized by the scientific method, and by all of the technological breakthroughs that we have witnessed in the last couple of centuries. We have entered a Post Modem Age. The signs of that are the spiritual questing, the evidence of the emptiness of soul and the yearning of the heart for something © Grand Valley State University   �Seeing is Believing Richard A. Rhem Page 2   more. The shadow side of the modem age, so splendid in its achievement, was the implication that truth and reality were measured by the human mind, and that human reason and human rationality decided the limits of what was true - and what was real. The great philosopher, the father of modem development of philosophy, Emanuel Kant, has a book entitled Religion Within the Limits of Human Reason. You cannot have religion within the limits of human reason. We know that now. We have come up empty and are hungry. Our souls are starved and whenever that happens there is a reaction. So we have New Age spirituality as it is called. Part of it is very serious, part of it bizarre. These are indications that there are people who are grasping at straws, groping for something beyond, something that breaks the paradigm of the human rational, verifiable reality. Two popular news magazines, Time Magazine and Newsweek Magazine, December 27,1993, both featured stories on angels. They featured stories about not only the historical and biblical conception of angels, but also how angels appear in Judaism and Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. People are searching, and in both articles there are moving accounts of human encounters with angels. One article relates angelical healing. Another article simply relates how the appearance of one's guardian angel removed the fear of death, which still followed two days later. And there were stories of people encountering a light that sent heat, an energy, through their body that transformed them and gave them peace. People are hungry. In our present contemporary scene we see "angel" stores opening for business. Publishers Weekly reported five hundred million copies of books on angels sold in the recent past, and that five out of ten are on the Best Seller List. We now see, not only angel stores, but angel newsletters, angel clubs, angel seminars, etc. Perhaps you remember John Westerhoff, who was here two years ago on the first Sunday in Lent. John, a Christian educator and scholar, was interviewed by authors the of the Time article. They asked him, "Why do some people see angels, and some people don't?" He said, "It takes faith to perceive an angel. If you don't believe, you won't see." You may say, "Hey, John, you just turned that whole thing on its head! But it isn't "Seeing is Believing". Maybe there is a whole dimension of reality where believing is seeing. That, of course, is the connection with this season of the year, this Epiphany season. An expert on angels will be here during the next hour at the Perspectives Class. I'm not an expert on angels, but we see here a marvelous contemporary instance of how there has been a shift in human consciousness. We are beginning to see that the demand to see in order to believe is shipwrecked when it comes to our longing for an encounter with God. We are beginning to see experiences of transience, that sense of something or someone beyond us who touches us in grace. Not "seeing is believing," but "believing is seeing." Epiphany is the season © Grand Valley State University �Seeing is Believing Richard A. Rhem Page 3   of revelation. It is the season of the lifting of the curtain; the unveiling of manifestation, if only for a moment. Epiphany is the lighting up of the landscape of the mind in that moment in which one is transformed by the revelation; the revelation that we need eyes to see - Epiphany Eyes. Have you ever seen picture puzzles of lines and dots all over a page that look like somebody's doodle pad until you studied it long enough, or got it just at the right angle, when suddenly there is a human face or a tree, or a dog, or something else? There is a pattern there. It means something to you. You looked at it before and you saw nothing but lines and dots, and suddenly you look at it and you see an artistic pattern, a configuration of meaning. The difference is not in the page, the difference was in the perception. Epiphany Eyes enable you to see, - really see what is there. This season of the year we celebrate "The Word became flesh." This Word in flesh, whom we believe is Jesus, this One is the Light of the world. This One is the Light that enlightens. In the face of Jesus we see into the heart of God. But, for that to be so, we must know that in some cases "believing is seeing." Wasn't that an interesting Old Testament story? Did you remember it? The one about Elisha? Elisha, the prophet, was in trouble with the King of Syria because he continued to send intelligence reports to the King of Israel. He constantly kept the King of Israel out of the hands of the King of Syria, until the King of Syria wanted to do something about it. He sent his troops to apprehend Elisha. When Elisha's servant got up in the morning and saw the mountains surrounded with the enemy troops, he said, "My master, alas, what shall we do?" Elisha said, "Relax. Those who are for us are more than those who are against us." Then he prayed that marvelous Epiphany prayer. "O Lord, open thy servant’s eyes that he may see." The servant's eyes were opened and he saw the mountains ringed with chariots of fire. As in all of that Old Testament historical writing you have the historical core, richly embroidered with legendary material. What that story was saying was at the core of Israel's faith. This story makes clear that decisions are not made in Damascus or Babylon or in Persia, not even in Jerusalem. On that grand stage of world history there is an invisible player. Finally there are angels and spiritual powers, and there is a will of God and a purpose that is at work. Elisha was simply giving testimony to his conviction that the ultimate power does not lie in the hands of a Clinton or a Yeltsin, in Moscow or in Washington. In the corridors of power there is still an invisible presence of one who transcends all. There were chariots of fire surrounding God's people. What a beautiful image. This is what Jesus was explicating to Philip. Philip needed the Epiphany prayer. Philip just didn't get it. Philip was only the stooge for the rest of the disciples. If you read the Gospel of Mark, you will find that those disciples never got it. It is hard to find a bunch more dull than the disciples, particularly if you are reading Mark's account. They never got it. Philip says, "Oh, that would be nice, just show us the Father and we will be satisfied." Jesus said, "You just don't get it. I have been with you all this time and you still don't get it. If you have seen me, you've seen the Father." © Grand Valley State University �Seeing is Believing Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Reflecting on that, I was reminded of the distant past at Hope College while studying philosophy with G. Ivan Dykstra. For those of you Hope College lore, old D. Ivan used to pace up and down, giving these marvelous philosophical lectures. Once in a course on Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher/theologian, we were reading a little book called Philosophical Fragments, which talked about "disciples at second hand." Do you know what disciples at second hand are? You might say, "They are folks like you and me." Disciples at first hand would be Peter and James and John, who could reach out and touch Jesus, ate with him, walked with him. They told us about it. We hear about it. We are disciples at second hand. Right? Wrong. Wrong. Dead wrong. Kierkegaard said that the disciples that rubbed shoulders with him were disciples at second hand. They had no advantage over you and me. Read the Gospels and you will see he was right. You didn't bump into Jesus and say, "Oh, my God." There are all kinds of people who bumped into Jesus and saw nothing. The two who walked all the way to Emmaus brought Jesus into their house, and it was not until the breaking of bread that their eyes were opened and they saw him. In other words, it was a gift. It was the insight of faith. It was grace. "You've been with me so long, and you still don't know. You haven't seen. You don't understand. You just don't get it." Kierkegaard said, "You could have walked all day and not seen anything." The disciples present were disciples at second hand until the disciple had an Epiphany experience, which is as available to you and me today as it was to them then. What happened to them then must happen to us today, and what happens to us today had to happen to them then. It is not seeing that is believing, but it is believing that is seeing. It is the opening of the eyes, the mystery that is always there, but which we cannot perceive except we be graced with the eyes to see. I am a child of my culture. I am a child of this age. I operate in the whole rest of my life where "Seeing is Believing." Suddenly I come to this juncture, and verification won't do it, proofs are not available, and I have to acknowledge that it is believing that gives sight. I have bought that philosophy all my life. I hate that about the Gospel. I would love to be able to take somebody by the nap of the neck and rub his nose in it. I'd like to be able to prove it, to demonstrate it, to verify it. I would like the facts! This is so dangerous. How can I distinguish my responsible faith and my commitment from some lollygagging person out in la-la land and some fantastic imagery? I can't. How can I prove my faith? I can't. And I resist that. Believing is the only channel open to that dimension of reality that transcends the space and time world for which we are so well fitted. You can't verify it, and if you are waiting to see it in order to believe it, you'll come to grief. If today you believe it because somebody has proven it to you, you are in for trouble. I deal with this subject because it is Epiphany, but also because in popular culture today it is being dealt with. I told you about the Time Magazine and Newsweek articles on angels. I have here the book, The Five Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, © Grand Valley State University �Seeing is Believing Richard A. Rhem Page 5   John and the Gospel of Thomas), which comes out of The Jesus Seminar. If you were in my Wednesday night classes you would know I had a big book by John Dominic Crossan, the Catholic scholar. Crossan has done research into the historical Jesus. I also told you that books are coming off the press a mile a minute on this subject. In this New Quest for the Historical Jesus, Crossan tried to get through all the tradition and all the church baggage, to get down to the historical core. The Jesus Seminar, of which Crossan was a part, attempted to do the same. It began back in 1985, with scholars and clergy taking a second look at the sayings of Jesus. Finally they have published this translation of the Gospel in four colors. If they are certain Jesus said it, it is written in red; if they think Jesus said it, it is written in pink. If they think he didn't say it, it is written in grey, and if they know he didn't say it, it is written in black. (Laughter) The passage I read this morning, that beautiful passage from John 14, (just in case you wondered) is in black. I show you this book because I say to you, if your faith rests upon the results of historical criticism, you're in deep trouble. If you only believe because someone has been able to prove it to you, you are in trouble. It seems as though when the methods of historical research are honed, the skills and competence increase, scholars learn from the errors of previous quests and they get down to the bare bones facts. I was studying peacefully in my loft when Nancy, my wife, came to me and plopped this magazine down on my desk and said, "What do you think of that?" The article, “Jesus Plain and Simple,” talks about three currently published books. In one book John Dominic Crossan takes the huge thick book of research, which I just showed you, and reduces it to a more popular, albeit revolutionary, biography of Jesus. Nancy said, "In these couple of pages in Time (“Jesus Plain and Simple”), you have a stripped down variety of Jesus. I don't like it." This reminded me of another love of my life, my granddaughter, Stephanie. Some of you were here on Christmas Eve, when I told you how Stephanie came to her mother, Lynn, and said, "Tell me the truth, Mommy. Is Santa Claus real?" Now that's a moment when you can't just say, "Oh sure, Honey." This was a little girl at the edge of awakening, saying "Mommy, tell me the truth." So her mother told her. Stephie got angry. She said, "Well, I'm going to believe it anyway!" Later that night after Nancy had thrown the magazine on my desk she said to me, 'That stuff doesn't bother you at all, does it?" I said, "No, it doesn't bother me at all. I have known for a long time that my faith cannot rest on the uncertain consequences of historical research. I do not see in order to believe. But I believe, and then I see." I deal with this issue because it seems to me that I am accountable to you. You ought to be able to look to me to talk about these things with you. The Five Gospels has attracted quite a bit of press lately. I have here articles from The Milwaukee Journal, The Detroit Free Press, and The Grand Rapids Press. I could do as three pastors did in The Detroit Free Press and say that the Jesus © Grand Valley State University �Seeing is Believing Richard A. Rhem Page 6   Seminar scholars are enemies of God, they are undercutting religion, but I won't. They may be right. They may be wrong. But the Jesus Seminar scholars are responsible and they are serious, and they are carrying out their research and their gift and offering it to God and to us. By and large I believe that is the case. Or I could just sidestep the subject and hope it goes away, but some of you said to me at the door last week, "Did you read Time Magazine? Help!" What I choose to do is use this as an occasion to say to you, "Put your faith where it belongs. Recognize it as the gift of God, the God who graces you with a spirit, who illumines you when you sing, 'Open our eyes Lord. We would see Jesus.'" I share this with you because it becomes a marvelous occasion in which to say to you, "Don't seek proof and verification. We have done that too long. We have spoken about the revelation of God as though somehow or other that happened way back there. Then it was inspired and spoken, and now we have this revelation. We don't have a revelation. There isn't a revelation, there is only a God who reveals, here and now and continuously. This book (the Bible) is the consequence of Epiphany experiences, when those who rubbed elbows with Jesus and saw nothing had their eyes opened to see everything, and were able to witness, as the gospel writer John witnessed Jesus - as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. This book is the consequence of those who had an Epiphany experience, and it was written down and told in order that it might become the occasion for you and me to have an Epiphany moment now. My faith rests not in the verifiable proof of historical research. It is the consequence of the illumination of my heart and mind through the Spirit of God in this present moment. That is where it rests. The scholars can continue to look at the foundations of the faith, and rightly they should, because we claim that the revelation has occurred in the midst of human history and in the arena of historical reality and, therefore, we will always have that with us. Responsible people ought always to be checking those things out. But when all is said and done, it is finally gift, grace, unveiling, here and now. Why do some see and others not see? I don't know. But I do know that there is a sure promise in the Word of God, "If with all your heart you truly seek me, you will also surely find me." And once I have been found, in the moment of finding I will know a rest that will enable me to be un-settled. I can be un-settled without losing ultimate trust and faith in the work that continues to go on because I know finally it is not only seeing - that it is believing. Believing has its own eyes to see a purpose and meaning that can give us the courage we need to seek God's way in our present moment. "Oh Lord, open thy servants’ eyes that they may see." © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/475b858a9601822da2ffd68eb21a0732.mp3 5368ef60a183733fe224279b5b3d8f09 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 Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> 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 Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Epiphany II Scripture Text II Kings 6:17, John 14:9 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19940116 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-01-16 Title A name given to the resource Seeing is Believing Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem 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 Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 16, 1994 entitled "Seeing is Believing", on the occasion of Epiphany II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: II Kings 6:17, John 14:9. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Critical Thinking Epiphany Grace Historical Jesus Spiritual Dimension Spiritual Quest https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/30b1e68986db9f35cd76ddaff5337336.pdf c8f118fc1a672f1a000c0b2bfe037893 PDF Text Text Seeing is Believing: When the Word Becomes Flesh Ordination Service for Bill Freeman Micah 6:6-8; I Corinthians 13; John 1:1-5,14,18 Richard A. Rhem First Congregational United Church of Christ Belding, Michigan May 7, 2006 Transcription of the spoken sermon No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God's love is perfected in us ... God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. I John 4:12, 16 I am deeply honored to have been invited to preach Bill Freeman's ordination sermon. That Bill should have asked me is especially gracious and remarkable because, if he had listened to me about five years ago, we would not be gathered here to witness his ordination. I told him not to pursue the ministry. For a decade or so, I was a member of a Tuesday conversation that gathered at a little round table in a corner of Duba's bar. The center of the conversation was the incomparable Dr. Duncan Littlefair, whose penetrating mind kept us engaged in stimulating conversation. One day he said to me, "There is a guy who has hung around Fountain Street Church named Bill Freeman. He is thinking about the ministry and I don't think it's a good idea, but I told him to talk to you." Well, this story moves around interesting times and places. A grand tradition each Friday before Christmas was a Christmas party at the Littlefair home. The choir, old and new, gathers and there is a wonderful Carol Sing preceded by good food and drink and social engagement. You don't really need an invitation; you just show up. It must have been about five or six Christmases past at Duncan's gala that Bill got hold of me and we found a narrow alcove where we could talk. He told me of his desire to enter the ministry - the feeling that this was something he felt compelled to do. I asked him why. I told him he had and was still making a difference through his media and communication skills. I suggested there were better ways for a person in his mid-40s to be involved in significant movements than going back to seminary and jumping through the hoops the institutional Church sets up for those who would become ministers of the Word. And I tried to scare him out of the idea. To be sure, I was one of the lucky ones - a great congregation, a wonderful experience of over three decades. But, I told him of all the pain I saw in congregations and in pastors. I told him bluntly - it is a © Grand Valley State University �Seeing is Believing: When the Word Becomes Flesh Richard A. Rhem Page 2 tough business. This is not a good time for mainline churches or for pastors who would approach their task with critical intelligence and a liberal and open spirit Bill listened attentively and then went on with his intention as if we had never spoken. And I'm glad he did. In ensuing encounters, both Dr. Littlefair and I became believers. This was not just some restless guy looking around for some new path to follow; no, this was a man yielding to an inner calling that was compelling him forward. Eventually, we said to him, "You have to do it!" He has, and here we are today - his seminary diploma and United Church of Christ credentials in hand, and he will be ordained in the midst of a congregation that, in extending to him the Call to be their pastor, has confirmed that inward call that he felt five years ago. Bill, I'm delighted you did not listen to me. I now know what you strongly suspected back then - there was something stirring in your life that was of the Spirit of God. The call of God is a mystery, but we know it when we see it. In you, we see it. I have entitled my ordination sermon "Seeing is Believing: When the Word Becomes Flesh." "Seeing is believing" is a common phrase employed when a claim is made that is questionable. Another way to express one's doubt might be, "Show me," or "Prove it." Using this phrase, I'm thinking about the Church. I'm thinking specifically about the Congregational Church in Belding and I'm thinking, too, about your ministry, Bill. You may have a well-honed Mission Statement. There are confessional statements that have formed the United Church of Christ, and, of course, the whole Christian movement has been shaped by Scripture and the ancient ecumenical creeds that affirm the truth claims of the Christian Church. But finally what really matters is the concrete life of this community and what is really critical for the execution of your ministry is the Word becoming flesh. There is a great theological tradition that reverses my claim. None less than the great St. Augustine and St. Anselm put it the other way around and you may recognize the Latin. St Augustine said, "Credo ut intelligam" - "I believe that I might understand," and Anselm's phrase was "Fides Quaerens Intellectum" "Faith in search of understanding." Stated popularly, believe it and you will understand eventually. In this case, faith precedes reason; if you believe, you will come to see. There has been a great philosophical/theological discussion down through the centuries and, frankly, I have loved being immersed in that conversation; I do not denigrate it. But, we live in a day that has seen the upheaval of the great theological systems and a challenge to all the great religious absolutisms in the respective world religious traditions. To continue simply to make claims with the counsel that if only one will believe, one will see and will understand is a losing enterprise. © Grand Valley State University �Seeing is Believing: When the Word Becomes Flesh Richard A. Rhem Page 3 Thus, Bill, on this your day of ordination, and Congregation, on this occasion of the ordination of your new pastor, let me suggest that you will share a fruitful future as the Word becomes Flesh here and Belding sees and believes, believe that God's Spirit is in your midst and the grace of Jesus Christ is being lived out in your shared life. Let me root that claim in what I believe to be the central claim of the Christian faith as it came to expression in the Fourth Gospel, the Gospel that emerged from the Johannine community from which we also have the Letters of John. My text is from First John 4:12 and 16. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God's love is perfected in us ... God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. No one has ever seen God. That clear acknowledgment comes right out of the Gospel; you will find it in 1:18. And that acknowledgment also points to the deepest yearning of the human heart — to see God or to have one's life touched by God, by the deep Mystery of our existence. In John 14 we read that familiar statement of Jesus, "I am the way, the truth and the life ..." and then Jesus says, "If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him," to which Philip responds, "Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied." Have we not all at some time expressed that wistful longing of Philip -just show us! If only we could see, really see and know! And then Jesus comes back with that audacious claim, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." I am convinced this is the central core of John's Gospel. In the Prologue to the Gospel, 1:1-18, we have the theme set forth. The opening words remind us of the Creation Story - "In the beginning was the Word ..." and someone has translated that "In the beginning was the Divine Intention." And then in 1:14, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us ..." or the Divine Intention became flesh. That, of course, is that marvelous statement of the Incarnation - God become Human, for "Flesh" is synonymous with human. Now, move to 1:18; there we have the acknowledgement we have already noted in I John 4:12- "No one has ever seen God." and now the writer goes on to express the incarnation in other words, "It is God the only son, who has made him known." And here again it is possible to translate the text in a most revealing way; the claim is that Jesus is “the exegesis of God." I must point this out because Bill has just graduated from seminary where he learned the art of exegesis, that is, the art of interpreting the text — drawing © Grand Valley State University �Seeing is Believing: When the Word Becomes Flesh Richard A. Rhem Page 4 out the meaning of a literary piece. The Greek word behind the English "made him known" is Exaeasis. or exegesis in English. But, we are not finished with our biblical foundation of my claim that seeing is believing when the Word becomes flesh. If we had only John's Gospel, we might think that God became human once for all in the humanity of Jesus, that incarnation was a once for all episode and, for those of us who have come after that once for all occurrence, the only possibility was believing, hoping to see. That is where the Gospel would leave us, as we can see, if we stay with the Gospel of John for a moment. Remember the post-Easter encounter of the risen Lord and Thomas? Thomas had missed the Easter evening appearance of Jesus to the disciples. He didn't believe it. He said, "I won't believe he lives unless I can touch his flesh." Thomas was a "show me" person. But, the Gospel writer knows from that time forth "show me" persons were out of luck. And so, we have the encounter of the risen Lord and Thomas, in which Thomas is invited to touch the wounds of Jesus, the explicit statement that such tangible experience is less blessed than those "who have not seen and yet have come to believe." The purpose statement of the Gospel, John 20:30-31, is clear: It follows immediately the Thomas story. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But, these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, you may have life in his name. There you have it. The Fourth Gospel gives us that profound portrait of Incarnation - "The Word became flesh," and the further claim that in that incarnation in Jesus we have the clue to the Mystery of God. The truth is affirmed, but for all who follow that episode of incarnation in Jesus, the only option is to believe it hoping thereby to gain life. Precisely here the writer of the First Letter of John moves beyond the Gospel in a significant manner. The Gospel: Believe and you will see. The Letter: Love one another in concrete human community and you will see and experience the Presence and Grace of God. Both writers acknowledge the same truth: "No one has ever seen God." Both writers affirm the revelation of God in humanity - the Word become flesh. But, here is the critical difference: © Grand Valley State University �Seeing is Believing: When the Word Becomes Flesh Richard A. Rhem Page 5 For the Gospel, the location of that revelation is in Jesus in the days of his flesh; for the writer of the Letter, the location of that revelation is the community of human love in ongoing human experience. Jesus is the Exemplar of what is universally true - we see God in the face of the other. So, when we fall in love and exclaim, "It is divine!" that is not hyperbole. It is true. For, God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Notice again the writer's intentionality: he does not say, as we might expect those who abide in God abide in love. Then again, we might throw up our hands and exclaim, how do I abide in God? Too often in the Church we get it backwards: cultivate the devotional life; worship regularly; give generously; live piously; love God. and you will know and you will find salvation. No, that is all backwards. Love one another - Love the stranger - Love and the rest will follow; it is as simple as that! I’m confident, knowing you, Bill, and knowing that this congregation has called you to be their pastor, that I am preaching to the choir. But, looking out on the wasteland of religion in these United States in our day, this elementary truth has been largely forgotten. I'm pleased to know in that vast wasteland there will be here an oasis of Grace, a concretion of Love, and Belding will see and believe. © Grand Valley State University � 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 Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> 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 Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Ordination Service for Bill Freeman Scripture Text Micah 6:608, I Corinthians 13, John 1:1-5, 14, 18 Location The location of the interview First Congregational United Church of Christ, Belding, Michigan Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20060507 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2006-05-07 Title A name given to the resource Seeing is Believing: When the Word Becomes Flesh Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem 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 Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 7, 2006 entitled "Seeing is Believing: When the Word Becomes Flesh", on the occasion of Ordination Service for Bill Freeman, at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Belding, Michigan. Scripture references: Micah 6:608, I Corinthians 13, John 1:1-5, 14, 18. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Divine Intention God is Love https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5cee72a8c1657378d2e1154927845729.mp3 9fdb41bd8560f68bdce9cd00c8fc188b https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ffd6b6f8c17f45c7bd2c4424d4b9b84e.pdf d379a9143b9f0469ff3a99c059afb731 PDF Text Text Seeking Justice in a Brutal World From the series: The Human Face of God Text: Matthew 3:2 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan March 26, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon The subject of the sermon, this week, "Seeking Justice in a Brutal World," is always announced a week ahead of time and it's usually put together many weeks ahead of time, but I like to discipline myself to announce it at least the week ahead of time because it sensitizes me to the things that I encounter in the course of the week. This week it was a couple of pieces on the evening news, on a couple of different evenings: one about a therapist who is working with children through art therapy, trying to get them to bring to expression the fear and the rage and the anger that they feel, children who have witnessed the murder and dismembering of a father or a mother, little tykes, and the therapist saying that, with what they have been through, they have been scarred psychically for the rest of their lives. One bright-looking little fella who is asked, "Can you ever forgive the Russian soldier who killed your mother?" simply says, "No." Think of such a world in which we live where that is a part of the puzzle. Then, on another evening, there was a piece about a Russian town. The scene opened with some old Russian gentlemen sitting on their stools on the ice, icefishing, and I think the cameraman very purposely focused on a fish that had just been caught, still flopping. One sees the fish in the death throes of the dance of death, flexing its body, striving for another breath or swallow, but obviously dying. And then the camera switched to Katja, an attractive young woman who has been driven into prostitution, something she said she would never have thought of, except that she has a two-year-old daughter for whom she must provide and there is no other way for her. You see the night scenes with her along the road with the truckers stopping, negotiating for her services. Then it switches back to the old men on the ice who talk about the young men in the town, none of whom have employment, all of whom have been driven to thievery, to drugs, to alcoholism, and the old men say, "We didn't have it very good, but we had a subsistence. These young men - they don't have any place to go." The camera pans three obsolete, old monster factories, factories that once were productive and gave the people of the town work and at least a subsistence wage, but factories now obsolete, inefficient, outmoded and outdated which have not been able to make it in the most recent revolution in Russia, the revolution to the free © Grand Valley State University   �Seeking Justice in a Brutal World Richard A. Rhem Page 2   market. And so, you have human tragedy of that sort, human beings with no way to support themselves in a situation where, generations before them, people lived and at least were able to negotiate life. But now it seems so dark and so hopeless. I watched that piece and I thought, "Dear God, it's a brutal world." There are so many people that hurt so much and so many that fall through the cracks. In literature, I dislike stream of consciousness pieces; I can never understand them, but you're getting a stream of consciousness sermon this morning, because I went from Chechnya to that Russian town to a night in Boston in the 60s when I saw "Dr. Zhivago," which remains one of my favorite films, and I saw the Czarist Russia with its obscene opulence, its wealth, and its insensitivity to the suffering peasants, the masses, and then the Revolution and the liberators who overthrew the Czarist regime and established their Socialist government. I can remember my disillusionment when I came to realize that the liberators, liberated through violence, became violent oppressors fully as deadly as the regime that they had replaced. It was kind of a coming of age for me when I realized that violence and oppression are not the prerogative of the haves nor the have-nots, but of both. Whoever happens to have power, it seems it eventuates in oppressiveness, domination and violence and human tragedy. I thought how interesting that the Socialist revolution that overthrew the Czarist regime and brought in the Socialist pattern under which those old fishing men had at least subsisted has been replaced by another revolution, one we have applauded, the revolution of the free market, with its competition which has put out of commission the whole town, creating more human tragedy and despair. Now before you budding entrepreneurs who have broken into the Russian market turn me off, and you Left bleeding-heart liberals start applauding, let me plead I'm not making a political statement, nor an economic statement. I am talking about the injustice, about the brutality of the human situation. I'd like to have you join me in trying to feel it somewhat this morning, because this isn't about the free market or about Marxism; this is about the human situation which is so marked by so much pain. That may seem a modest goal, but at least it brings me to deal with the biblical lessons this morning in a way that I never would have done growing up and in my early years. I was brought up, as I'm sure you were, with the wise adage that you never, in polite company, talk about religion or politics. And I was trained and nurtured in the understanding that religion and politics don't mix. Can you imagine my dismay and my amazement when I come to realize that the Hebrew prophets that formed the background of the Christian Gospel and the Christian Gospel whose forerunner was John the Baptist and whose incarnation was Jesus Christ and whose apostle was Paul, that that whole story arose out of political and economic situations marked by brutality and injustice? I guess if you would ask me to mark some of the most significant ways in which my understanding of the Gospel of the Christian tradition has changed, I would have to say probably as much as anything it is that understanding that what John the © Grand Valley State University �Seeking Justice in a Brutal World Richard A. Rhem Page 3   Baptist was about and what Jesus was about was social, political, economic reality that was marked by injustice and brutality, and that growing up, for me the Gospel was something that had to do with the soul, that had to do with the spirituality of life, that had largely to do with my individual