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Minnesota's Greatest Generation Oral

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Minnesota's Greatest Generation Oral Nicholas “Nick” Zobenica Narrator Thomas Saylor Interviewer September 26, 2002 Nicholas Zobenica home Chisholm, Minnesota TS: Today is the 26th of September 2002 and this is the interview with Mr. Nick Zobenica. First, Mr. Zobenica, on the record, thanks very much for taking this evening to talk with me. After speaking with you for a few minutes I’m looking forward to talking to you a littleI more. From talking with you already, just to summarize, I know that you are one of six children. NZ: Seven children. GenerationPart TS: Of Serbian immigrant parents. Your folks came to the U.S. in 1909, you said. Your dad ultimately ended up in Coleraine, here in northern Minnesota, in Itasca County. That’s where you were born, on the 18th of December 1924. You attended school in ColeraineSociety until you enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1942. After service you came back and finished high school in 1946. Were you the oldest student in your class? Project: NZ: Yes. Greatest TS: It must have been difficult to go back, was it, with kids who were younger than yourself? Historical NZ: No, it really wasn’t. The thing that . when I left for school none of those teachers really paid much attention to me. But whenHistory I came back in my Marine greens I was tutored like I was the only kid in the school. They appreciated me being in the Armed Forces. They just sat by me. “Is there anything we can do for you? Is there anything that you don’t understand? Any time of the day, call us.” They Oraljust worshipped me because I enlisted in the Marines and fought for this country. Minnesota's TS: How did that make youMinnesota feel? NZ: I was so proud I couldn’t believe it. Then I would always press my shirt the Marine way and put my field scarf on. I always looked sharp. They just couldn’t get over it. TS: Did you wear your uniform to school sometimes? NZ: Just the shirt and the green pants. Not the blouse. No ribbons or anything. TS: But you were proud to have been a Marine? 9 NZ: Oh, yes. TS: You went in the service at the end of 1942 and ended up in boot camp out in San Diego. Let me ask you if you remember how your folks responded when you told them that you had enlisted in the Marine Corps. NZ: They responded proudly. They told me that it was so nice that [I was] going to go defend this country, because we compared America to the place they were raised or born, Yugoslavia. And they said, “You fight for this country. You don’t know it, but you’re living in heaven. So you must go and defend it.” TS: Who was more worried about you going, your mom or your dad? NZ: I think my mother was. I TS: Did she say something that let you know that she was concerned about you? NZ: When I went in I came out of boot camp I had a furlough for ten days. And I remember she was hiding in the cornfield there. She was crying and sheGeneration said she wasPart so proud that I was going to be in the military, and, “Would you pray to God and St. Nicholas and please,” she said this all in Serbian, “be a brave warrior.” Society TS: Did she normally speak Serbian to you? NZ: She didn’t know how to talk English. NeitherProject: did my dad. Just a few words. Greatest TS: You grew up speaking Serbian around the house? NZ: Yes. Historical TS: Did your folks ever learn English?History NZ: Very little. All broken. They got along, but there weren’t any high-class words or anything. Just get along. And all Oralour neighbors were from the same part of the country. Minnesota's TS: So you grew up with kids so you could speak other languages than English? Minnesota NZ: Yes. Just English and Serbian. Then there were Italian places. There were Finnish. But the Serbs were in one area. They all communicated there. TS: Was Coleraine a place where a lot of Serbs had come? NZ: Yes. Coleraine-Bovey. For the mining [iron ore mines in the Iron Range area]. Because there was no education to work in the mines. There was track gang, and it’s hard work. All manual labor. You didn’t need anything. All you needed was a strong back. 10 TS: Is that the career, is that where you could have seen yourself going if you hadn’t joined the service? If the war hadn’t come? NZ: Probably yes. Because the mine paid good compared to others. You can’t believe the money these people made. With no education, no college degree. TS: It wasn’t easy to earn a living in those days. NZ: No. TS: You had one brother and five sisters. Where do you fall as far as who’s the oldest and who’s the youngest? NZ: I was the youngest. I TS: Did your brother or any of your sisters join the military? NZ: No. I was the only one. GenerationPart TS: Your older brother, was he too old to join? Too old for service? NZ: No. He was a plumber. I think he was too old at the time. I don’t thiSocietynk he had any physical difficulty. He worked at that . what’s the name of that place where they made munitions south of Minneapolis there? Project: TS: Down by New Brighton? New BrightonGreatest Arsenal? NZ: Yes. He worked in there, in the arsenal during the war. That place is still surviving. Historical TS: So he left the area during the war. History NZ: Yes. TS: Did any of your sistersOral leave the area? Minnesota's NZ: No. They all lived here, throughout the whole war. Minnesota TS: California. That’s pretty far from Minnesota. Was that the first time you had been so far from home? NZ: Yes, that’s right. TS: How was that, being far away from your whole family? NZ: Unbelievable. I never saw a two-story building until I got down there. I couldn’t believe there were skyscrapers, streetcars. Never knew what a motel was. Never heard of a motel. Never 11 ate in a café or restaurant. Everything was new. They say, “You’re going to stay in a motel.” What’s that? I tried it. Why not a hotel? Finally you see a motel. Unbelievable. You go in a restaurant. I didn’t know how to order. TS: The stuff we take for granted nowadays, isn’t it? NZ: That’s right. TS: How did you get out there, on a train? NZ: Train. We enlisted in the Federal Building in Minneapolis. Then we took the Sioux Line, the Rock Island Line, and took it right to San Diego. TS: Were you in uniform going out there? I NZ: Oh, no. Just some civilian clothes. Then we got our issue of Marine clothing at boot camp. TS: Why the Marine Corps and not one of the other branches of service? GenerationPart NZ: I just wanted to be the first one to get in. I wanted to make sure I got into combat. I really wanted to go into combat. I wanted to be the first to be in there, and that’s it. Society TS: And with the Marines you were sure to be doing that? NZ: Yes. Project: Greatest TS: How do you explain that, if you can? Why was combat important to you, do you think, at that time? Historical NZ: I don’t know. I just didn’t feel that I wanted to go doing any cooking or cleaning or being a guard. I just wanted to be there andHistory fight for my country. TS: California is far away. How did you adjust to not being able to see your family? Oral NZ: I adaptedMinnesota's real good. As long as I had something to eat. They knew I was eating good. Good place to sleep. They used to worry about me up to the time I had to go overseas, but I don’t think they took it too hard at firsMinnesotat. Until I got over there. TS: Did you take it hard being away from them? NZ: No. Everything was so new. You’re just a young kid. You just adapt to that. TS: Age helps, doesn’t it? NZ: Yes. 12 TS: Basic training. What kind of memories do you have of basic training? NZ: I was in Platoon 382. I wish I could find some of those guys now. I went to Camp Magenta. I was an expert rifleman. I’ll never forget when we went to training for swimming, there was a kid from Coleraine, and he and I were the only guys in that platoon that knew how to swim. TS: The rest of them could not swim? NZ: And they figured, “How could you swim?” And I said, “Well, I came from northern Minnesota, where the Iron Range is, and the mining companies built all the schools. Every school up here has a swimming pool.” And these other people from Kentucky, Tennessee, wherever, nobody could. They thought it [northern Minnesota] was just mines. Ours were all ceramic tile, beautiful swimming, diving boards. Beautiful ceramic showers. TS: You had that in Coleraine, too? I NZ: Yes. Coleraine-Bovey. They all got swimming pools. The mining companies were good to these people.
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