relationship with God. It had to do with the way of salvation, it had to do with a way of life here and a faith commitment which would lead to heaven over there. And then I wake up to discover that what John and Jesus were about was about the concrete, earthly reality of politics and economics, about empire and about slavery, about human suffering. That amazes me and that means that I can no longer not mix religion and politics, because my religion has political and economic implications so deeply entwined because it arose out of that matrix. We live in the generation that knows more about the first century than any generation before us, since the first century itself. Through textural studies, through archeological discoveries, through cross-cultural understanding of peasant societies in the time when Rome ruled the world, we have an understanding of that social, political, economic context in which John brought his message as an apocalyptic prophet, in which Jesus pointed to the kingdom of God. And we understand today that what is going on in Russia today was going on in Galilee two thousand years ago. For twelve hundred years in the Galilee, little villages dotted the hilltops and the valleys of the Galilee, and people lived in extended communities, little villages, able to subsist, able to live. Subsistence, not surplus. They made it. They just made it. But, they made it. Twelve hundred years in the Galilee, generation after generation, cultivating a little grass, raising some livestock, they made it. And then came the day of empire, the Roman legions, followed by the Roman tax collectors and the Roman entrepreneurs. Then subsistence was not enough; there had to be surplus, when conscripted labor was necessary for the building of the public works in the new cities that were being built and where taxation got real serious, such that many were put into debt, needing to borrow which would jeopardize their future, making them even more a debtor until finally their land was foreclosed on them and they became landless and homeless and hopeless. It was happening all over the Galilee, and Perea and the environs of Jerusalem. They were an occupied state by an imperial power that ruled rather well, but rule as all empires rule - for their own aggrandizement and, therefore, the people grinding under that system knew increasingly the pain and the brutality of the human situation. They also became ripe for a messenger, a prophet. They also became ripe for a John the Baptist who, in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets of Amos and Micah and Isaiah and Jeremiah, cried out for justice, for mercy, for the righteousness of the covenant of the people of God. There was a ready audience for that kind of call and John the Baptist was a fiery prophet who was steeped in his old covenant, who was angry, full of vengeance. © Grand Valley State University �Seeking Justice in a Brutal World Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Who can blame him? He was probably one of those vengeful children of a vengeful God, but who can blame him? Who can see the injustice, the tragedies, the hurt and the pain of the human situation? Who can contemplate it for very long without feeling something inside that rises up and says, "It is wrong and it must be righted." John, reflective of so much of the thinking of his day, felt that because he knew God, the God of Israel, the God of justice, the God of righteousness - because he knew this God, he knew this God could not countenance this thing; he could not let this thing go on. He knew that, somehow or other, the God of Israel would have to make some dramatic move, some direct intervention to right the wrongs and to establish the righteous and to put down the oppressor. There were others who had different voices. There was the Qumran community, the Essenes who went out into the wilderness, fasted and prayed and waited for God to do something. They left society. There were the Zealots, the guerillas who were trying, through guerilla activity, to undercut the Roman authority. But John, a prophet in the mold of the old prophets, brought his protest publicly. He preached his message at the banks of the Jordan; he called people to be baptized for the cleansing of their sin in a ritual act and to go back into Judea and the environs of Jerusalem and to wait for God to act. John was in that Messianic mode and it has continued to crop up now and then through the centuries and we got a little taste of it even at the turn of the millennium, that mode that says God is going to act, God is going to do something. Obviously, the God of justice will intervene. The problem with messianism, the problem with that apocalyptic anticipation of the intervention of God, is that it can always be proven wrong, and for two thousand years it's been proven wrong. Every date that was set, every growing expectation to the present has been disappointed. And so, one wonders about the world; one wonders what does one do? Does one simply reconcile oneself to its brutality? Does one simply accept the fact that that's the way the human situation is and ever will be? I was thinking about Karl Marx and Lenin. They had an idea and that idea spread like wildfire around the globe, once they got it started. They had to start it with violence and they had to keep it going with violence. But, it was an idea of another kind of world. It was an idea of a classless society in which there would be no need, in which everyone according to his ability would offer and everyone would receive, according to his need. It was Utopian and Utopian comes from utopus, no place. This has never existed; it's no place. This idea has no rootage, no home. It’s never landed; it has never become concrete. But the idea that Marx and Lenin had did catch fire. It did involve millions of people in that movement which was strong enough for us to get pretty worried about it. It was strong enough for us to engage in a Cold War over those decades. Thank God we had more muscle, more dollars, more technology, we were able to out-spend them and finally spend them into bankruptcy and we proved that that political, © Grand Valley State University �Seeking Justice in a Brutal World Richard A. Rhem Page 5   economic system doesn't work and the free market economy triumphs. But, what fascinates me is that there was an idea, an idea that took hold. We say we can't do anything. I feel that way. And yet, there was an idea and a vision and, By Golly, it swept the earth. So then, I wonder. Of course it was flawed, of course it was violent, of course it became oppressive, of course it was as brutal as that which it replaced. I'm not arguing, making no apology for it. I'm only saying look what happened when an idea captivated the masses. I wonder if anybody has an idea. You know, the Gospel that we proclaim was a Gospel that came out of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ and it was a word to those who were oppressed, to those who were out of sync, to those who were out of luck, to those who didn't have a prayer. That's where the Gospel was born. Now we wear the Roman toga; now we call the shots. What would happen if we had an idea? What would happen if someone had an idea as to how to change the landscape of the world and it could be implemented, because you need power to implement, but without violence? What if somebody here got an idea about how things could be other than they are so there wouldn't be so much brutality, so there wouldn't be so much hurt, so many people would not fall through the cracks, so our structures and our systems, political and economic and social, didn't exclude so many and didn't leave so many driven to all kinds of self-destructive behavior? I don't know, but I wonder about it because I am convinced that what John was about and what Jesus was about was about the concrete reality of everyday life. The kingdom of heaven was to come on earth; it was to be the kingdom of God; it was to be the way human society was organized if God were calling the shots. John was waiting for God to come, but God doesn't come, God doesn't intervene, God isn't going to intervene. It's no use waiting for God; God is waiting for us. I think we give up. I think we just think that's the way it is and we better keep our powder dry and we'd better stay strong, and if anybody comes around with a cockeyed idea that would too radically alter the whole situation, there's always the CIA. I don't know, friends, but I think a lot about it. I know in the meantime there is Micah 6:8, "What does the Lord require but that you do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God." And I know here and there, we can do a good thing, and I think all of us here would and we do, but you know, it's the Big Picture, it's the way everything is organized and structured. It's systemic. We could all sell all and give all and we wouldn't alter, ultimately, anything. It's the Big Picture. It's the idea. We'll have to see next week if Jesus had an idea. We'll continue. In the meantime, let it disturb you a bit. © Grand Valley State University � 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 Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> 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 Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Lent III Series The Human Face of God Scripture Text Matthew 3:2 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20000326 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-03-26 Title A name given to the resource Seeking Justice in a Brutal World Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem 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 Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 26, 2000 entitled "Seeking Justice in a Brutal World", as part of the series "The Human Face of God", on the occasion of Lent III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Matthew 3:2. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Awareness Justice Sermon on the Mount https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/59a7ce8c5b9fb12e59062caaa9e81de0.mp4 e7dc78261994939ff73232b9e3cd1922 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/46446413df1352a1e74cd86bbe6684f1.pdf 2306a2e5478678b186623fe5331710f7 PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW BETH SEFTON Born: May 30, 1921 in Sioux City, Iowa Resides: Interviewed by: Frank , Michigan Military Museum Transcribed by: Claire Herhold, January 29, 2013 Interviewer: Beth, let’s begin with the most basic of things. Where and when were you born? 1:02:25 I was born in Sioux City, Iowa, May 30th, 1921, so I’m now eighty two years old. Interviewer: What was your home town like? What was Sioux City like during that time? Sioux City was a typical Midwestern, all-white, town and so my family was a little bit of an oddity because my father was Chinese and my mother was English and German and therefore we were like a black would be to the South in those years. 1:03:22 Except that I think it was more noticeable because of the fact that we were conscious of it. Interviewer: Where did you go to school? First off, not high school or anything, but where did you first go to school? I first went to school at Irving School. It was just about five blocks from my house and it was a typical public school. My teachers were wonderful and I had lots of friends. 1:04:00 Interviewer: So you didn’t experience any real problems with the fact that your father was Chinese at this point? No, I think a lot of the prejudice was in family stuff, at least until I got into high school. Interviewer: Well, tell us about what was your high school experience like? Well, the only problems I had with prejudice there was the fact that some of the mothers were not happy with the fact that their sons liked me. In fact, one mother kept her son out of school a half a year so that he would not graduate with us. �Interviewer: Did you actually personally feel any kind of animosity or did you actually feel like there was some reason why you were different than the other kids? 1:05:01 No, not with the rest of the population. In fact, I think we were, both my brother and I were very intelligent, smart kids and so if anything we got preferential treatment. Interviewer: Did your parents ever sit you down at any time that you can remember and say that, you know, people out there might treat you differently? Oh, I think my mother was the cause of that. Interviewer: Because, you know, it’s very strange to say this but I’m half Russian and when I first came to America as a child, and of course the Cold War was going on, my mother sat me down and made sure to say, you know, don’t ever tell anybody you’re Russian because there might be problems, you know, so I kind of relate to what you’re saying. In high school then…you graduated from high school. Did you have any idea of what you wanted to do after high school? 1:06:00 Well, this was the middle of the Depression and our money was limited so it was, and the careers for women were limited also, so it was either a matter of college or nursing, and nursing was much more reasonable and much more accessible so I chose nursing. Interviewer: You know, I think a lot of people today wouldn’t quite understand because they don’t understand really what a depression is and in a depression your options are so limited in terms of what you can do. Did nursing cost anything or did you get a scholarship? How did you actually get the chance to become a nurse? 1:07:00 Well, my, let’s see, it was my brother’s wife had a baby in St. Vincent’s Hospital and I was impressed with the hospital itself and I know my brother had said to me, “Babe, you better decide what you want to do.” And so, I looked at the difference, and as far as cost it was very �reasonable because it was a school of nursing. They did not have colleges at the time that taught nursing, and so I had to pay, oh I think it was like a hundred dollars for uniforms and things like that, but most of it was that we worked for our, like what would be tuition, was what we worked. 1:08:21 We worked in the hospital from the time that we were “probies.” We first went in two hours and then four hours and so that we actually formed the staff of the hospital, and because in St. Vincent’s there were no interns we really had an excellent education and we still managed to get all of the subjects in that were taught by doctors and by nurses and by the Briar Cliff College also. 1:09:01 But it was a do-it-yourself more than now if you want to be a nurse, you have to go to college. Interviewer: Two things: what’s a “probie?” A “probie” is a probationer. Just a short name for a probationer when you start out. Interviewer: Now you had mentioned there was a college involved. Were you actually taking classes at any time during the day? Oh yes, we took classes in the day and in the evenings so beside our work we also had two to four hours of classes along with it. Interviewer: Are we picking up that sound? There’s a blower going on? Okay, good. 1:10:00 So what was this experience? Did you enjoy this experience? What was this experience like of working as a “probie,” if you will? Oh, you were not a “probie” long. It was about like a there month period, you see. But I loved nursing. I loved it from the very start, and I loved the people. I loved the work. I loved everything about it. Interviewer: What kind of nursing were you doing at this time? �Oh, the kind of nursing that we did was the entire range of things. We did the wards and private patients, but every kind of disease that they deal with in the hospitals is what we did. 1:11:03 We had gallbladders and appendixes and fractures, all those injuries plus a lot of people that had age diseases. I can remember we had a ward of old men there that had some of the old diseases that you don’t even see anymore with these ascites and the big abdomens and things that don’t happen as much now. Interviewer: I have a notice here, “Beatrice, loving watchful eye?” What is that? Oh, Sister Beatrice. I was, St. Vincent’s was ran by the nuns, and Sister Beatrice was the, actually my first paying job outside of the hospital. 1:12:04 We were in training for three years and they were, the nuns were very meticulous and they watched you, all of the nuns did, but Sister Beatrice was my first operating room supervisor outside of the hospital. Interviewer: In December of 1941, American was shocked at the attack on Pearl Harbor. Do you remember that day? Oh, I remember the attack on Pearl Harbor because I was doing my public health nursing. You went through the entire phases. 1:13:03 Psychiatric nursing, public health nursing, surgeries, obstetrics, everything. But I was on one of my last rotations and this was public health and I was in the car with the public health nurse and we heard it on the radio. And we were really shocked and it’s something just like the death of President Kennedy that you will never forget when we realized when we’d been attacked. Interviewer: What was your immediate reaction to that? What I’m trying to get at, is that you’re a nurse, we’re now at war. Was there any reaction in terms of …some of the pilots that I’ve talked to in the past always said, “I’m going to join up, I’m going to go, and go fight.” 1:14:05 What was your reaction? �My reaction to whether I should join the service was, I couldn’t at the moment because I wasn’t out of training. My brother was already in the war. He had joined up ahead because that also was an out when we were in this depression and you couldn’t get jobs anywhere and so he joined the service. And so he was up in Camp Grant, Illinois and of course he said, “Don’t join.” And I wasn’t really qualified yet because I didn’t graduate until 1942, which was, May of 1942. 1:15:07 And then I felt that I needed to have a little outside experience outside of that hospital before I ever would think of that. However, the real crux of the matter is that the longer we were in the war, the more you felt the pressure of having to, wanting to join, wanting to be a part of it, and the need to be. We were tremendously busy at the hospital where I worked. We were on call every other day and we just were very, very busy and so they kept saying, “Join.” And so everyone that was a young nurse at our hospital was already thinking of joining. 1:16:04 Two of the girls that I worked with became Navy nurses and another one an Army nurse. So we were all on limited time in our jobs it seemed like, and it was like, they pointed a finger at you, “We want you,” like that poster. And you really felt that you were obligated to, you wanted to really be part of it. I think that World War II was probably the most patriotic of all wars and certainly the most fervent, complete, the whole country was behind it so that you just felt that you had to be part of it. Interviewer: So in March of 1943, you were talking about like the radios and news venues were clamoring, but at this point they were clamoring for nurses, or at least that came to your attention, is that right? 1:17:10 I felt like the radio announcements and the, all of the news media was clamoring for nurses, and of course, like everything, like even now, they’re always clamoring for nurses to join or so. But it was also an altruistic feeling of wanting to, not necessarily having to, but wanting to. �Interviewer: What did you do in reaction to that? Well, in reaction to the feelings that I had and how the country was going, I…of course, I had to consider my mother who didn’t want me to join, of course. 1:18:16 There were only the two of us. But I really felt it was necessary, and so I, I was already a Red Cross nurse because as we graduated from nursing school we joined the Red Cross. And all of the nurses of that era went to the army through the Red Cross. We were not considered Army nurses as much as we were Red Cross Nurses. And so you had to have that backing before you were allowed to join the Army. 1:19:05 Actually, we did not become part of the regular Army until a while after that I was in it, and I didn’t even realize that. I thought I was an Army nurse right from the beginning. But then about, oh I forget how many months in, they had us sign something that made us really Army nurses and not just Red Cross nurses. Interviewer: For those people who do not have any background in this, why couldn’t, I mean, American males could join the Navy or join the Army or join the Marines. Did you have an option? No, there was no option to join the services that way. In fact, it was considered separate. The nurses were not considered a part of the Army at first. 1:20:00 Thank God I didn’t know that at the time because I don’t think any of us realized that we were not an integral part of the Army itself until afterwards. And then of course when the WACs and the WAVES, Women’s Auxiliary Corps and all of this, came in afterwards we were a little resentful because they got in so much easier than we did with so much less training. Interviewer: So you join up in the Army Nurse Corps. Where were you stationed and what was your experience? What did you learn there? �When I joined the service my first station was Schick General Hospital in Clinton, Iowa and it was a big general hospital. 1:21:03 It had the famous neurosurgeons and it was, I found out later that it had not been established as long as I thought it had, but it was an entire campus of…and there were training units, medical units, on the hill. All of them training to go overseas, but this general hospital did all types of surgery, and of course I was an operating room nurse and I was in on all of these new ideas and all the new metals that they were using, titanium and all of this stuff that was brand new. 1:22:01 Now you must remember that at this time there was just the beginning of penicillin and sulfa was just first being used. There were so many new innovations that were just beginning at this time. Interviewer: Now let me understand this. You’re now at Schick General Hospital. You’re training in these neurosurgical techniques, but you’re in the military. Don’t you have to go through basic training or anything like that? Oh, we had basic training at Schick General Hospital. In fact, one of the…we had marches, we had calisthenics. We also had gas masks where we had to go through a tent and learn how to put the gas mask on. 1:23:00 And we had, I don’t know what they had in it, but they did have some sort of gas that was very strong and we really had a tremendous basic training. Interviewer: Well, give us an idea of what a typical day would be like. I mean, we’ve interviewed your husband, we’ve interviewed other vets. You know, they’d get up in the morning, they’d have to do this. But you’re a nurse, so what was sort of a typical day like during this very first part of your training? It’s hard to remember exactly… Interviewer: That’s all right. �…what a typical day was but I don’t remember whether we did it in different days that they took you out to do that or whether it was part of a daily thing. But what we did is, I know that we had surgeries all day long and we an eight hour duty period. 1:24:09 But there must have been time out when we would have these marches and all of the training scheduled but I just don’t recall exactly how it was. Interviewer: That’s okay. In November of ’43 you made a big decision that literally affected the rest of your life. Instead of staying in the safety of Schick, I understand you volunteered. I volunteered to go overseas in November of ’43. This was very tempting to want to stay in this absolutely wonderful surgery place, but I also felt that what I joined the Army for was to help the soldiers that were going to be in this fight and so of course there I had to be overseas and not in the safety of the big general hospital here. 1:25:28 Interviewer: Now your mom was not happy when you joined the army to begin with, but she must have really wondered about this. What was your mom’s reaction to your wanting to go overseas? I think she felt, after I joined the Army, it was completely out of her hands. My mother was always concerned with the fact that we were in harm’s way. 1:26:00 But she knew that, she knew that I was going to make my own decisions. Interviewer: So once you volunteered for overseas duty, what happened next? Well, after I volunteered for overseas duty I was sent on a train to Camp Rucker, Alabama. We were in long wooden barracks. There were thirteen, about thirty people to a barracks, all in one room. And there were like two toilets at the end of the room where you could face each other �almost. So there was much less privacy and you learned more and more to be buddies with everybody. 1:27:05 [Long pause as phone rings and crew members shuffle] I’ve forgotten what we were talking about. Interviewer: Yeah, me too. I was going to Camp Rucker. Interviewer: Yeah, okay. So you’re at Camp Rucker now. I had a question though. This is in Alabama. Oh yes, Camp Rucker, Alabama. Interviewer: Was there any… we had heard earlier on to your being half Chinese…did you experience any problem there about this or was this not even an issue? 1:28:02 There was no issue at all with my ancestry after I got in the Army. However, Camp Rucker, Alabama was in the deep South and so I was shocked to find out how much there was still the separation of the two, the blacks and the whites, in the South. I can remember feeling outraged that the blacks would step off the pavement so the whites could walk by and there was still that black back of the bus where…and being from the North, I was really outraged at the acceptance and the difference it was in the South. 1:29:04 However, it all seemed to be done quite amiably between both races, and there was not the animosity that it would have engendered up North, but it was very apparent. We went through Montgomery, Alabama where they still had the flags of the South up and you would have thought Jefferson [Davis] won the war. Interviewer: Now, once you went through your training there at Camp Rucker, what was your next assignment? �Actually at Camp Rucker we didn’t have any training. What we did was we gathered our equipment and our… 1:30:04 I can remember that we had our barracks bags laid out and our bedrolls and all our canteens and we were supplied with everything that we needed. And we also met the unit that we were going to go overseas with. That was the 313th Station Hospital. We did meet the officers there and learn a little more about the bonding together of a unit at this time. Interviewer: You just mentioned officers. Did you have a rank at this time? Oh I was brought into the Army as a second lieutenant and there I stayed for a long, long time because of the fact that when we did get overseas our promotions were frozen. 1:31:14 But I think most all of the nurses that came into the service came in as second lieutenants and probably the older ones, the ones that were in charge of you were made captain and the ones that were…or first lieutenants. Those were the ones that did the paperwork and kept the nurses in line. Interviewer: From there where did you move on to, because now you’re about to… where did you go overseas and how did you get there? 1:32:00 We were sent from Camp Rucker, Alabama to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey and from there we were sent overseas. We had our final inspections and our footlockers were banded and everything was stenciled and then we boarded the, quite a large ship, and it was called the Brazil it was. I was seasick, always seasick. I couldn’t believe that I could get seasick because I was always so healthy and so strong, but ships are not my forte. So I spent my whole ten days going overseas on the top deck because I found out that I was perfectly all right as long as I was out in that fresh air but perfectly terrible like a leaden head when I was down where I could hear the machinery and smell the oil that came from the ship. 1:33:15 Interviewer: So I take it this was not a luxury liner you went over on? �Well, I think all ships are terrible. I don’t think there’s any luxury liner that could ever get me to get on a ship that I did not have to be on. Interviewer: Thank goodness you finally arrive, and where did you arrive? We arrived, well, we went in convoy across the ...and they had a smoking lamp that they would put out when the skies got gray and dark. You could see the whole mass of ships that were in this convoy and we zig-zagged a little bit. 1:34:07 Of course, I thought all this was not really necessary but I guess it was at the time. I just didn’t realize the dangers, but we landed in Scotland and that was I think in December of 1943, somewhere along there. Interviewer: Okay, let’s hold off just for a moment here. You’re getting real close to touching your microphone so be careful of that. And can we check on …are you all right? Okay. Is everything okay? All right, good. So this is the first time you’ve arrived in a foreign country even though it’s an English speaking country. 1:35:03 What was your first reaction to…? In other words, you get there…Was this the first time you met Scottish people or British people? We arrived in Scotland I think in the middle of the night, so and we were in Class A uniforms which means that we had short skirts, fairly short for that time, and not much protection so we were freezing. We got on a train there. I met no Scottish people, and it was dark so we’d peer out the window to see what kind of, what we could see because of course we loved the idea of being in a foreign country and wanted to see and do and experience everything that there was to experience. 1:36:02 We got on this train and tried to sleep and went all the way down, all the way from the top of Scotland clear down to the bottom of England which was, we landed in North Devon is what we did. But this was a long, long trip. I can remember the one time that we did stop they had coffee with cream in it. I never drank coffee in my life before but it was �nice and hot, so that was my first experience drinking coffee. We stayed on this cold, cold train clear down to Devon and it was rainy in Devon too. 1:37:08 But England will always be my first love because I spent fifteen months there. It was a beautiful, beautiful country and lovely people. The wonderful thing that I think I learned about the English was their resilience, their ability to make do with little. They had large buses and they were very patient in queuing up for them. But the most, the thing that I treasure most was the fact that even the old people rode bicycles to save the gas. There was a lot of bicycle riding. 1:38:02 Interviewer: What were you doing during this fifteen months? I was at the 313th Station Hospital and we were in Barnstaple, North Devon, England. That’s just almost as far south as you can get, and it was beautiful country. But we set up our hospital unit there. We were quartered at first in a manor house in Fremington and we learned, of course, all the things about English living, that they had no central heating, and we had to learn to start our own fires. 1:39:01 Interviewer: I think people may not realize what a manor house is. This is a huge, almost castle-like structure with lots of rooms so they would be perfect for housing a whole group of people. Well, the manor only housed about the nurses first and then the officers afterwards. And it was a huge, lovely house. It had a ballroom, which we turned into our dining room, and it had tremendous…actually one of the things I remember most was the tub that they had there and it was a built-in and it was so deep that it was amazing. But it was a beautiful, beautiful place. 1:40:01 Polished wood. There might have even been a ghost there sometimes. But we had in the one large room where some of our nurses were they had put eight beds in this one room, eight cots, where we slept on cots. And then of course at that time the officers and the enlisted �persons were out in what they call Nissen huts, which were sort of prefabricated huts that were long and, I don’t know how they were made. Interviewer: Like a barracks maybe? Yeah, kind of like a barracks. And they had potbellied stoves in them. These were the ones that eventually the nurses got these and we had to keep our fuel going, and we only had so much fuel. 1:41:11 Interviewer: Well, you know, that leads to another question. The war is going on. Did you have any experience…I mean, I know they weren’t bombing you, but did you have any experience with perhaps the deprivations of the war or any experience that the war was going on? There were…we had many experiences about the deprivation that was going on in England because we were not allowed to have any milk or any eggs or any things that would be taking away from the British population. In fact, I learned to drink powdered milk because I loved milk and powdered eggs. Actually, the United States Army I think ate quite well. 1:42:08 And we all had bicycles too. We bought them so we could travel without using extra gas. And then of course, at that time we set up our operating room and our different wards and the hospital things that we did were for our own unit or, once in a while, we had the airplanes that flew over from the RAF and the Royal Canadian Air Force. 1:43:08 And they had an airfield that was directly across the river from where our unit was stationed, and I know that there were several times when they had crashes, were brought in to our surgery and we took care of them. Interviewer: So at this point you’re not treating war, direct war casualties. You’re dealing with accidents and the general kind of…I guess, who were treating and what were treating at this time, besides the RAF and the Canadians you’re talking about? �Well, we were treating mostly our own personnel and living in expectation of what was to come. 1:44:13 Rather than treating anybody we were set up and ready, but not really functioning as a war unit. Actually, it was before we had D-day and so…Although I didn’t realize, I figured I was in the war because I was over there, but I didn’t realize that our Americans were not yet in the war and I couldn’t understand why we were sort of stagnated and not doing what I thought I had been sent over for. 1:45:01 Interviewer: Did you have any opportunity to either go into London or any of those areas that the war could actually be viewed, could be seen? I did go many places while in England. London was one of them, that was one of the really scary times because they were having the buzz bombs that came over, these were the unmanned bombs that Hitler sent over and you could hear the noise from them and when the noise stopped then you had to look out because that’s when the bomb was going to drop. Interviewer: Why were you in London? I went up on a pass to see one of my nurse friends and I was so frightened when there was all these air raid sirens and it got so black out and I didn’t know where I was. 1:46:10 And we were going in the subway and when I got off and they said, some British person said, “Oh yes, this hospital is right in the next block.” So I went up to the hospital and I asked for the, not for the person that I was coming to see but somebody that had been back in my unit because I was really frightened. And my nurse friend who was based in London was so calm and so matter of fact and everybody was going into the subways to escape the bomb scare. But she stayed up there and we watched through the window and saw all these flares and it was lit up and you could see the fires and everything. 1:47:09 I know, afterwards, when I was trying to get back to, go back to my own station, I can remember there were all these hoses that were strung across and the �British people, not just the men but the women were all working industriously to put out the fires and it was a real revelation of how efficient these British were. I was impressed. 1:48:02 But I was glad I was not based in London. Interviewer: I can imagine it also was a real wake-up in terms of the devastation of war and the kind of enemy you were up against. You really realized how devastating it was, because there was also all the rubble and the buildings that were downed and the people that were injured. It brought war very, very close. Interviewer: So once you made it back to your base, where did you go from there? I think it was about June of forty…I can’t remember… 1:49:01 Interviewer: Don’t worry. That’s okay. But we were not functioning efficiently as a unit and so the nurses were sent out on temporary duty to other hospitals. So I was sent up to Exeter and Taunton to, I think it was the 101st General Hospital. And I always felt a little like if I was the outcast, you know, not really belonging because you learn to identify so completely with your own personnel and your unit and so to be sent to a strange place, it was hard to adapt to different areas. 1:50:01 But we were sent to this big general hospital and I can remember living in another, presumably, manor house or something in the attic. I can’t even remember what we did there. Interviewer: This isn’t where you were doing similar MASH-type of… No, this was earlier on. That was when we were in… Interviewer: Malvern? But when I was in this area where we were transferred then instead of being on temporary duty any more, we were assigned to another unit. This one was the 123rd Station Hospital. And this was when were sent up to Malvern, England. 1:51:03 That’s probably in the north of England, �and they had the fifty, I think it was the 55th or 53rd General Hospital there. And there is where is where I was in the surgeries where they did two surgeries. They had a, it was a standing, it was not tents. It was a standing unit. But they had actually two surgeries going on at the same time and I participated in that area. And it was almost like what you see on the MASH unit that Alan Alda portrays there. I did not like the original M*A*S*H because I thought it was not only exaggerated, that it was gross almost, but… 1:52:02 Interviewer: All right, so from there I understand you went to France. From Malvern we were sent over to Wales, and there we met a different set of officers and went from there to France. So we arrived in France, I think about in January or February of 19, what is it, 45, I think. Interviewer: Well this must have been exciting. Now you’re going from England, now you’re going to another foreign country. And France, of course, has a lot of mystique and romance about it. What was your reaction to arriving in France and where did you stay? I arrived in France, I think at Le Havre, and then we stayed at a monastery, I think it was, that had, I know it had the chapel and we stayed so that we could go to mass every morning if we wanted to. 1:53:20 Interviewer: So you were in the monastery? There was a chateau there as well? It was, I guess it was a chateau, but it had that chapel at the side. And we were all in a long wooden area or so with canvas cots and we managed to press our uniforms by putting them between the cot and our bed roll and so that’s how we pressed our clothes. And it was a place where we, I know we had our mess kits with the great big tubs that were out there and we wore fatigues all the time. 1:54:14 That was a blessing because there was mud everywhere. We got to �know the French people. In fact, I tried to learn a little bit of French. I never was very good at it though. Interviewer: So let’s say for example, you’re now going out to eat and of course you’ve got candlelight settings with plates and silverware… Huh? We did not have, although the mystique of France was there, we were not given the candlelight dinners and things. 1:55:01 What we did see was the long French bread that they had, but they didn’t even put it in wrappers. They carried it on the street just as is with no wrappers or anything. And the French family that I learned about was when I went on a temporary duty to Dieppe and they had an evacuation, a field hospital there. And this French sixteen year old boy came up and he said, “Oh don’t step off the sidewalk,” he says, “because there are bombs and mines on the side so you have to stay on the walks.” 1:56:07 So he offered to take me up to see a castle that was really just the ruins of a castle that was there, and then he invited me home to see his mother. Although she couldn’t speak English and I can’t speak French we managed to connect with sign language and smiles and whatever. I have kept him as a friend ever since and I still correspond with him, and his mother has since died but we did go back in 1978 and visited her. 1:57:00 She had the Caduceus emblem that I had sent her and she gave me a little pair of earrings that, I don’t wear earrings, but anyhow. It just was a beautiful friendship, and he was a diplomat in the European common market. In fact, when we went back to visit we ended up having to go through security to get to where he was. He’d also been a French paratrooper. Interviewer: So where did you go from there? Because we’re not in the Pacific yet, we’re still in Europe. �Oh yes, we went from that staging area which was where the chateau was, and from that area we went to Reims, which was where we were again on temporary duty to a large general hospital. 1:58:09 It was I believe the 178th General Hospital. There’s where I was on night duty where there were, I was in charge of five different wards at the same time and they were all miles apart or so I can remember travelling down those wooden staircases and going to each ward. There were many casualties, there. This was orthopedic wards that I was in there. Interviewer: So what were you actually doing? I mean, these are war casualties. Give us an idea of what you’re actually doing to treat these soldiers. 1:59:04 There was a doctor there, the surgeon was there? In all general hospitals there’s a doctor and there’s actually the regular set-up that you would see in one of our civilian hospitals with the doctors and the nurses and the many patients. But of course, instead of being just single rooms they were in large wards. And the patients were pretty wonderful because they still maintained most of their sense of humor and they were young so they had the resiliency and the hope of the future there. Interviewer: What nationality? Were these British, Canadians, Americans? These were Americans. 2:00:00 This was an American hospital, and this was, of course, after the Americans had gotten into the war because this is ’45, early ’45. Interviewer: So these were the casualties of the war around there and they would come to either field hospitals and then eventually be transferred to where you were? To the generals, yes. These were the soldiers that were not sufficiently injured to have to be sent back immediately to the states, but they convalesced either in these large general hospitals or so. Interviewer: Was there any indication of the actual war beyond the casualties? Were there any bombings or any kind of things going on like that while you were there? �I did not experience any of the front line bombings. 2:01:04 We were always back far enough so that I always felt quite safe. I don’t know how safe I was, but I felt safe. We had all of these, actually we had paratroopers and we had aviators both as patients and in the vicinity. We had gone from Reims to this little suburb, it was called Mourmelon and there was a whole group of hospital units there. They would transport us in to the 178th General in Reims. 2:02:03 Interviewer: So from Reims, where did you go from there? I understand there was a French cavalry officers’ barracks? That was at, the French cavalry barracks that we were situated in was a beautiful place. It was stone and had outside staircases. It might have not seemed beautiful but it was beautiful to us. We’d go up the spiral staircase into a large room that had little rooms off of it like spokes on a wheel. And this is where I met Bill, when I was stationed at this area and we were in between our own units staging. 2:03:08 The 123rd was staging to go to the Pacific and to Japan, so we were in between doing our own sewing and getting all of the equipment together for having a hospital unit that would function in Japan. In between doing that we were also doing duty at the 178th General, so we were scattered in what we had to do, so we did our own thing in between times and then they would have us over so we could do the actual patients. 2:04:04 Interviewer: There’s two parts to this. Number one is, were you actually informed formally that you were going overseas or did you volunteer to go overseas? Oh, when the war was over, V-E Day, Victory in Europe, they came around and they asked us whether we wanted to be sent back to the states or whether we would volunteer to go on to Japan. Well, my brother had been over in the South Pacific for all his years and I was anxious also to go so I volunteered to go on. 2:05:00 I figured, as long as…you see, as nurses we were in for the duration of the war. That meant until the end of the war, regardless. It’s not like today �where you can be in for a certain length of time and then you kind of have to re-up or so. But for us, we were in until it was all over and so either we went on or we stayed in Europe, and those that didn’t volunteer stayed in Europe. My best buddy did not volunteer to go on because her husband did not want her to, and so as it was she stayed in Europe and she took care of German prisoners of war and also some of the army personnel that was left there. 2:06:11 Interviewer: This is where it gets interesting, as this young, dashing paratrooper shows up in your life. How did that come about? I met Bill in quite an interesting way. I had a friend that had been like a big brother to me in the 506th parachute unit and he had been sent up to the front and I hadn’t heard from him for some time and he’d brought me back a camera and a Nazi flag and had just left them and gone on. I hadn’t seen him, so I was expecting to hear something of this paratrooper when I got called down to meet someone downstairs. 2:07:20 I was upstairs writing letters and I was being a very good girl because I had had two proposals and I couldn’t make up my mind who I really liked and so I was staying home and being really picky about not going out with anybody. And so I thought this must be from Joe Reed. And so I came down to the unit and there were three gallant paratroopers there, two that seemed a little older and then this one fairly young, harmless looking person. 2:08:01 And so we talked and I kept thinking, why isn’t he saying there’s a message from Joe Reed? And it didn’t come out. Finally, I discovered that the only reason they were here was because they were looking for dates for a dance that was that evening or the next evening, and so my two nurse friends were conferring whether they were going to go out. I said, “I’ll go out with them if I can have the harmless looking one.” So there’s how I met Bill. It turned out later that he had asked somebody earlier who’d just gotten married, she was quite an exotic looking beauty, and he’d asked if there was anyone that was like her. 2:09:09 I had �always been considered her little sister because I had the same complexion and looks more or less. I seen her too recently at our 501 reunion in Pennsylvania, and she still is a lovely, lovely woman. Interviewer: Once you met Bill, though, did you have a chance to spend time with him? Or were you shipped off to the Pacific? Give us an idea of what was going on during that period. I met Bill the day after the war ended in Europe. That was the ninth of May, and I was staging to go to the Pacific so I only saw him for nine days at Mourmelon before he left. 2:10:13 And I went from Mourmelon, which is near Reims, down to Marseilles, and there we were waiting for a ship to go to the Pacific. And incidentally we had a time where we spent on leave in the Riviera, not with Bill, with my girlfriend or so. So we got to experience a little of that luxury that you saw of France where we got really sunbaked in the Riviera. 2:11:06 Enough to, I can remember using the paddleboats that they had there, and we paddled out so far not thinking how dangerous it might have been, we went way out. And I’ve often thought later on in my life, I’ve wondered how I could ever have been so oblivious to the danger we were in, but anyhow that was my…And we saw Bob Hope while we were in the Marseilles area and the beautiful Notre Dame cathedral. Not the one that’s in Paris, but the one that’s down there, called Notre Dame de la Garde. 2:12:01 And learned a little bit about the French people there too. They had that, what is it, not the Guy Fawkes day, but the day for the French Revolution, I forget what it’s called. Mary Beth celebrates it all the time. Interviewer: So from there, you’re now being sent to the Pacific. Wasn’t there something to do with the Russian soldiers? Was this before or after? �Oh, while I was still in Mourmelon. I was sent to a ward, it was a neuro ward and it was kind of primitive, really. I know we had our sterile water made and heated on a fire and there was…we had Russian soldiers there and one of the taught me a few words of Russian or so. 2:13:07 That’s where we had POWs, prisoners of war, that were German and we also had some very sad cases on this neuro ward, and one of them was a Russian that I talked to again with sign language. Interviewer: So these were serious war injuries, then? This is legs and arms? This was head, head injuries too. Interviewer: All right, so now you receive, in France, I believe you get a promotion. Is that correct? I was finally promoted to first lieutenant. 2:14:02 Actually, it was on my birthday almost. I think it was the 30th of May or so, promoted to first lieutenant. They finally unfroze our promotions. Interviewer: Besides a pay raise, what did that actually incur? Did you have additional responsibilities or are you doing basically the same thing? Nothing. Same thing, it’s just like after you’ve worked so hard, they finally say, “Oh well, we’ll give you a little more title or so,” but it didn’t change what you were doing. Interviewer: Let’s talk now about going to the CBI, which is the China, Burma, Indian theater. We left France to go to the Pacific, the China, Burma, India theater in July of 1945, knowing full well that we were going to encounter the Japanese and really some horrendous problems. 2:15:21 Interviewer: Well, let’s elaborate on that. What do you mean by that? �Well, we realized that the Japanese were a little more fanatic, well the Germans were bad enough, but the Japanese were not going to be conquered. Interviewer: So you’d heard through the news reels about some of the atrocities? I’d heard not only through the news reels but my brother had spent, he was a liaison pilot with the field artillery, and he’d, his plane had crashed several times or so. 2:16:07 And he really had experiences that were horrendous and he had suffered malaria and jungle rot and hepatitis, because he was in from the very beginning when they didn’t have any of the safety precautions that were in place later in the war, so he really was a casualty in his health as far as the war was concerned. Interviewer: So without going into the details of the travel, you went by a ship, right, across. Where did you first arrive and what was your first reaction to coming to a totally different environment? 2:17:01 On our trip over to the Philippines, we landed at Manila, but actually before we got over there is when there was V-J Day while we were still on the ocean, and we didn’t know for sure whether they were going to send us back to the states or whether they were going to send us on. There was great elation that the war was over, but it was still in a state of flux. I know that there’s been an awful lot of discussion about whether the atomic bomb was something that should have been done but I do know that it certainly saved my life and the life of those thousands and thousands of soldiers that were on their way to death and destruction. 2:18:17 And if they hadn’t dropped the bomb the war would have gone on for, I think probably many years, many years longer. So although the decision wasn’t our individual person’s, either our decision or our liking probably, it certainly was the answer to our prayers. So when they debate now whether that was the proper thing to do I just know for us who were alive and who were going to it, it was the proper thing. �2:19:04 Bill has often said that he thought it would have been smart of them if they’d have bombed the holy mountain instead, but whatever. I’m glad they dropped it for our sakes. Interviewer: All right, so you’ve arrived now in the Philippines. The war is over. What are your options now? What are you supposed to be doing? There were still casualties in the Pacific area and we still had wards. We had, actually, there were tents. The soldiers that were still casualties were in tents and I can remember giving shots in the tents. 2:20:07 And I also was elevated to being a chief nurse in the surgery, although the surgeries were not as many. They had actually a very beautiful facility set up in this one area in San Fernando and we did get to, we did do surgeries and there was a, I can remember the season was monsoon season, so there was rains and rains and rains… Interviewer: I guess that’s a good thing to talk about. You’ve been, of course, in the weather of the United States where you grew up, then you went to several other places, then you went to England, you went to France. 2:21:06 What was your first impression of the atmosphere, the environment, the weather of the Pacific? The weather in the Pacific was, I can think of two things. It had beautiful sunrises, beautiful sunsets, and the rest of it was pretty blah. It was barren otherwise, but it the most beautiful painted sunsets and you could see the natives, the Filipinos in their conical hats fishing in there. We had actually right outside of our campsite, we were right on the ocean, and we had the wreck of a, I don’t know whether it was a sub or what it was, but it was right out there on our area. 2:22:19 Interviewer: So you’re treating pretty much the residual casualties of the end of the war and I imagine they’re just as serious as they were during the war. I mean, these are the �ones that were fighting, when they were hurt it was still war time. But was there any sense that there were less and less of them coming through over a period of time? You didn’t really notice that. The wards were full. But you had a sense that they were trying to evacuate as many people as possible because this was the end, presumably the end of the hostilities. 2:23:09 I do know that the Philippines, the Filipinos were still very, and whoever else was out there, was really hostile because they would not let the nurses leave this encampment without having an officer with an armed gun on him. What I usually did was make the officer give me the gun. I don’t think I’d have known how to use it but I liked to have the control of it. 2:24:01 But we did get to see several things in the Philippines. We saw the place where the treaty, the Japanese treaty either had been signed or they had met to consult on it, in these quarters. It was near Baguio. Baguio was the resort area of the Philippines and it was a gorgeous spot. Down where we were was like the arid, dry spot and up there in the hills was this beautiful area. And they had the nuns up there and they had the silver filigree necklaces and things that they made. It’s one of the beautiful things I remember about it. 2:25:00 Interviewer: So when did things, not when in terms of an exact date or something like that, but give us an idea of when things started to wind down and what were your orders at that point? Were you going to go back to the states? Were you going to go back to Europe? What were your options and what…were you ordered to go somewhere? We had the option of going on anyway to Japan to be part of the army of occupation or we could return to the states, and I thought, the war is over, I’m leaving. I’m not going on to Japan. My mother had suffered long enough. And my brother had been sent back to the states, so we were all eager to go home so that we could start our real lives again. Naturally, I did not volunteer to go on to Japan. 2:26:03 Some of my nurse friends did, but not me. �Interviewer: Well, during this period of time, were you corresponding with Bill? Was there any decision making involving him in this thing too or where were you at this stage in terms of your relationship? We had corresponded almost daily. Of course, there were a lot of letters that were not received, so you’d get them in batches, you know. In fact there was a number of letters that came after I got back to my home. But I think that I learned to love Bill through the letters, through understanding…if he had not been a good communicator I don’t think I would have learned how much he meant and what a strong and wonderful character, person he was if it had not been for the letters. 2:27:13 In fact, I have, I made a book called “So Long Lives This” out of all the letters that I wrote and he wrote. He kept his and I kept mine, so they intersperse through this book. It’s long, but it’s not been published because not only is it personal, it’s too long and too expensive to publish. Interviewer: Well, I will agree with you that he is a character, since I’ve known him. I’m very, very pleased that you’ve kept those. I think it’s very important that your family have that for the future. So you’ve made the decision. You’re coming back. What was the process, if you will, of getting out of the military? 2:28:04 Or did you return home still in the military? When I left the Philippines, I left as chief nurse of my 123rd unit, guarding all of these strays that had not previously left or were not going on to Japan and really not knowing what a chief nurse did. In fact, it wasn’t until I got back and read all the papers that the chief nurse had written where she told every place I’d been and how many inoculations I had that I realized that I was glad that I’d never been a chief nurse because it was the paperwork. In fact, I did have a wonderful chief nurse who I, her name was Mildred Earhart and she, I don’t know where she is �now, but I did see her several times after the war. 2:29:08 So anyhow, I took this group in three truckloads to Manila and there was devastation there, great devastation and dusty roads and rioting and things that, because we were kept on this isolated base, we had not seen. A lot more danger than I was aware of. Incidentally, we were not the last people to leave this encampment. There were still people there and I don’t know what happened to them. But anyhow, in November we were put on the marine jumper that jumped all the way through the water back. 2:30:07 Another ship that I don’t care to have. We came back and landed in Camp Anza, California which is somewhere near the Golden Gate, and we landed on Thanksgiving Day. From there, we were shipped back to the base nearest where we had enlisted or joined the Army and mine I think was in Des Moines or somewhere near, somewhere in Iowa. And we signed all the papers and were put on terminal leave. 2:31:05 They had these big, what do you call it, debriefing centers set up to handle the massive number of people that were leaving. And of course, we could be put in the reserve, and so we were put in the reserve in case anything else happened. Interviewer: Were you intending to stay in the military? No, no. I was only in the military for the duration. Interviewer: So once you were put into the reserve then, I assume you went back home at this point. I went back home and, actually found out that my mother had moved. 2:32:01 I didn’t know where they were, which was kind of an unhappy situation. I will say one thing, travelling back from California to Iowa, I was first amazed at the lights and the beauty of the states that, you know, everything had been dark in all these places and to find that life had gone on very comfortably. The other thing that I didn’t like was the fact that having spent enough time being �gone that the war was old news, that the civilian populace were not happy with the returning nurses and returning people, that, you know, from respect you got not very much. 2:33:21 So I was really unhappy with the way people treated the military. It goes from great love of the military while they’re working to great disrespect when they don’t need them anymore. Interviewer: Did you experience that when you went to a hospital to apply for a job or something and there was already people there? No, no. I’m talking about the general feeling as we rolled across the country in these troop trains. 2:34:06 And it wasn’t until we got into actually Iowa where you got a welcome or so. Interviewer: So it was the hometown crowd that really gave you the welcome back. Yeah, more or less. But I mean, it just seemed like a very cold atmosphere, and you realized how much less the civilian population had had to suffer and how little they appreciated it. Interviewer: So when you arrived home, you’re of course, thank goodness, you’re greeted by your mother. Well, you found the house? I guess that’s the first thing, how’d you find the house? Actually, I phoned and they said, “Oh, she isn’t here anymore.” And she hadn’t a phone where she moved because there was a priority and you had to have a real reason to have a phone or else you couldn’t get one. 2:35:07 That’s another thing, the neighbors that, she was not very nice about letting her come to the phone. So a lot of things ticked me off when I got back. I guess I was ready to be ticked off. Interviewer: So how did you eventually find your mom? Well, I got her on the phone finally, on the neighbor’s phone, and found out the address and things, but all of these things had happened while the letters were not going back and forth, so I didn’t know that they’d bought a house and I didn’t know where I lived anymore. And she �didn’t know because the first thing she said to me was, “Who is Bill?” She said that I was fickle because I couldn’t make up my mind between which person I was going to marry, and she said, “Don’t tell me any more about your romances.” 2:36:11 And so I didn’t tell her. Interviewer: So your brother shows up too? Was he there? Yes, my brother was in hospitals from the time that he got back because the last times that he had been in the Pacific when they were having those last flights and he would take the flight of the person that was supposed to take it so that the guy wouldn’t die because he felt like he would make it back better than they. 2:37:02 In the end they had to lift him up to get him in the plane. Once he was in the plane he was fine, but his legs would get paralyzed from…so he had… Interviewer: So he was in the hospital, so you went to visit him in the hospital there … or he already got home? No, he was out by that time. And he demobilized and then he went back in again. Interviewer: Let’s cover now how Bill comes into this story again. Did he come to visit you there or did you go to visit him or what happened next? Well, we both arrived on different sides of the continent on Thanksgiving Day, and there was a letter for me when I came back that my mother had. 2:38:08 I guess he must have called or so because he called me on the telephone and then he came up to visit his father who was also an Air Force colonel in Grand Island, Nebraska which is next door neighbor to where Sioux City is. And so he’d visit his father on the weekend and then he’d come up to see me. Interviewer: So is that when he proposed? He proposed on Christmas Eve of 1945. Interviewer: And you said? 2:39:00 �What he said, and he still says he didn’t say it, but he said, “I take it for granted you’ll marry me,” and of course I did. That’s when we got engaged. Interviewer: So you got married and tell us just a brief… I got married and I’ve had ten children and now we have thirty seven grandchildren and four great-grandkids and we’ve had a wonderful life. Interviewer: That’s wonderful. One last question, and I ask this of everyone that I interview. What do you feel you accomplished during that period of time, that period of time that you went over there, went into danger? 2:40:01 What effect did that have on the rest of your life in terms of the person you became? Some people talk about how they grew up very quickly while they were out there, but what effect did the wartime experience have on you as a person for the rest of your life? The effect that the war had on me is it did mature me. I think I got more self confidence in myself and a broader view of people. More or less, it made me an adult and I could also see through my own eyes rather than through my mother’s eyes or through my childish ideas. � 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SeftonE0737V Title A name given to the resource Sefton, Elizabeth (Interview transcript and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sefton, Elizabeth Description An account of the resource Beth Sefton was an Army nurse during World War II. She volunteered for duty in 1942 and continued to serve until after VJ Day. She served in England, France, and the China Burma India Theatre working with surgeons and American, German, Russian and English casualties. She left the service as the Head Nurse and a 1st Lieutenant in the Army. Beth met her husband Bill while serving in the war and came home to marry him. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army. Women's Army Corps 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 2007-08-20 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/747cbbee0058a38afc97c0a0d9b6b380.mp4 68dc50e551c6130c92b8f3f3ece34651 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/76e297ca2ee85b67950a6313836a5ae8.pdf d14ce15937d4f3c67e58bdb54365dbb7 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project George William “Bill” Sefton World War II Part 2 Interview length: 55 minutes 36 seconds Tape length 1 hour 57 minutes 26 seconds Interview repeats after the 00:55:36 mark (00:00:09) End of Operation Market Garden -He and the rest of his unit served under British General Montgomery for seventy two days -It was supposed to be a three day mission in Holland -The unit returned to Mourmelon, France to regroup and get replacements -They had lost thirty percent of their unit’s forces in Holland -After returning troops started getting to go to Paris for R&R in December 1944 -They got back to France in November 1944 -Spent three weeks in Mourmelon (00:01:38) Beginning of Action in Bastogne -In December 1944 the unit was alerted to go to Bastogne, Belgium -They had been told they wouldn’t see action until they crossed the Rhine -He had no idea where Bastogne even was -He was loaded onto a cattle truck with fifty nine other soldiers -Even the regiment’s band insisted that they be placed in combat roles -They arrived at Bastogne at 3 AM -He got two hours of sleep, sleeping in the mud -They were short on supplies -The one saving grace was that the weather was still mild -His unit crossed the line of departure (LD) at 6 AM -Their mission was to go into Bastogne and join the 9th Armored Division -They were trapped in a valley by Germans and needed help out -When they arrived in Bastogne 1st Battalion Headquarters was pulling out -They wound up running into an advancing Panzer Division -They engaged the Germans at the villages of Neffe and Bizory near Bastogne -His company, D Company, was third in line in the attack -They were able to eventually push the Germans back and retake the area (00:07:58) Promotion and Continuing Action in Bastogne -After his unit’s executive officer (XO) was wounded he was made the new executive officer -The next day their medical unit was captured which only hampered things further -The old XO was able to be evacuated to the U.S. and survived -The colonel of the 9th Armored Division arrived with an entourage of armored vehicles -He, Bill, directed him to go to into the town of Bastogne -The armored vehicles were too large of a target and compromised their position -The next move was for him to take a squad out and to lay down landmines -As they began to move out they received fire from a German railroad gun -Long distance, high powered artillery piece situated on railroads -One man was wounded, but was able to make his way back to their lines �-Dawn began to break and they were forced to abandon the mission and go back -As they approached their company’s line an American machine gun began firing -Bill identified that they were Americans and the firing stopped (00:15:22) Aiding the 506th Infantry Regiment -The 506th was on their left and had been hit pretty hard by the Germans in Noville -The next move then was to help take the pressure off of the 506th -D Company was ordered to pull back three miles and join A Company -The next move was to attack a German position in a pine grove -At dawn they sent out a reconnaissance patrol to find the railroad tracks and look for Germans -The recon patrol found the wrong set of tracks and said the area was clear -They started down a road and got to a nearby railroad station which was their destination -They saw unknown contacts in the distance and another patrol was sent out -Upon arriving at the train station a German opened fire on them -They moved to a better position and returned fire on him, wounding him in the process -The German soldier was captured and looked to be only sixteen years old -From their new position they could see another German soldier digging a foxhole -The German soldier looked old and weary -Bill decided not to shoot him, because he didn’t want to -They created a machine gun position and held it until they were ordered to take Jack’s Woods -Over the next few days they would routinely take artillery fire at dawn -Subsisted on two meals a day -A pancake in the morning and stew in the evening (00:23:23) Pushing the Germans away from Bastogne -They held their machine gun position until General Patton’s forces arrived -As they mounted the offensive they worked with local farmers for various tasks -As more of Patton’s troops arrived the Germans began to fight more tenaciously -Once Patton’s troops arrived they began to move into Jack’s Wood outside of Bastogne -They had to move through the woods on foot -No visibility due to heavy fog -Once they were well into the woods German tanks attacked them on the flank -On top of that they began to receive mortar fire as well -Due to perfect timing he was able to escape the barrage unscathed -Another soldier fell on top of him and both of them escaped injury -At the end of the fighting in Jack’s Wood two U.S. soldiers were killed -One German soldier was wounded in the woods -A U.S. soldier killed him and put him out of his misery -When they moved into Bastogne they were surrounded by Germans -This was no issue for the paratroopers since they were accustomed to being surrounded -At the end of the fighting he only had nineteen men (out of forty) left in his command (00:30:51) Moving into Alsace-Lorraine -After Bastogne, D Company was moved to Alsace-Lorraine to stop Himmler’s advance -Himmler was the commander for all of the German SS soldiers -When they arrived the 42nd Division was already pushing across the Moder River -He remembers arriving at night and going into a barn to sleep -Tucked himself into his sleeping bag and fell asleep in a pile of hay -They would go to the frontline for six days, and then return to a nearby town for three days �-At some point the snow started to melt which filled their foxholes with melted snow -This meant that they had to dig into frozen ground to establish new defensive positions -They had had to dig all night to create a substantial enough foxhole -Used bundles of wood and local rutabagas to help fortify their position -At noon the next day the Germans brought up a self-propelled artillery piece and began firing -A self-propelled artillery piece is similar to a tank, but with an artillery cannon instead -Their position took twelve hits and on the thirteenth hit a paratrooper was hit -By the time they reached him he had already died -He had been killed by the last shot that the Germans fired on their position -This was the last major action that they saw (00:38:02) Returning to France -With the Battle of the Bulge finally over his unit returned again to Mourmelon, France -Their next missions were scheduled to be drops into prisoner of war camps to liberate them -This was in the event that SS forces began to slaughter Allied prisoners of war (00:38:35) Communication in the War -His job as a superior officer was to censor outgoing mail -He had to look for any sensitive information that might be in letters -This included their location, their strength, and where they were going next -It was an unenjoyable task for officers -Either had to black out portions of text, or physically cut out the text (00:40:33) End of the War -Word came down through their radio network that Germany had surrendered -There were no major celebrations on Victory in Europe Day (May 8, 1945) -They all knew that they were most likely going to wind up in the Pacific -Japan was still fighting and they knew an invasion would likely involve them -They moved onto Berchtesgaden, Germany -Location of Hitler’s “Eagle’s Nest” -They stayed there for about one week -From Germany they moved down to Austria -They were right across from the Russian lines -Men started to get sent home because they had enough “points” -Combat experience and length of service equaled a certain amount of “points” -You needed 85 points if enlisted, 80 points if an officer (00:42:13) Transfer to the 506th Infantry Regiment -He was transferred to the 506th Infantry Regiment after Austria -“Band of Brothers” (HBO miniseries) is centered on E Company of the 506th -Upon transfer to the 506th he was made the athletics officer and the club officer for his unit -This meant he was in charge of athletic supplies and officers’ club supplies -Attached to him was their unit’s French interpreter, George, who became their bartender -Bill eventually helped George immigrate to the United States -At one point they needed softball supplies, so they “acquired” them from the Air Force -While he was in France he met his wife who was a nurse -She was later transferred to the Philippines, so they communicated through letters -Having one of her letters on hand helped carry out a ruse to “acquire” those supplies -At one point Colonel Sink came to inspect the supplies that they had -He was astounded, and concerned, at the amount of athletic supplies they had �-Bill reassured him that the truck he used had been covered in mud -Thus, it was completely untraceable -Later on they needed more officers’ club supplies, specifically alcohol -George took him to Brussels to talk to a black-market liquor supplier -They were eventually able to negotiate an alcohol supply (00:50:18) Going Home -He eventually got orders to go home -George set out to help throw Bill a going away party -In exchange for George’s help he took George to the American Embassy in Paris -The plan was to get him a travel visa so that George could immigrate to the U.S. -When they arrived there was a swarm of French civilians looking to get visas as well -Bill took George directly to the ambassador and got George his papers -For Bill’s party George got nine trucks filled with civilians, and plenty of girls -On top of the guests George also provided a massive amount of clams and alcohol -After the party the city of Paris requested that U.S. soldiers rent hotel rooms next time -The troops and French girls had occupied flowerbeds instead of hotel rooms -When he returned to his hometown of Anderson, Indiana he went to an immigration center -Insured that George would be able to make it easily into the United States � 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SeftonG0738V2 Title A name given to the resource Sefton, George William (Interview outline and video, 2 of 2), 2003 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 Description An account of the resource George William "Bill" Sefton was born in 1922 in Anderson, Indiana. Prior to the war he was taking classes at Ball State Teacher's College. He enlisted in the Army shortly after the war started, trained as an officer and served briefly with the 131st Infantry Regiment guarding the Soo Locks in northern Michigan before being accepted for paratrooper training. He went to Camp Taccoa, Georgia and began training with the 501st Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. He went with his unit to England and jumped into Normandy on D-Day. He served with his unit in Normandy until they withdrew to prepare for Operation Marked Garden. He made his second jump as part of that operation in September, and served with his unit in the Netherlands until they were withdrawn in Novermber, and then went to Bastogne, Belgium in December 1944 to fight back against the German advance during the Battle of the Bulge. After the fighting at Bastogne, his unit moved to the Alsace-Lorraine region and on into Germany. With the war over he was transferred to the 506th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division where he served with them in France as the athletics officer and club officer (in charge of athletic supplies, and officers' club supplies) for his unit. At the end of the war he met his wife who was an Army nurse at the time. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sefton, George William 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 World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image 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> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f148226b715287318d3661ff7bfd6e56.mp4 81a9fda67a9ae607d5acae1c54b7d2ab https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9e851eb8043fef0e62120c0f23edf7aa.pdf 341cacd2f1ee25467393fa83b1b383df PDF Text Text Bill Sefton Interview Michigan Military History Museum 9/18/2003 Interview By: Frank Boring Part 1: 1 hour 53 minutes 29 seconds (length) (the time code will read as „1‟ not „0‟, then „2‟ not „1‟) (1:00:44) Bill I would like to start off by just asking where were you born and when were you born? I was born in Anderson Indiana on March 5, 1922. My parents were…my father had been a infantry company commander in WWI. The biggest day of the year for me was the opening day of quail season when I got to go hunting with my father, grandfather, the dogs and what have you and pretty much grew up in an aura, if you will, of outdoor sports and the love of the country side. (1:01:23) The fact that your father was in the military, did that have an impact on you? Well it certainly did. I thought that I had a tremendous admiration and affection for him Even though he was rather an austere figure back in the days of the depression. My mother was smart enough to have us four kids in bed before he got home (laughing)…before he closed up the furniture store and got home so……..except things like hunting trips, I didn‟t really see near as much of him as I did my mother. (1:01:55) At the point of schooling, what kind of schooling did you have? Well I went through a catholic parochial school through the 8th grade and through high school…and then after the war, I mean after school, I didn‟t have enough money to go to college right away so I worked a year and then I started taking classes at Ball State Teacher‟s College in Muncie, IN, 30 miles away, driving over…At that time I was working seven nights a week in Delco-Remy doing defense work so I would go to work at 11 get off at 7, drive down to Muncie and take 3 classes. I took English, Chemistry…Typing, English and Chemistry because those were the only three I could get in a row...(laughing) (1:02:44) So at this particular point in time was there any intention of getting involved in the military at all. Well actually…when the National Guard was mobilized. They formed in Indiana State Guard which is really a militia and my father was the company commander and a close buddy of mine, of course we both joined, and my dad said, one thing, “you‟re welcome to come in son, but you got to realize one thing, I can never promote ya.” (laughing) A year later, his executive officer said, “Pete, he‟s the best drill instructor and bayonet instructor we got, you gotta promote him (laughing) so he did promote me to corporal. But that did turn out to be a tremendous advantage and I actually got in the Army. �(1:03:30) Well let‟s talk about that part. How did you actually get into the Army? Well, the war broke out and I was determined to go and my parents at that time you had to be 21 to join without your parents‟ consent and they were saying,”look why don‟t you just finish out the year at Ball State so at least you gotta…running…leg up on college. And my closest friend had taken a job out in San Diego at Consolidated Aircraft and so we agreed that during the course of break that…I said, “I wanna go out and visit with him.” They agree, ok, but they did sign my papers before I left…(laughing…so nobody was really fooling anybody) They knew as well as I did that I wasn‟t going to be coming back….(laughing)….. (1:04:27) Well let me ask you this, why the Army, why not the Navy or the Marines? Well, two reasons I suppose. Mainly because my father had been in the Army and the other thing I had read about the new branch of military, headed up by the army, the paratroopers and that intrigued me enough that early on I had gone down to Indianapolis at the reception center there and asked them about how do you get in this. I still remember there were these two sergeants sitting there, one of them turned to the other one and says, “hey, here is a guy that wants to jump!” They looked at each other and then the guy said, “you got to understand, we‟ve only have thirty openings a month, of course there‟s still twenty-nine open.” But anyhow, I guess the main reason was I knew that my dad had…I thoroughly admire that…he had been a commanding infantry company in the trenches and I figured if you got in the paratroopers you‟re probably going to get into the fight and not be shunted off to something else. And that was the main reason I joined. (1:05:35) Well, what did you know about paratroopers at that time? Only what the Army was putting out. That you had to be able to fight independently, on your own at night, etc. and you had to be highly trained and that was uh…ya know they polished it up pretty good. (laughing) (1:05:52) Yea but Bill, what I guess what beats me, here‟s this sergeant telling you that there‟s 29 out of 30 opening, okay and they‟re telling you about flying at night and all this kinds of stuff …this appealed to you, or this is something you found…? Oh, it appealed very much to me. I wanted to be at least as good as my dad was and I figured that was one that I could do….there would be no doubt that at least I tried. (1:06:19) So you arrive in San Diego….is that right? Yup…I got to San Diego (1:06:24) So, what happens when you arrive in San Diego? �Well, I went out to the recruiting office and enlisted and they sent me out to Ft. Rosecrans which is a coast artillery post and they gave, started giving me these, these physicals and I had as it turned out what I didn‟t know anything about at that time was called a “low threshold”. With a low threshold I could drink a chocolate malted and flunk any urine analysis in the world…(laughing) and I had been drinking a lot of chocolate malteds. He said your sample was 4+ sugar, but we‟ll give you four more tries. So I started drinking water and eating nothing but sweets and by the time I got to the fourth one, not a trace of sugar. But I had drank so much water…..the specific gravity was too low (laughing) and then the fifth…just a trace of sugar showed up and they said, “sorry, we can‟t use ya.” I said, “well you‟re losing a damn good man to Arizona!”…I hitchhiked to Tucson and went to the recruiting office as soon as they opened up. The physical there consisted of counting my eyes, listening to me breath and saying, “raise your right hand!” (laughing..) (1:07:49) So …now you‟re in Arizona…. I am in Arizona and I apply again for airborne and I am sent to Ft. Bliss, TX. And we go through a whole bunch of psychological tests and what have you and this corporal said “you don't want to go into the airborne infantry, there are a lot of jobs where we can use you better..you know and so forth…..so I said airborne infantry…put it down there……so he did. (laughing)….there‟s a sideline here I got to tell you…in the perennial tent we had two Mexican kids who could barely speak English and one of them had just come back from going through a test and I said to him, well what happened…..he says…I go through zee test, I come back…talk to this little man behind zee desk …he said do you like to go for walks, I said yes. Do you like to be in the woods….I said yes….he says……”Good, you‟re in the infantry!” (laughing) But the infantry historically…had always gotten that kind of cannon fodder. (1:08:55) Let me ask you this, your first attempts to get in, you drank too many chocolate milks or chocolate shakes, the second time and then finally you had to go to Arizona. Was there a sense of frustration there, or is it just you‟re going to do this and you‟re going to do this no matter what? I had no doubt that I would get in……(laughing…) none whatsoever. (1:09:16) Bill, just hypothetically, what would have happened if you couldn‟t get in in Arizona? I would have gone somewhere else (laughing) doctors or something……. (laughing)…I suppose…I would have hired my own (1:09:29) So now you‟re actually joined up, you have gone through the psychological tests, what were those like. I realized it was a long time ago but what basically were they trying to find out? They were mostly measuring IQ and measuring aptitudes and things of that nature, that is primarily what they were. I don‟t remember what all they were. I do remember when we got to Camp Roberts for basic training, when they called me up, the psychologist to go over the �interview with him, he just asked me questions like, “what do you call a hill.” I said, terrain feature…(laughing)…and never told me why I was there…and the next day they called me the “platoon idiot” (laughing)……apparently I had the high IQ and whatever the reason for it I don‟t know…I just know that they called me in in the next day or two they called him and that was all they ever called out of our platoon. (1:10:38) So let‟s talk about, first of all…basic training, but I also want you to talk and give us a sense of what it looked like, the area…Camp Robertson, you said…look liked Camp Robertson [Roberts] California…when I first went there the vast drill field was covered with vehicles primarily because they were still afraid of Japanese air attacks …landings and the cadre formed a task forces…we had to fight but it didn‟t last very long. It wasn‟t long after that we were using it just for a drill field. But that was out in near San Luis Obispo…it was dry and pretty much dessert. You lips would split, chap and split. We started in February and were there through April. (1:11:32) What were your buildings like in billeting? They were World War II vintage barracks. They were all built…the whole camp was built. They certainly never had that capacity before and they had artillery and infantry there. (1:11:47) So just so that those of us who don‟t know or fully understand, you‟re not technically in the paratroopers…yet…right? Oh no…no…no! (laughing) (1:12:04) What was the daily routine of basic training? Well, the daily routine was (laughing) the basic rudiments of infantry…..you went from close order drill, you went into weapons training with all the weapons that the infantry had at that time and then you had maneuvers…not really maneuvers but you had tactical exercises. Basically their job was in that thirteen weeks to prepare you for going on to unit training and everything else. So it was nothing like going through Marine boot camp, but it was rigorous. They kept you very busy and it was pretty interesting. (1:12:50) I was going to asked you, “you wanted to be a paratrooper?” Yup! You have to get through basic training even to get to that point…… Oh yes…yes indeed! So did you feel…..I guess what I am trying to get from you is….you‟re with a whole group of people who really don‟t know where they are going to go, including yourself, you may �not make it to paratroopers…you may end up in somewheres else, were there other people there that was specifically knew what they wanted like you did. Oddly enough the whole third platoon of our training company, almost the whole, were all the guys that had asked for airborne so they were all “gung ho” to go….not every man but I would say at least 75% of them were. They were there for that reason. They wanted to go airborne and they were mostly from the southwest. Course I enlisted in the southwest, in fact, I was the only one from north of the Mason Dixon line in our platoon so my nickname became “Indiana”…(laughing) (1:13:57) So during the off hours from basic, what did…. especially the guys who wanted to be in the paratroopers…..what were you guys talking about? What were your bull sessions and stuff? Just about how we intended to make it someway or other. You know, that‟s what we what we wanted and we were determined to get. (1:14:16) What age were you around this time? Well, I was 19 at that time and I turned 20 in March of that year. (1:14:25) Was that pretty much the age of the people you were with then? Pretty much because they weren‟t drafting 18 year old kids yet. So I was probably one of the younger ones actually. (1:14:37) What did you know about the war? How were you learning about it and what did you know? Only what we got to read in the newspapers and the radio. You know…. about Pearl Harbor, we knew about that before and we did not really know…there wasn‟t a lot to know at that time….Baton still hadn‟t fallen if I remember correctly. It was getting pretty close. We knew that was trouble there, but we were mostly concerned with learning the trade so to speak. (1:15:11) So you get through basic training, what is the next step? Well, they also at that time had decided, the Army had, that graduates from basic training could apply for officer candidate school, and they put the notice up on the bulletin board and I guess they had thirty, forty guys fall out. The other three…two platoons incidentally were all from Pittsburgh. A lot of them were just like the dead end kids….you know (laughing). One of these Pittsburghers came by and saw all his buddies in line you know and he started laughing. He said, “you idiots!” “Only guys going to make it and that is Sefton!” and to this I don‟t know why he thought that…and actually three of us from our platoon…the company commander was the first hurdle, and I think the First Sergeant he probably had something to say about it too. Then the battalion commander and the regimental commander they were rubber stamps. If the �company commander said, “this man is qualified.” They would automatically….then you went before a board, infantry board, and there would be a Major, a couple Captains, and a couple of Lieutenants and they would fire these questions at you. The first one they fired at me was, “Sefton, what makes you think you want to be an infantry officer?” And I thought to myself, who said there is no God! (laughing)…..I said “Gentleman, my father was an infantry company commander in WWI and I always thought that was a thing a man should do…when the defense of the country‟s at stake.” Later on they said, “What do you do for a stoppage of a third position with BAR, Browning Automatic Rifle? Well just by happenstance, I had been reading the thing again the night before and I rattled off the immediate action with every comma in place (laughing) and they all looked at each other and said “my what soldiers we‟re training here.” (laughing). He said that will be all Sefton, your company commander will let you know. So I am walking back and I am thinking, “oh, my God, I gave him the immediate action for the wrong position….” (laughing)of stoppage…and not a one of them knew the difference (laughing)…… Anyhow the three of us, two of us did go and we had both requested Airborne. (1:17:49) I know this is really difficult since it was such a long time ago, but how were you actually notified that you the officer‟s…that you were gonna be an officer? The First Sergeant said…….the company commander called us up and congratulated us. But the thing I remember most about that was when the two of us were now leaving the post to go and this gray hair World War I age, “potbellied” First Sergeant who was so rough everybody was afraid of him. He came right over to me, picked up our duffle bags, carried them across the road to where the busses were going to pick us up and he said, “You men are going to become officers and gentlemen. I have only one request. Don‟t ever forget the enlisted man‟s point of view.” ….and I never did (laughing). But I can still see the expression on his face. I can still see that day so clearly. (1:18:48) So you board a bus….. Oh yeah… (1:18:52) Where you going? I was going to a railroad station and then they took us on the land grant railroads up through Utah, I think it was about a three day ride to get there and some bridges were out, so we got there actually a little late to start class 74. But they created a new class 74A for those that came late. And O.C.S. was a, oddly enough, in our class there was really three major parts. The ones that were just out of basic training, there were others that were already non-coms with two, three, four years of experience and then there were the VOCs. The VOCs were volunteer officer candidates and they were people with college degrees. Most of them were up in their thirties or so and were successful in some field or other and they could volunteer for this and they would �take basic training first until they flunked out of O.C.S. you were free to go back to civilian life and take your chances on being drafted. So it was about a third and a third and a third the way it was split up. The training was very intensive, you were learning the tactics, you were learning terrains, you were learning all this sort of stuff and you have a lot of not only the lecture instruction, but also hands on instruction and I remember one instructor, we went out and he said, “I can always tell the O.C.S. class from a basic officer class.” “The Basic Officer Class, were once with R.O.T.C. commissions coming in. He said, “When I say good morning to the Basic Officer Class, they all say….Good morning!….When I say it to an O.C.S. class, they write it down.”……(laughing) Getting that little gold bar put tremendous pressure on everybody in there and the worst part of it was that at the end of each month you had to rate every man on your floor of the barracks from one thru twenty, or the first twenty four or whatever it was. And the first five, you had to tell why they were in the first five and the last five, you had to tell why they were in the last five. And that was really tough to do. It was the worst thing about it, but when we finally got through the course and they call us out for the last time as enlisted men and they read of six or eight names, and said you men will report to the variety room and we went off on this victory march….no packs…no weapons…singing …(laughing) When the Saints Come Marching in!…..(laughing) Head back and those guys were gone, their bunks were gone, the other bunks were neatly spaced as if they never existed. Like they had never been there. I forever residing memories of that I took from there [?]. (1:22:03) This may seem like a stupid question, but you know you‟re going to war…don‟t you, what was the mood now you are now becoming and officer which means you are going to be responsible for other people. Were you too young to really realize this? Did this weigh on your mind at all? I think this is just what you gotta do…it is what you are supposed to do…you‟re going to defend your country and you do as well as you could. As soon as I got the officer position I applied again for the airborne and so did my buddy. The cadre company commander went on leave and neither applications were forwarded. I ended up guarding the locks at Sault Saint Marie with the 131 Infantry Regiment and barrage, balloons, aircraft weapons…(laughing……)…we never saw each other again…course as soon as I got to Sault Saint Marie, I put in my application for airborne again (laughing) within a month it came or two months it came through I went to Toccoa, Georgia, and joined the 501. (1:23:18) Was there any knowledge of where you were going …like you say to join the 501. Did you really know what that meant or did you just sort of went and then you found out? Well, we knew it was a parachute unit, we knew we were going to go to parachute school eventually and that the paratroopers were going to be the highly trained infantry and in all probability going to be used. (1:23:45) So you are on your way there now and you travel by what……train……okay? I had a 10 day delay on route which happened to coincided with Christmas time and went right through my home town so that….my father was already overseas so my mother was delighted to see me (laughing)… �(1:24:00) Tell us about that. That must have been an amazing moment coming back for Christmas, you‟re now and officer and your dad greets you? Oh he wasn‟t there….he was already overseas. It was just my mother, my brother and sisters were there. (1:24:19) So that must have been a high point for you? Yes, I was just glad to be there but then the ten days went up pretty quick…(laughing) and I was on my way to 501 at Camp Toccoa, Georgia. (1:24:40) Let us get as much detail as possible, describe your arrival at what has been something you‟ve worked so hard to do coming to parachute school. Well, as I recall I got there and immediately interviewed by the Regimental Commander and assigned to Easy Company and that night I was going to get into the shower and I had my towel over my shoulder and it was already not quite dark but awful close. The Regimental Commander came bye and said, “Hello, Sefton”….that guy had that kind of memory for names. I was not the only officer that had come in that day. They were streaming in …(laughing)….and it really impressed me that he paid that much attention to the people he got and where he was assigning them. Well, actually I had been in “E” Company one day and they switched me to “F,” They were filling these companies up with draftees and this Colonel Johnson, the Regimental Commander had this policy, they got off the troop train, they were marched down to the mock tower which is a structure up 40‟ high which you got up and put on a parachute harness and you jumped out the door and you were held by a cable so you only dropped about 20‟ and then you went sliding down this long cable….anybody that did not jump got right back on the troop train….right then and there…(laughing) and I remember we had one first lieutenant that he looked like a very experienced first lieutenant …his face was hard…you know this guy had been through a lot….he could not make himself jump out of that tower, and he was shipped out immediately. In fact there was an old story supposedly true, but probably not, that they got this new recruit in on a Sunday and they said all you have to do is to jump out that 40‟ tower over there. The recruit said, “Hell, I can do that!” so he jumped, no chute….(laughing)…broke his leg….(laughing)….you didn‟t have to be all that bright to be a paratrooper (laughing)…. (1:27:22) What was the routine? You told us about the routine in basic training now what was the routine here at the school? Well, now the routine is, as an officer you were working with the new recruits in basic training so we are going back to a thirteen week cycle training them in weapons and all the way up through squad tactics and that was about the size of it. But it was pretty intensive you know and we also had great ideas like the company commander would say, Okay, we are going to do a 15 mile march in three hours…..(laughing). We had jeeps parked along the side passing out chocolate bars as you were double timing by.... and the thing I remember about it was that �battalion headquarters, S-3 and/or commander got us lost and at the end of the three (3) hours we were still twelve miles from camp…(laughing) and I remember yet, the company commander was determined we would get back across the line and the guys were falling out and we tried to help them….the first sergeant started yelling up to the head to the company commander, lieutenant….the are strung out from Hell to breakfast…….. (laughing) I was carrying two men‟s weapons besides my own and this one guy, all he had was a carbine….he was dragging and dragging and I said, “soldier, if you can‟t keep up, give me your weapon!”…and he handed it to me…(laughing)….. I had three in my platoon to say lieutenant, “you gotta let us set our own pace our feet are bleeding, we just can‟t do this!” I said, “Alright!….you set your own pace, but I‟ll be at the finish line and you‟d better be there too!” (laughing) About twenty or thirty minutes later, one of the guys that‟s marching beside you just past out….just boom! Right face down on the highway and I splashed water in his face and it took me about five minutes to get him to come to and just then this big old car came down the road an old Hudson I think it was….a farmer driving….coming toward camp from behind us. So I stepped out and stopped him you know. I said, I got a man here that has got to be dropped off at the camp dispensary and you‟re going to drop him off. So I yanked open his back door and here on the floor sat my three little Geronimos (laughing) let me tell you they led the platoon the rest of the way, but that was the kind of stuff you had to go through. I hadn‟t gotten to parachute school yet, but that is the kind of stuff I had in training. (1:30:16) You know that brings up an interesting question, if you can‟t answer don‟t, how do you compare your training to the training you guys put into effect? The training you actually went through in basic training and then the training you actually…… I think we were more “gung ho”. I think we thought….you‟re something special…you‟re not just infantry…you‟re parachute infantry you know and I think that imbued the instruction and we had a lot more physical instruction. We had a lot more pushups and gorilla stomps and runs….we ran everywhere we went virtually. A five mile run before or immediately after breakfast. Physical training we were in really good shape by the time we had finished, that was the biggest difference of all. (1:31:05) So the training ends and how were the people notified whether they…… Oh everybody went to jump school. Nobody flunked out of the training. But actually about half of the officers had already been to the jump school, the other half of us hadn‟t. And the 75 promotions that came through in that cycle they were many of the officers that had already been through jump school already and they were riding us that hadn‟t all the time….”you guys may make it”….you know….so if anybody was determined to make that first jump, it was those of us that had been taking all that ribbing all that time. But at jump school we were in such good physical...jump school is divided into four phases. The first was physical conditioning…and we were in such good condition, we skipped that and the regiment and then you went into “B” stage and that was jumping out of a fuselage sitting on the ground and jumping off a twelve foot platform and sliding down it and I believe there was an instruction coming behind that would trip the thing and whatever you did, you‟re supposed to hit the ground and go either into a right front role or a left front role landing technique. The third stage was off the towers. You were going �up these 250” towers, release and actually landing. The fourth stage was the jumps. You make five jumps and that first jump I made was the easiest jump I ever made….it was nothing that was going to keep me in that plane……(Laughing)….I was going to go out regardless and that first jump, you‟re supposed to count when you go…1000….2000….3000…if you get beyond 3000 it means your chute hasn‟t opened, but the opening shock will tell you that your chute is open….that comes just about the time you get to 3000 and it does rattle your molars and that puts what we called strawberries, if you happen to go out upside down you end up with bruises, we called strawberries on your shoulders and you‟d crack like a whip at the end. Theoretically, you crouch in the door. We would practice that all the time. You would put your left to the front and you kick straight out with your right leg. Theoretically the wind would give you a quarter turn and the chute would open slowly…..(laughing)…I never heard about it from anybody…but it never worked for me (laughing)… then when it did open and you look up and see that beautiful canopy up there and the silence and drifting down and the other guys are coming down and chattering …you know…and you hear the birds chirping on the ground. There is no other sensation quite like it. (1:33:58) So what is the sensation of landing like? It all depends on the technique. The best technique in landing is you climb your two front risers…each one goes to a suspension line. If you climb them it tilts the chute. You go a little faster but stop that oscillation if you‟re oscillating and happen to hit the ground on the back swing, you get some very serious injuries…broken backs….cricked necks, whatever. So you learn to glide and if you see that you got a woods over here, you grab the two left risers and pull them down and you‟ll glide off that way because the air has filled out on the other side of the chute and that puts you into the glide. (1:34:53) How much does fear factor enter into this? How much is fear? In jumping….? Oh….there is probably in some cases…never. You‟re always edgy….you‟re always..what am I doing here?…..you know. If you made enough, you go out and do it for fun so….laughing….it takes a while acclimate you on that. I don‟t think you ever get an all overall fear in fact the second jump was probably the hardness because I knew all the things that could have gone wrong on the first one….(laughing)…also we‟d waited in line for three hours because President Roosevelt was coming through and I always got the impression that we were waiting in line, and it felt like somebody had opened the pit cocks on your energy vats…..and were slowly running out. So that was the hardest. (1:35:50) Well tell us more, that‟s out of the blue, I didn‟t even know about this, tell me about this….Roosevelt came to your camp. Yes and we stood in line with our chutes on and the backpack reserve chutes in line for him to go through and he was late, of course…as usual, and we stood out in that Georgia sun, it was May at the time. It was warm in Georgia….for three hours waiting until it was okay to go back and get ready to jump. (1:36:17) So did you see him? �Oh…yeah we say him sitting in the car that drove by….had to be him….(laughing) (1:36:29) Lets go on then to your first jump, your second jumps, how many jumps do you…. Five jumps to qualify. (1:36:37) Okay And then, if you were an officer, you had a jump mastering thing…where, you didn‟t jump, you threw bundles out. We were the jump masters you know…there was a sixth flight and it was training to see if you‟d be able to see your DZ and if you were dropping…didn‟t make any difference, that was only a very short course……… (1:36:59) I‟ve lost you, I have no idea what you mean in terms of the sixth jump, you‟re throwing stuff out the …….. Your equipment bundles. The jumpmaster is the guy who gives the orders to jump. He may lead the jump. He may follow the jump or if he‟s the training jump master like in parachute school, he didn‟t jump at all. He just saw that everyone else jumped and rated you on your exit. You could do that too. Man had a weak exit, all of the sudden he isn‟t going to graduate. But the jumpmaster is the guy that calls the shots of when to go and what have you and it was training for officers if they were on a supply mission or if they were to…what else. How to spot the DZ or that kind of thing. (1:37:48) Okay, so you have done your five jumps, you‟ve done the jump master…what‟s next? Then we went to Camp McCall a new camp, still being built, and there we took up unit training. (1:38:00) Where is Camp McCall? It is in North Carolina not far from Fort Bragg. Not far from Charlotte, but anyhow that was unit training right up to maneuvers in Tennessee and that was the end of training. That was also of course continuous weapon training, continuous physical training, and continuous discipline all the way through. (1:38:29) What do you mean by maneuvering training? Maneuver is a large scale…that is where you talking at division level regiments. That is really training primarily for the staffs. Before that the first one they had was in Louisiana maneuvers. That was before the war that everyone still talks about (laughing)…you would have a…the weekends were administrative bivouacs…you had the pup tents. But from then on it was tactical bivouacs…if you had pup tents at all, they were camouflaged, you were undercover or sleeping on the ground in a foxhole or whatever. And those would probably last anywhere from three to �five days and then you would move to another area by convoy and you would prepare for the next one. Our last one was to be a parachute jump and the weather cancelled that…the very last one of the six weeks we were on maneuvers. (1:39:29) All right…so you got through that…where did you go next? We went to the staging area to go overseas. (1:39:40) For those of us who don‟t know what a staging area is. Well, it‟s a port when you get on the ships. You have barracks there and everything, and they wouldn‟t let us un-blouse our pant legs so they couldn‟t see that we were parachute troops…you know….no insignia…no helmet. (1:39:58) Now I don‟t understand any of this, why would they do that? Because those German spies might say….ahhh!!! (laughing) so we gotta get on the boats…and there stands our regimental commander, with jump boots, jump uniform, even the cup of his jump helmet is hanging down. (1:40:21) So at this point Bill, were you aware where you were going? We knew we were going to England. We knew that, yes. (1:40:28) How were you told or just explain to us….. Well, in the first place, we were on the east coast (laughing) that was the first clue. No, they told us that we were going to England. (1:40:39) Then beyond that….? Well, when we got to England we found out that we were going to be attached to the 101 st Division and I imagine the top commander and the top staff knew it. He probably knew that too and I was the battalion S2 and nobody told me (laughing) …. (1:40:58) Well, first of all, where did you arrive in England and two, what were your accommodations? Well, we arrived in Scotland actually, and then they put us on the train down to England and we were near the town of Newberry. It was actually called the Craven Estate...Lady Craven and it was also known as Hampstead Marshall...Which now incidentally has been turned into Hampstead Park and, they yesterday, if I hear it right, they unveiled a monument to the 501. �Some guy up there had become interested and is going to send me some pictures of it. He was using our regimental newsletter. (1:41:40) So this is what I am in visioning this to be like an English Estate or manor kind of thing? Yea, but we lived in tents. (1:41:47) Okay? We got in trouble for poaching trout with grenades…(laughing) and my S2 section never did get caught shooting pheasants down out of roosting trees with darts at night (laughing) (1:42:06) So beyond the training there was a few extracurricular activities that were going on…..well…that brings up a good point, beside the stuff you could get by…at night and in the streams, what kind of food were you eating? Oh mostly food, it wasn‟t “K” rations. It was garrison rations, the cooks got beef, potatoes, everything else and they cooked it and we would eat in the mess hall. (1:42:33) So it wasn‟t like can food it was actually like a buffet type that they would slop stuff onto a tray. Oh yeah….you‟d go through the line and you‟d get gravy, potatoes or whatever..(laughing) (1:42:47) So what was the mood of your group knowing that you were pretty close to putting this training into action pretty soon? I‟d say pretty up beat…very upbeat. There was a lot of kidding going around, but you know, but this is what we had been training for two years. It was like what we…….you got to understand, one thing I didn‟t mention, when you went through the parachute school, they somehow made you feel like were some kind of superman by the time you got out. The smallest enlisted man could whip any two armored men or five MPs all by himself (laughing)…..and some of us went over to Calumet City there and would try to prove it and come back with less three teeth…….but they did. You came out of that training feeling you had accomplished something that most guys wouldn‟t even try to accomplish and that spirit kind of stuck with you…all the way. (1:43:58) What was your first indication that you were out of training and all the training is over with and now you‟re going to be doing what you are sent out there to do? Well we came…they started biggeting people, that meant if you were biggeted you were “top secret” now. That filtered down from Eisenhower‟s staff which if…it started back in about 1943, early down to the battalion level where I was biggeted, before even the company commanders were that was so I could take the aerial photograph maps and start teaching my S2 crew without saying where it is. See this barn here we gotta know if that‟s being held. And they had a terrain map also, the last thing, in color, every farm house, every tree, every bomb crater, �every dirt road and I thought the engineers had done that …you know and that is one of the things I mentioned in my memoirs. It was just a couple of years ago when the guys had come to this first one or second one and bought my book and read it. He said, “I‟ve read all the books about going with the MU, the first time they ever mentioned those things and I was one of the guys that helped make them. We were detached from division and sent down to make those things.” They weren‟t made by engineers, they were made by people with art talent I guess in the division, but they were absolutely fabulous, and I assumed they made them for the entire coast of Europe. Bu they were…and they were right on the money! Of course you had to land on the money to mean anything (laughing). (1:45:51) OK, so I guess one of the points that I need clarification on, there were people higher in rank than you that did not have access to these things as you did? Only at the battalion level, the company commander…you know were theoretically all captains and they always would say, “Bill, where‟s it going to be?”….(laughing)…..and they were always biggeted a couple of days later…you know…but for a while I was a junior officers….only one who knew where we were going (laughing). (1:46:20) That brings up another point. Do you know…You were training your guys. You called them S2? That was intelligence, the intelligence section. The army is broken down into these…first of all you have the commanding officer, the executive officer, and then the G1 or Division or the S1 for regiment, that is personnel. S2, G2 is intelligence. S3 or G3 that‟s operations and S4 or G4 is administrative supply. That breaks it down about as close as you can. (1:46:55) So you are going over these maps, they don‟t really know where the locations are, but did you know where it was? Did you know where you were going? I knew it was going to be the coast of Normandy, but I didn‟t know beyond that. (1:47:22) What were the preparations for….see this is where it gets difficult for me to ask you questions because I want details at the same time, I don‟t want you to get too far ahead of yourself. Your studying the maps…are there briefings going on in terms of the operations started already? Not yet. Not for the troops. Not for the troops at all. They didn‟t get that until we got to the marshalling area. We moved out to the marshalling area and the marshalling area was behind barbed wires and guarded by MPs and our tents were in there and so forth. There was no communication with anybody. No letters going out…nothing while you were in there. And that‟s when the troops were then briefed and the missions. The troops themselves really only had to be briefed by their commanders. Our mission is our company is going to do this, you know they didn‟t have the overall picture. While we were there, all of the sudden our drop zones were changed shortly before we were there I guess, actually. We were supposed to jump at Sainte-Mère-Église where the 82nd changed, but the Army intelligence had learned that the Germans had moved a whole another division in that area and that‟s why they condensed the �drop zones and put the 82nd and put the 101st down to capture the causeways off of Utah beach and take Omaha and the locks at La Barquette…etc. (1:48:56) You are at the marshalling area and now everybody is being briefed in terms of what you are going to do, what was your next….what was your responsibilities, I guess, at this point. What were you supposed to be doing? Just keep rehearsing with my S2 section what they were going to do. What are we going to do with these two folding bicycles we got from the British. They were going to be thrown out with their own shoots….(laughing) and someone was going to get on this bike and ride down to that corner and see if that tree branch really got machine gunned there or not…(laughing) and this here other strolling bike and we threw them out and never saw them again (laughing) some French farmer probably still has them in his hayloft (laughing). (1:49:41) So gives us some other examples of things like the bicycles and what not. What other types of things were you practicing about? While there were, you know…everybody had the cricket…the well-known cricket. This was General Taylor‟s idea. The night jump…they jumped at night in Sicily and at Anzio and utter chaos…especially identifying them to friends so he thought that ….the British make them…these dime store crickets…. You would click…click…click….. click …click…and everyone had one hanging around their neck and that was supposed to click it and the other guy would then say “flash” and the other guy is supposed to click it back twice and say “thunder!” and then you say….”welcome!” because the German‟s couldn‟t say “Welcome”…they would say “Velcome” ….(laughing) that was our sequence. But that was the identification at night. It worked pretty well really. (1:50:48) All right, so now are we at the point now where you are actually going to the staging area or marshalling area? Yeah…the staging area is for shipment overseas. Marshaling area was getting ready to jump. (1:51:04) So what happened next then? Okay….of course we were supposed to jump on the 5th and the weather called it off, so you are told to relax (laughing) and the next day we went through again and get the word that it was going to be on and we were blackening our faces with burnt cork or whatever and getting all of our gear on ……you know…you start out weighing about 150 lbs. More than you did by the time you get it all back on. (1:51:38) That‟s what I want to get into…tell us about the gear. Alright. First place, now this is from head to toe. You have your steel pot helmet with liner and sometimes you have a first aid pouch tied to it or not. You had your main chute on your back. You had a musette bag which you flipped over and let it hang below the reserve chute. The �musette bag was all full of your extra odds and ends, the clothing and what-have-you, and so it is actually now resting below the reserve chute which you have on here over that you have a “Mae West” life preserver in case you land in the water. Hanging from there you have a roll of what looked like clothesline rope, rolled up and hanging there; that was in case you landed in a tree. A little pocket up here, you had a jump knife, the first switchblade knife; that was so you could cut yourself free. Working on down, you had your belt on and you had a canteen and you had a trenching tool and you had ammunition and you had, if you were an officer, you had binoculars, some guys had wire cutters and ammunition pouches and a “D” ration which was a sealed chocolate and the chocolate being back to World War I, to be “opened only under order of an officer”…..supposedly (laughing). In your side pockets you had three “K” rations and a Hawkins landmine which is about like a small cigar box and three grenades, and you had bandoliers of ammunition hung on you according to what your weapon was, and if you carried an M-1 rifle, it was broken down into three components and put in what we called a “Griswold Container” which is a flat, canvas bag, that you stuck through your webbing. The only problem with that was, you stuck it through on and angle and when the opening shock opened, it squared up under your chin, and if your knees hit the ground you could lose teeth and so, not everybody used them after that and the crew served weapons they had, like the machine gun, they have in a leg bag that was attached with like a 20‟ rope so the guy could release it before he hit the ground, and that weight would be taken off before he hit the ground. You also, of course, had equipment bundles. You had them under the plane and you hand them inside the plane and the ones under the plane were supposedly tripped by the pilot. He released those. (1:54:19) But you were really ….waddled out (laughing) to the airport. A lot of guys had to be helped into the plane. You just couldn‟t climb those steps with that much weight on depending on what their jobs was especially the guys that got the “SR-3” radio…you know. So we actually marched out eventually about a quarter to a half-mile from the tents to the airfield and these planes with their black and white stripes were dispersed all around it, and you knew what your number was and what “stick” you were. And when you got near the field, you started breaking off into these “sticks” going around the eighteen men to the plane. And at one point that road dipped just enough and the battalion ahead of us wasn‟t really splitting off into their own planes and that entire airfield was full of mustard weed in bloom. Just pure gold. And when you got it at eye level it looked like little sticks of black ants walking across an ocean sea….you know….That‟s still a vivid memory for me. You got over there and you found your plane and you sat there with your plane, now it is still broad daylight at this time, and finally you get the order to load and the planes start lining up and they are going down that fairway just perched on each other‟s tails and since I was going to jumpmaster this rifle squad I was going in with, I can stand in the doorway and look back out and it looked like a sea of black and white, river of black and white stripes coming up and I had this feeling like someone had pulled the handle on some gigantic machine and nothing was going to stop it….it was just that impressive to me. But then of course we had to rendezvous. It took about an hour just to rendezvous and get everybody in line before we actually took off for Normandy. We were headed for Normandy straight across, and we flew across and around the peninsula and the beaches a lot. We came in from the other side and flying back towards the English Channel. Our orders, at least in our battalion and our regiment were to just stand up and hook up five thousand yards (5000 yards) off shore. This “red” light comes on �and you stand up and hook-up in case there‟s any anti-aircraft weapons down there. You might have a chance to get out if the plane is hit. And then you‟re gonna to go down to the…we had eight minutes flying time to our drop zone and I knew all this from all this briefing, and I still remember that watching that black coast of France slide in from under the left wing, you know, and I am watching for muzzle flashes and watching for any strikeable match….not a thing……just perfectly black. Only trouble was, right after we crossed the coast, we hit low cloud levels, and they only had …these planes flew in groups of three, so the only navigator was in the lead one, and they all start spreading out so they won‟t crash into each other, and by the time they came out, some of them couldn‟t even see another plane, and so they are virtually on their own. Of course you got to remember, they were as green as we were. This was their first combat mission too. You‟re flying down the Douve River, and I‟m looking out the door of the plane and I could see fires burning on the ground, and I yell to the troops….now they had been standing up now for the better part of ten minutes, and I yelled, “We are in great shape!” “The air corps has bombed a lot of things!” I said there are all kinds of houses burning down ahead. I didn‟t know until later that those weren‟t houses, those were planes from the serial just ahead of us. I knew we were approaching our drop zone. I knew we didn‟t have very long to go, and I also knew we only had four minutes of flying time from the drop zone back to the channel. (1:58:36) We had this bundle right in the middle of the floor which had go out first, and we were jockeying it around to get it into the doorway and I became aware that something was happening different outside….I sensed it more than anything else, so I stood up and looked out of the doorway and my thought was that you did not need my chute. You can walk down any one of these streams of tracers coming up your “ass” (laughing…) it was like the 4th of July out there (laughing) and I instinctively ducked aside from the door, and immediately realized it was a bad troop leader move because the guys are starting to crouch and if the crouch, that is going to start pulling the static lines which are laced a crossed their backs held by rubber bands ..off. So I stood in the doorway and looked out again like I knew what I was doing, and yelled, “it‟s okay, they can‟t hit us!” ….(laughing) at that point a burst of what I assume was either 20mm, it sounded too big to be .50 caliber….sounded like someone pounded on the plane with a sledge hammer, went through. Now I am looking for the “green” light, you know? I can see our drop zone flowing by, you know…going this way…I recognized it. I was on the cross roads…I saw the barns I had studied and I still got a “red” light, and finally I started see these dark puffs in the air beside me and I realized that everybody else had jumped in the camouflage chutes and so I yelled “let‟s go!!” and we shoved the equipment bundle and it got halfway out the door and it caught the slip stream and it jammed. I don‟t know how long it took to get out. It might have taken all but three seconds. It only seemed like a quarter of an hour (laughing). (2:00:23) We got it out and the first five men when out of there practically riding each other‟s backs they were so desperate to get out of that plane….just blurttttt!! And the five were gone. Number six man, the plane yawed wildly and it was starting to do that. He had his carbine stuck to his webbing and he fell against the door and the barrel of the carbine broke through the paper tape that separated the two thicknesses, and he was hung up. I don‟t think he was hung up for more �than a split second. They piled up behind on the end, but he was gone like somebody squeezed a grape. He was out of there! The number twelve man was just approaching now, and the plane turned up on its left wing, and he didn‟t have to jump; it threw him out. By the time he got there, it was up on its left wing and he was gone, and the following four were then thrown off their feet, and at the split second looking down, I see the moon reflecting in the water and I could see what I took to be “white caps” waving….waves. The plane rolled back up again…and its going...they were supposed to slow down to ninety miles an hour. This guy couldn‟t have gotten a half a mile more out of that plane, and I tried to stop the next four guys. “Stop we‟re over the ocean.” I don‟t think they even knew I was there. I bounced off the door to the “head” four times, and all of a sudden, it was the emptiest cabin I had ever saw on a plane. Even the crew chief was gone. I don‟t know what happened to him. He had been right there helping put the equipment bundle out. I said I thought briefly of going up and tapping the pilot on the soft shoulder and saying, “Mac, do you mind making one more pass in the field, because I didn‟t have a chance to jump.” (laughing) The way that plane was flying. If he was alive, or not wounded. We had been told you could stand landing in the Channel for four hours before hyperthermia really got real testy. I had this “Mae West” and the other thing they told us that whatever happens, do not come back unwounded on the plane. And so, I think about my father in Italy and I think about my family and I am not about to go back and be court martialed. I don‟t think there really would have been a firing squad, but it sure would have been imprisonment. So I stood in the door, not like I am supposed to….not crouched …just like a plain log and fell out. I did every battle cry and supposedly, Bill Lee….that was General Bill Lee, we were supposed to yell that instead of “Geronimo.” I didn‟t yell “Bill Lee,” I yelled a full throated expletive (laughing)…at the same time I felt the opening shock, and I no more than looked up, which you always do to make sure it was open, and I hit soft ground. I thought, “My God, I am on a channel in the island!” [an island in the channel] What had actually happened was, they had taken aerial photos twenty hours before the entire mission and not a single photo interpreter realized, he was looking at was in effect an eighteen mile long lake. The “Krauts” had closed the docks on the Douve River and it allowed it or actually it opened it and allowed the tide come in and then closed them. The Douve River was way out of its banks and all across this bottom land was water and tall grasses sticking up and the waves and the winds were like wave tops and that is what I had seen. I later figured out I had landed just about a mile behind Utah Beach and hit the ground and found that it was almost impossible, it seemed like …getting out of that chute because all that weight and the speed at which we had jumped had tightened the straps so much, you couldn‟t get at them with your thumbs. We didn‟t have a quick release that we had when we jumped in Holland. You would just slap the thing like that and you were out. So I am cutting my way out, and this one kid comes running up and skids to a stop. I remember he had no helmet, no weapon, and he said, “Are you all right?” I said, “Yeah, I am all right.” He took off running again. I never knew where he went…(laughing)…or if he is still running across Europe (laughing). Another kid is about twenty feet from me, and he can‟t get out of his so I went over and started cutting him out. I identified myself as Lieutenant Sefton, and he says, “what‟s your plan?”…(laughing) “follow me!” We went about another, maybe fifty yards, and we found three guys who had gotten out of the chutes trying to cross a deep ditch…using “clicking” each other you know, and I identified myself as Lieutenant Sefton, “what‟s your plan?”….(laughing) It took me three hours to get to where we were assembling at, and in the field, they didn‟t have hedge rows, they had ditches, and they were all flooded. They had been under 8” to a foot of �water to the tops of them, and the bottoms of them could be anywhere from six to eight deep and you either jumped them or you stepped in them (laughing) and someone had to help pull you out. All the way a crossed then, I kept picking up guys that were scattered that far in that thing, and I must have had sixty, but anyway, when I run into a group of them out there, I am challenged by the voice, and I answers the challenge and says, “this is lieutenant Sefton.” Well, it was our regimental plans and operations officer, and he had a question, “Sefton, what‟s your plan?” (laughing) I said, “the last thing they told us if everything gets all screwed up, head for the fighting, and they certainly seemed to be all screwed up and the fighting‟s up on that hill there and that‟s where I am taking these people.” ”Good plan Sefton!” “You take the point, and I‟ll bring the main body.” So I started out with twelve guys. We come to the grand dad of all ditches….I mean the “great” grand dad. It was a good twenty feet across, and had a telephone pole laying a crossed it, so I led my point across there but the last thing I said to this Major, “you see that bunch of little trees out there about half way to the high ground?” he said, “yeah.” I said, “when I get there, I want to stop and we‟ll regroup and plan this thing.” “Good idea!” I get my twelve men across that log and look back and the main body makes a column left…(laughing) they march down out of the picture. I kept picking up more men. Now I‟ve got about another forty, and I got two lieutenants, and we‟re getting pretty close now. There is no more sound distance between the time you see the tracers and hear the guns go off. (2:07:22) Were any of the guys that you picked up were actually ones that were in your plane when you jumped? I am assuming some of them might have been. I didn‟t know the men. They were a rifle squad from Dog Company, and the battalion commander had split his staff up so they would[n't] all go down in the same plane. So I didn‟t really know any of them by name, but I am assuming since I went back in the direction we‟d come, that some of the rolled up could have been on that, but it couldn‟t have been all of them, there were others that had also landed in that part of the field …. (2:08:07) Okay….now we are going to head into the battle. (2:08:16) So, Bill you are now out in the middle of nowhere basically….it‟s dark. One of the things I was going to ask you was I wanted to go back a little bit, you had mentioned about your training in jumping out of an airplane as a parachutist. I don‟t mean the jumping from the static tower, but I mean actually from the airplane. Were those landings pretty much in the daytime or did you do nighttime as well? We jumped at night as well. We had night jumps. (2:08:44) But the areas you were jumping into in training, you pretty knew where you were jumping in to and……. Oh yeah. We always knew where we were and where we were supposed to go and of course the pilots weren‟t under fire…….(laughing) they usually got us there. �(2:08:59) But when you jumped out on D-Day that wasn‟t the same thing…so I guess what I was going to asked you was one of the things that we didn‟t cover was when you landed…actually landed…where did you land and what actually happened immediately. You talk about it in the book, but you didn‟t mention it this time. Well, I mentioned that in the first place I was trying to get out of my chute. And I dropped right outside a French farm house. I dropped right beside it. It was soft ground. It was not flooded there, and I figured later it was about a mile behind Utah beach. George Koskimaki who has written three books. He was General Taylor‟s radio operator. He had gone back and said “Bill I can‟t find that house” and I thought later, you know…the heavy bombers about a hour before dawn was to fly along the beaches and blast a lot of craters for the guys to use for protection. They were actually a mile behind so maybe that house wasn‟t there anymore. (laughing). That could well have been. (2:10:07) I understand though that you also had an encounter with a non-human. Oh I forgot and left that out. When I was cutting myself out of my chute. Remember I had just hit the ground now, and I could hear hobnail boots pounding the ground and out of the corner of my eye I could see moonlight shining on bayonets. I am clawing for my equipment and couldn‟t get it. In fact, I had my father‟s WWI 45s but they were held with baling wire so I wouldn‟t lose it on my jump. I finally rolled over to see who was going to kill me or capture me, and this herd of cows skidded to a halt. The nose of the first one was so far from my face, and their hoofs were the hobnail boots, and the bayonets were their horns the moon was shining on. The cow got away before I could kiss her, but she did say, “Mooooooo!” (laughing). That was not an uncommon occurrence, I remember our regimental sergeant, he landed on a few of the cows and he just walked along with them because he figured there wouldn‟t be any land mines or you wouldn‟t have any cows (laughing). (2:11:27) Okay…now you‟ve gathered together all those groups of people. They are all coming together under, not necessarily under your voluntary leadership, but they keep asking you the same question over and over again……. They were very content to follow. One thing each officer had been issued was a big round luminous button to theoretically stick in his collar so that the troops could follow him. As far as I know, I may have been the only officer in the division to actually use one of them (laughing). But I gathered again about forty men and two officers and we were getting real close now. I said we had better just have a counsel of war. So we sat down and I sent one man out in front and one man to the right and one man to the left and one behind…to challenge anybody. Then I said, here is what we‟re going to do. I am going to take the point. I am going to take twelve guys, two scouts and ten others, and I am going to move out in front, and you guys split the rest of the group between you, and you follow and if I get something like that go through, you flank it and you flank it real quick. They said…okay. I have to go to a flash forward now because this is such a good story…… �So we made the plan. So I said, “Okay, move out.” I picked up the guards out there. “Let‟s go!” and now we are back in England and there are some lightly wounded men coming back from the hospitals, and I am down there just watching them de-truck you know, and all of a sudden there is this little guy standing beside me, red faced…he says, “Lieutenant! you remember me on D-Day night?” I says, “Sorry trooper, I don‟t have the foggiest recollection of you on D-Day night.” He said, “Well, you damn well should have!” “You put me behind a bush and left me there all night!” (laughing) He had a right to be ticked off you know…(laughing) in combat when you are given an order that has to be fulfilled…everything…. Anyhow, we got really pretty close. (2:13:45) Okay, I am going to stop you once again. I know this is going to sound like a really stupid question, but you keep saying that you‟re getting closer …how did you actually know that you were “getting close”? You know it by the…you can see the flashes. You could see the tracers. You could see the grenades going off, and when we first hit the ground, you could see them and eight seconds later…you‟d hear the sound, and so you knew you were nowhere close yet (laughing). But by this time, the tracers were like going overhead and the firefight was actually maybe a matter of 100 yards ahead or so and that‟s when I told my point, the twelve guys to drop their packs, fix your bayonets, we‟re going to assault this. I just started to move out and I ran a crossed a guy on the ground. It was my S2 section sergeant. I called him “pop” because he was 29 years old. And he was giggling. And this was the reaction that was wildly shared. He was giggling, they tried to kill me….they tried to kill “old pop”…it was the sensation that, and I felt the same thing when I looked at the tracers…there were guys down there that I hadn‟t even been introduced to me. They‟re trying to end my military career…(laughing) and that was a very calming sensation. “My God somebody is trying to kill me!” I guess he had bummed up his ankles and couldn‟t walk, and I said “Pop, I am going into the assault.” “Here, you take this carbine, and give me your “Tommy” gun.” (laughing). So he said, well, Colonel Ballard is right over there by that hedgerow. That was our battalion commander. I was about to assault our battalion assembly area…(laughing) and I had more men than he did when I got there. In fact, only twenty percent of the battalion was assembled, and it was at dawn that he said, “Sefton, take a couple of scouts and go see if you can find the first battalion,” because they were supposed to share that drop zone with us. It turned out that the first battalion was in the serial “A” that was possibly being shot up, but also, you pilot [the pilots] had scattered them over a sixty square mile area. Some of them never did get back on course. Some got in new groups …a lot were captured, but there were also several cases where pilots did not give the “red” light, did not give the “green” light and dropped their troops in the channel and of course all the equipment those guys had on, it was a miracle if they could use a “Mae West”. I mean they just went right down, you know…..no way that the “Mae West” was going to help them unless they could shed all their equipment first which was nearly impossible. �At any rate, Colonel Ballard was there, and I was helping find more men, and we looked across the hedge row and here is the “Geronimos”...course our regiment was the ”Geronimo regiment”…you know on our flag and so….among ourselves we referred to each other as “Geronimos”…and here‟s this one sitting on big clod of dirt. This huge clod…beside a bomb crater…it had blown up out there. He is sitting there on this with his rifle a crossed his lap, and by that time the moon had gotten a little brighter and the Colonel said, “What unit solder?” …He said, D company!” He said, “Well, I am your battalion commander!” “Come on over here and help us!” “Sure like to Colonel, but I got a broken leg.” And he is sitting there with his rifle a crossed his lap waiting for somebody with a coalscuttle helmet to come by so he could shoot him…..(laughing) That was some of the kind of guys that we had. It was the degree that would save them trained and the degree to which they had been instilled with this fervor. (2:17:32) Bill, not going into a lot of detail, what was the actual strategy that you were supposed to follow. Me personally? (2:17:42) Well you and your group. What theoretically was supposed to happen? Well, our battalion had two primary missions. One was to seize the town of Saint-Côme-duMont, the other was to seize the locks at La Barquette that controled that flooding, and a couple of the small bridges over the Douve River. Those were our objectives. The regimental commander just by happenstance landed on the locks, because his plane dropped him there (laughing) and the locks were captured right away. The first place, they weren‟t defended….so you were pretty sure ..(laughing), but they were under fire from the heights of Carentan across the river. Our battalion, like I said, was supposed to attach Saint-Côme-duMont. Well, the first thing the battalion commander wanted to know was where the first battalion that was supposed to share this place with us, and he says, “Sefton, go see if you can find the first battalion.” Now that has been repeated in the night drop by S.L.A. Marshall that he sent me to find the regimental commander. No he hadn‟t. He was more concerned who was going to help us (laughing) So I took this patrol now…it was just breaking dawn and the battalion was against the first hedge row I had seen because I had come down from the bottoms and up and there were hedgerows up in that area. So I took four scouts with me and there is a long hedgerow coming up from down the bottom lands where I have been. I had just never gotten that far toward it. So we start down that and walking along and all of a sudden bullets are snapping past our helmets from the other direction and we hit the ground. I will never forget, suddenly realizing after laying there flat on the ground for like maybe ten seconds…I don‟t know….”Hey!…I am allowed to shoot back”…(laughing)…. Oddly as it may seem, sometimes it took that kind of time before you realize that. So I was still carrying the “Tommy” gun and where I thought the shots came from was a chateau a good 200 yards ..or 250 yards away, maybe further than that. I saw something like stirring in the bushes in front so I took the rifle from the guy behind me…an M1 rifle and emptied a clip into that it might have been chickens or it might have been anything. The chances of being a machine gun nest…at that range…were remote as hell…but at least no more were coming that way. �We went down that hedgerow ended and just beyond, another one came from the other side but did not quite intersect. There was a ditch or pond where the intersection would have been. And just on the far side of that little pond it looked like a muskrat‟s nest..it was that type of debris, and a guy laying beside, behind it yelling, “go back!….go back!….go back…!” Well, I was on a mission. I was an officer and there was a guy who had lost his nerve. I wasn‟t going to worry about that. So I told my first scout to leave the end of our hedgerow, run along the side of that pond, where it narrows down and jump behind the shelter of that hedgerow. So I sent him a crossed and meanwhile I guess I am still shooting at that other thing about that time. I looked up and he is over there. I then send the second man, and it seemed to take longer but all of a sudden now, he is over there…so I take the “Tommy” gun back, and tell the guy to cover me while I get over there. So I am really trying to maneuver crouch…that is what we called it…you are kind of hunched over and crowding….then some machine gun bullets come from my rear right where I had been shooting and it almost took off my nose…I mean it was right a crossed in front of my face, and instinctively I jumped into the pond which turned out to be about 8‟ deep. It was a shelf that had sidewalls because it was a combination of ditches. I am sitting there now on the bottom and the sun is shining down on the golden green shafts, and I am sitting there and this is the first time I have this experience where this little voice is talking in my ear. It happened many times in combat after that. “Sefton…you‟re sitting down here. It is a hell of a way to fight a war…..and one thing…you don‟t have much air in your lungs….you had better go up and get a breath of air.” Well, I had done a lot of “skinny dipping” when I was a kid in gravel pits and that. I was not afraid of being under water. So I got my feet out from under me, I lunged up and I just happened to get some air and here comes these machine guns right down there and I went right straight down and I am sitting there and this little voice is saying…“well, stupid, if you…….you still haven‟t got enough air…..you got to go up once more and get some...” So I went up once more and this time, the guy behind the hedgerow told the other ones he had just killed a lieutenant...(laughing) it had gone right across the top of my helmet without denting it……so now I am sitting there thinking, he has had three cracks at me…I mean two cracks at me and he is not going to miss again, so I crawled over to the far bank…the one nearest him, and I felt the “Tommy” gun ammunition break off of my web belt, and this is one of the points that illustrates that when I later became convinced, that in the first six days, I went right by the book. I didn‟t feel much emotion. I didn‟t feel any fear. I didn‟t feel any uncertainty. I was going by what the manual said to do, and the manual said….(laughing) supply economy…so I turn around…I groped around but now I was getting pretty muddy because of the bottom...I unhooked my belt and crawled over the bank and I got my hands on top but they are still under six or eight inches of water, because of the shell down in the field, and on top was this green scum…when we were kids, we called it “frog shit”….(laughing) and I eased my nose up through that stuff and thanking God for the first time for my generous proboscis ….it smelled so sweet..(laughing)…I must have waited, I don‟t know….three or four minutes…and finally the one kid that I knew there…his name was Joe Newman and I got lips out too…they were covered in scum and I said, “Joe…Joe Newman!” There was dead silence….and I said, “Joe…Joe Newman!” and this very hesitant voice says, “Lieutenant?” (laughing) I said, “Hell yes!….it is me!…..can you see me? He said, “Lieutenant, your own mother couldn‟t see you…” (laughing) So I had to work my way down…very slowly without making any ripple or any kind until I got across to him where the ditch had narrowed down. What I didn‟t know was that the second guy �that I had sent across had gotten in there and Joe had gotten him out. At this time the water was so cold that my legs are cramped and my arms are getting cramped and I said, “Joe I‟ve got cramps and I am not sure I will get out of here.” …He steps out from behind the hedge row like it was a Sunday afternoon in the park, and he tosses the rope across, and I am trying to catch it under water…..I didn‟t want the machine gunners to see me….(laughing) It slipped off my fingers and he came back, wound it up again and this time threw it further and I got it. I wrapped it around and around the Tommy gun handle because I knew I couldn‟t tie a knot in because my hands were too numb…so I says, “Joe when I count to three I am going to go let go, and I will go to the bottom and you start pulling that rope…so at the count of three I let go, the rope went tight and went a crossed that bottom ditch, hit the far side and I am going up like this with the Tommy gun, my head and shoulders broke through and the Tommy gun jammed in the roots of the brush. I swear to God, it felt like my back was getting a yard wider by the second, and Joe throws down the end of the rope and he wanders out…he doesn‟t weigh more than 125 pounds. He gets down, gets a hold of my uniform and yanks me out of there and not a shot was fired at that time…..(that was the closest call…I had ever had in combat….laughing) (2:26:08) So, you really don‟t know what happened to that machine gunner. He just stopped shooting? He thought he had gotten his target. He switched to some other target. He thought I was a goner. He wasn‟t paying me any more attention because the other two guys had gone behind the hedgerow. Anyhow, we go a little further up and now we‟re going up this intersecting hedgerow and it goes right in back of that chateau I was shooting at. We are going up that and I still had seen anybody from the first battalion and we pick up a guy that had had his finger shot off, and we see some guys out in the flat out there, and I said, “Joe…because the other guy and myself couldn‟t walk.”….we laid on top of each other for a while just to get warm. We were so chilled through. We were walking now but not all that well. I said, “Joe go see if those guys are from the first battalion.” Well, he gets out about fifty yards beyond the hedgerow and all of a sudden there is small arm fire coming from the chateau overhead and it had kicked up all around him and the guy with him is rolling all over the ground and Joe says, “hey, lieutenant, this poor son-of-abitch…has been hit again!” The guy head been shot again through the calf of his leg this time. Anyhow…the barn at that place had caught on fire, that chateau where they‟d been shooting from I guess. Mortar rounds or something and all of a sudden these four Germans are running out right across the front in that heavy smoke. I was the only one who could see them, and the Tommy gun wouldn‟t work. It had been under water and I whipped out my dad‟s 45….I yelled, “get…them! ….get them!...but they still don‟t see them. I whipped up that 45 and I blast off a round, and a cow about this thing overhear, ran around in a circle…….I‟ve always said a 45 was good for a paper weight, that‟s about it (laughing)….. anyhow…… �We went over to this village, it was called Basse Addeville….we pronounce it Bayzattyville and here was a major I had seen the night before and our Catholic chaplain, Father Sam was wounded in there. It was right across now…we had gone beyond that in the chateau to this little village. Everybody was kind of laying and remember now everybody had has no sleep since the day before, you know…I remember, I stretched out in the grass and must have slept 2 hours…just oblivious to everything all around. (2:28:42) What about eating during this period. You didn‟t eat anything, right? Oh we had “K” rations. I don‟t remember …I think I ate my first one there. (2:28:48) Okay…so no sleep…and no eating. One of the other things that the gentlemen you met the other day, Harold Folkema, he was infantry. He said that one of the things he remembered was that there was always noise….there was always sounds of guns going off. Do you remember silence at all during the period or was there………. Mostly silence…except early that morning and a few machine gun bursts. And the odd thing about it, once you got inside the hedgerows you could be three hedge rows away from a firefight and never hardly hear it. They were sound absorbing…you know. There was noise when you were under artillery fire, but at that time the Germans did [not] have that much artillery registered….it was sporadic…yes…but I am sure on the beach there was always noise…yeah we weren‟t on the beach, thank God. Anyhow, we get up and finally after we had rest a while, I thought, we ought to find the front line. They said it is right out there. I thought we ought to go out and see about how well it‟s held, so I took one scout with me and we went out looking, didn‟t see anybody…didn‟t see anybody…didn‟t see anybody. The house just up in front of me….all of a sudden, here are four Germans…rise up out of the ground and are running and assaulting that house…shooting at it and assaulting it. I didn‟t know my closest friend was in the house with a ruptured machine gun that he had been fighting there for the last hour. His platoon sergeant had been killed, and these guys shot the front door open and it opened and they threw in a potato masher grenade and he was savvy enough to open up his mouth so the concussion wouldn‟t blow his ear drums and the door blew closed again and opened and here were these four guys running right at him….and I am at his flank…..and I blast away with my carbine…two of them went down and the other two dragged them back….we always use to (laughing) argue over who really got them…and I know damn well I got them, it was like shooting ducks in a shooting gallery…all spaced and running...you know to the left and right, but we never did get that argument settled. (2:31:01) Okay, so you got the two Germans, somebody did, the other two run away. Did you go in, is that is when you found out that your best friend was in there? No…I didn‟t know that. I just figured that I was out there all by myself with one man and if they got four they got more…(laughing)…so I pulled back and while I was there, Major Allen says….”Sefton, take some men then and go take that chateau over there…that building.” And so I got a machine gun team and I think I had a total of four others…or six. So we go over there �without any difficulty. We did get shot at just as we were getting there, but we shot the lock off the back door. We sat the machine gun up behind the picket fence because the road out of Basse Addeville came like this and right in front of that driveway, up this hill ..the Germans were holding and the machine gunner would lay there and try to pick them off as the came across the road (laughing) So Joe Newman and I went in the house and we were going to search it…it‟s a three story thing you know and it‟s big...we would kick open the door and jump in like this..and both of us finally became so silly…we got to the top floor, I says, “Joe, you go that way and I go this way.” …jumping into empty rooms and obviously by that time if there had been any Germans there, they would have been shooting at us. All of a sudden, Joe is down to the far end and I hear this babble of voices and he says, “lieutenant, come hear a minute!” and here was the whole family in one bedroom saying… “me so bio!”… “me sa beo!” …..you know….all huddled up in that one bedroom. The only one that came downstairs with us was the grandmother and she came down and sat in the kitchen and made tea for us (laughing)…….we were only in there about hour and some of the people upstairs had come down and some that came down and said, Newman‟s been shot. Well…Joe had leaned out a window. I don‟t know whether it was one of our people who had shot him or one of the German‟s did. He came down and had been hit through the shoulder. It had taken a big chuck out of his shoulder blade…bleeding like a stuck pig, and so we got him down and I managed to get his own first aid kit on him. Now I got morphine…you know and I am squeezing it and squeezing it…and he looks at me….and says, “Lieutenant, did your break the seal?” …(laughing)…which of course I had, so I broke the seal but I had also sent a runner across to get an aid man…there was a wounded man over here. And the runner comes back across and they didn‟t use the ditch we did, they just ran across that and just as they got to the out building right next to the drive way….the officer, had chips of that building flying but they got in and then the one guy happened to have a Tommy gun and he jumps out of a ditch by the house and starts shooting at the Germans with fast fire. The surgeon goes flat in the middle of the ground in the driveway (laughing)….. But they both got out and they both got back. They put a bandage on him but left him there. They didn‟t have a place to put him over there. (2:34:20) Bill, just quickly…we had talked a little earlier about the strategy of what you were supposed to take…you‟re supposed to take the lock…you were supposed to take…was there any talk about your objectives at that time or… Yeah…because La Barquette was right above that lock and Colonel Johnson had already been down and taken it. In fact he came up there and ordered Allen to bring the men down. Allen says, “you know, if the German thinks this high ground is looking down your throat…as long as we‟re here, the locks are safer since we are down there. But Johnson still ordered him to come to the locks. In the meantime, Ballard had ordered or battalion commander to bring the battalion over. Instead of attacking Saint-Côme-du-Mont…..Ballard, his troops had seen Germans behind him you know short of Saint-Côme-du-Mont, and he didn‟t really feel…that with twenty percent of the battalion he could attack Saint-Côme-du-Mont, which was a pretty sizeable town and leave his rear open. So he was trying to wipe out Angoville-au-Plain and he was pretty heavily engaged when Johnson wants him to come down there and he said I am heavily engaged. Well, �Johnson got pretty ticked off with the battalion commander refusing his orders so Ballard did send him a tool to find him a way. They took the same route I had….and came back and (laughing) said you can‟t do that. You can‟t take a battalion through there (laughing)…but there was bad feelings between Johnson and Ballard until Johnson finally got killed in Holland. But Ballard was dead right, he was doing the only thing that he could do. But the locks at La Barquette were taken, but the two foot bridges beyond it, we couldn‟t, were too tightly held. We knew they were supposed to be taken, but we couldn‟t get down to them there. (2:36:07) You see I guess what I am trying to get across is that when you talk about it from moment to moment….you don‟t get the sense of the strategy but you were actually attempting to accomplish the original strategy of why you were there. Well, a whole lot of the quote strategy unquote from “H” hour of D-Day…you know, the day we jumped until dawn, we just tried to find each other. That was the division commander, General Taylor….It was about twenty minutes before he found a single man…when they were scattered that far apart, “hell” your strategy….there was no strategy…lets gets some friends together for this party (laughing) The battalion commander knew what the strategy was but he knew he had to attack the ones from the rear before he could attack that and Colonel Johnson was the only one that knew we had to have the locks and then the rest of the force…which was supposed to be down there. The First Battalion was supposed to be down to help him to go take those two bridges and across the Douve River so the Germans couldn‟t come a crossed and use them against us. But on the part of the troops, there is hardly ever any grand strategy (laughing)…..what the guys are going to do…that is your objective and that is the strategy to take that objective. (2:37:29) So now…this is what period of time of day was it? Is it reaching night fall… It is getting toward sundown and I am over in that château with the wounded man and a runner comes across and says that “Major Allen said we are pulling back to the locks at La Barquette. Pull out.” Well, I guess the doctor was still working on my man, and I said to the runner, go back and tell him to give me some time. I got to get this wounded man out of here. Well, it might have been a half hour later, I looked through my binoculars that were on the floor and nobody was in that village, and furthermore the Germans should be coming down the hill. So I had the machine gun and all the guys, there‟s this little stone house…the stone wall around the house and told them to get up there and “open up with everything you got”….and then we tried to put Joe on a blanket and he broke right through it and lands on the ground (laughing)…we tried a fireman‟s carry and that didn‟t work….(laughing)…I still had a lead man with me. Finally I through him over my shoulder, the “A” man went along with me holding the plasma bottle…and that is how we got out of there, went straight back, got behind that same hedgerow that we had been behind, we got into the town, and I sent a scout up and said “see what was up there.” He went up and came back and said that “Father Sam was up there with a bunch of wounded men but the Germans are coming in the other edge of town.” I said, “Joe, I don‟t know where the regiment has gone, and we got to find them.” I said, “we will take you with us if you want or you �can stay here.” We had a blanket wrapped around him. He was already in semi-shock so he said, “I‟ll stay here.” So he went up and joined Father Sam and we follow the regiment by the gas masks and other stuff they had thrown away down to the locks….(laughing). A blind man could have almost followed them by stepping (laughing) on them. (2:39:28) Almost like Hansel and Gretel kind of thing….. Oh yeah …all the way down and by the time we had got there it was pitch dark and I almost stumbled into the foxhole and…guess who??? My buddy McNulty that had been in that house…so I share his foxhole with him. (2:39:43) Is that when you found out about the incident at the château….you talked about it right there. Yeah…yeah...the incident about the house…..with the Germans…yeah because I hadn‟t seen that before that. He had come back in. He had gotten out of there. Apparently he had followed me back in to where I had come from in Basse Addeville, about the time Allen sent me over to that Château so we never made any connection at all during the daylight. (2:40:08) So night falls…what happens? Okay…we‟re down in the locks…that is where I am. The battalion is getting dug in for the night and getting ready for the assault with the 506 in front of 327 on Saint-Côme-du-Mont the next day. On D+2 actually, it was two days later, but Joe Newman did have an experience…..see Father Sam had fourteen wounded men, two of them had head wounds and were out of their heads so he put them in a separate place and the other twelve men laid across. Two young Germans came to the door with schmeissers and burp guns (MP-40), and he‟s pointing to his cross and saying, “priestie…priestie”…you know….they just shoved him aside and Joe was laying on the ground and he said, they came in and they cocked those schmeissers and all I could think was…which end are they going to start at….He said, I was right in the middle (laughing)……it didn‟t make any difference, but….and a German sergeant came up and kicked them out of there. And the next day when they did counter-attack, the only part of that building that caved was the place with the two guys with the head wounds and the rest of them all survived. I understand they got a Distinguished Service Cross for that. He was one “hell of a soldier!”…I tell you. He really was. (2:41:39) So, we are down by the locks and it is night…right? Yeah…and at dawn we had parapet throw up, you know and…….20mm shells bouncing off of it from over near the causeway where it comes to Carentan…..Max stuck his head up…pulled it back and said, “Bill, this La Belle France is not so bleeping lovely…(laughing)” �The really interesting thing about that being there…we had a couple of hundred men there, and you know that I was on this side of thing and Carentan was above the high ground over here and they see a whole bunch of people coming up through the low lands, and they couldn‟t tell from a distance whether they were friend or foe…you know. Finally they determined they were a battalion of German paratroopers who had come off the beach and were now trying to get…by the high ground…and get up to Carentan, and so Johnson heavily reinforced that side, and kept everybody down and McNulty and I were on the other side you know. He didn‟t dare take everybody from everywhere, and they blundered right into us. We ended up killing about 150 and capturing 350…you know. We told them they were surrounded, you know…. You could hear some of those guys yelling, “kamerad!” and the battalion commander realized that …(laughing) that we were outnumbered …and almost out of ammunition…(laughing). The German battalion commander was too late and some of the German artillery apparently mistook them for some of us and they shelled and killed our regimental adjudicate and a bunch of other people. Mostly they killed their own troops. (2:43:26) Where were these troops now…. These were people your age or older The Germans? The German paratroopers in particular were also elite troops. Now later on we ran into old men and boys and the Germans break divisions according to missions. The Germans that were defending Omaha Beach itself, in the fortifications were mostly older people and a lot of them were Russians or people that had opted for the German Army. Then they had the assault divisions and those were their SS Divisions so they were mostly young and very aggressive. Then of course they had their Panzer Divisions and they were always aggressive. Their tankers were almost always aggressive. The regular Army were Wehrmacht themselves. Compared to the SS, were gentlemen. I mean they pretty well obeyed the Geneva Rules of conduct, whereas the SS were “no holds barred”. So what we were up against there with the fighting the German paratroopers, they weren‟t much older than we were. The SS we fought that the men were young, but the others we captured a lot of them. They were just sick and tired of the war there. They were in their fifties or something….(laughing). (2:44:43) Alright. So the German fire is coming in and it is killing a lot of their own troops as well as some of ours? Yes this was the artillery fire from Carentan now because they have observations there on the high ground and they can see us, they can see all these people milling around and they can‟t distinguish either, but that fire did kill the Captain McReynolds that was herding these people together and some of our other men. But by the time two days later, we still hadn‟t taken the footbridges down there, but we were sent back. They didn‟t need anyone to guard the locks anymore, that was taken care of so they sent back to…I had talked to my battalion commander on the radio that first day, D+1, the second day we were there and asked him how…..because he had orders to come over there at that time….and I said, “how long to you estimate?” “Estimate two hours he says” (laughing) . But I knew he was there and he was coming so there was place else for me to go except wait it out. But then on that D+3 we rejoined the second battalion and �they were going to be marched back into reserve into that little village, and McNulty‟s platoon was leading the column and I was up there walking with him. We spent the time yacking and trading memories. We walked right by the road we were supposed to turn right, and ended up at “dead man‟s” corner. “Dead man‟s Corner was a highway that went down the main causeway across to Carentan. It was called “dead man‟s corner” because there was a light American tank there with a hole blown through it, and the commander still sticking out of the turret, and it was a very hot spot. It was very hot fighting on D+3. So meanwhile the battalion commander had reached a turning point and had sent a runner up, said you guys missed it and wanted us to turnaround and come back, but “Mac” and I were sitting in this ditch on this side of the road and the Germans are way up there and all of a sudden a bunch of skirmishing down the flat below us with the Germans. A little fire-fighting going on. We just slumped down the ditches, we all see leaned back like this you know. A round, not a spit round, a named round had buried itself right between our heads (laughing) obviously …well laid. We slumped down and the Sergeant goes across the road and lays on the other embankment and he studies things with is field glasses. He says, “I see him!”….”I see him!”…he is in that house down there. The ones that the guys were attacking. “He is in the window on the second floor!” So I picked up an „03 rifle, a Springfield, which are much more accurate than the M1, and so I went over and looked to be about 500 yards so I set the sight. I can hardly see the “damn” window you know, but I take a bead on it. I said, “let me know when he is up there again!” He says, “there he is!” so I squeeze off a round. He says, “you got him!!….you got him!!” I might‟ve hit him, I don‟t know (laughing) ….but that would‟ve been a phenomenal shot with a rifle you never zero‟d in, (laughing) but the troops were all cheering then and who was I (laughing) not to let them enjoy what they thought was a moment of victory (laughing)…….. (2:48:08) So we did go back into reserve after that, and then we did on D+6 attack Carentan and that was another one of my exciting experiences because our battalion was supposed to start the attack a crossed the flood bottom, and we even had rubber boats to do it in, and mortar shells were sticking up big plumes and stuff like this. We were getting wounded, and I was with the battalion commander and the command group about 100 yards behind and Carentan is on my left…only a couple of yards away, and I thought the least I could do is go make sure there are no enemy over there to have us enfiladed on the flank so I took my little three or four guys and found that there was a bridge that was blown, but it was across this canal and if you could jump six feet, you could jump one portion of the other …easy…not even that…maybe four feet and it sloped down toward each other. So we went a crossed and we went into the town and we went down to the railroad stations and threw some grenades into a bunch of wires (laughing) thinking that might‟ve done some good and now we are going down the main streets looking for snipers….getting further away from the battalion. We are going down like this and all of a sudden the side ground floor level window opens, and I whip around to shoot and out comes this young French mother with a snotty nosed two year old baby . (laughing..) holds him up to kiss me on the cheek (laughing)……and behind us suddenly this peg legged, WWI vintage Frenchmen, stomping along and singing in a broke voice, “It is a long way to Tipperary!” (laughing)….and drunker by the minute. We came around the corner then and there was the 506. They had come in from the other way. So I went back and wondered if the battalion was still pinned down and I flopped down by the battalion commander…..now this shows how stupid a �“green” lieutenant and all of us were green…and I flopped down and said, “hey you know colonel! …there is a bridge right over there we could cross.” He says, “why don‟t you show me where it is then.”…(.laughing) and all the battalion got up and leaped a crossed that bridge and went over to attack the high ground, and took la Billonnerie, a part of Carentan but a village called la Billonnerie and that‟s where we ended up for quite a while. We beat off a very heavy attack by German SS groups that came in like there were going to surrender and then dropped to the ground and started firing, and that is pretty much…..well…we held that for about ……we held that position until the 2nd Armor broke through and then we followed them for another three miles. Dug into one end of a valley and the Germans had the other. That was just purely static defense. We sent out patrols. They did have one house that stuck up …it was a two-story house…between us and I told the battalion commander that I wanted to take a patrol out and see if we could chase any of the Germans out of it. He says, “sure! Ask…get some volunteers!” and I did. I says, “who wants to go.” I had about twenty five geranimos just like that…(laughing) so we go over there and there aren‟t any Germans there. They evaporated when they saw us coming. But all the entrances into that house…all the doors and windows were on the German side. We were looking to one side and the backend and there was no way of getting in. And if you went around and got in, and if they decided to retake it. There would be no way of getting out. So I sent back for a demolition crew, and down comes Jesse Tidwell…the regimental crew that was assigned to the battalion carrying a footlocker. I says, “what do you want?” I said, “I want a mouse hole blown in the back of that little wall there so that we can crawl in and out.” “okay!”…he drops the footlocker up against it. I says,“What is that Jesse?” He says, “This is my charge!”…..I says, “It‟s kind of heavy isn‟t it?” He says, “Well, it is a brick house.” He pulled a wire and a little wisp of smoke started going up and Jesse and his people take off like a bunch of rabbits going over the hedgerow (laughing) and I look up and there was patrols strung all around that. And I was lying about fifty yards away watching it. All of a sudden there is this blast, this flash…and I am looking up and there is timbers…you know…going up and up and up….(laughing)…and I‟m thinking, they‟re going to come down and down and down….(laughing) fortunately, nobody got hit with anything bigger than maybe a walnut. The entire back of the house was gone. The two sides only came halfway back to where it was and the front was pretty well intact. When I drove by there in 1978 they had even torn that down (laughing) the last real combat episode The battalion commander thought I had found a booby-trapped German ammunition dump from where he was (laughing)… …and you only wanted a mouse hole….(laughing). � 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_SeftonG0738V1 Title A name given to the resource Sefton, George William (Interview transcript and video, 1 of 2), 2003 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-09-18 Description An account of the resource George William "Bill" Sefton was born in 1922 in Anderson, Indiana. Prior to the war he was taking classes at Ball State Teacher's College. He enlisted in the Army shortly after the war started, trained as an officer and served briefly with the 131st Infantry Regiment guarding the Soo Locks in northern Michigan before being accepted for paratrooper training. He went to Camp Taccoa, Georgia and began training with the 501st Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. He went with his unit to England and jumped into Normandy on D-Day. He served with his unit in Normandy until they withdrew to prepare for Operation Marked Garden. He made his second jump as part of that operation in September, and served with his unit in the Netherlands until they were withdrawn in Novermber, and then went to Bastogne, Belgium in December 1944 to fight back against the German advance during the Battle of the Bulge. After the fighting at Bastogne, his unit moved to the Alsace-Lorraine region and on into Germany. With the war over he was transferred to the 506th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division where he served with them in France as the athletics officer and club officer (in charge of athletic supplies, and officers' club supplies) for his unit. At the end of the war he met his wife who was an Army nurse at the time. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sefton, George William 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 World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image 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> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9b2ac3e2f58429dd65249f83f7650bc3.m4v d0c4b5e47a89528cb51102695efe1b94 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ea8dd117f5287f4588fb47968a81c2ba.pdf 3bbd3c657a0d85c0c68e939b94e001ce PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans‟ History Project Interviewee‟s Name: Mary B. Sefton Name of War: Vietnam War Length of Interview: (01:28:10) (00:01) “Let‟s begin with your name, where and when were you born?” (00:03) “My name is Mary Beth Sefton. I was born May 3rd, 1947 in Anderson, Indiana.” (00:04) “What was your early schooling like?” (00:05) “Very Catholic. St. Thomas Church. Thomas the Apostle Church and School, Grand Rapids, Michigan and it was not the traditional scary nuns. Or maybe I just didn‟t get the scary ones.” (00:21) ”I had the scary nuns!” (00:23) “You got my share then. I got a very good grounding in things that aren‟t taught in schools today like diagramming sentences so that you recognize when there are words hanging off the ends of things. ” (00:36) “Wow! Early on, through catholic school. Did you then go into catholic high school?” (00:44) “I went to a catholic convent boarding school. St. Mary‟s in South Bend, IN, which is now defunct. But it‟s not, as my daughter thought for quite a number of years, a convict boarding school.” (00:58) “What was that experience like?” (00:01:02) That was very interesting. I wouldn‟t trade it for anything….there are a lot of things in my life that I would not trade for anything. That is one of them. I don‟t know that I would send my daughter there but she‟s an entirely different person than I am.” (00:01:14) “Now, you were the first of what would eventually be ten children in this family.” (00:01:19) “Yes.” �(00:01:20) “During this period of time, were you the only child, or did another child come along fairly quickly?” (00:01:27) “I had about eighteen months.” (00:01:28) “Okay. Eighteen months of being the only child.” (00:01:30) “Something like that!” (00:01:35) “The high school experience and the boarding school, was there any thinking on your part during that time that you would want to get into the military, or be involved in the military at all?” (00:01:47) ”The military had always been part of the family, part of the history. Both of my parents were involved in World War II, Dad as a paratrooper, Mom as a nurse, so I had a lot of advantages in that I never thought of the military as a big, green machine that would eat me alive. It was something that my parents had done and had survived and had pretty positive memories of that they met in France. From then on, the war was a great rosy glow.” (00:02:22) “I obviously know the story, but I‟m trying to get to though is that, I know of my own experience in high school that I had little if any understanding what my father did during World War II and I had some inkling of what my mother was doing. Were you aware, I‟ve been to your parents‟ house, so I know you are surrounded by the memorabilia and pictures. Were you aware through high school of what they had done? Your dad was a paramedic trooper or any of that?” (00:02:53) “Pretty much so. My first contact with military memorabilia was stepping on my mother‟s nurse‟s pin. In fact I learned about a lot then, I learned about tetanus, but it was only that they met in 1945, they were married in 1946, I was born in 1947. This was two years and only about a year after they came back, I was born so it wasn‟t really memorabilia, it was still stuff that they had. So they had the uniforms. I remember them stretching them out on the clothesline to air them out, but there weren‟t – when you say memorabilia, I think of the shadow boxes with the medals and things. They weren‟t in medals, they were in the drawer that they‟d brought „em back in and we also had a long stream of friends who would drop by. Friends of Dad‟s who would happen to be in town, my mother‟s friend Barbie would turn up. They were pretty much in constant contact, so it was not; it wasn‟t something that happened „out there,‟ this was part of what they had done. So it was never separate.” �(00:04:17) “Yeah, that makes sense to me because I grew up in an airlines atmosphere, so pilots were coming over and people like that so, even as a child, you can kind of grasp, „oh, that‟s what they do.‟ „These are their friends and whatnot.‟ When was it that you thought about getting in to the military? Or did nursing come first and then military or how did that evolve?” (00:04:40) “It was pretty casual, actually. I had happened to…Dad was talking about doing something, his advertising agency was talking about doing something overseas, looking at languages and I‟d had French and Spanish and Latin and he had such high hopes for that but somehow I drifted into nursing. I‟d been to one year to Aquinas College here in Grand Rapids and then I was just, I can‟t say that there was any burning vocational „I will be a nurse or I will curl up in a ball and die.‟ It was just kind of a pull. So I went to school in Sioux City, Iowa and I‟d started the paperwork to get into the Army while I was here in Michigan and I finished the paperwork and was sworn in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.” (00:05:41) “I don‟t want to get ahead of ourselves.” (00:05:43) “Okay.” (00:05:45) “The Vietnam war was already going on by this time?” (00:05:47) “Yes.” (00:05:50) “I don‟t want to ask a dumb question, but were you aware that there was a war going on?” (00:05:55) “Yes. I was quite aware that there was a war on.” (00:05:57) ”Okay.” (00:05:59) “But again, I had never, I didn‟t have the scary concept of war that everybody who goes to war will die since both of my parents had made it through quite nicely. It was something that I can articulate it a little bit better now than I could then. That I had been given so much that it would be nice to give a little bit back.” (00:06:28) “In terms of the country?” (00:06:30) “In terms of the country, family, and it seemed like a nice way to do it.” �(00:06:38) “You know I have been honored to be a guest at your parents‟ home during Thanksgiving and granted there was a different atmosphere then because you didn‟t have all the kids and grandkids and everything else all together in one place.” (00:06:52) “Not too much!” (00:06:54) “Okay. There is a sense of the environment itself. It‟s very caring. It‟s very giving and so when you say, „giving back to family, giving back to country‟ as soon as you said that, it clicked.” (00:07:07) “Well, it‟s like in appreciation of everything my parents have given me and appreciation of how much I get from my family and how much support I‟ve gotten all my life.” (00:07:24) ”This is a little more trickier question. Did you have any opinions and keep in mind that I remember when I was eighteen years old and did you have any opinions about Vietnam at that time? Because you are getting inundated with newspapers stuff and radio and TV and all that. Was there any…focused on the nursing part and if it happened to be in Vietnam, you‟d go, it doesn‟t matter? If you were stationed in Germany, that would be okay, too. Or was there any kind of view at that early age of what was going on in Vietnam?” (00:07:59) “I figured war was war and they‟d need nurses. I didn‟t, as far as political…” (00:08:07) “Yeah. Just overall as a teenager, you know, what was your impression?” (00:08:10) “I was an old teenager.” (00:08:13) ”What does that mean?” (00:08:18) “I just felt older than most of the people my age, partly because being the oldest of ten kids you see things a little bit differently and you‟re…responsibility comes into it a lot.” (00:08:34) “Are you telling me that they actually relied upon you to help out? I thought she kind of controlled the whole thing by herself.” (00:08:40) “Very well, too. But when she said, „Take care of the kids,‟ you take care of the kids.” �(00:08:48) “I know, she‟s told me to do things and for some reason, I do it automatically.” (00:08:52) “This is a good move. Always a good move.” (00:08:56) “Let‟s keep in this period here, where you are making a decision about going into the military. Did you come to this decision, you said kind of gradually, kind of moved towards that. Was there any discussion with Mom and Dad about what you wanted to do?” (00:09:13) “There was discussion. They were very careful not to push me into…their attitude was pretty much „find something that you really like and go ahead and do it.‟ There was no „This is a good thing. There‟s Army and there‟s Navy and there‟s this.‟ It was pretty much my decision, but again, I had the positive role models, so it wasn‟t a tough you know, going against the family business, sort of decision.” (00:09:50) “With Beth being not only an experienced nurse, but a nurse who was literally treating battle casualties, was there any discussion with her? Did she take you aside privately and say, „Now. Mary Beth, this is what you‟ll have to do.‟” (00:10:06) “No, but it was never a secret that she‟d been in the O.R. and in fact, I remember sitting in the bathtub when I was six or eight, something like that and I‟d skinned my knee and she was explaining to me, how, „Well, sweetie, this will heal up nicely, but if they had to take your, you know, if something really bad had happened to your knee and they would have to take your whole leg off, this is where the little flap would go and then the skin would cover up and they would stitch it there and it would be nice and smooth.‟ That‟s cool.” (00:10:43) “Lessons I learned in my bathtub at six.” (00:10:48) “Serve you well all your life. You know perfectly well that a skinned knee is not so bad. You can fix it and my mom knows how to make it smooth so it would work.” (00:10:58) “So, once the decision was made, why Army?” (00:11:06) “Grandad was Army, Dad was Army, Mom was Army, my brother was Army. It seemed familiar. Ugliest uniforms. The shortest commitment was two years. I thought that it doesn‟t matter what I do for the next two years, those years are still going to go by. I wanted to get out. I wanted to see what was going on in the world. I did not necessarily want to do it solo. The Army looked like a nice framework. As I said, I had never gotten the impression that �the Army was a giant machine that would eat me alive. So it seemed like I could do that.” (00:11:47) “So what was the, first of all, what was the date?” (00:11:52) “1968.” (00:11:53) “Now, ‟68 in this country was a turbulent time. There‟s everything from Woodstock going on to the man on the moon and once again, I realize that you are a teenager, albeit an older teenager.” (00:12:11) “I was in Sioux City, Iowa. Not quite so turbulent.” (00:12:14) “Okay. But the newspapers, the T.V.” (00:12:18) ”We had those in Iowa.” (00:12:21) “I was in Taiwan, okay?” (00:12:23) “A little rougher for you. A little more turbulent.” (00:12:26) “I still got the album of Woodstock and I knew that there was anti-war. There was all kinds of things going on. We had an r & r station, so I was actually meeting G.I.s who were like two years older than I was. I didn‟t really grasp it all. I‟m just wondering if you had any kind of idea what you were about to get into if you did have to go to Vietnam.” (00:12:49) “I was expecting it to be…you know, I‟d seen the news reels every night, seen the jungle in black and white and the dramatic stuff, but again I had the backlog of the stories my mom and dad would tell me and I could see that yes, this is a very flashy piece of news, but I could also understand that there was a lot of slack time behind that and that we weren‟t getting to see the slack time, the down time. I did not get into the „should we be there? Should we not be there? What are we going to do?‟ That part of the political history or convolutions. I could track it up to a point and then thought, „eh.‟” (00:13:49) “Yeah. What was the process then once you enlisted?” (00:13:56) “I was an E-1 or E-2.” (00:13:58) “What was the actual process? You were in civilian clothes. You walk into a door. What happens? You go and say, „Hi. I want to sign up?‟” �(00:14:05) “Actually, you have to go to Detroit for that and you fill out bunches and bunches of papers.” (00:14:10) ”Okay. Did you go by yourself?” (00:14:13) “No. My sister Lori came with me. And we had to be there at 8:00, which meant we had to leave Grand Rapids about 5:00 which meant we had to be up very early. It was very foggy.” (00:14:25) “Without getting into real details though, the driving trip up with Lori, what did you talk about?” (00:14:30) ”I think we laughed most of the way. There was never the doomand-gloom what are you getting into? It was just kind of a „This is what I happen to be doing now.‟ And she was there to keep me company. It was pretty cool. Let‟s drive to Detroit. We didn‟t do that much.” (00:14:50) “Right. So you arrived there. Was there like crowds of people?” (00:14:58) ”There weren‟t a lot of females lining up so I was always a little bit separate. And it was mostly paperwork then and the swearing in….of course, I couldn‟t be sworn in to the Army Nurse Corps until I actually became a nurse, which would be after I graduated and took my state boards. They‟re picky about that sort of thing. But the entry level was an r.n. at that point. From then on, it was waiting until I graduated and I was actually sworn in in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in a blizzard. Another great drive. And I‟d gone to Sioux Falls for my physical, also, and that was tricky because I was the only female so I got a little folding screen to carry around with me and it‟s all very fascinating.” (00:15:55) “The part I‟m….I know the policy of being a nurse first, so were you in a school of nursing?” (00:16:01) “Right. St. Vincent‟s School of Nursing.” (00:16:03) “Okay.” (00:16:05) “The same one my mom went to.” (00:16:08) “Oh, really?” (00:16:11) “Yes. Didn‟t know that, did you?” �(00:16:13) “No. That sends chills down my spine.” (00:16:14) “Surprise, surprise! Well it was one of the things that made the decision a little bit easier for nursing since... Actually, I can‟t say it was legacied into anything, but my convent school was chosen because of my father‟s sister, Mary Kay, who was an absolutely delightful lady. She had gone there and Dad figured she turned out pretty well and maybe some of it would rub off on me. And then from St. Mary‟s I went to a year to Aquinas and then out to Sioux City, St. Vincent‟s where Mom had graduated. That‟s where she was from.” (00:17:01) “So you were now, the first time you were away from home, living away from home?” (00:17:06) ”Well, I lived away from home in high school.” (00:17:10) “Right. Yeah. But I mean in terms of on your own.” (00:17:12) “Right. Well, you‟re stuck in a dorm with all the rest of the students, so it‟s not quite living on your own. There was a tunnel to the hospital so that we could fill in in bad weather when no one else could get there. But, no, it was not all females. We had seven men in our class when not very many people had even one man in their class. One of them went to Vietnam and I ran into him there. We‟ll talk about that later. Leaping ahead.” (00:17:40) “How did you find nursing? In the very beginning. I mean, here you are, your mother‟s profession and obviously there‟s a lot of admiration for that. How did you find nursing? Was it enjoyable?” (00:17:51) “Handy.” (00:17:52) “What?” (00:17:52) “Handy.” (00:17:53) “Handy?” (00:17:58) “Yes. I learned a lot of things. I learned a lot from my mom that came in handy there. Pretty much everything I learned, I figured I could use all my life.” (00:18:09) “As a mother yourself?” (00:18:11) “Yes; or even on my own. It‟s nice to know that…how things work and when to go running for the doctor and when to think, „That‟s not much.‟” �(00:18:24) “So once you got through nursing then, did you find it difficult? I talk to a lot of vets and I ask that question and they kind of look at me funny but some people take on a particular task and it‟s very difficult for them. Others seem to just take to it. How did you find nursing?” (00:18:42) “I liked it. There were so many different areas in nursing. Mom worked operating room and loved it. I was very good at O.B. There was a lot of different things about it. You‟re not stuck in a rut doing just one thing. If you find an area you don‟t like, you have a really wide range that you can choose from.” (00:19:14) “Was it still challenging to you?” (00:19:16) “Oh, yes.” (00:19:19) “Okay. So there‟s…” (00:19:20) “It wasn‟t a piece of cake. I had to work at this stuff. But, I never got the feeling that I was learning something that I would never use again or something useless.” (00:19:33) ”Once you graduated from nursing school, was there a formal kind of…” (00:19:41) “Complete with the lamp. Florence Nightingale. Ducks in a row and carrying candles.” (00:19:45) “Dramatic.” (00:19:47) “Okay, dramatic.” (00:19:49) “I like drama. Candles and all that kind of stuff. Had you been issued a military uniform up to this point?” (00:19:58) “I was given an envelope when I was sworn in in Sioux Falls. I was given the envelope, a big manila envelope and they said, „You won‟t be needing any of this until after graduation.‟ So I thought, „Okay, I won‟t need any of this until after graduation and I tucked it away. I did wonder why my classmate who was also going into the Army had a nice little nurses pin that he wore but I figured that would have just been an oversight. When I opened the envelope after graduation, I found out possibly I should have opened it a little bit sooner yes, there was my little nurse‟s pin, but there was also the rules which you will �follow in nursing school one of which was „You will not go more than fifty miles outside of this nursing school without telling somebody.‟ I was sworn in maybe on a Friday in December and the following Monday I drove to Michigan. So I suppose, technically I was A.W.O.L. but no one ever came after me for it so I think I‟ve either been forgiven or…” (00:21:05) …”Well, apparently, nobody also questioned you about your pin, either.” (00:21:08) “Well, this was in the nursing school. It wouldn‟t have mattered. It was an Army pin.” (00:21:14) ”Right. Did you ever attend boot camp?” (00:21:17) “No.” (00:21:19) “So, you graduate. The Florence Nightingale, the candle, the whole bit.” (00:21:24) “It was a fake lamp, but it was a real candle.” (00:21:25) “Where did you go next?” (00:21:27) ”I went home to study for my state boards and I took my state boards in Michigan.” (00:21:31) ”You went back home as in Bill and Beth Sefton‟s house?” (00:21:34) “Yep. Grand Rapids. I was done at school. They didn‟t want me there. Once you graduate, they tend to kind of want to send you home.” (00:21:44) “What was your mom‟s reaction to your arrival after going through all of this? Was there a sense, did you feel a sense of pride on her part or was she mother henning you, saying, „Did you do this? Did you do that?‟ (00:21:57) “That came later. I don‟t want to jump ahead.” (00:22:01) “She‟s going to get mad at me for bringing this up. So you arrive back and you‟ve got the state boards. This is work now. This is study time. You‟ve got to really cram to get this stuff right otherwise if you don‟t pass…” �(00:22:13) “Actually I went to a pretty good nursing school and the state boards were not that tricky. I passed them on the first try. And apparently the Army gets word on the state boards before anyone else does because I got my phone call and the nice recruiting person in Detroit said, “Is this Lieutenant Sefton?‟ I was thinking, „Well, no‟ and then I thought „Yes, I passed.‟ Mom was very pleased. (00:22:44) “So where did you go from Michigan? Now you‟re going into the Army?” (00:22:51) “The serious Army. Although it‟s the Army Nurse Corps.” (00:22:53) “Yes. But still…” (00:22:55) “We‟re the medical corps, so it‟s not quite boot camp. Have you ever seen doctors march?” (00:22:59) “No.” (00:23:03) “Oh, it‟s priceless.” (00:23:05) “Is this a movie?” (00:23:05) “No, no, no. Doctors marching. And nurses marching. Learning to march.” (00:23:15) “No. Are they in nurses‟ uniforms when they‟re marching?” (00:23:18) “No. We got real uniforms.” (00:23:20) ”Before you get too far… you‟re in civvy clothes, you arrive where?” (00:23:28) “San Antonio. Fort Sam Houston.” (00:23:31) “This is a boot camp?” (00:23:32) “This is a basic training camp.” (00:23:36) ”Is this a big place?” (00:23:37) “It‟s a big place. It‟s Texas. It‟s a big place.” �(00:23:44) “Parade grounds. Barracks. Mess hall. Big American flag somewhere.” (00:23:45) “All that stuff.” (00:23:46) “Are there soldiers there as well as medical?” (00:23:48) “Sure, oh yeah.” (00:23:53) “So they‟re training soldiers there as well?” (00:23:55) “Yes. That‟s how I can tell which are the soldiers and which are the doctors marching.” (00:24:00) “So you arrive by bus?” (00:24:02) “Plane. Separately. Everybody trundles in and we go into a huge auditorium. Of course everybody knows in the military, short hair but being a bit of a procrastinator, I liked my hair long. I didn‟t want to chop it off yet and the nice officer who stood up there, a very lovely lady, said, „Now a lot of you have heard a lot of different things about the Army, I want you to know it‟s not all the scary stuff that you‟ve heard. For instance, don‟t cut your hair. If your hair is long, don‟t cut your hair.‟ You should have heard the screams of all the girls who‟d gone out and cut their hair the night before because they wanted some control over what it was going to look like. So, procrastiny did pay off and I got to keep my hair long. She did mention that ninety some percent of us would be going to Vietnam.” (00:25:04) “Wow.” (00:25:05) “Of course, nobody believed it. There were some who‟d volunteered to go and they went to, I want to say Fort Campbell, Kentucky, but I didn‟t go there. But it was just, „Okay.‟ And I had told my parents, as I recall, I promised I wouldn‟t volunteer for Vietnam but I figured if I got orders…” (00:25:26) “True. You‟re still not in uniform yet.” (00:25:30) “No. We get lined up.” (00:25:33) “That‟s what I want to hear about. That‟s what I want to hear about. They‟ve got a tailor from New York, right? He‟s measuring you out.” �(00:25:38) “Definitely. The wrist, the ankles, the inseam, the boots. Elegant, elegant.” (00:25:47) “All right. What happened?” (00:25:49) “We lined up like ducks in a row and trundled in and the people behind the stacks of uniforms would say, „What size are you?‟ „Roughly ten, twelve, whatever.‟ „Okay. This.‟ And we ended up with forty pounds of clothes. Now, as nurses, we were officers so we had to pay for our stuff as opposed to being issued the stuff. We got our dress uniforms and actually my dress blues came from Anna Mae Hayes who was one of the first, if not the first, female generals because she had apparently used up these dress blues and she‟d gotten a new set and it did fit as if it were tailored especially for me.” (00:26:42) “Was it recycled?” (00:26:45) “Well, hers were. It was just one of the announcements made. They said, „Would anyone be interested?‟ and people who would think, „no, no, no, I want a brand new one all my own,‟ went and bought a uniform. And I said, „How much?‟ And I don‟t remember how much, but it was a lot less and it fit beautifully and was nicely cared for. „Thank you, General.‟ And I wore it quite cheerfully.” (00:27:05) “All right so now, you‟ve got your uniforms. Where do you go from there? You‟re assigned to a barracks or what was that?” (0027:17) “Well, there were an awful lot of nurses in that particular basic training camp.” (00:27:23)“All first lieutenants?” (00:27:25) “Second. Second lieutenants, as low as you could possibly get and still be a nurse. And it was pretty crowded and back then you could not have coed barracks, even if they had room in one of the men‟s barracks. You couldn‟t put nurses, female nurses in there. So, they told us „I‟m sorry. There‟s no room for you here. You‟ll have to stay in the Sheraton in San Antonio.‟ A true heart breaker. My room had sliding glass doors. Six steps out was a small pool. Not Olympic size, just pool enough to hop out, swim around in, hop back in. The big Olympic pool was a couple hundred yards down. Hardship. Hardship tour.” (00:28:21) ”So, from there, you billeted there, then you would just go back onto base, back and forth.” (00:28:28) “The bus would come at o‟dark thirty.” �(00:28:31) “All right. What is „o‟dark thirty?‟” (00:28:33) “Very early. One of the things Dad said to me was if I was going to be in the Army, I would get to see a lot of beautiful sunrises and he was right. A lot of beautiful sunrises. Sunrises. Sunsets. All that stuff. But the bus would pick us up at o‟dark thirty and we would trundle back to Fort Sam and get in line for chow. Mess. Whatever. I did not know that you could serve fried apples for breakfast. They looked like potatoes but they were apples. You learn a whole different set of food in the Army.” (00:29:08) “And you got to eat what‟s on your plate.” (00:29:15) “Sometimes. Unless you could work a deal.” (00:29:18) “Just overall. How was the food? Was it tolerable? Was it actually good?” (00:29:24) “It was delicious.” (00:29:25) “Really?” (00:29:25) “Yes. Except for the soup. We‟ll get into that later.” (00:29:35) “What was the daily routine in the early days, I don‟t mean toward graduation, in the very early days? What was the daily routine like?” (00:29:41) “Trying to get us desperately organized. These are women, girls, from all over, different sizes, different shapes. Trying to teach them how to line up, how to wear the uniform. Just getting us lined up in a straight line was a little bit tricky.” (00:30:01) “You know in the movies, T.V. shows and all that and certainly in the number of interviews I‟ve done with veterans, the male veterans, you get the idea of boot camp sergeants screaming into your face and calling you a maggot. What was the person, the person that was in charge of you? What was their behavior?” (00:30:20) “We didn‟t have that person. Our person, if we were just upright and dressed and walking the same direction, that was pretty good. And we were neat and tidy.” (00:30:28) “Male or female?” �(00:30:30) “Both. We didn‟t have…now, I don‟t know what it was like on base, but for those of us who were bussed in from the swing area, as it were, we would go through the whole drill through the day and there were a lot of classes. You had to learn what the paperwork looked like, how to fill out the paperwork. Surprise! Surprise! What to expect….this is not just people headed for Vietnam.” (00:31:00) “Across the board.” “This is everybody, the whole Army medical everything. How to recognize the paperwork. What‟s important, how the charts go together. Where the patients come from. There was a lot of reviewing and when we got, we also got military classes like how to shoot a back azimuth we did a lot of map reading courses in the rain. I believe we had the distinction of being the last or second to last crew back but we did get back without having to bring the truck. Because the truck was stuck in the mud, but….” (00:31:37) “You know, very often the Army is criticized for its paperwork and there‟s always when you talk to people, „the paperwork‟ but in terms of medical profession it is important to recognize this piece of paper from that piece of paper. It could mean somebody‟s life that you‟re talking about.” (00:31:53) ”Yeah. They‟re touchy about that.” (00:31:56) “So this was, might be considered tedious, but at the same time, you recognized that this was important?” (00:31:57) “Yes. It might seem tedious at this point, but at some point this could be very serious.” (00:32:10) “Now, during this period of time, especially with the boot camp, whether it‟s World War II, Korea, Vietnam or whatnot, they‟re constantly at you from the morning until night. Was there down time? Was there any, obviously you went back to a hotel. I mean, was there a social life during this period of time? Or are you just so focused on what you had to do or so much homework and things like that?” (00:32:35) “There was a fair amount of social life. There was a lot of studying, but it wasn‟t harder than nursing school. It was different, it was difficult in that it was different.” (00:32:50) “Okay.” �(00:32:52) “Like stepping into a different world; trying to learn the language of that world because up to that point, we didn‟t know that military jargon. Some of us knew some of it but it was learning the new terms, learning what to call things and what not to call things.” (00:33:12) “Yes, the Army‟s notorious CINCOMPAC it‟s something, something, something and it‟s just this whole language in itself. I‟m not trying to dig here for any kind of dirt or anything like that, but were you discouraged from fraternizing with the Army males? Not just within the nurse department. Was there a statement like „You cannot go to a bar and hangout with these guys? Or go to this club?” (00:33:40) “If there was, I missed it completely.” (00:33:43) “So there was kind a camaraderie amongst your group?” (00:33:46) “Very much so and this was not only the Vietnam era, this was also the hippie era. So you had a loosening a lot of the attitudes. It was interesting, we were talking about uniforms. Once you got used to the uniform and hair pinned up, neat and tidy – uniform being a uniform length et cetera, et cetera. You looked at people not in uniform and they started to look kind of sloppy. „That‟s pretty crummy. Why don‟t you wear that with that? Straighten up a little bit. Comb that hair.‟” (00:34:33) “What kind of music were you listening to?” (00:34:35) ”Pretty much what anyone else was listening to.” (00:34:41) “Okay. This is like the rock-n-roll era.” (00:34:44) “Credence Clearwater Revival, any band that happened to be at the club, just whatever happened to be there at the time.” (00:34:52) “That‟s the same music I was listening to.” (00:34:54) “It‟s scary how universal that can me.” (00:35:00) “During the period of time, I‟m not trying to belabor this, but the news was coming back about what was going on in Vietnam. you know you can have an opinion one way or the other about how the media was skewered one way or another. You knew you were going to Vietnam at some point.” �(00:35:19) “I didn‟t know for sure because we were given choices where we wanted to go.” (00:35:25) ”Really?” (00:35:26) “Well, „Here. Write down where you want to go.‟ and then the Army would decide where you were going to go but this was the illusion of choice here. I thought, „Well, let‟s see. I‟ve never been to Colorado. I‟ve never been to California, never been to Massachusetts.‟ Sounded good to me. So I put them down. Some people, as I said, volunteered to go to Vietnam. Some people wanted to be stationed somewhere near their home. Some people wanted to be stationed anywhere but anywhere near their home.” (00:36:02) “Right. That‟s an interesting insight right there.” (00:36:03) “What?” (00:36:04) “Well, that people would choose to be closer to home or as far away from home as possible. I found that in college. What eventually happened? In terms of these choices. You wrote down these choices; what eventually happened?” (00:36:19) “Which was, I went to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, which was where the Green Berets were doing part of their winter training. You know the image of an Army nurse, usually in the orthopedic ward? There‟s some guy with his leg up in traction and the lovely young nurse bending over him, offering him sips of water. Or you sight down the ward and the nurse is there with all these young guys in various stages of brokenness? I worked obstetrics at Fort Devens. The only G.I.s, the only soldiers I saw while I was working were the husbands coming in. I‟m hoping they wouldn‟t fall over on the floor on me. But, it was, I loved working o.b. This was fine, as far as I was concerned. “ (00:37:22) “When did you find out you were going to go somewhere else?” (00:37:23) “When did I find out?” (00:37:24) “Yes.” (00:37:26) “About six or eight weeks after everyone else in Fort Devens knew it. My commanding officer, not commanding officer, chief nurse, head nurse of the o.b. unit was retiring. Captain Carpenter was moving on and me, with about a year in the Army, just under a year was now going to be the senior person in �o.b. I was good at it and didn‟t want, maybe…. Fort Devens was considered a safe place to be because no one had been sent to Vietnam from Fort Devens. At least this was the myth that they‟d tell us. Now, to me, that sounds like your number is coming up pretty fast, but I was perfectly willing to go along with it. So, I had had orders for Vietnam for about six weeks before word came back to me. All of the WACs that worked back there with me, they knew but they were very good about not telling me. I think about five nurses got orders at the same time. Some of them were very, very, very upset. One of them had gotten a deferment because she was so not thrilled with it. It was like a six-month deferment and by the time she was eligible again, she‟d only have six months left and that‟s too short a time to send you over. One of them who was married turned up pregnant so she can‟t go. And I want to say there was one other and I don‟t remember what it was, but all of the sudden I was sort of the, I hesitate to use the term „bottom of the barrel‟ but, yes, there was a definite scraping sound. So, whoever in Washington, Major Golden, or whatever said, „Yes. I know that you‟d love to have her there, but we‟re moving her.‟ And I was moving, I had been living on-post at Fort Devens and I‟d moved off to a little place called Littleton, a little winterized cottage near a lake and the owner wanted to sell, so I was moving from that cottage to a place fifteen miles on the other side of Fort Devens in Pepperell and I would load up my little Volkswagen at night and I would drive in in the daytime at Fort Devens and I‟d go to the other place and unload it and I got a phone call one morning and I was standing and looking across the ward and seeing the broom handles sticking out of my little car and this voice said, „Mary Beth?‟ Actually, what she said was, „Lieutenant Sefton. This is Colonel Quinn. I have news for you.‟ „What kind of news?‟ She said, „Vietnam.‟ My first thought was, „What‟s going on in Vietnam?‟ and „Why are you calling me?‟ „Oh, Vietnam!‟ „Oh, orders!‟ “Me.‟ Oh, suddenly all I could think was „Well, it‟s a good thing I signed the military‟ (any place around military base they have the clause in the contract, if you get orders then no penalty for breaking the lease.) So, I said, „Vietnam, when?‟ She said, „Two weeks.‟ And I thought, „Okay. That takes care of things. I don‟t have to move anything!‟ I finished out the day and I figured I would call my mom, call my parents, let „em know. This seemed worth a phone call.” (00:41:05) “Yeah.” (00:41:06) “And I called home and I got my mom on the phone and she said, as soon as she heard my voice, she said, „Oh. I have this great deal.‟ And I said, „What is that?‟ And she said (and I can‟t remember the product), „If you save up these box tops,‟ save enough of them, little coupons, „then you send them in and you get another coupon and if you get two or three (whatever it was) then you get an electric scissors.‟ And she was really pleased with this.” (00:41:36) “I can picture Beth doing this.” �(00:41:38) “No. She did. And she was really delighted with it and she already had one and so the other kids were getting, too. And it works really, really well. And I said, „Mom, how long does this take?‟ Now, Mom may have been excited about the electric scissors, but she is a smart cookie. Immediately, she said, „Why? Do you have orders? Are you going somewhere?‟” (00:41:58) “I said, „Yes. I got orders.‟ And she said, „Where are you going?‟ My throat closed up and I squeaked, „Vietnam.‟ And she said, „Oh, Mary! How wonderful!‟ I said, „Huh?‟ And she was talking about the experience, the friends I would make, how lovely it would be, how much she had enjoyed her term. She was in France and she was also in the Philippines. So, this was the best thing in the world as far as she could tell. And I‟m thinking, „Ah, Mom? Mom? Do you remember me, your first-born daughter? You looked at me and you thought I looked just like a little rose and you thought, „I‟ll never be lonely again. First born. Real bullets, Mom. They‟re shooting at people. Real bullets. And eventually she got the impression, it kind of came to her. Maybe I wasn‟t totally on the same page with her and leaping immediately and she didn‟t want me to feel bad about it so she said, „You know, your Dad, he was with a tank unit and he said they were activated but they were never sent. They didn‟t get orders. They were never sent over. And your brother Mike, he only has about six months left, or two months left (whatever it was at the time) and Billy and David, my younger brothers who are ten or twelve years younger than I am, this is pretty much going to be over by the time they‟re old enough to be in the military. You are the only one in the family that‟s going to get to go to Vietnam.‟ This is good comfort to me. So I cheered right up and said, „Okay, Mom.‟ And it wasn‟t until I came back from Vietnam that I learned that there was Vietnam training involved. When you‟re sent over, you get a few weeks focused training for Vietnam but because my orders had been held up, they decided, „She‟ll be fine.‟” (00:44:26) “Did you get a chance to talk to your dad during that phone conversation with your mom?” (00:44:31) “Can you believe….? He was working late. I assumed she told him. I never asked him. At some point, she would have mentioned it to him.” (00:44:39) “So. Those two weeks then? You were basically just packing, getting ready to go?” (00:44:42) “Packing, getting ready to go, making sure all the charts were signed. And going around and processing myself out of Fort Devens. I got a lot of really good advice, after the fact. When I told my brother that I had spent �like two days hitting like all the little places that you have to go to collect your paperwork, he said, „Why didn‟t you just give some enlisted guy five bucks to do it for you? They could have pencil whipped it in twenty minutes.‟ I said, „Well, I didn‟t know that.” (00:45:21) “Where did you go to leave to go to Vietnam? How did you get to Vietnam? I don‟t want to get too far into Vietnam yet because there‟s a question I have about your arrival that I want to get back to, but what was the process of getting from point A to point B?” (00:45:38) “From Devens, everything had been packed up and stored wherever I was taking with me, whatever, I was put on an airplane and came back and when the stewardess – we had stewardesses back then. It was a long time ago. Do you remember stewardesses?” (00:45:51) “I do.“ (00:45:56) “Good. Anyway, when she heard that I was going to Vietnam, she moved me from coach up to First Class. The first time and only time that I‟ve ever been in first class. Which I thought was…” (00:46:06) “Yeah.” (00:46:07) “….pretty nice. And I came back home and I started packing and sorting and I had a kind of list what to bring to camp. And one of them suggested that you bring a little 30 watt bulb to keep the mildew out of whatever and I was thinking, „Electricity! They‟ve got electricity.‟ Because when we were at Fort Sam, we went through this little mock up Vietnamese village. There was no running water, it was all little hooches and thatched whatever and the trench with the toilet paper sticking up on a stick next to it. This was what I was expecting when I got to Vietnam. Since the newsreels didn‟t show you running water. They showed you jungle and grubbie and mud. And I was going through my list of things and Mom would come in every so often and, „Do you think you‟ll need…I have part of my gas mask you could take with you.‟ I don‟t remember whether she ever found her musette bag or what, but it was….and I got the feeling that had it not been for, say, the other nine kids at home and my dad and the fact that she had a life, it would not have broken her heart to find herself packing her duffel bag and going back with me. But, she told me „Sunsets are beautiful. You‟ll see a lot of sunrises and sunsets.‟ She just gave me a lot of – I guess technically it‟s a lot of positive feedback. It was kind of a not a yearning, a little bit of nostalgia, but kind of a re-living of. I got the feeling from her that I was headed off to someplace positive, which didn‟t hurt at all.” �(00:48:16) “What about your dad? During that period of time, what was his reaction to your going off?” (00:48:23) “I got the hug. The „Good luck.‟ The speech about sunrises again. The, „Be careful and keep your mouth shut.‟ But there was no warnings about, you know, „Watch out for this. Be careful of this.‟ It was kind of like sending one of those little friction toys off…you just give them the best start that you can and then you turn them loose.” (00:48:59) “Yes.” (00:49:01) “…And they said they‟d pray for me. This was good, too.” (00:49:07) “Then you board another airplane and headed off to where?‟ (00:49:13) “I want to say San Francisco. I was thinking about that and the plane was delayed twice. I was supposed to be in San Francisco just a few hours but one of those mysterious whatevers had come up.” (00:49:25) “Now, you‟re traveling by yourself or were there other nurses?” (00:49:27) “Well, I was traveling by myself. There may have been another group of nurses at some point but literally during the time that I was packing my duffel bag, my grandmother had died so my mother‟s mother who lived us for twenty years so we got extended another couple days extra days because of the funeral. So if I was supposed to meet up with this little clump of nurses who were traveling, I missed the boat.” (00:49:56) “Right.” (00:49:57) “So I did San Francisco alone and then over to Vietnam. A long flight. Very long. We stopped in Guam. We stopped in Hawaii.” (00:50:13) “As you know, I grew up in Asia and I‟ve talked to a lot of people who‟ve never been to Asia of any kind. They get off the airplane and I assume you got off the airplane in….” (00:50:23) “I got off the airplane.” (00:50:25) “….okay. What happened?” �(00:50:28) “That‟s what happened. I was expecting, „Boom!‟ No running water. I was expecting mud. I was expecting tents, hooches. When I stepped off, I was expecting heat. When I stepped off the very air conditioned plane, and the heat, it was a lot like walking into a steam bath. It was incredibly hot and over the P.A. system, the loud speaker was Credence Clearwater Revival singing, „Willie and the Poor Boy.‟ And I thought, „Not quite what I expected.‟ And, to this day, whenever I hear that song, bam! Coming down the plane in Benwa. Orange juice cans.” (00:51:22) “Really?” (00:51:23) “No, that was Thailand.” (00:51:25) “Okay. I was just going to say. Because Asia smells differently than anywhere else you‟re ever going to go. There‟s such a mixture of everything. You just don‟t get here in America. I mean, Americans are westerners, if you want to put it that way. You can explain it as much as you can to somebody but they won‟t grasp it until they actually walk into it and you‟re suddenly…every sense in your body is in a foreign…” (00:51:48) “What was that?” (00:51:50) “Yeah.” (00:51:52) “It‟s like trying to explain to people who don‟t have kids, what it‟s like to have kids. Save your breath. You can never convey it and you‟re just going to sound like an idiot and preserve dignity at all costs. There was this smell. There was just acres and acres of concrete.” (00:52:09) “Where did you actually arrive? What was the airport?” (00:52:12) “Benwa.” (00:52:14) “Okay, Benwa airport. And this is a major staging area for…” (00:52:17) “I think Benwa. It could have been Longbin, but I think Benwa. I know we had to go on a bus from one to the other. Wherever the replacement was…..and again, I was not expecting running water. We were put in a little actually, we were put in a large tent and they made a lot of speeches about what to expect and this wasn‟t just nurses, it was all the incoming people. I met a lot of nice people there. We were waiting for our assignments to come in. Theoretically, all the paperwork was out there someplace but, as I said, talk �about running water, I was very surprised that there was running water and concrete bathroom and little geckos climbing all over. A touch I hadn‟t thought of. And I turned on the water – nice, potable water. You could actually drink it – the water runs into the sink, but there‟s nothing connecting the sink to anything, it just runs directly onto the floor and then there‟s a main drain. So it was at least kind of a step down from what I was….or a step up, whatever. The water was running. It was good.” (00:53:38) “Where did you go from the airport then? Were you immediately put to a base?” (00:53:45) ””The replacement depot, where people…it‟s sort of like. This is like, as I recall, some bazillion years later, hooches that were just wooden, with lots of screens and you would go to the boards or something there were a couple of postings or listings, to check and see if your name was on the listing and when you were supposed to leave for wherever it was.” (00:54:24) “All right.” (00:54:26) “And, since I didn‟t have orders because my first orders had been invalidated because I wasn‟t there, they were looking for a spot for me and they said, „Where would you like to go?‟ Well, this is like, I‟m deciding what to do…my future is hanging….where do I want to go? Give me a map and a dart.” (00:54:47) “There‟s some temples I‟ve always wanted to see.” (00:54:49) “I didn‟t even know about the temples. But I knew that my friend Judy Tripler was in Plaku, and I‟d heard of Saigon. I‟d heard of Cameron Bay and they‟d offered me several places and when they mentioned Plaku, I thought, „Ah. Tripler‟s in Plaku. Plaku would be good.‟ So I said Plaku and they looked at me like „Okay‟ I thought „Oh, oh.‟ So I went up to Plaku. It took a little while for me to get up there.” (00:55:23) “This is still 1969 there?” (00:55:26) “Yes.” (00:55:27) “Okay.” (00:55:29) “And there was still a war on. So I was trundled up to Plaku with all my worldly possessions in a duffel bag. And Tripler was not there. She was back in the states because her dad had died. So I wrote her a letter that said, „I‟m here. Where are you?‟ Plaku is probably the best kept secret of the war. It was central highlands. It was not as humid. It was known as rocket city, for �obvious reasons but it was…there were Montagnards there, the mountain people. They were more primitive than the Vietnamese.” (00:56:16) “We‟d call them aborigines. Would that be correct? They kind of had their own little culture. Mountain people.”\ (00:56:25) “Yeah. I found them absolutely lovely. I didn‟t speak enough anything but apparently they either understood….there were some missionaries in the area who spoke Montagnard but it was a little bit different than the rest of Vietnam.” (00:56:51) “Okay. What was the base? Was it a base? I mean, give us an idea visually of when you arrived in…” (00:56:59) ”Visually? Okay. You‟re coming in and you see this big chain link fence and there‟s a dividing line and there‟s the usual Army looking complex. Actually, there were some stucco building areas there that were left over from the French. And there‟s this dividing line, helipad, and the dividing line. On this side it‟s kind of mud, grey, reddish mud. On the other side, there‟s sidewalks and grass and concrete structures with roofs on them, little gardens little concrete stairs going….Air Force. Army. And I will leave it up to you to sort out which is which. They could grow grass!” (00:57:53) “Oh.” (00:57:54) ”You were talking about the smell, the scent. Marigolds, too. I always think of marigolds as little things that edge the garden.” (00:57:59) “Sure.” (00:58:00) “Marigold bushes higher than this table, just huge ones. I thought, „It looks like marigolds. Smells like marigolds. Who knew they would grow like that?‟” (00:58:16) “Where were you assigned in this group. I mean were you in a tent or in a building or what?” (00:58:20) ”I was in a concrete building, amazingly enough.” (00:58:25) “Bunk beds, or…?” (00:58:26) “Single room.” (00:58:27) “Really?” �(00:58:30) “Yes. I was a nurse. An officer. A female. Outrank almost anybody I can see.” (00:58:39) “Wow! What was your immediate, your first day on the job, let‟s put it that way. What did you do? Did you walk into a room and there‟s a hospital here?” (00:58:49) “You were supposed to get the first aid tour you all through everything and they tell you things like…there‟s this paperwork and they look at your clearance and I accidentally had higher clearance than generic, normal nurses did because once upon a time in Fort Devens, some secret squirrel had been in some kind of a bad accident and they wanted to take him into surgery and they wanted to recover him somewhere, but not in a ward where possibly the baddies would hear him say secret squirrel stuff he wasn‟t supposed to say. So they thought, „Where should we put him where he isn‟t likely to be in the mix? O.B. department, that would be good. No one will think of that.‟” (00:59:40) “Well, sure.” (00:59:41) ”You have to have someone with a higher, not top secret, but higher to recover him in case he divulges this stuff.” (00:59:50) “Where‟s the bomb, or something.” (00:59:55) “Mostly, he wanted to know where his mom was. That was pretty typical. But, this was just before I went to Vietnam so they changed the clearance, but if they changed it back, the paperwork never caught up.” (01:00:06) “All right.” (01:00:08) ”It never caught up until I was coming back. So, they‟d look at the paperwork and say, „Oh.‟ Of course, you can‟t ask. If someone has a higher clearance than you, you can‟t ask. You can‟t say, „Why is this?‟ because the response tends to be, „Do you need to know this?‟” (01:00:21) “Right. Right.” (01:00:22) “So what they would tell me was, „Okay. Now this is headquarters. See that file cabinet? See that little button on top? If we‟re overrun, you come and pound that button and acid will destroy all the files.‟ If we‟re overrun, possibly, I‟m going to be taking care of my patients and the last thing on my mind will be racing over there and hitting something that‟s going to make acid fall all over. I thought, „They‟ve got to be kidding.‟ And I‟ve never actually �researched it to find out if they were kidding or not. This could be just the stuff they tell you when you come in-country. There‟s a lot of stories that you tell you when you come in-country.” (01:01:05) ”Let‟s get an idea about a typical day the first week that you were there. What was the first week like?” (01:01:14) “It was getting used to the people, trying to remember who was who.” (01:01:17) ”How many people were you surrounded by? What was your… I‟m trying to get an idea of how big or small this hospital staff was? Or this medical staff.” (01:01:27) ”You‟re talking ancient memories here. We had a sixty bed, sixty bed unit. I was on a surgical unit and we had not just the G.I.s, we had Vietnamese, we had Montagnards, we had little kids that had come in for surgery. It was fairly quiet. We would have two, sometimes two or three, of course I was training or orienting under another nurse but usually there‟d be one nurse, there‟d be two nurses assigned who worked twelve hour shifts, but if it was quiet, you could do eight hours and overlap in the middle and eight hours. Each one of you would do eight hours and overlap. It depended upon how busy you were. I got part of, part of the difficulty in not getting the focused Vietnam training was the corpsmen would always tell me I‟m corpsmen‟s work because one of the things you had to chart on was the conditions of the wounds. And if I wasn‟t to write that the wound is clean and granulated and healing, I really needed to see that wound and make sure that what I‟m saying is true. In order to see it, you have to take the dressing off and look at it. As long as you have the dressing off, you might as well clean it and put it back together.” (01:02:52) “And that‟s not your job…” (01:02:54) “Actually, it was my job, but the corpsmen did a lot of that. Our corpsmen were ninety-one Charlies. 91 C-3, whatever. It‟s the designation, more official military terms. But these are the guys who are essentially combat medics. A, B and C. A is very low-level. But, my corpsmen were perfectly qualified to be medics on the field. They would be six months in the field, six months rotate through. Sometimes, they‟d stay in one spot. But, they can probably start IVs better than I can, depending upon where they are. But then you get a little territorial with the nurses so, can they take blood pressures, or not? I think so. Can they give injections? Sure they can. What‟s magic about this? And, there were a lot of G.I.s who‟d really rather not bare their hip to a nurse and to have some other guy come and stick them with a needle? That‟s fine. When I came back, I found what the division was. I always thought the �corpsman was supposed to be opening the dressings and then I run over and look at it. That seemed kind of useless.” (01:04:13) ”I got back to this one question about how big it was? I‟m trying to get an idea of how big it was? Sixty beds, sixty beds but I‟m not looking for exact numbers. What I‟m trying to do, Mary Beth, is get a visualization of the environment you are working in. Are we talking about…?” (01:04:30) “It was really small. It was small and it eventually downsized to an aid station but it was…Saigon would be the big field hospitals. Big hospitals in Da Nang and in Saigon. Cameron Bay was big. Plaku was small.” (01:04:51) “Would you say that this was a, and I‟m unfamiliar with the terminology, a staging area where you kind of settled, get somebody ready to go to a major hospital, or…?” (01:05:04) “We were sort of an evac hospital. We would get the guys coming in from the field that come into R. and E. R. and E.? R. and D. Receiving and disposition, whatever. We had a search crew unit there, we had a burn unit there, we had medical units there for the guys with malaria and whatever other ugly bugs had gotten to them. We had several surgical units, so it was big enough to be a…when I say hospital, the units are all laid out separately. It‟s not like it‟s one big building. It‟s small.” (01:05:45) “Okay. The burn unit is here…” (01:05:46) “Well, there‟s a big concrete, the main part, the burn unit and the intensive care section were together, but there were other. I think that‟s right. Each unit was kind of a separate, functioning area.” (01:06:17) “Let‟s take as an example, somewhere nearby, a battle goes on, a G.I. or several G.I.s get hurt. They get helicoptered, right…?” (01:06:22) “Yes.” (01:06:24) “…by helicopter. Did you have a helicopter pad there?” (01:06:25) “Down by Army.” (01:06:27) “So, you‟re getting, right fresh from the battle, wounded people who medics have patched together to the best of their ability. Which, as I understand it…” �(01:06:35) “And they did a nice job.” (01:06:35) “That‟s what I was going to say. Yeah. So now they arrive, and almost like that MASH, guys are running up to meet the helicopter and they bring somebody to your unit. What happens? Here‟s a guy with burns and he‟s had his leg damaged. What happens?” (01:06:53) “They are triaged as soon as the come in.” (01:06:56) “Which means…” (01:06:58) “We know what triage is. But who knows how long…” (01:07:00) “I‟ve watched MASH. I‟ve seen…” (01:07:02) “MASH was very understated. They‟re sorted out. If they need absolute, immediate treatment in order to stay alive…” (01:07:12) “So there are doctors…” (01:07:14) “Not just doctors. Everybody‟s there.” (01:07:18) “Saying, „Okay. This is a guy that can wait five minutes. This guy‟s gotta go in now.” (01:07:20) “Yes. „Arterial bleeding, take him in.‟” (01:07:21) “All right.“ (01:07:23) “And then they‟re sorted out into where they‟re going.” (01:07:27) “Before this experience here, we‟re talking about here, had you had any experience before…you‟d had experience with broken legs, you‟d had experience with…had you ever had the experience where, „There‟s a guy who‟s leg was just blown off.‟” (01:07:44) “We‟d had paper experience with it. That was one of the things we‟d had at Fort Sam was learning triage and you had to go through, there‟s pretty specific things you watch for in triage. No. Not, up that point. Very few people I knew had had their legs blown off.” (01:08:03) What was your first experience? I know that this was a long time ago and I‟m not trying to get the down and dirty details, �but…incoming. I don‟t know what the terminology is, but here comes the wounded. (01:08:15) “What sticks in my mind?” (01:08:16) ‟‟Yes.” (01:08:18) “What sticks in my mind is not necessarily coming in as Army, but could be an emergency. R & D is research and development.” (01:08:23) “Okay.” (01:08:24) “On my unit, taking off this huge dressing. D.P.C., delayed primary closure. Somewhere along the line, someone decided that if you have an open wound and you sew it up real quick, then you‟re sewing in a lot of bugs in there. If you leave it open and you clean it every four, six, eight, twelve hours, then it will heal faster. Of course, this means that you have this gaping wound for a while, but they heal must cleaner and you get a much higher survival rate, which is good. Well the Montagnard man who was sitting on the bed and he looked a like Omar Sharif. And I took the dressing off his arm, it was a big, fat, fluffy dressing. Took it off his arm and now I‟m looking through his arm. There‟s a bone coming up here and there‟s nothing in between and there‟s the little skinny bone over there. And I was thinking, „Okay.‟ But he seemed perfectly confident that I could handle this and I figured, „Well, I can handle this.‟ We had been through the goat lab at Fort Sam where you learned to deal with wounds. They have these shot goats so you learn how to deal with a gunshot wound. The burns I think were worse than bleeding. Bleeding wounds have never really gotten to me, except for Maxillofacial. Face wounds and only because all of the sudden you can identify something. It looks like a plate of hamburger, unidentifiable and all of the sudden an eye will open in the middle of it and you think, „Woah! Hello!‟ It wasn‟t, I don‟t want to say it wasn‟t horribly traumatic, but it was, because I‟d worked in the operating room before and working O.B. is not always neat and pretty.” (01:10:36) This is really the point that I think that it amazes me. It was your training. This military training, to an outsider like myself who confronts that kind of horror, I‟m thinking horror. But you‟ve been trained to take care of that. So, yeah, you may sit back later and say, „Well that was a horrible thing and I hope the guy doesn‟t die‟ or whatever, but if you panic, you‟re reacting like I might react and you‟re not doing your job.” �(01:11:04) “Well, it‟s like an auto mechanic. When his car goes „ticket-a-ticketa-ticketa and smoke starts pouring out, he thinks, „Danged head gasket.‟ I think, „I‟m going to die.‟ or „How much is this going to cost?‟ It‟s the training. It‟s what you‟re familiar with and if you‟re, I won‟t say comfortable with it, but if you know what to do. It‟s like any kind of emergency preparedness, if you know what to do, if you have some clue what you‟re supposed to be doing, then you can go ahead and do that and by the time you‟re done with it, you can think, „Oh. I guess it‟s a little late to start screaming and panicking now.‟” (01:11:42) “You know, I think that‟s one of the things that‟s been fascinating to me, interviewing vets that have gone through very traumatic experiences and looking back on it from a different generation or from a different perspective of never having gone through that, you wonder how could they have done that but that‟s the point, you trained to do it and you did it because somebody‟s life depended upon that.” (01:12:03) “Scott O‟Grady, the pilot who was shot down first during the Persian War. He was stuck in one spot, the other guys all around him and he made it out, called in the company. And when they asked later, they were trying to make him a major hero, he said, essentially, „I was just a scared little bunny rabbit, but I‟d had the training and I did exactly what I was supposed to do and it worked. Of course, some people do exactly what they‟re supposed to do and it doesn‟t work.” (01:12:45) “The movie MASH, the TV series MASH, gives the impression of kind of an orchestrated chaos. Of course, that‟s what a director does, it was not actually….but did you have a sense of all these things are going on around you, but every piece is being dealt with. How would you describe, the helicopters come in. There‟s a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be done. Give us an idea of what‟s going on.” (01:13:21) “It‟s kind of hard to give an idea but everybody does their job and keeps working and nobody looks up and says, „Oh. There‟s thousands of people out there.‟ You know there‟s more people coming in. You do what you do as efficiently as you can and then you go to the next on and you deal with that and you trust that the people around you are doing their part so that when you finish there‟s not going to be someone left over who has not been treated. Everybody does what they‟ve been trained to do. It is not as hectic MASH, ER. There has to be a certain amount of drama in it, otherwise it‟s bad television and we wouldn‟t want that. But the training you have and the stuff that you do, you‟re comfortable with it and you can do it, I don‟t want to say with your eyes closed, but you‟re used to it. You‟ve practiced it over and over again and it‟s just like doing any kind of a drill.” �(01:14:28) “I‟ve spoken to many different vets who worked together whether it‟s in combat or not in combat, but under great stress like that. How are relationships formed or not formed with your fellow people? Is there a sense of I want to distance myself from them or am I part of this group and there‟s a real strong sense of camaraderie? What is the interaction between the nurses, the doctors, the corpsmen?” (01:14:52) “You work very closely with the corpsmen. Most of the time there‟ll be a nurse with maybe three corpsmen. So you work really more closely with the corpsmen than you do with the other nurses because nurses are very rare. The doctors come through, you get a….of course, it depends on what unit you‟re on, too. You work more closely than you would in a civilian hospital with the people. You are also living with them. It‟s not like they come in on the bus. I learned a lot from my corpsmen. I learned a lot from pretty much everybody I met but I learned a lot from my corpsmen. Some of them were old beyond their years and some of them were just incredibly young. There are bonds that were – forged is a good word – that were completely, will last forever, unbreakable. I may never see any of them again, and their names may slip around a bit, but pop up the face and the name is, yes!” (01:16:10) It really amazes me and I‟d have the same experience if I interviewed your mom, is it, you may not be thinking about it but now we‟re sitting back here in this comfortable studio, talking without thinking any given moment that you‟re dealing with somebody‟s life and it may be gone and it‟s your job to make sure that doesn‟t happen. And it just amazes me. You don‟t think about that while you‟re doing it though, right? You‟re just doing it.” (01:16:38) “Exactly. You know you say a lot of prayers while you‟re doing it, too. It‟s something that you do. It‟s not something that you ever get bored with or blasé about, or you‟re not interest in anymore because that‟s too important. You hear a lot about burnout. You can get stressed, you can get burnt out but for the most part the people who get that stressed, some will recognize it and say, „You are cranky. Go away.‟ And then they‟ll bring someone – because I worked on the surgical unit and not the intensive care unit all the time – if they needed, if somebody needed a break, I would go in occasionally and fill in just so that somebody else could come out and take a deep breath, get themselves grounded again, then go back in.” (01:17:27) “Let‟s just do that. What is the experience of getting to that point and did it ever happen to you? Where you just fell apart. I need to go take a break.” �(01:17:39) “I was having a good time.” (01:17:43) “Okay. Let‟s look at it from a different perspective. Let‟s look at a particularly difficult period where, either you‟re working at night, you‟re keeping these guys alive, well, everything‟s been settled. Everything‟s now under control. What‟s the feeling as you walk out and you sit down and you know that all is well, for that moment anyway?” (01:18:08) “Finishing the night should then, once you walk out of the unit, go back to your hootch, then you realize what else is going on around you. I was never, I‟d count the helicopters. The helicopters would go out for the first light flights and I‟d try not to, but I could lie in my hootch, the screen windows were about this high, actually and see the choppers going out and I‟d try not to count them, but I counted to twenty-seven, thirteen, whatever it was. And, about the time it was for me to get up and go back to work again, they‟re coming back in. I‟m trying not to count them because if there‟s only twenty-six or twenty…..I don‟t want to hear about it. But when you‟re off, you get to talk to the other people if they happen to be off at the same time. You find yourself fraternizing with people working your same shift, my friend Tripler who was there, she was in the hootch right across from me but she worked a different unit.” (01:19:26) “So she can‟t…” (01:19:28) “Yes she can. We had a fine time and yes, I ran into her after Vietnam and she‟s in New Jersey. She‟s a midwife. Very good.” (01:19:38) “We‟re going to wind this down now, but as was with your dad, we‟re going to have to do this again. There‟s a lot more to do with your experiences. So in the last ten or so minutes, I‟m going to ask you some direct questions that have to do with your experiences but the next time we get together, I‟m going to get much more into, not only experiences while you were there, but then you moved on to another location, is that right?” (01:20:04) “Yes. In Vietnam with the 85th.” (01:20:07) “Then of course there‟s the trip home and there‟s a whole bunch of things we need to get into. But, you come from a family of both mother and father being experienced veterans. In the case of your father, as a paratrooper, very proud of what he accomplished and of course, very thankful that he got out without a scratch. And your mom saw as many as if not, well as many of the horrors that you‟ve �experienced. When you got back, a lot of the Vietnam veterans that I‟ve spoken to, and it‟s not limited to Vietnam, World War II guys that got back, they didn‟t talk about it. They just,‟Get on with my life. I went out and saved my country. Now it‟s time to start a family, get on with my life.‟ Because of the uniqueness of your mother and father‟s background did they, were they curious or were you anxious to talk to them about your experience? What happened when you got back? Not just immediately after you got back, but was there discussion about your experience compared with your mother‟s experience?” (01:21:21) “We never really sat down and debriefed about it. It was the same as with Dad. If we were talking about something and it came up in the conversation, it was never a forbidden topic but it was part of my life and if they asked a question, it was not a secret. You talk about that there was a lot of hostility, animosity, whatever towards Vietnam vets coming back, but bear in mind, I was invisible as a Vietnam vet coming back. As soon as the uniform is off, I don‟t look like a vet any more. So, I did not get that really hostile or the hatred or whatever focused. I saw it on, everybody else was getting it, but when maybe 1975, sorry ‟85, I was accidentally in Detroit and they had the DVA convention and someone asked me when I first admitted that I was a Vietnam vet. Well, let‟s see. I got out in ‟72, probably April of ‟72 that I started admitting that. So it was never a secret. I try not to brag about it.” (01:22:53) “We were talking earlier when I was looking at your Library of Congress Veteran‟s History Project bio sheet the thing that struck me was that you got out on April 18th, 1972 and April 11th, 1972, I was walking into the draft board to register for the draft to go to Vietnam and I was told, basically, „It‟s over, kid. Go home.‟ “ (01:23:18) “So you didn‟t get to go, either?” (01:23:20) “I didn‟t get to go.” (01:23:23) “Dang! Well, I went for you.” (01:23:24) “Well, I‟ll tell you a lot of you did.” (01:23:26) “I actually saw something, years ago. A nurse who was being interviewed for an oral history project. But she said something that‟s always struck me and the gist of it was that we were there in your place, in place of the mothers, the sisters, the wives who couldn‟t be there and she said that she just wanted people to know, we did our best. We tried to take care of people, we treated everyone the way we would treat a father, a brother, a husband. We were really doing our best to take care of them and nobody was just a number. �He was just a leg, or. I‟ve forgotten all the names, for the most part but nobody was just something to be scooted along. I know it‟s popular in stories or media or whatever to make everybody pretty much faceless, but they were all distinct. You were always aware of the people that were there.” (01:24:37) “I want to thank you very much for taking the time out to do this. I want to ask you one more question. Of course, that‟s with the understanding that I‟m going to ask you a lot more questions later and tomorrow night I‟m looking forward to having you and your mother on stage at the Ford Museum and we‟re going to talk about a lot of these things. How do you feel your military experience shaped you as the person that you are today.” (01:25:02) “It made me totally intolerant. I appreciate, actually, I appreciate pretty much everything. I am so aware that everything I have is a gift. And, I appreciate people who do their jobs well and it doesn‟t matter what the job is. It‟s a delight to me to find somebody who likes what they do and does it. I like the feeling that, things were very simple in Vietnam. It was do your job and stay alive. I didn‟t have to, no concern at all about car payments. rent, groceries, anything like that. It was very, very simplified. And sometimes you get layers and layers and layers of complications, convolutions. But, everything was very simple, and very basic and it really felt like you were doing something for a purpose and once you had that feeling, there was a reason that you do stuff, it gives you a strength, it gives you something to draw on. It makes you; it gives you an idea of your own worth. That‟s very, very hard to; you can‟t give it to someone. It has to come from inside. That forging, that bond that the experience when you come back to the states, you have that feeling that I have done something. Essentially, this is worth it. And it‟s kind of a standard you get to measure whatever else you‟re doing. I wouldn‟t trade it for anything.” (01:27:02) “Thank you very much.” (01:27:03) “Anytime. My pleasure.” � 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SeftonM Title A name given to the resource Sefton, Mary B. (Interview transcript and video), 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sefton, Mary B. Description An account of the resource Mary Sefton is a Vietnam War veteran who served in the U.S. Army from 1968 to April 1972. In her interview transcript she goes into a detailed account of the events surrounding her pre-enlistment, enlistment and training; her tours in Vietnam, and life after the Vietnam War. Besides this, she offers a unique perspective as a nurse of what the fighting meant in the hospitals of Vietnam as well as what the ground fighting was like for U.S. troops. In addition, she shares what U.S. civilians thought of returning veterans and finally her thoughts on her service experience. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2005-02-21 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/4082562b74fda8c6e7fa1ca29763d9a0.jpg 598a7334d61e7507b39042d3b309f9bf 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 Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1960s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UAPhotos_000714 Title A name given to the resource Seidman House exterior Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Korab, Balthazar Description An account of the resource Exterior of Seidman House Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Facilities Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/07d9d9ea163c1d2589aa5bdf53c1b4f0.jpg baa419bfaaab6e59fa29945a09be9d9a 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 Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1970s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UAPhotos_001036 Title A name given to the resource Seidman House in the snow Description An account of the resource Seidman House in the snow. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Facilities Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e37a1ee5dd5344a432c5995ff8c418e9.jpg 9eab3f78daef0db89437ad028a0f0020 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 Grand Valley Ravines Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Krohmer, Stanley Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Institutional Marketing Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Ottawa County (Mich.) Grand River (Mich.) Ravines -- Michigan Land use Nature trails Outdoor recreation Architectural rendering Facilities Maps Photographs Publications Description An account of the resource Collection of digitized photographs, graphic materials, and documents related to the physical environment and history of the ravines on GVSU’s Allendale Campus. The items curated for this collection were digitized from the Grand Valley Ravines Natural Area collection and the Stanley Krohmer Photographs collection, in addition to other materials from University Archives that illustrate the significance of this natural feature to the GVSU campus community. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection Seidman House Collegiate Center Meathe, Kessler & Associates 1960s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UAPhotos_000005 Title A name given to the resource Seidman House. Architect's drawing of exterior Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Meathe, Kessler & Associates Jackson, Morris Description An account of the resource Architect's drawing of the exterior of the Collegiate Center of Grand Valley State College, later named Seidman House, by Morris Jackson circa 1962. In the drawing, the Collegiate Center is featured in the center and framed among the wooded ravines, with people seen inside the windows of the building and outside enjoying the outdoor patio seating. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Architectural rendering Facilities Ravines -- Michigan Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1962 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University photographs, GV012-01 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bbb2c3df8c3cb718e575c6a96600183d.jpg fd7decea595116350d6db9796e8d3076 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 Grand Valley Ravines Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Krohmer, Stanley Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Institutional Marketing Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Ottawa County (Mich.) Grand River (Mich.) Ravines -- Michigan Land use Nature trails Outdoor recreation Architectural rendering Facilities Maps Photographs Publications Description An account of the resource Collection of digitized photographs, graphic materials, and documents related to the physical environment and history of the ravines on GVSU’s Allendale Campus. The items curated for this collection were digitized from the Grand Valley Ravines Natural Area collection and the Stanley Krohmer Photographs collection, in addition to other materials from University Archives that illustrate the significance of this natural feature to the GVSU campus community. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection Seidman House Collegiate Center Meathe, Kessler & Associates 1960s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UAPhotos_000006 Title A name given to the resource Seidman House. Architect's drawing of exterior Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Meathe, Kessler & Associates Description An account of the resource Architect's drawing of the exterior of the Collegiate Center of Grand Valley State College, later named Seidman House, among the wooded ravines, circa 1962. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Architectural rendering Facilities Ravines -- Michigan Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1962 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University photographs, GV012-01 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6fe270fc656c2e98a9f802d23383e233.jpg 6e41dd2d04a096c2857571f356016632 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 Grand Valley Ravines Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Krohmer, Stanley Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Institutional Marketing Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Ottawa County (Mich.) Grand River (Mich.) Ravines -- Michigan Land use Nature trails Outdoor recreation Architectural rendering Facilities Maps Photographs Publications Description An account of the resource Collection of digitized photographs, graphic materials, and documents related to the physical environment and history of the ravines on GVSU’s Allendale Campus. The items curated for this collection were digitized from the Grand Valley Ravines Natural Area collection and the Stanley Krohmer Photographs collection, in addition to other materials from University Archives that illustrate the significance of this natural feature to the GVSU campus community. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UComm_Buildings_Collegiate-Center_Architect-01 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Meathe, Kessler & Associates Jackson, Morris Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1962 Title A name given to the resource Seidman House. Architect's drawing of exterior Description An account of the resource Architect's drawing of the exterior of the Collegiate Center of Grand Valley State College, later named Seidman House, by Morris Jackson circa 1962. In the drawing, the Collegiate Center is featured in the center and framed among the wooded ravines, with people seen inside the windows of the building and outside enjoying the outdoor patio seating. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Architectural rendering Facilities Ravines -- Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University photographs, GV012-01 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng 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/59a1944234a9591ee2e92f0ea6a4d563.jpg ecddfa5809eca1b958503ab4c9eadc58 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 Grand Valley Ravines Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Krohmer, Stanley Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Institutional Marketing Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Ottawa County (Mich.) Grand River (Mich.) Ravines -- Michigan Land use Nature trails Outdoor recreation Architectural rendering Facilities Maps Photographs Publications Description An account of the resource Collection of digitized photographs, graphic materials, and documents related to the physical environment and history of the ravines on GVSU’s Allendale Campus. The items curated for this collection were digitized from the Grand Valley Ravines Natural Area collection and the Stanley Krohmer Photographs collection, in addition to other materials from University Archives that illustrate the significance of this natural feature to the GVSU campus community. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UComm_Buildings_Collegiate-Center_Architect-02 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Meathe, Kessler & Associates Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1962 Title A name given to the resource Seidman House. Architect's drawing of exterior Description An account of the resource Architect's drawing of the exterior of the Collegiate Center of Grand Valley State College, later named Seidman House, among the wooded ravines, circa 1962. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Architectural rendering Facilities Ravines -- Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University photographs, GV012-01 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng 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/2bae75acd8a7d39273b44835143d5a53.jpg a88229df1e0fa926222fa715d4a3e5f6 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 Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection Seidman House Collegiate Center Meathe, Kessler & Associates 1960s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UAPhotos_000007 Title A name given to the resource Seidman House. Architect's drawing of student study lounge Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Meathe, Kessler & Associates Description An account of the resource Architect's drawing of the student study lounge fireplace area of the Collegiate Center, known as The Pit. The Collegiate Center was later named Seidman House, ca. 1962. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Architectural rendering Facilities Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1962 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f91dd6bcccac5b268c3a74c593885996.jpg 9df976d76c918820e97b4b4d6df53b7e 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 Grand Valley Ravines Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Krohmer, Stanley Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Institutional Marketing Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Ottawa County (Mich.) Grand River (Mich.) Ravines -- Michigan Land use Nature trails Outdoor recreation Architectural rendering Facilities Maps Photographs Publications Description An account of the resource Collection of digitized photographs, graphic materials, and documents related to the physical environment and history of the ravines on GVSU’s Allendale Campus. The items curated for this collection were digitized from the Grand Valley Ravines Natural Area collection and the Stanley Krohmer Photographs collection, in addition to other materials from University Archives that illustrate the significance of this natural feature to the GVSU campus community. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UComm_Buildings_Collegiate-Center_Architect-04 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Meathe, Kessler & Associates Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1962 Title A name given to the resource Seidman House. Architect's drawing of study lounge and outdoor terrace Description An account of the resource Architect's drawing of the interior and exterior of the Collegiate Center of Grand Valley State College, later named Seidman House, circa 1962. In the drawing, the study lounge and outdoor terrace of the Collegiate Center are featuredamong the wooded ravines, with people seen inside the windows of the building and outside enjoying the outdoor patio seating. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Architectural rendering Facilities Ravines -- Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University photographs, GV012-01 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives