Dean L Bolles Interviewed by Judy Hansen December 2014

I was born in San Francisco, California on Sept 3rd 1935 to Reginald and Dorothy Mae Underwood Bolles. When I was a little more than 2 ½ my mother died (July 11, 1938) so my father shipped me from here to there and back & forth. I finally ended up on a farm in Menan, Idaho and then my father remarried Mary Elizabeth Satterburg on March 5th, 1945. We all moved into a little house in Hayward, California with my step-mother’s grandmother. That added five people to her small house; my dad, step-mother, and three year old son, my older brother and me. The grandmother passed away shortly thereafter and the house fell to my father and step-mother so I was raised there at 21908 Foothill Blvd in Hayward. I even remember our phone number; LU1-6021. I attended third, fourth, and fifth grades at Markham Elementary; sixth, seventh, and eighth at Bret Harte Jr. High, and Hayward High School in ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth where I graduated in 1954. Because I was a high number on the draft list and didn’t want to be drafted, after graduation I joined the Army on February 6, 1956. I had basic training at Fort Ord, California. They used to call me RA; regular army all the way through training because I had a 28 serial number; beginning with 28 which meant I had joined and was not drafted; #28194351.

Basic training was eight preliminary weeks and then there were eight more weeks of advanced basic training. I then went to a non-commissioned school in Fort Benning, Georgia directly out of basic training where I spent another sixteen weeks. After I completed the training, I was shipped to Fort Lewis, Washington where I spent almost all the rest of my time in the army; which was just shy of three years. I was assigned as a Forward Air Observer. Supposedly if we had gone to war I would have called in bombing and strafing runs1 by being close to the action and radioing the coordinates of the targets to the pilots. We would go out into the field; they called it bivouacking, and we would play these mini war games for four or five days at a time. Everyone would practice their specialty. Being a Forward Air Observer I would go out and sit in a place where I could see the targets and call in the airplane strikes. That is what I would have done had we gone to war. On Dec 16, 1958 I was honorably discharged at Fort Lewis.

After I got out of the Army I worked for about nine months and then went on an LDS mission to Brazil on September 14, 1959 where I served until April 14, 1962. After my mission I met my wife Leonora (Noortje) DeVries and we got married.

1 Strafing is the practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted automatic weapons.

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Our first apartment was in San Leandro, California. I worked for a building specialty company. Soon we moved into my step-grandfather’s home at 1212 Rex Road Hayward, California after the old gentleman died. Our first daughter was born there. Less than a year later we moved to our own home in San Ramon Village, California. After a year or so there we moved to Y-Mount Terrace near BYU Provo, Utah in the fall of 1966. I worked at Weinerschnitzel, McDonalds, and finally full-time as a postal clerk in the Provo post office. Eventually I graduated with a Master’s degree in Public Administration. Two more daughters were born to our family while we were in Provo.

In 1970 we moved to Centerville, Utah because I had tested for, and was accepted as an air traffic controller at the Salt Lake City airport. Another little daughter came to our family in Centerville. My job ultimately did not work out for me and I returned to employment at the Provo post office. We then moved to Orem, Utah.

In 1971 I was able to obtain a position at Regional Postal Headquarters in San Francisco California as a budget and cost analyst which was more in-line with my education. We moved to San Jose, California where daughter number five arrived into our family. It was a two hour commute to work no matter rather you drove or took the train. We could not afford to move closer to San Francisco.

I decided I didn’t want that any more so I transferred and we moved to Utah in 1974 and we added daughter number six and finally a handsome baby boy to the family. When I got to Utah I decided I needed to go back into the service so I joined the Air Force Reserve at Hill Air Force Base. I was living in Layton, Utah and this made it very easy to get to drills. I was in an aerial support squadron which is charged with the responsibility of loading and unloading military cargo aircraft. I did that for the next sixteen almost seventeen years. The Reserve is with the Federal Government and not the State Government. I had the chance to go a number of places because we were assigned to the Pacific. I was in Hawaii four or five times, Japan four or five times, and Korea once. When I would go I would be there for two weeks at a time. When we went we would simply augment the regular full time military. We would come in, learn, and assist so that hopefully when we would leave and go back to Hill Air Force base we were better trained and better able to do the job that the regulars were doing. It was always loading and unloading military cargo aircraft and warehousing materials that came in and preparing materials to go out onto the airplanes. I did this until I was transferred to postal headquarters in Washington D.C.in the beginning of 1989. I transferred to the Reserve Unit in Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. What is interesting about this base; it is where they fly all the bodies of soldiers getting killed from Afghanistan and other places. They were tasked with the responsibility of unloading these coffins and getting them to the correct place; although I was never involved with that. In addition, Air Force one the U.S. Presidents plane is stationed here.

With my Army service, Reserve service and credit I got for working at the Post Office I had enough points to give me a twenty year retirement in September 1991 as a Master Sergeant. You can’t receive military retirement pay until age sixty-two so I was actually out a number of years before I was able to start receiving military retirement. We’ve got Tri-Care for Life which is a military health insurance and I love it. It has saved our lives.

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The interesting thing about my military career was I was too young for the 2nd World War, too young for the Korean War, and out of the service and not draft-able for the Vietnam War. After the Vietnam War was over and I’d went back into the reserves I could have gone to Deseret Storm except my unit was never activated. I avoided conflict and battle status for my entire life being either too young or too old; Nevertheless, I wove my way through the different conflicts but never had to go.

I retired as a Statistician from the budget office of the U.S. Postal Service Oct 2, 1992 and after selling our home in Woodbridge, Virginia in January 1993 we moved back to Layton, Utah and rented an apartment. We had lived in Virginia four years. We eventually found a home in Lehi and really liked the community. We moved to a home in the Sunset subdivision at 2298 N 700 W and lived there for four or five years. After that we took occupancy of our home here at 497 E Hidden Cove Lane on Dec 26th 1998 and have been here ever since.

While living in Lehi I worked for UTA as a bus driver, Alpine School District as a substitute bus driver, Anderson Lumber as a receiving clerk, administrator of Hutchings Museum (before leaving on a Recife Brazil Temple Mission), and driver for Enterprise Rental Cars.

I have seven children; Shiree Ann Best (Orem, Utah), Tamara Elizabeth Miller (Eugene, Oregon), Deborah Mae Ferris (Layton, Utah), Dena Lynn Ashton (Othello, Washington), Lisa Marie Brown (Bountiful, Utah), Kristi Noëlle Hill (Far West, Utah), and John Bolles (Orem, Utah); and twenty-three grandchildren. I enjoy working at the Mount Timpanogos Temple and faceting stones.

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Gary Ferdinand Evans as interviewed by Judy Hansen November 2014

In my high school days I was called ‘Ferd’ after my dad who was William Ferdinand Evans; but he went by Ferd. He played basketball for BYU under that name. We both got the name Ferdinand by Charles Ferdinand Johnson who migrated to this country from Norway. I was born in the old Lehi Hospital. My dad was a miner and he moved around a lot. He was working out at Kennecott Copper and we lived in Magna for my first five years. The pollution was so bad out there that my mother finally talked him into moving to Salt Lake City. We lived there for three or four years and then moved to Lehi when I was in the fifth grade. I spent the rest of my school years in Lehi. At first we rented a place south of Main Street and then we moved into a home at 141 West 100 North by the old High School football field. I graduated from Lehi High in 1953 then enrolled in Utah State University where I graduated after four years.

Before I got out of high school in 1952 I had enlisted in the Lehi Unit of the Utah National Guard when I was seventeen which was pretty common in those days. A lot of my classmates did this because we didn’t want to get drafted into the Korean War. At Utah State you were required to enroll in ROTC1 unless you had a physical disability so I took ROTC. In those days you could join and serve in the National Guard and still enroll in ROTC. They later changed that but I’ve always been thankful for my four years as an enlisted man with the National Guard because as an Officer it helped me to see things at an enlisted man’s point of view. When I graduated in 1957 from Utah State I also graduated from ROTC and was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Reserve. As soon as I got my commission I had to resign from the National Guard. I went from a Corporal in the National Guard to a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army within one day. The Army Reserve is just like the National Guard but it is Federal and the Guard is State.

I signed a contract and was expected to serve three years but they didn’t need Officers so they changed my contract and my orders were only for six months. My first active duty was at Fort Knox, Kentucky where I went through Armor Officer Basic Training. After six months I returned to the State of Utah and went back to Utah State University and got a Master’s Degree in Health and Physical Education.

1 Reserve Officer Training Corp

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Linda Fox from Lehi went up there at that time. We got engaged and then married in 1959. I took my first job that same year as a High School Teacher and coach in Shelley Idaho. Being in the Army reserve with an eight year commitment I had to find a reserve unit close by that I could serve in. I had been serving in the 889th Quarter Master Petroleum Depot Company in Logan, Utah but when I took that job in Shelley I served in the 449 Civil Affairs Unit in Rexburg, Idaho which was the closest reserve unit I could find. I was only there two years and then moved back to Utah.

I moved to Brigham City and took a job as a teacher and coach in Box Elder School District. I went to one reserve drill with the 889th Quarter Master Company back in Logan when that unit was mobilized during the Berlin Crisis. Linda and I had one tiny baby girl, Allyson and it was a pretty traumatic experience for me leaving a wife and tiny daughter. I couldn’t take them back to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri which is where we were assigned. I served there for a year but after being there only two and a half months tensions eased off at the Berlin wall so Linda was able to bring our daughter back there to be with me. I was an operations officer which meant largely training. We trained pumping water out of a river into storage tanks which simulated gasoline. There were all kinds of training activities going on during that time.

I came back to Utah and Linda was nine months pregnant past due to have our second child. We drove back in 100° temperatures and when we had just got into Brigham City she had our son, Gary Ferdinand Evans Jr. While she was in the hospital giving birth to him the Superintendent of Schools told me I could have my job back at Box Elder Jr. High but I would have to teach Geography because they let someone else teach my Health and Physical Education classes. I told them someone may teach their Geography class but it wouldn’t be me. I resigned right there while she was in the hospital. I came down to Murray, Utah where I had seen a job advertisement and took a job at Hillcrest Jr. High. I taught Health and Physical Education also coaching basketball and stayed there five years. During that time my reserve assignment was in the 96th ARCOM; Army Reserve Command at Fort Douglas, Utah. This was the best reserve assignment you could have if you wanted to be promoted because it was commanded by a two star General and they had all kinds of assignments for Colonels, Majors, and up the ranks. We also had our third child while I was there.

After five years of teaching and coaching at Hillcrest Jr. High School I had already made the decision to go back and get my Doctorate, which I did at the University of Utah. I would teach all day at Hillcrest, coach in the afternoon, and go to the “U” two nights a week for my Doctorate. After four years of that, the only thing I had left to do was my Doctoral dissertation so I resigned the position in Murray and went up to the University of Utah as a Graduate teaching Assistant allowing me some income as I was completing my Doctorate. That was in 1967-1968. In 1968 after I received my Doctoral degree I applied for several college positions because I wanted to be a college Professor and teach physical education at the University Level. I had three opportunities come in quite quickly. In those days it was pretty easy to get a college position if you had a Doctorate degree, even in physical education where there has always been a glut of people who want to be physical education teachers.

I took a position at Montana State University in Bozeman much to the dismay of my wife who wanted to go south where it was warm. The other two opportunities that came in were in Wisconsin which would

2 have been colder than Bozeman and Denver which was just as cold. So in 1968 we went to Bozeman, Montana and I had to leave the 96th Army Reserve Command. The only reserve position open in Bozeman was the 250th Quarter Master Company which I commanded as a Captain. My time was getting up to where I could be promoted to a Major if I could find an opening, which I did as luck would have it in Bozeman, Montana. There was a two man military history unit; a Major and a Sargent. The fellow that was commanding that unit worked at Montana State University as the Public Information Officer and his tenure was up so he resigned and I was able to get that position. I served there for five years and was promoted to Major. All this time, every year I had to go to summer camps. Most of which I served in Fort Lewis, Washington, but I have served all over. The fourth and fifth child in our family was born while we lived in Bozeman.

While I was commanding the 50th military history detachment; which I thought was a real plum assignment, for two of us working on and writing the history of the conflict in Vietnam. My sergeant and I got to serve five summer camps at Presidio San Francisco. The Presidio San Francisco was on the south shore of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a beautiful army post which is no longer there; sad to say. It is now a National Park but at that time I could take my wife to summer camp every summer and we could see the sights of San Francisco while I was there. They were unforgettable years.

At summer camp, I worked with the 6th US Army Historian writing from materials out of archives on assignments he would give that had to do with the history of World War II, Vietnam War, or any of the wars. This is largely what we worked on. That is also what we did in reserve drill in Bozeman. We would go down to the United State Army Reserve Center and work on the history assignments there. This instilled in me a greater appreciation and interest in history that I had never heretofore had and appreciate those who work on our history. That was all an interesting process.

In the Army Reserve; just like the National Guard, as you go up in rank as an officer it is pretty easy to find assignments. When you are a Lieutenant, Captain, or Major but from there on it gets very difficult because there are all these Officers and only a few slots for Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel. I had to find another Army Reserve unit and in Montana distance became a real factor. I took an assignment with the 125th Ammunition Battalion in Billings Montana which was a drive of 140 miles from Bozeman. In Montana everything seemed like 140 miles between cities so I didn’t think that much of it. I served in the 125th Ammunition Battalion for a year. I remember we did our summer camp that year at Camp Roberts, California and again I was an Operations Officer doing training. That was an interesting assignment but I did it so I could stay in the reserve program and keep active. I needed to find a home where I could be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel because after so many years you have to find a slot position; we called them slots, into an O5 Lieutenant Colonel to be promoted. The only places that had positions like that were Billings, Great Falls, Missoula, and Helena Montana. It was just really lucky for me that Helena, Montana was also the home of the 159th Support Group which was commanded by a full Colonel O6, and the Executive Officer was an O5; Lieutenant Colonel. I was fortunate enough after a pretty competitive process to get that position. I served as the Executive Officer in that Support Group for four and a half years. I learned that highway between Bozeman and Helena very well.

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At that time, the Montana speed limit was very unique in the United States; it was called, “reasonable and prudent speed.” If a Highway Patrolman stopped you for speeding your ticket was $5.00 and you could reach in your pocket, give him a five dollar bill, it wouldn’t go on your driving record, and you would be on your way. I got several tickets and I’m not proud of that but that is honestly how it was. I had to make it from my home in Bozeman to Helena in two hours and in order to do that you had to drive really fast.

I served in the 159th Support Group all that time and we had summer camps in a different place every year: Camp Picket Virginia, Fort Lee Virginia, Fort Lewis Washington, and Dugway Proving Grounds were some of the places I remember. After four and a half years in that assignment I was due to become an O6 full Colonel, which is more difficult to find. All these other Lieutenant Colonels from Billings, Missoula, and Great Falls were competing against me for the full Colonel position in Helena. I have to be honest; I had the advantage because I had been the Executive Officer in that unit. I knew all the troops, all the members, and people associated with that unit and had developed a good relationship with the General (2 star) who was in Fort Douglas. He selected me as the Commander for the 159th Support Group. It was him, General Larry Morris who pinned the full Colonel Eagle on me. When I tell people that I am retired 35 years with the Army Reserve as a Full Colonel most people can’t even believe it.

One of the things you need to understand is in order to advance as an Officer in the Army Reserve program the regulations and rules are the same as active duty. You have to take care of your schooling so I had to complete the quartermaster officer basic course and career course at Fort Lee Virginia; which I took my family back there and completed through correspondence and residence.

To advance past a Major any place in the Army Reserve you have to graduate from the US Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth Kansas. You can either complete that in correspondence or in residence. I was fortunate enough to be a Professor at Montana State University and it was easy to get a leave without pay from the University. I took my wife and children back to Fort Leavenworth Kansas for six months in 1974 and completed that in residence. This along with some other schooling enabled me to become a Lieutenant Colonel and later on a Colonel. I won’t bore anyone with all the details of schooling but I also graduated from the Security Management Seminar Course outside Washington DC.

I became the commander of the 159th Support Group for four years. We were capstoned to the 9th Infantry Division in Fort Lewis Washington which means our war time mission was to support the 9th Infantry if we were called to war or mobilization. That means most of our summer camps were at Fort Lewis Washington but some of them were in Washington DC; one in particular was at Camp Pickett Virginia and one in Fort Bliss Texas out in the sand. The Army would assign us training that would help us prepare for wartime missions where ever they felt we were best suited to go. It was very challenging and very interesting. I was able to do that four more years at US Army Reserve regulations. Same as the guard and active duty; they let you command a unit for four years. Actually three years but if you have done a good job they will allow a year extension. I got the year extension then I was finished. That was in 1984. I was in my early 50’s by the time I had completed my reserve retirement.

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There have been many blessings from all my years in the Army Reserve. The best thing we got out of it; and my wife thanks the good Lord for, is the Tri-Care for Life Health and Medical Insurance. The Tri-Care for Life for a retired Reserve Officer is the same as an active duty Officer. You get your twenty years in and you get your military I.D. card and the wife gets hers. She has to renew hers every five years but mine is good for life. That gives us good health insurance benefits. As a cancer survivor I can’t tell you how thankful we are to have Tri-Care for Life. I’ve had thousands and thousands of medical costs with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and other ailments associated with the cancer that I had five or six years ago. We are really blessed to have Medicare and Tri-Care for Life. When I go anywhere and tell them what insurance I have there are never any questions asked. It covers almost everything. There are a lot of benefits besides the pay as a person moves up in ranks. We’ve got to see so many places in the United States and I consider that a benefit. A lot of those places I have been able to take my wife.

I’ve had two active duties tours both in Fort Leonard Wood Missouri, one in Fort Leavenworth Kansas, one in Kentucky, and one in Virginia. We’ve seen a lot of the State of Washington in Yakima Firing Ground and Fort Lewis, Camp Roberts in California, and Fort Bliss Texas. I’ve been very close to being mobilized and sent overseas; two or three times but it never happened. The years I had been mobilized during the Berlin crisis we were scheduled to go to Germany and France but the tensions eased enough we didn’t have to leave. As a Commander of reserve units in Montana several of the reserve units that were under me; battalions and companies had detachments and served in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf conflicts but our headquarters never had to go until after I retired. The 2nd Commander after me in the 159th support group got called to the Far East in Kuwait where they served for a year. I consider it a real blessing that I didn’t have to serve active duty in Afghanistan or Iraq although we were trained and ready.

I retired from the Army Reserve as a full Colonel in 1984 and had wonderful experiences. I continued to teach until I retired from Montana State University in the mid 1990’s. Our Stake President was the Institute Director in Bozeman and he asked us to serve a mission. We served a C.E.S.2 senior couples mission in New Zealand and taught institute classes. It was so nice. It wasn’t like a mission it was more like a vacation.

After we got home from our mission my wife and I discussed where we should live for the rest of our lives. Linda and her sister Marilyn Schiess were left land by their father, Edward Fox and they decided to develop the Foxborough subdivision in Lehi. They developed twenty-six lots. We decided to keep a lot in the subdivision and we started building our new home May 2002 and finished it Halloween day that same year. We moved down here to Lehi. We were both former residents of Lehi and when we came back 35 years later many of the same people from the old 3rd Ward were still here. It was just like home for us. We try to go to the Lehi Legacy Center every day because as a Physical Education Instructor I am well versed in what happens if you don’t exercise your body. I’m lucky enough to have found a wife that enjoys exercising more than I do. We’ve been blessed in many ways.

2 Church Education System

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We have five very precious children and 23 very-very precious grandchildren. All five of our children live out of the State; our youngest son lives in Denton, Texas; the oldest daughter lives in San Antonio; we have two daughters in Arizona; one in Thatcher and one in Prescott, and a son in Rexburg, Idaho.

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Ray Howard Garrison The Army Experience—December 1953-December 1955

On December 7, 1953, My brother Roy and I reported to the induction center in Burlington, Iowa, and entered the United States Army. The Army took us by bus from Burlington to Des Moines, Iowa, where we received our physical examinations to be sure we were fit for military duty. There I ran into a couple of problems. Roy passed his physical in a breeze, but when the doctor listened to my heart, he quickly detected the damaged valve that had resulted from my pleurisy condition some years before. He stated that he would not allow me to be inducted into military service. I panicked, because the Army was critical to my plans for a mission and further education. I explained to him that I had been a champion half miler in high school, and that my heart didn't really bother me at all. (This was not entirely truthful, because strong exertion, such as in running, would cause a painful, cramping feeling in my chest.) He then had me run in place for a few minutes, and reexamined my heart. He listened for a long while, and then had me run in place again and do some exercises, too. All the while I had a prayer in my heart that he would let me in. He then listened to my heart a third time, and asked me if I was really sure I wanted to be in the Army. I assured him that I was, and to my great relief he signed my exam form. He specified, however, that I was to be classified 3C, which meant only light, nonphysical duty.

My problems weren't over, though. The last part of the physical exam was to be sure that all our joints and limbs were flexible and worked properly, and I had a stiff index finger on my left hand from the accident a year and a half before. The examiners had us line up, ten across. As the medical people watched, we were instructed to do sit ups, bend our arms, and then hold out our hands and open and close our fingers. I knew what I had to do. As I was asked to open and close my fingers, I grabbed the left index finger with my left thumb and pulled the finger closed. The pain was so great that it brought tears to my eyes, but I was able to pass the exam, and I was in the Army. We were sworn in, and I was given the Army identification number, U.S. 55388844.

We were immediately put on buses, and driven to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for basic training. We arrived just after midnight and were herded into a barracks and taught how to make a bed, Army style. We then each had to make our own bed, after which we tore them up and retired for the night, or for what was left of it (by that time it was about one a.m.). I got a top bunk and was soon fast asleep. At four a.m. a sergeant came running into our barracks, ran down to the end, stopped right by my bunk, and blew his whistle. I awoke with a start—groggy, confused, and not remembering where I was. At the command, "Get out of those &#@%?$! beds," I jumped out, not remembering that I was in the top bunk. I came crashing down onto the floor, which the sergeant thought was immensely funny. We were herded outside, and while standing at attention in freezing December weather, the roll was called. The wind was blowing so hard that we couldn't hear the names. The sergeant became very angry, cursing us for our stupidity.

It took over an hour to call the roll, since there were over four hundred in our group. All the while we were standing at attention in freezing weather. The sergeant and other NCOs (non- commissioned officers) then criticized us for our dress, pointing out that most of us were dressed in jeans and other casual clothing, whereas a few of our group had enough pride to wear suits when they entered the Army. All of this was accompanied by the vilest cursing and profaning the name of Deity. Those dressed in suits were told to step forward— they were going to get a special privilege. One fellow from Chicago was wearing a beautiful cashmere suit. These men were taken to the mess hall and put on KP (Kitchen Police: that is, washing dishes, pots, and pans, and scrubbing the mess hall). The fellow in the cashmere suit was ordered to scrub the pots and pans; within a few hours his suit was completely ruined. For breakfast that morning, we had burned toast without butter or jam, and thick, cold oatmeal without milk (it was so early that the milk hadn't been delivered yet to the mess halls). I ate what I could and hoped that things would improve.

We had been warned by our brother, Bill, to not volunteer for anything, and we took his advice. Others seemed to fall into every trap that the NCOs laid. The second morning at roll call, the NCOs asked how many men were college graduates. A few raised their hands, and they were promptly marched into the mess hall for KP. About sixteen hours later, these men came dragging back into the barracks, covered with grease and dirt, exhausted, but wiser men—college degrees notwithstanding. During the day, the NCOs came around looking for men who were experienced truck drivers. Again a few hands went up, and these men were put to work hauling rocks in a wheelbarrow. On the third morning at roll call, the NCOs said that word had come from headquarters to find men who were expert swimmers; the Army wanted to train them as pearl divers. Again, hands went up. These men were marched off to the mess hall and sat in front of huge vats filled with potatoes, covered with water. The potatoes had to be pealed by hand. Sixteen hours later, these men also came back to the barracks, sadder but wiser men.

We stayed in the induction center for three days, after which we were transferred on base to our basic training unit. The last event in the induction center was haircuts. We were taken to a huge barbershop. The sergeant picked out one fellow who had beautifully styled, wavy hair. He was sat in a chair and the barber asked him how he wanted it cut. The fellow gave intricate instructions on how to do it just right, whereupon the barber set his clippers on 1/4 inch length and ran a cut right down the middle of the fellow's head. Two hours later, we all looked like plucked chickens and were marched off to our training companies.

Roy and I were assigned to the 154th Hvy Tk Co. We were fortunate to get a superb company commander—Captain Isidore LeClair. He was one of only three or four Army officers for whom I ever had any respect. A superb leader, he was always in front leading his men, not following in a jeep as most officers were inclined to do. When we marched twenty miles through a raging blizzard, Captain LeClair was always right with us, and when we were in the field, he always ate the same food that we ate.

Basic training lasted eight weeks. Without question, it was the hardest eight weeks that I have ever experienced. We were told that it was the Army's intention to make us mean enough to kill without hesitation, and I think I probably could have killed without hesitation at the end of that eight weeks. Our training was through the coldest part of the winter--December, January, and early February--which added to our misery. The food was bad and there never was enough. We usually got up at four a.m., and we were off to our training sites by five a.m. This was always before the milk deliveries, so we rarely had milk for breakfast. The staple breakfast was cooked oatmeal, coffee, and toast. I couldn't stand the oatmeal without milk, and of course we didn't drink coffee, so our breakfast was literally bread (toasted) and water. Occasionally we would have scrambled eggs, but the eggs were dehydrated, only partially cooked, and, in the opinion of most of us, were not edible. Lunch and dinner were both usually eaten in the field, and served only with coffee. Thus, Roy and I were forced to eat these meals without any liquid other than the water that might remain in our canteens. In the field, the food often came to us nearly frozen since the cooks made little attempt to keep it warm. All of this was quite unnecessary, since the Army provided plenty of food, and it was of high quality. But officers and NCOs would steal it, either to sell or to take home, and leave only minimum amounts for the men. The cooks made little effort to prepare what food we did get in an appetizing way.

Much of the training was in the form of harassment, rather than instruction. As an example, each of us was required to qualify on the .50 caliber machine gun. We rose at 4 a.m. as usual, and marched ten miles through a blizzard to the machine gun site. There we stood until the NCOs came who were to supervise our qualification. We then stood for several hours more waiting our turn, with the wind raging and the snow biting our faces. When our turn came, we each stepped up to the machine gun and fired three rounds, which took only about one second. We couldn't see what we were shooting at since the visibility was only ten feet or so due to the blinding snowstorm. We then stood for several more hours waiting for everyone to "qualify," after which we marched the ten miles back to the barracks. The training itself wasn't so hard, it was just the extreme physical conditions that we had to endure—little sleep, insufficient food, and long forced marches. Our boots were new and stiff, and most of us suffered terribly from blisters and bruised ankles.

On Saturday morning, we always had inspection. To prepare for it, we were up most (or sometimes all) of Friday night. Our weapons had to be cleaned until they shined, all of our gear had to be in perfect condition (after dragging it through rain, snow, and mud all week), and the building had to be spotless. This meant scrubbing the building literally from ceiling to floor. If any man received a "gig," he was put on KP duty for the weekend. If a building was found dirty, all the men were restricted to the company area on Sunday, which was supposed to be a day off.

The first Sunday on base Roy and I went looking for the LDS servicemen's group. We found that they met in one of the chapels on the base, and we managed to get there in time for the meetings. It was a fine group, having a number of returned missionaries as well as a number of career Army officers and their families. We were welcomed into the group, and attended regularly throughout the time we were in Fort Leonard Wood.

It is difficult to know what to say about basic training, the experience was so awful. I lost a great deal of weight, and became very ill with a high fever in the last week. I refused to go to "sick call" however, since I might have been hospitalized. That would have meant dropping back to another basic training unit, and possibly having to repeat several weeks of training. I felt I would rather die than do that, so I endured the fever. About a week before basic training was over, we received our "orders" from division headquarters, which stated what we would be doing after basic training.

My orders were beautiful; I was to go to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, to train for the quartermaster corps. Roy's orders were the worst possible; he was to stay in Fort Leonard Wood for eight more weeks of advanced infantry training, which actually meant eight more weeks of basic training—only harder! We were stunned. It hadn't occurred to us that our orders wouldn't be the same. Since we were twins, we knew the Army had to keep us together if we requested it, so we put in a request to division headquarters to change Roy's orders to go with me to Fort Belvoir. A few days later new orders came down, but instead of changing Roy's orders, they changed mine to go with him into advanced infantry training! I could have cried, but there was nothing I could do.

We went home for a two week leave, most of which I spent in bed getting over my fever and recovering my strength. We returned to Fort Leonard Wood in late February, and spent March and April in advanced infantry training. Everything about basic was repeated, except now we also had to endure constant harassment from Sergeant Slavins, the first sergeant of the company. He was perhaps the vilest and most profane person that I encountered in the Army, and he loved to abuse his men. He would stand us at attention in the company street and blow his whistle. That would be a signal for us to race into the barracks, change our uniforms, and then race back out and stand at attention. We would be given only so many seconds to do this, and if every man (about 250 total) didn't make it back in time, the process would be repeated again and again. Other times at the blow of the whistle we would have to race into the barracks and take everything out into the company street—bunks, footlockers, storage cabinets, and all—within a given number of minutes. After several trips in and out, we would be exhausted, particularly since Sergeant Slavins always made us go through this ordeal after we had spent twelve or fourteen hours out in the field.

Near the end of the eight weeks, I received a terrible shock. I was in the company office one day, and one of the NCOs happened to notice in my records that I was a member of the LDS Church. He stated, "That's interesting, because Sergeant Slavins is LDS, too." I couldn't believe it! That immoral, profane, thieving, abusive person a member of the Church? Sergeant Slavins' face reddened, and he stated that he was a member, but not too active. I went back to my barracks in a state of shock, but I then fully understood something I had been told by the missionaries—that members of the Church who turn away from its principles often become the basest people of all.

The last event of our advanced infantry training was a week of living in the field. In April we didn't have cold and snow to contend with, but we did have snakes, and they were thick in the rocky, brush strewn Missouri hills. The black boys from the south were particularly terrified of snakes. While in the field on a break one day, one black boy was dozing. Another boy sharpened a long stick with his knife, stuck the black boy with the pointed end, and shouted, "Snake." The poor fellow gave out a ghastly scream, turned as white as a pillow case, and raced off into the woods. The last night in the field we had a maneuver in which our company was to attack a hill controlled by “enemy” troops. I was stationed at the bottom of the hill as a sentry and the rest of the company started up the hill to attack the enemy position. About half way up, our company’s men started firing their rifles (which contained blanks). When the firing started, I began to hear a rustling sound in the underbrush moving down the hill toward me. Suddenly realizing what was making the sound, I quickly climbed on top of a rock as scores of snakes (probably copperheads and rattlesnakes) went moving down the hill past me.

The week in the field ended our infantry training, and we had orders waiting for us when we got back to the barracks. Roy and I both had orders to stay in Fort Leonard Wood for another two months to attend carpenter school.

We had no idea why we had been chosen to go to carpenter school, but it was like a paid vacation after sixteen weeks of basic training. The food was excellent and plentiful, and the "training" was a breeze. Strangely enough, most of it was book training, rather than practical, on- the-job training, and a lesson could be learned in no time at all. We spent many hours lounging in the warm spring sun. Each week we were given an exam, and the person having the highest composite score at the end was to be given a special award for excellence. That sounded like fun to me, and I had the highest score on the first several exams. Unfortunately, I couldn't drive a nail very straight or saw a board evenly, and there began to be some murmuring among the real carpenters about the fact that I was number one in the class. I decided that it might not be a wise thing for me to get the award, and so I didn't do quite so well on the exams from then on. That seemed to make everyone happy.

At the end of six weeks of carpenter training, after which I still couldn't driving a nail straight or saw a board evenly, Roy and I were assigned as "permanent party" to the 54th Engr Bn (Engineer Battalion) in Fort Leonard Wood. This was devastating news since we had come to hate Fort Leonard Wood, but there was nothing we could do. After six months in the Army, we were still privates earning $85 per month. From this $85 we first paid our tithing. We then withheld $10 per month “spending money” and send the rest home to save for a mission. But we could see that what we were saving wasn’t going to be enough to finance two years in the mission field. We knew that we had to get promotions if we were going to meet our savings goals. Unfortunately, promotions were slow in Fort Leonard Wood, and we were now “permanent party.”

The Army Experience--June 1954 to December 1954

After a short leave at home in Burlington, Roy and I reported to the 54th Engr Bn in Fort Leonard Wood. We were assigned as carpenters, but there was no carpenter work to do so we were both issued a pick and a shovel and put to work digging trenches at various places on the base. We were deeply discouraged at the thought of spending the next year and a half digging ditches. But we did nothing but swing picks and wield shovels from morning to night for about a month and a half. This seemed especially ironic in view of the fact that I had a 3C physical classification and was supposed to be assigned to nonphysical duties.

Then one afternoon word came down to the digging site that I was to clean up and report to company headquarters. I did so, and found that the company clerk needed help. He said that if I could type he would have me transferred into the office. Thank goodness for my typing classes in Horace Mann Junior High School! I assured him that I was a fine typist (I hadn't touched a typewriter in nearly six years), and so he put me to work. Fortunately, we worked in different rooms, so he couldn't see how laboriously slow I moved on the typewriter. I came in at night and practiced in order to improve my speed. About two weeks later the company clerk received orders to go to a training school that he had applied for, and after reviewing my file the company commander assigned me to be the new company clerk. I had scored in the ninety-ninth percentile in nearly all the tests that were given when I was inducted into the Army, and this really impressed the company commander. (My scores on these tests were what caused the company clerk to send for me in the first place). So I was the new company clerk, even though I had only a vague idea of what I was supposed to be doing.

I studied old files of letters and reports, as well as procedural manuals and anything else I could get my hands on, and somehow managed to limp along in the job. I slowly learned what to do and how to do it, and after about six weeks I began to gain some confidence in myself. Poor Roy had to continue slaving in the ditches all this time. But then a request came from Battalion Headquarters for an intelligent, dependable man to help with filing and other office work. I knew just the man, and asked the company commander if we could submit Roy's name. He agreed, and Roy left the ditches to become the assistant Battalion clerk.

This turned out to be a beautiful arrangement, with me in Company headquarters and Roy in Battalion headquarters. We had a direct pipeline into everything that went on. By this time I had become deeply concerned about the prospect of us having to stay at Fort Leonard Wood for our entire two-year term of service. I was also concerned about the slim prospect of either of us being promoted, since most of the promotion slots were being sent to Army units overseas. So I made these concerns a matter of fervent prayer for many weeks. We had always paid our tithing, so I knew we were worthy of a special blessing from the Lord. In addition to asking the Lord for help in getting out of Fort Leonard Wood, I also reminded Him of our need to save money for a mission. Without promotions I knew it would be impossible to meet our savings goals.

Then, in November, a few slots for promotion to Private First Class came to our Company. A large number of men in our Company had been in the Army longer than Roy and me. Therefore, they were ahead of us in the line for promotions, and we knew we wouldn’t be considered until after these men had received their stripes. But then an interesting thing happened. Captain Olsen, the company commander, knew that promotion slots wouldn’t be available again for many months, and he also knew that he would never be able to promote every eligible man in the company. After thinking the matter over, he decided that Roy and I were especially valuable men and so promoted us ahead of scores of other men in the company. We had said nothing to Captain Olsen about our pressing need to be promoted, but we were overjoyed at his decision! Our pay jumped to $110 per month, and after paying our tithing we were able to increase our savings allotment substantially. I knew that the Lord had heard my prayers and had opened the way for Roy and me to receive a blessing in a most unusual manner.

My prayers were further answered the first of December when a request came to Battalion headquarters for two men to serve as cadre to a "carrier" company being shipped to Germany. A "carrier" company was a company of men just out of basic training that was going intact to Germany to serve as occupation troops. Men were needed to serve as cadre (or leaders) to the group, and our Battalion was to provide two such men. Roy immediately asked the Battalion first sergeant if he would send the request to our Company commander to fill, so the two men could be chosen from our Company. (There were some six or eight companies in the Battalion). The first sergeant agreed to do so. When the request came to our Company, I put Roy’s name and my name on it, and I took it in to the company commander for his signature. He refused to sign the form; he said he would release Roy but not me, since I was needed as company clerk. He also said that in his opinion it was time for Roy and me to split up and go our separate ways.

I approached the Lord in fervent prayer many times over the next few days, asking him to soften the heart of the company commander. I then went back to the company commander again with my request. The old company clerk was back, and I tactfully reminded the company commander that the old clerk was school trained, whereas I was not. I was trained as a carpenter. I also pleaded that I had always wanted to see Europe, and this might be the only chance I would ever have to do so. He thought for a minute, and then laughed and said, "Oh well, I was young once, too," and signed the release form. We were on our way to Europe! The Lord had heard my prayers and answered them in what I considered to be a miraculous fashion.

The Army Experience--December 1954 to December 1955

After a ten-day leave at home, Roy and I reported to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, on December 24, 1954. We weren't able to spend Christmas at home, but that didn't bother us in the least. After spending Christmas Eve in an Army barracks, we boarded ship on Christmas Day. Most of the men were extremely homesick, and their situation wasn't helped any by the fact that only one record was played over the sound system all day long. That record was "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays." Several of the married men became so depressed that they jumped ship and deserted. Army deserters often fled to Canada to live; those who remained in the United States were caught, court martialed, and jailed.

Some men got seasick immediately on boarding the ship. I had heard that seasickness is mostly a mental thing, and seeing men get sick as soon as they stepped on the deck confirmed that in my mind. I resolved that I wouldn't get sick on the voyage.

Roy and I brought several boxes of Ritz crackers on board with us, since we had heard that they helped to keep the stomach settled. The crackers must have helped because neither or us got sick during the entire voyage. We also brought along a large number of nickels so we could buy candy from the vending machines. We had heard that nickels could be sold for about fifty cents each on board ship, since the men used what few nickels they had very quickly. We found that there was, indeed, a great demand for nickels, and we easily sold the nickels that we didn’t use. Although the food provided by the Army was plentiful, it was prepared without seasoning of any type and therefore was not very appetizing to eat. Thus, the demand for nickels to buy candy. Since we crossed the ocean in December, the water was extremely rough. Some men were so seasick that they were unable to get out of their bunks, and were seized with uncontrollable vomiting. The entire sleeping area carried a heavy stench, as did the mess hall area. Indeed, the common joke among the men was that you didn’t have to see the mess hall menu to know what was being served that day. You just had to look on the floor outside the mess hall door.

Because of my experience as a company clerk in Fort Leonard Wood, I was appointed company clerk of our carrier company. The commanding officer was a young second lieutenant fresh out of officers’ school. During the voyage, the thought occurred to me that we were a bona fide company and could promote people if we wanted to. Actually, you are supposed to have a “slot” or "allocation" in order to promote someone. But one of the cadre had been in the Army as long as Roy and me, and he still hadn't been promoted to PFC. So I decided to write up an order promoting him to PFC, and see if I could get the young lieutenant to sign it. I wrote up the order, and took it to the lieutenant. He was hesitant, but he finally signed it when I assured him that it would be all right. I then put the order in the man's personnel file, with a cover letter saying that the promotion should be processed when he reached his destination. I later heard that the promotion was accepted without question by the man's new company when he arrived in Germany. I was sorry then that I hadn't written up orders promoting Roy and me to corporal, but that may have been going a little too far.

We arrived in Bremerhaven, Germany, eight days after leaving New Jersey. We were loaded on a train and shipped to Leipheim, Germany, where our new base was located. Leipheim is located about 20 kilometers from Ulm, Germany. Roy and I were assigned to Headquarters Company, Roy as a message center clerk and I as an intelligence center clerk. Thus began an interesting, productive, and fun year in Germany.

Germans were hired to do all the KP duty, and our Army company also hired a German tailor and a German barber. So our haircuts were all free, as was all of our mending work. The food was the best that we had in the Army—even better than the food at the carpenter school. The cooks lived in the barracks with the rest of the company, and it would have been unwise for them to serve food that was badly prepared. Our barracks were large stone buildings—warm and comfortable in the winter and cool in the summer. The barracks had housed German soldiers during World War II. Thus, they were riddled with bullet holes on the outside as a result of air raids.

Roy and I immediately went looking for an LDS servicemen's group, but found none on base. We did find three or four LDS men, but none were active and no one knew if there was an LDS group in the area. After much searching, we finally located an address for an LDS servicemen’s group that was meeting in Ulm, and we took a train there the next Sunday. We located the group—small but thriving—and thereafter joined with them every Sunday. I soon found that there was nothing to do as an intelligence center clerk, and I was bored to death. When the battalion operations clerk went home, I asked if I could take his place, and I was permitted to do so. In this new assignment I had something to do, and I liked that much better. I was responsible for typing all the orders and other correspondence that went from the battalion operations section to the line companies. It was a big job, and I was busy all day long. Both the speed and accuracy of my typing increased dramatically. Captain Detlefsen, the officer who was in charge of battalion operations, liked my writing style. As a result, he and other Army officers started coming to me to have special, personal work done, such as drafting letters requesting special schooling, and so forth. I did this work willingly, since it kept me busy and also kept me from getting unpleasant assignments—such as guard duty—when the battalion went into the field.

As PFCs, Roy and I were earning $110 per month. Out of this came $11 for tithing, and we allowed ourselves $3 per week for spending money. This left $87 per month, which was sent home as savings. It was hard to get by on just $3 per week spending money, but we managed. Since we had little money to spend, we spent our evenings and weekends reading. In the year I was in Germany, I read the entire Bible, as well as all seven volumes of the Documentary History of the Church, Jesus the Christ, the Articles of Faith, and other assorted Church books. I knew that if I was going on a mission I had to be prepared. I felt I was far behind other young LDS men my age, since I had never attended primary, Sunday School, seminary, or other places where LDS youth are taught the Gospel.

Our quiet way of life must have been apparent to the other men in the company, because Roy and I soon became "bankers" of sorts. On payday, most of the soldiers would go into town, get drunk, and generally come back without even a penny left in their pockets. They would then face a whole month of having no money, waiting for the next payday, and then the process would be repeated. To break the cycle, men occasionally came to Roy and me after payday and asked us to hold some of their money over the weekend. This ensured that these men, after their monthly binge, would have at least some money available for necessities during the remainder of the month. We were happy to perform this service, and we soon became "bankers" to several men in the company.

The U.S. Army served as an Occupation Force in Germany. Because we were occupying the land, it was necessary for us to go into the field on “maneuvers” every couple of months to hone our military skills. Our Battalion generally went into the Black Forest area of Germany to perform these maneuvers. The Black Forest was a bleak and dreary place, and I detested going there. Each trip into the field lasted between one and two weeks, and during the time we were out we slept in small pup tents. While on one of these field trips I had my twenty-second birthday. A picture of me on my birthday, by my pup tent, is included in this history. The night before this birthday we had a snowfall in the Black Forest, and the weight of the snow collapsed my pup tent on top of me. It was a struggle to crawl out of my tent the morning of my birthday. That’s one birthday I’ve never forgotten.

We took advantage of being in Europe and traveled whenever we could. We took a number of leaves, including one ten-day leave to France, England, and the Netherlands, and another ten-day leave to Austria, Italy, and Switzerland. The train fare on the second leave, which took us from Leipheim, Germany to Vienna, Austria; then to Rome, Italy; then to Berne, Switzerland; and then back to Leipheim, was $15 for the round trip. We also took several shorter trips through the German countryside. While we were in Europe, the Swiss Temple was dedicated and we got to attend the dedication. We also traveled to Berchtesgaden—a large resort area in Germany that was a favorite of Adolph Hitler, and where he had his famous “Eagle’s Nest” hideaway. The reason for us going to Berchtesgaden was to attend an LDS servicemen's conference, which was conducted by Elder Spencer W. Kimball of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. This conference was the highlight of my year in Europe. During the day-long conference, Elder Kimball spoke in a powerful manner, urging the servicemen to hold fast to their standards even though they were surrounded with immorality, and to remain active in the Church.

After the conference, Elder Kimball interviewed all the servicemen who wanted to visit with him. I took advantage of this wonderful opportunity, and thus had my first interview as a member of the Church. (I had not been interviewed when I was baptized, nor when I was ordained a Teacher, Priest, or Elder.) This interview lasted only a few minutes, but I was deeply impressed with Elder Kimball. I felt his genuine love and concern for me as a person and as a newly baptized member of the Church, and I came away from the interview with an even stronger desire to serve a mission. At this conference, the Ulm group was organized into a formal servicemen's branch of the Church, and I was made first counselor in the branch presidency. Grant Heartel, from Salt Lake City, was named the branch president. I was surprised at my call as a counselor in the branch presidency, since the branch contained several returned missionaries and I knew little about Church administration. But I was really pleased to have the opportunity to serve.

In the spring of 1955, Roy and I looked forward to being promoted to the rank of corporal in the U.S. Army. Allocations for rank advancement had been coming regularly to our company, and our names were nearing the top of the list. When the month came that we were supposed to be promoted, the company commander was gone on leave. The officer left in charge had taken a dislike to Roy and me for some reason, and he had openly stated that we wouldn't be promoted if there was any way he could stop it. This worried us, because once you were passed over for promotion, it was difficult to get reinstated to the promotion list. On the morning that the promotion allocations came, this officer received a call instructing him to report immediately to Division Headquarters in Ulm. This was a great stroke of good fortune, because the next officer in charge liked Roy and me very much. As acting commanding officer, he immediately submitted our names to Battalion Headquarters for promotion to the rank of corporal. By the time the first officer got back from Ulm that night, we both had our corporal stripes sewed on, and there was nothing he could do about it. We then started receiving $132 per month as corporals, which meant that we were able to save over $100 per month toward our missions throughout the rest of our time in the service.

Our stay in Germany was quiet, interesting, and productive. We loved the German food, and the beautiful countryside. Everything was neat and orderly, and spoke of an intelligent and industrious people. Although we were Occupation Troops, the Germans were friendly toward us, and there was rarely an unpleasant incident between soldiers and citizens.

Although Germany was beautiful, it was also wet and cold, which caused me to have many sinus infections. These infections would cause the eustachian tubes to my ears to stiffen and remain open, which in turn allowed my voice to travel up into my ears. This was unpleasant and made it difficult for me to speak. I worried about how effective I would be as a missionary, and so I spent many days fasting and praying that I would be called to an area where my sinus infections would be minimized. While in Germany, I even had my tonsils removed a second time, hoping that the operation would stop the infections. But the infections persisted, and I was deeply concerned about where I would be called to serve as a missionary.

Our year in Germany passed quickly, and by November 1955 we were looking for orders to return to the United States. We were hoping to fly home, but when our orders came they indicated that we were to return home by boat. So in early November we boarded the train for Bremerhaven, where we had landed in Germany about a year before. After a two-day ride on the train through the German countryside, we arrived in Bremerhaven, boarded our ship, and were on our way home.

The boat we were assigned to was a "liberty" ship of World War II vintage. It was designed to carry cargo—not men—so it had only 17 showers for the 1,500 men that were aboard it. The ventilation system was poor, and little air circulated in the lower hatches where we were bunked. With men getting seasick all about and no ventilation, the stench soon became overpowering, and I spent as much time as possible on deck. I didn't get seasick on the return voyage, but I found the trip cramped and uncomfortable. In eight days we arrived at New York, but we were informed that a dock strike had just begun and that we would have to wait for docking space. We then circled just off the coast for nine days. During this time our food ran out, and the Navy people opened emergency rations, which we considered to be inedible. These rations were stringy and dark red in color, and probably consisted of horse meat. Finally, after 17 days on the boat, we received permission to dock. The night before we were to dock, I got up at 2:00 a.m. and went down to take a shower—the first one since we had left Germany 17 days before. There was no hot water, but it was the most welcome shower I have ever taken.

The United States looked glorious! I could see why the Lord called it a land choice above all other lands. How grateful I felt to have been born in the United States! Germany had been beautiful, but I then realized that it was nothing compared to my own homeland. I had no desire to leave again.

Roy and I were shipped immediately to Fort Sheridan, Illinois. There, after many lectures directed toward persuading us to reenlist, we were finally discharged from the Army on December 5, 1955. We boarded a train for Burlington, arriving there just two days short of two years from the time we had left. In that two years all of our purposes for going into the Army had been accomplished. We had served our country well as soldiers. In addition, we had saved enough to go on a mission, we had spent much time studying and growing in the Gospel, and we had qualified ourselves to receive the GI Bill to assist in our education. The two years had been hard, but highly productive, and we were grateful for the experience. Jack Arnold Hawks Interviewed by Judy Hansen February 2015

I was born in Bell, California Aug 2nd, 1936 to George and Hazel May Hawks. My mother died when she was 46 and my father died when he was 68.

I left California in 1945 and went to Loma, Colorado which is West of Grand Junction. We had a dairy farm there. I went to high school in Fruita, Colorado for four years. I graduated from high school and left home when I was 20. I went to California and worked for my wife’s dad. I was only there about a year or less when I got a draft notice. Eight years after I got out of the Army I married Nancy Lee Noel. She was the bosses daughter (Jack laughs).

Nancy and I dated in 1958 but when I got my draft notice I left. She was of the marrying kind but I was too young and marrying wasn’t for me. So I took the draft notice and went back to Colorado because that is where the notice came from; I had never changed my address. I went to Denver and took my physical. I joined the Army. This was in 1958 and I was 22 years old. I joined the Army for three years because I wanted to get a specific trade. They told me if I signed up I could get into Diesel Mechanics which is what I wanted. When I got in there they put me in ammunition. I don’t like guns and I don’t like ammunition. I went for six weeks ammunition training after boot camp.

Boot camp was a miserable place. I went to Fort Carson, Colorado. If they made me do it again I’d say “No,” they would have to fire me because it was so miserable. I agree with them when they say they teach discipline and how to react without having to think. They do that so if you are in wartime you can act without having to think. That is why they are; like I say, “mean and ornery.” They treated you like you were a low life but I kind-of agree with them now. I liked the esprite corps where the marching was very formal. I was in Fort Carson and then I went to Fort Lewis Washington for my ammunition training. I was at Fort Lewis for six weeks.

I told my grandson that if you want to learn discipline and respect go into the Army. You learn respect for people. I don’t think it is anything now like it was then. For instance, you’ll have a Sergeant that will stand a foot from your face and he’ll ask you a question. You answer, he’ll say, “I can’t hear you.” Then you’ll get a little louder and he’ll say, “I can’t hear you.” When you shout he’ll say, “Don’t shout at me.” They made you so you don’t rebel or walk away.

I did enjoy the 27- mile march in the Army which is a grueling march. If you sit down you can’t stand back up. A lot of the guys did drop out but I did all the things that were required. You

1 have to have an attitude “you’re not going to break me.” Boot camp was really hard. I don’t like the outdoors that well so when we would go bivouacking I didn’t like that either. I didn’t like killing animals let alone people (he laughs).

I was born LDS but from 1959 ‘till about eight years after I got out of the Army I was inactive. I never lost my testimony. I was older when I went into the Army; 22 and I would have non-LDS guys come to me and ask me questions about what they should do regarding this and that. I would always tell them the LDS church was true even though I was not an example at that time. That is how I felt. I went to church a little bit when I was in Fort Lewis.

Then I was sent to West Germany; Gräfenberg is where we did our maneuvers. Erlangen is the name of the town we were stationed which is close to Nuremberg. I was there for a little over a year and a half. I was in the motor pool helping to take care of the vehicles and all that. Six months in I got the chance to advance to Battalion Ammunition Sergeant which was a good job. It gave me a little more rank and more pay. I was in charge of all the ammunition for servicing the tanks. We were a tank battalion; the 35th Armored Battalion Headquarters Company. I was in charge of all the ammunition for the whole battalion. When we went on maneuvers I had to furnish ammunition for all the tanks. It was quite a hectic job. We would clean it, store it, and send it out to the guys that were firing it on the firing range. It was a big job to keep enough ammunition on those tanks to keep them firing out there on the range. There were 90 mm and 120 mm cannons on those tanks. It was a good job and it kept me going.

East and West Germany was feuding. In fact, when I got discharged we had our tanks running and we were supposed to get sent to the border. I was afraid they were going to extend my time but we didn’t go and I came home.

I did enjoy Europe. I bought a car while I was over there and I ended up traveling around. I got into East Germany for about two minutes when they told me I better turn around and get out of there. I toured Europe a little bit with my car and I didn’t realize I was getting in the wrong side of town. There was kind-of a little guard shack but it didn’t look restricted. They just told me to turn around and go back when I got to that shack.

I didn’t like the military much but my attitude was to do the best with what you got so I did all right. I served three years and was discharged in September 1961. I had gone over to Germany by air and came back by boat that had 1500 troops. I was what they called an Acting Jack; a Spec. 4 Acting Sergeant. That gave me more money plus they shipped the car home that I had bought over there free. If they hadn’t of shipped it I wouldn’t have brought it home. It’s an antique 1952 Mercedes. I restored it. They weren’t even imported then. They didn’t start importing Mecedes until 1955 so you won’t find any more of them. I only know of three. They are very rare. Cars are my thing so that was fun.

I guess I didn’t like the army too well because I can’t find any pictures of me in my uniform (he laughs). Personally, I would serve again if they needed help because I am a patriotic person regardless of if I liked it or not. That is why I have the flag flying in front of my home.

2

My wife had married while I was in the service and when I got home they were divorcing so we got together and married in 1969. I have been married 45 years. We became active in the church and went to the temple. We have been active ever since. We have four children; Julie (New Hampshire), Sherrie (California), Glenda (California), and Jack (Arizona). I was a brick mason in California for thirty-fours years. I retired in 1998 and moved to Lehi, Utah.

3

Morris David Kunz Interviewed by Judy Hansen May 2015

My name is Morris David Kunz. When I was young I went by Dave Kunz and when I got my social security number it just said, ‘Dave Kunz.’ I left home at an early age because my mother was single and she needed help. I went to work and helped support the family. My parents are Morris Quincy Kunz and Rhea A. Allred Kunz. They were divorced. I was born in Salt Lake on December 13th, 1933. I was raised in the Salt Lake area until my mother left my dad. I was probably about six or seven years old. She moved to Davis County so I went to Davis High School. She was struggling so I left home at sixteen and went to work and sent money home to help the family.

I had other brothers that did not go into the service or get drafted. I found out later what happened. Anybody that dropped out of school or was not married got drafted right away. They called me a drop out even though I was helping to support my mother so when I reached age 19 I got the draft notice.

It was 1953 when I got my draft papers then I went to Fort Douglas. They did all our physicals and processed our paperwork. Then I was drafted into the Army and I received orders to head for Fort Ord, California. Back in those days we didn’t fly anywhere. I went to Fort Ord, California by train. We didn’t have cameras hardly at all so we didn’t take a lot of pictures. My lovely wife, Viona; we weren’t married at that time, she came down to see me off on the train. We took pictures in one of those little booths where you get four or five pictures for a quarter.

I remember when I got off that train in Fort Ord all hell broke loose, there was screaming and yelling. When you hit the Fort Ord base - boy, you got a lot of disciplinary action. It was a rude awakening when we came into basic training. Every soldier gets it and he doesn’t realize what he’s getting into when he goes to that first training. It’s all for discipline and you do learn discipline pretty fast. It’s good in a lot of ways but I wouldn’t take a million dollars to do it again. I learned a lot. I learned discipline and respect for people being as young of a kid as I was.

When we left Fort Ord after our basic training, they shipped 50% of us to Fort Lewis, Washington and the other 50% of our group went to Korea. The Korean War had ended in July 1953 and our half of the bunch went to Fort Lewis, Washington and stayed there. We trained and I went into the 720th Field Artillery Battalion on the A battery. We had 155’s, 175’s, 105’s, and we used those different types of guns. Some were bigger than others but they were all towed behind trucks in those days. We just towed them where ever we went. We would go set up a perimeter with a big gun then we would set

1 up machine gun nests on all sides of it to watch for aircraft. We could throw artillery shells for twenty miles and it was pretty accurate. They would have spotter planes in those days. A forward spotter would usually tell you where to go and we would fire two or three shells. The spotter would tell you where they landed. We would set up these machine gun nests and any aircraft that would come over we would be on high alert because we didn’t have missiles in those days, we used 50 caliber machine guns to protect the big guns with.

My MOS, or occupation you might call it, was gunner. It would take four or five of us to run the big gun and load it. Those projectiles on the bigger ones weighed about the same as a sack of cement, about 98 pounds. We would throw those twenty miles. We had timers on them that we could set to explode in the air above the troops or we could have it time delayed where it would bury itself in a bunker and then blow up. We used them for weapons against anything we might run into. That is what we were trained in.

I got specialized treatment. Although I was trained as an artillery gunner MOS, I was really good at driving and doing different things. My 1st Sargent adopted me and he was the head of the Battery to see what happened to the Commander. Wherever he went I drove him. I was his driver. I did get some specialized treatment there.

I was in there to serve and do my time and make the most of whatever I did. A lot of the guys wanted to go cruising on the town and stuff. I didn’t really care to do that because after I was there and finished basic training Viona and I got married. We got married civilly in Tacoma, Washington and started our rental of a little house there. When we got married we didn’t have any fanfare other than her dad came up there.

Her dad had a big family and some were getting married. He brought her up to Washington because he was going to do some delivery of willow wood that they used to make artificial limbs and legs out of. When they were making these artificial limbs and legs he would let the wood dry out and wax it. He was hauling a load up with his pick-up truck. He knew we were planning on getting married when we could, so he asked Viona if she wanted to ride up to the Seattle area to take some wood up there. She told him, “Yea, but I ain’t coming home” (he laughs). I didn’t even know they were coming up. I was in top of a barracks and I looked down and seen him walking along looking for somebody. I thought, “Oh my gosh there is Eskel Peterson.” So I stuck out my head and hollered at him. I asked him, “Who came with you?” He said nobody and started giving me the third degree about what I thought of his daughter, rather I was really serious, how I was going to treat her, and everything else. I said, “No, I’ve sent her rings, I love her, I want to marry her, I have honorable intentions, and I want to take care of her.” I had stuff scattered all over on my foot locker. I was kind-of ironing and cleaning up. You didn’t leave anything out in the barracks because if you left anything out you could lose it. You had everything under lock and key when you were there. He got a little bit nervous and kept saying, “Hurry, Hurry, get your stuff ready!” I said, “Are you sure nobody is here?” He said, “No, nobody’s here.” I finally got my stuff done and I think it was close to the weekend because I could sign out at the main office for our Battery. I went in and signed out and headed to his truck where he had his load of wood. I looked up and here come Viona just a running (he laughs). She threw her arms around me and wouldn’t let go. Viona put her heels in the air (he laughs) and said, “We’re getting married, I’m not going home.” I said, “I can’t get married unless I have permission from my Commander. I can’t do it.” I told her it would take me two or

2 three days to get permission. Anyway as it turned out we got permission and went to the Justice of the Peace. We have been married now for 61 years.

When I was in the military I was there to do an honorable job and serve. I was there to make the most of it. I was able to get my G.E.D. before I married Viona. We were serving during peace time and while I was in the Seattle area it is kind-of funny because a lot of the guys would want to go out and cruse around and do things on the weekends or evenings when they could get out. They would go wild and I didn’t like that so I would go home and be with Viona. When guard duty would come up; you would have your name on the list for guard duty or KP, a lot of the guys didn’t want to do that. I was making $78.00 a month and these guys would want to go out so they’d say, “Kunz, if you take my KP today I’ll give ya 10 bucks.” So I served a lot of KP. When it came to guard duty, they’d say, “Kunz, if you’ll stand guard duty”; and they all called you by your last name, “I’ll give you 10 dollars if you’ll take my guard duty.” So I would report to guard duty in their name, because they required so many for guard. So what I did – I got really sharp at it. I was doing some of this just before we got married. That is why I was up there primping all my clothes and shining my boots when Viona’s father came. I needed to make everything perfect because they would always take an extra man for guard duty and the best guy that knew his chain of command and was the sharpest dressed didn’t have to walk guard. He could go home or go back to the barracks. So I stood a lot of guard and I would get paid, but I was usually the sharpest guy and very seldom did I walk the guard. I got the money and went home (he laughs and pulls out a 1955 calendar and we looked it over). I stood guard on Saturday the 8th, KP on the 12th, KP on the 15th, on KP I’d have to stay and didn’t get to go home but this was during the day. Viona was pregnant during this time because we got married in May of 1954. I figured this month alone (as he points to the calendar) I stood five KP’s and guard duties so that was an extra $50.00, almost another month’s wages. I scammed the whole thing.

Then they had to sew patches on their shirts. I bought a little sewing machine. Viona thought I was crazy because I bought this little sewing machine. (Viona adds, “I figured we were going to buy some different things for the house but as soon has he got this first paycheck he went and bought this sewing machine. I asked him what he was going to do with that.”) I started sewing on these patches for 10₵ a piece for the soldiers on their clothes. (Viona adds, “He tailored for them too.”) Then I started doing a little tailor work to make things fit. The Captain brought over his coat and I tailored his coat. Being 1st Sargent driver I didn’t have to answer to a lot of the other people ‘cause I was in the loop of the chain of command and they would give me special duties. This allowed me to actually tailor clothes. So with tailoring, standing KP, and guard duty I was able to pay for our first sewing machine and buy a little TV. We didn’t have anything when we moved into our apartment. (Viona adds, “He made our baby’s first baby gowns too.”) It was fun. It was a neat experience. We were there together with no outside family help but we worked hard and survived.

I served in Fort Lewis for eighteen months. Then they got a brilliant idea. The last five months of my service we got orders to go to Camp Polk, Louisiana. We had to take all our guns. They took all the batteries of the whole 720th Field Artillery Division in a big convoy from Fort Lewis, Washington. We towed all our guns and all our equipment. They wouldn’t let us go faster than 25 miles per hour. We went all the way down to the bottom of California, then across through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and into Louisiana.

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One thing that was funny was we had a big tanker truck that would follow us and it was full of gasoline. He would go get loads of gasoline then gas up everything on our trip. We had a small spotter plane that was tied to our group. We had little L-19’s made by Cissna1 that would fly and do our spotting missions when we were shooting and tell us where to go. They shipped those L-19’s with us where ever we went. The L-19’s would land on these little dirt roads at night where ever we ended up camping. We would camp at night then get up and go the next morning. It took us fourteen days to get to Camp Polk, Louisiana with all those guns.

When we got there Camp Polk was just a camp, like Camp Williams. It wasn’t an official base then. We had to go out on maneuvers. We slept at night in sleeping bags. I never saw a bed with sheets on it for five months. It was all camp out; rain, insects, bugs, snakes, turtles, we saw it all. They had some poisonous snakes there and we had to make sure we knew which ones were poisonous because we might wake up and find one in bed (he laughs). It was quite an adventure. I guess they had alligators there but I don’t ever remember seeing any. We weren’t that close to the swamps.

When I shipped back home I had to go to Fort Lewis first for mustering out and orientation. I went there by bus.

Viona had went back home to Utah when I set off for Louisiana. She had had one child, Jeff and was pregnant again at this time. We had our first two children pretty fast. We didn’t know what happened in those days (he laughs). Viona gave birth to our daughter Rafawn out at Tooele Army Depot in the morning and I was discharged from the Army that afternoon on the 24th of January. I had to travel from Fort Lewis, Washington out to Tooele and I remember teasing Viona, “Ha-Ha, you’re in the Army now and I’m out” (he laughs).

I served two years active duty. I never got my official discharge until 1962 because I had to serve six years inactive. I never had to go to meetings every week but if the US had been deployed and went back into Korea we would have been there first to go. I’m classed as a Korean veteran but I never got on Korean soil while I was serving.

We did go to Korea later, about 1997 we spent about a month and a half there. My baby daughter, Jarris and her husband Darren Kirkham, he works for New Skin and they put him over in Korea for three years. We were fortunate enough we could go over there to see them and we took a trip to the DMZ2. We saw all the barbed wire fences and the battlefields that were there. We saw the barracks the Armistice was signed in. We were able to go into the barracks and see the side the North Koreans sat on and the side the Americans sat on when they did their negotiating along a big long table. We got to go into that barracks and we walked around that negotiating table. They told us they could not guarantee our safety when we went into the North Korean side and we had to sign saying we realized that. We were told not to make any eye contact with the North Korean soldiers, not make any gestures, and not to try to talk to them. So when we went through we walked around that table and the North Korean’s were standing all around us outside of the barracks on the north half looking in through the windows at us. Sometimes the North Korean’s would really do a lot of saber-rattling and they wouldn’t take the

1 A liaison and observation aircraft 2 Korean Demilitarized Zone is the strip of land near the vicinity of the 38th parallel created as part of the Korean Armistice agreement between the People's Republic of China, and the United Nations Command forces in 1953 as a buffer zone between North and South Korea.

4 tours there. When it was calm things would work out. I bought some books on what happened on the demilitarized zone and we actually saw a bridge where all the prisoners were marched across when they traded prisoners at the armistice.

One thing that really impressed me when we went to Korea was that all the buildings were almost touching each other. The roads were really narrow and the majority of the buildings were all skyscrapers made of concrete. People don’t have room to live there and it is so crowded they have them stacked on top of each other. They are living in these places and we went to this one house where Jarris and Jarred was living in. Back in those days New Skin rented that home for them for three years at $5,000.00 a month. Rent was terrible because you couldn’t have a home and the home was very small. When we were there gas was $4.00 a gallon and we thought that was terrible. It was more than double what it was here.

There was one funny thing that happened to me in Korea I have to tell you about. Everybody in Korea has a little shop. You can’t go into a market and buy everything you want like you do here. If you go into a button store all they have is buttons. They are just little shops. I went into this store and they are making rain clothing. I had them make me a couple pairs of rain pants and a jacket. I wanted to bring one home to my nephew. I went into this guy’s place to get him to make them and I told him, “Now, I’m not going to be able to pick these up for a while. I’ve got other places to go but my daughter will be here and she will come get them.” He said, “OK, but I want a picture of you.” So he lines me up against the wall in clear background and takes a picture of me. My daughter goes in to get my rain gear and she looks up on the wall of all these pictures of General’s he had up there. He thought I was General Schwarzkopf (He laughs). He’s got my picture up there with the name General Schwarzkopf under it. I guess ‘cause I have a round face and have the same build. She went back years later and he still had it there as General Schwarzkopf. So that is the highest rank I got to serve (He laughs). Everybody knew who General Schwarzkopf was in our day and age so that was kind-of funny.

Before I went into the service I was working for Union Pacific I was building roundhouses for the old steam engines. A round house is a big turn table. They would bring the steam engines in on that turn table, put them in a stall, and repair them. When they were done they would bring them back out on the turn table and head them out whichever way they wanted. After I got out of the service I went back to work for Union Pacific because you were guaranteed a job there when you got drafted. I didn’t stay there long because I was put in a position where I would have had to travel a lot. I watched and got a job at Kennecott Copper in 1957. I started on the track gang. I went from the track gang to a brakeman and from there to trucks, and then onto being a foreman over the big trucks in the mine. I served up there for 21 ½ years. I served as a foreman for 13 years.

June 8th 1978 was my last day at Kennecott. I had a tractor and some equipment by then. I started MDK Construction. I had my sons Jeff and Brad come and work for me. I’m really glad I was able to have Brad work for me in construction because I was able to pay into social security for him. He suffered from a brain tumor and has become disabled. We gave him special missions to run for parts or something. When the boys were working for me it really was for us because I paid them the same amount as I got paid. I met a guy that was a member of the Big Horn Ranch down south where we were members. He said, “Dave, I run a place that trains disabled folks and it will probably help you out a lot.” We sent Brad over there for a couple of months but they said he was totally disabled so the State filed and got him a medical disability and he got on Social Security Disability. While he was with MDK

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Construction we were able to pay him the difference of what he wasn’t getting. We had to give it to his wife because we couldn’t give it to him.

When I got out of the service I bought a home in Granger. We left Granger about 1961 or 1962. I tried to buy a ranch in Duchene with my brothers but we found out we couldn’t make a living so I came back and bought a place in Lehi at 1995 North 900 West. We lived there for 39 years.

Viona and I raised six of our own children; Jeff, Rafawn, Brad, Marlon, Shae; we called her Sharon Ray Kunz but she had her name legally changed to Shae because all the kids called her Shae in school; and our daughter Jarris. We have a lot of posterity. We have 37 grandchildren, 63 great-grandchildren, and 1 great-grandson that just got married so now we are looking forward to great-great grandchildren. Each one of our children brought someone home from high school to stay and live with us for a while. We always had someone living here that we ‘adopted.’

We have been very successful and really blessed. We have been self-sufficient. I have some apartments east of the rodeo grounds in Lehi, a tri-plex and a duplex that supplements our social security income. I have been able to help the kids when I can.

My dad went on a mission for the LDS church in 1924 to Switzerland. Then he actually got involved in polygamy and they cut him off from the church but I always felt I was a Mormon. I was small enough I never got baptized. I got baptized later in life, 1987; ordained a Priest April 1987, Elder in August 1987 and have been ordained a High Priest. I always felt I was a Mormon even though during my military time I hadn’t been baptized.

I was called to a service mission in the cannery but at that time my son Brad needed something to do so I talked to the bishop and he took my place. That worked out really well for him.

My first church call for a mission I accepted has also been my last one. I’m still doing it. I work on the Church welfare farm in Saratoga. I started this in 2002. I keep renewing after each mission ends.

The church farm keeps bringing me more and more duties as I go. At first it wasn’t very much but now I go out and run the tractors because I have run heavy equipment. I help prepare the ground. Last month I spent 100 hours out there. I give safety meetings to the employees and I inspect the equipment. I attend a meeting for the farm every 2nd Thursday. Before this year we only had about five Stakes but this year I was given 27 Stakes to do donated labor, so I take care of the donated labor part of it. I take people out there and orient each Stake representative on where they need to go and what they need to do with their donated labor force. We have to sign in and sign out all these donated labor hours. The reason is to keep us in the welfare project farm tax exempt status. We have them come out and clean up the roads around the farm, weed around the buildings, make things presentable, and pick up rocks in the pivots; we call it a rock party. We have a lot of low land pasture around the river and at times they go in and trim the voluntary trees so they don’t take over the pasture. Tomorrow we will have a total of 2 Stakes and 50 people if they all show up. We’ve had as high as 6 Stakes each bringing 33 people in one day come out to work. We record all the hours. We are running almost 3000 hours so far this year and it is only March. It is a really rewarding job. Viona has had problems with her feet and had her big toe amputated due to diabetes and her eyes give her problems and with my son in a rest home it has been really good because I can still be around to help them but I can still serve. I have been so blessed.

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Carleton ‘David’ Nash as interviewed by Judy Hansen October 2014

I was born 1935 in Fitchburg, Massachusetts to Frank and Mildred Nash. I was named Carleton David Nash but one of my uncles didn’t like Carlton so everyone just started calling me David. I grew up in East Templeton, Massachusetts and West Quincy; we kept moving back and forth.

I had graduated high school and gone out to Pittsfield, Massachusetts as an apprentice draftsman with General Electric. I left General Electric because I wasn’t interested in drafting. I thought it was too boring. I went back to Templeton, Massachusetts and tried to get a job but I couldn’t. Nobody wanted to hire me because I was eligible for the draft and they would say as soon as they got me trained Uncle Sam would take me; so thanks but no thanks. I was finally able to get a position as a hospital orderly.

It was 1954 and the draft was going strong. I didn’t want to spend my life in the military. I wanted it to be as short and sweet as possible. Since I couldn’t get a job I said, “Well, let’s get this over with.” I went and checked with the Air Force; that was my first choice. They would have put me in for four years. The Navy was my second choice and it had a minimum of four years. I found out if I volunteered for the draft it was only two years. The Army was the only one drafting at that time so I volunteered for the draft and asked them to put me on the top of the list.

It took about three months before they sent me to Fort Dix, New Jersey to process in. I had been in with a bunch of Seventh Day Adventists and since 99.9% of them were conscientious objectors1 they all became medics. They decided I was part of them so they assigned me as a medic also.

It was in December and it was COLD. After that they sent me to boot camp for 8 weeks at Fort Sam Houston in Texas to teach me what it’s like to be a soldier and all the SOP’s2. I liked being at Fort Sam.

1 An individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion (Wikipedia).

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It was a nice post. It was neat and clean. Right outside the front gate was San Antonio, Texas and I was free to go every weekend. They had a lot there; a zoo, Movie Theater, and a Christian servicemen’s organization that gave free cookies and donuts. The river walk in San Antonia was off limits to servicemen after 6:00 pm. They never said why but you would see the signs all over the place. Besides eating the cookies and donuts at the Christian Serviceman’s Center my favorite activity was going to the movie theater. They had a nice theater there. When you went inside after the lights would dim there were little lights in the ceiling that looked like stars twinkling. It was kind of soothing and relaxing.

Boot camp was the typical hurry up and wait. They were rushing us all over the place. Since it was December, even in San Antonio there would be some cold days. We would be out in the grandstands (like bleachers) for training and then they would take us inside of a wooden building that was overheated so we had trouble trying to stay awake for the classes.

Since I was a medic I didn’t do any rifle training. They taught us how to deal with rattle snake bites. An instructor had seven rattle snakes up on a stage and was demonstrating them. He said, “They’re not that fast, they only strike about 7 miles an hour.” Then he put his hand out in front and pulled it back as the snake tried to bite it. It missed him every time; luckily.”

There was the shot class; we practiced giving injections to each other. We would have to sit across from each other, bare our thigh, and then we’d plunge the syringe into each other with a saline solution. It took me about seven tries. I kept stopping right before the needle would go in. I’d just freeze. The other guy said, “Will you just hurry up, do it, and get it over with? You’re driving me crazy.” I finally injected the solution and then it was his turn to inject me. He hit a blood vessel and when he pulled the needle out blood was coming out everywhere. He kept apologizing to me. It didn’t hurt; it just looked awful. The instructor just came by and said, “Oh that happens once in a while” then he walked off.

We had to go out and dig fox holes. In the baked clay it was like sticking a shovel in concrete. The Sergeant said he was going to have a tank come out and run over the fox hole with us in it. We were only able to get the fox hole 6 or 8 inches deep. It was pretty hard clay and there was no way we were going to dig any hole deep enough. They called off the tank.

They had different classes about bacteria and taught us how bacteria are great little swimmers. They said the worse part of contamination is if there is liquid around because it travels so fast in liquid but not so fast on dry surfaces.

They also taught us military disciple including how to salute. We all had to get our shots. I had to get my shots twice. I got them in Fort Dix but my records didn’t catch up with me in Fort Sam Houston so I had to get my shots all over again. We had to practice drills, marching, and a lot of physical exercise. We had one exercise where we had to carry someone on a litter through the woods; it was really some bushes that were about six or eight feet high. They made us carry the biggest guy on this litter. There was a river we had to cross and when we got there; since I was the smallest guy, they had me swap places with the big guy and they carried me across and then swap back again on the other side. Of

2 Standard Operating Procedures

2 course, none of the candre3 were around to see the swap and no one questioned why the guy on the litter was wet and I was dry when we got to the end. We had to be creative if we wanted to survive.

They had obstacle courses and places we had to crawl under barbed wire. We had to crawl while someone was firing a machine gun overhead. They would fire about three feet above the ground. It was real live ammunition; we could see the tracers coming across. They said in the class just before ours one guy didn’t believe they were real bullets and he stood up. Luckily the machine gunner was paying attention and he stopped firing. They had to aim the machine gun at a target and show him they were real bullets.

I remember Christmas day in San Antonio was 85 degrees. It didn’t feel like Christmas. After eight weeks of basic training at Fort Sam I went home on leave for a month. I actually had started to miss the snow for a while. It was nice in February when I went home on leave. There was some snow. I didn’t think I would ever miss that stuff but I did. Then I went back for another eight weeks of training but this time it was all medical stuff.

There were two MOS’s; military occupational specialties, one was a corpsman and one was an aid-man. The corpsman worked in the hospital, doctor’s offices, and stuff like that. The aid-man was the one that went on the ambulances, worked the emergency room, or went out in the combat field. Lucky me, I was classified as an aid-man.

My first assignment was Fort Sill Oklahoma main hospital. It was the summer of ’55. I got to work in the emergency room. I enjoyed it; I really did. I felt like I was doing something useful; something worthwhile. I was treating the military and their families. There was no air conditioning at that time except two places; the cafeteria and the laboratory. Every chance I got I volunteered to bring samples to the laboratory; just for a breath of cool air. The hottest temperature I saw there was 120°. That particular day I wasn’t on duty. I was in the day room reading a magazine and when I put it down and got up my whole backside was wet with perspiration. It looked like somebody put a hose on me. It was brutal. We looked forward to thunder storms because it would cool stuff down and give some relief from the heat. But then the sun would come out and all that moisture would turn to steam. You would see the steam rising from the ground and it was worse than ever. The water was like bleach. In fact, as I would walk down the hallway towards the drinking fountain you could smell the chlorine.

I was at Fort Sill about six months and then I got orders to transfer. The Sergeant said, “Oh lucky you – you’re going to Europe. Your orders say AFE.” He thought it was Armed Forces Europe but it really said AFFE; Armed Forces Far East. When they asked me where I wanted to go I said ‘east.’ I meant back to the east coast. I ended up going a little too far east.

They sent me to Fort Lewis Washington and I was there about a month waiting for the ship to take us out. We went out on the USS General W.A. Mann. It carried 2,200 people including the crew. It was one of the faster ones. It was a WWII vintage just like our food; you know the K-rations and C-rations. I

3 A non-commissioned officer such as the Drill Sergeant

3 was on the advanced party which meant I got to board the ship first. These were the troops that got to work in the kitchen; KP all the way across.

On the first day out we were in a storm and I got so sea sick I couldn’t keep anything down. They gave me a Dramamine pill and I couldn’t even keep that down. I’m in the galley working around all this food and I got a little inspiration. I thought why don’t you try some plain tea and crackers? I don’t know where the idea came from but it settled my stomach the rest of the way there. It took us about two weeks but after the tea and crackers I was out on the bow of the ship watching the ship lift up out of the water and slamming back in with a hollow gong. We only saw one other ship on the way across going the other direction. We had flying fish accompany us twice and that was pretty neat.

Our first stop was Yokohama, Japan. We couldn’t get off the ship. We were in port about two days while they were replenishing supplies. From there we went to Incheon, Korea. The port wasn’t deep enough for the ship to dock so it had to sit out in the harbor. They brought out the landing craft and packed us in there so tight it was like the Boston Subway during rush hour. We could hardly breathe. They ferried us into the dock and from there we got on those deuce-and-a-half’s; two and a half ton trucks where the backs were wide open. As we drove up from the dock to the compound the streets were lined with South Korean’s. It was just the mama’s and kids; I didn’t see any men around and the kids were throwing rocks at us. These were the ones we went over there to help. The guy right next to me got hit above his temple right in the head. There was nothing he could do; he couldn’t duck because we were packed in there so tight. He just stood there with the blood running down the side of his face. I asked if he was all right and he said it hurt a little. When we got to the base they sent him over to the dispensary and patched him up.

From there we were given our assignments. I was a medic for the 17th Infantry Regiment; called the Buffalo’s, 7th Infantry Division along the DMZ4. They stuck us on these trains. These trains looked like something from an old west movie. The Korean trains didn’t even have headlights so you had to be careful at night at railroad crossings. It was hard to see them coming; you really had to listen.

There was a long uphill incline; I think they said it was about 2 ½ miles and the train couldn’t always make it to the top. It would have to stop, back up, and try again. Sure enough ours couldn’t make it to the top. It ground to a halt, backed down, and built up a head of steam. It took about ½ hour but it made it up.

We got to a post south of the DMZ and they again put us on a deuce-and-a-half and took us up to our post. At that time we were all in eight man tents. The only buildings were some Quonset huts for the mess hall, recreation center, and storage facility. We were in tents heated by diesel stoves which at times would over-heat. You could see the stove and the stove-pipe turn red all the way up to the opening in the tent. I’m surprised the tent never caught fire. There were times they just clogged up and quit all together. This would usually happen in the middle of the night.

4 Korean Demilitarized Zone along the 38th parallel that separates North and South Korea.

4

It was getting winter again. I think I went over there in November 1955. I remember the cold wind whistling through those hills; and the hills were bare. You didn’t see much in the way of trees because when the Japanese had occupied Korea they had stripped all the forests and all the mines; everything that was worth taking they took. The only thing there was a lot of was rice paddies and crows; crows galore. I had never seen so many crows but no dogs, no cats, no animals. The crows loved our post because we had food scraps. There were about 500 of us there so there were a lot of scraps.

The North Koreans had been pushed back by this time in the war. Just to the north of us there was a chasm that was probably 200 or 300 feet deep. On our side was barbed wire and then you had this deep chasm. You would look across and it was just barren land as far as you could see. We knew the North Korean’s were over there somewhere just out of sight. Every once in a while the infantry would go out on a problem and just leave a skeleton force behind. If you pulled guard duty; like I did at that time, you were armed with a flashlight and a baton. Medics didn’t have any rifles. If something happened we’d have to call infantry with our voice or set fire to something because that was the only way we could get anyone over. We did have one fatal fire at one of the mess halls.

They always had a Sergeant on duty inside any building that has anything the slicky boys might want to steal; that’s what we called the South Koreans that ran the black markets. You could buy anything on the black market. It had stuff we didn’t have. When I needed patches for my clothing, the quartermaster only issued me two patches. For all the rest of my uniforms, I had to go off base outside the main post and buy them from the Koreans. They said in Seoul they had all the components of a helicopter. You just had to assemble it yourself.

At this period of the Korean War it was pretty calm most of the time on the DMZ but the North Korean’s would love to play games. When you heard “Operation George” you had to grab your steel helmet. That was an alert and we had to wear our steel pots until the alert was over. For instance, one day they lined their tanks up along the DMZ right insight of our people and aimed everything at our position. They just sat there for 24 hours and then overnight they disappeared again. Another time, some of the North Korean soldiers called across to the South Korean Soldiers, “Hey, we’re having a birthday party here for our friend. Do you want to come and join us?” They had some kind of alcohol to drink. After a while three or four of the South Korean soldiers reluctantly decided to go and join these North Koreans and partied with them. As they were returning back to the south side the North Koreans shot them down in the back. There was stuff like this going on all the time over there.5

We finally built Quonset huts for ourselves. That was kind of nice to get out of those tents. The tents were so dark all of the time. The Quonset huts had windows at least. The stoves weren’t so apt to set the building on fire because they weren’t made of fabric; they were made of metal.

One guy knew how to cut hair so he would get a quarter every time he cut someone’s hair, 25₵ was his going rate back then. For showers they hooked together a couple of 55 gallon barrels, they stuck an inversion heater in there, a tube running out of that into this little shack. You’d would go into the shack,

5 Despite its name, the DMZ is the most heavily militarized border in the world. It is approximately 4 km (2.5 ml) wide. Wikipedia

5 they’d turn on the water so you could get wet, they’d turn the water back off while you lathered up, then they would turn the water back on so you could rinse off. Well, I was about the 35th guy to go in. I got all lathered up and they ran out of water. So I had to go back to the Quonset hut, fill up a basin, and try to rinse all that soap off.

There were plenty of rice paddies and the Koreans would fertilize their rice paddies from our latrines. They complained because they didn’t like our toilet paper. They insisted we stop using it; were they kidding?

We did have the armed forces radio that we could listen to one or two hours a day. I enjoyed that. We had the generator turned on for 1 hour at lunch-time and then two hours in the evening. They did have the U.S.O.6 shows that were nice. They had a lot of Korean entertainment people come in the service clubs too. Once a month we had entertainment at the service club which was a nice break and enjoyable.

One time I saw a tank caught on fire. There were three tanks going the other way on a dirt road as we were going out to the field. All of a sudden I heard this loud POW; I looked and a jet of flame came out of the back exhaust pipe of a tank. It stopped dead in its tracks and everyone scrambled out. The truck I was on kept going so I didn’t get to see much after that. When we came back they were all gone.

Yea, those guys that went over there in ’52 and ’53 had it really bad. They were the ones that got pushed down all the way to the southern tip of Korea and then had to push their way back up again. All we had to do was occupy what they had claimed.

I had been up at the DMZ about four months right through the hardest part of the winter. My Uncle Vic; Victor Harper my mother’s brother was a Major at that time. He was a dentist and was assigned to the 548th general dispensary down in Seoul. When he found out I was in Korea he pulled some strings and got me transferred down to Seoul in the 548th general dispensary with him. This was pretty nice because now I had running hot and cold water, heat, and electricity 24 hours a day most days. One night some guy came in drunk and knocked over one of our stoves and spilt diesel fuel all over the place. It took two weeks for that odor to go away. It made it tough for sleeping. They had a library, a PX7, Movie Theater, and all the comforts of home.

One time there was an accident and our ambulance went out on call. One of the other guys hanging around said he would go out with them so I stayed back in case another call came in; well it did. The M.P.’s called and said there was a jeep accident and I told them there was no one to send. They asked if there was a medic there and I said yes. They sent an M.P. jeep to pick me up. On the way to the accident I found out the M.P was from Massachusetts two towns away from where I grew up. Imagine that; being across the world and running into someone that lived two towns away from you.

Most of what we dealt with were accidents, fights, and diseases. I had exciting times washing wax out of peoples ears (sarcasm). It would go from one extreme to another. One time we had a guy brought in

6 United Service Organizations 7 Post Exchange

6 who had been loading a bulldozer onto the back of a flatbed trailer. The bulldozer went off the ramps, tipped over, and landed right on him. It crushed his whole right side. He was still alive. What was unbelievable was when I went to cut his shirt off he sat up for me and helped get his shirt off. I don’t know how he could do that with all those broken bones and damage. They sent him down to the Inchon evacuation hospital. From there if you were really in a bad way they would send you back to the States. My uncle ended up having a heart attack so he went down to Inchon and then back to the States.

I got to ride on one of those M.A.S.H.8 helicopters once. We had another bulldozer injuring somebody. The helicopter pilot said he needed someone to hold the I.V. while he flew the patient down to Inchon. Since I was again the lightest, smallest guy around he pointed and said, “You, you’re coming with me.” I was 5’8” 150 lbs. I climbed in next to the pilot. They took a web belt, looped it through the handle of the I.V., through the opening in the plastic bubble, and I just sat in there holding it all the way down to Inchon; for about 20 minutes. After we dropped the guy off I told the pilot, “You know when I was 13 years old I took flying lessons down at the Gardner airport; a little single engine Taylorcraft.” He asked if I would like to try to fly the helicopter and I said, “Yeh.” He told me once what each control did. Then he said, “Here, take over and head for that.” Well, the controls in a helicopter are nothing like the controls in an airplane so the helicopter took me for a ride. I wanted to go one way and the helicopter went the other way. Finally he took over the controls and took me back to the dispensary. It was fun trying.

Something was always going on over there. The dispensary was across the parade field; maybe ½ a mile from my barracks. One day they had a big parade going on in Seoul and we were called out to an emergency. We wanted a M.P. jeep to escort us but there were none available and sure enough we came to this parade. We told them we had to go through because a Korean electrician had been working on a telephone pole outside one of the smaller units and had electrocuted himself. It threw him right off the pole. We were trying to go see what we could do for him. One of the Korean police officers tried to stop the parade and make a hole so we could go through but another Officer over-rode him and made us sit there and wait for the parade to finish before we could go through. I was so mad. Of course by the time we got there, there was nothing we could do. The Major that was in charge just lit into us, “Why weren’t you here sooner? We called you guys and you should have been here 20 minutes ago!” We tried to explain to him what had gone on but he was just beet red and was mad at US. What could you do? We couldn’t take the guy because we didn’t have a morgue. They just had to call the Korean authorities so they could do whatever it is they do to take care of him and notify his family.

We responded to any kind of emergency that happened on a military post. We also had to respond if it was outside the post if it involved a Korean with a military vehicle. First time I got to suture somebody it was a Korean that was holding on the back of a deuce-and-a –half on his bicycle and the truck stopped short. He sliced open the back of his hand so they brought him into our dispensary. It was in the evening and we only had a skeleton crew. The Doc on duty didn’t want to be bothered so he just said, “Nash, you take care of it.” I got out the suture kit and sewed up his hand. I felt pretty good. The

8 Mobile Army Surgical Hospital

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Commanding Officer happened to come by, stood behind me, watched for five or ten minutes, and then left without saying a word so I guess I was doing all right.

We got held up one night in the Officer’s quarters. When my Uncle was in the hospital, he shared quarters with a Major. They each had separate bedrooms and a common area. I was sitting in that common area and it was pay-day. I had been a blood donor that day so luckily I didn’t get paid. I came back and was just sitting there relaxing reading a magazine and all of a sudden there came a knock on the Major’s bedroom door. He opened the door to the hallway and I saw him look out there. I was thinking it was some Officer just coming over to visit. All of a sudden I see him slam the door shut and noticed someone was on the other side pushing. I thought it was some guy horsing around. All of a sudden in pops two South Koreans holding 45’s. They weren’t horsing around. The Major said, “Take anything you want and go.” They looked around and he handed them his wallet. I was just watching them boiling underneath thinking, “Oh the nerve of these guys to come into Officer’s quarters to rob us.” The other one came over to me; he didn’t speak much English but said, “You have a pass?” I said, “What?” He repeated, “You have a pass?” I told him “No.” I wasn’t an officer I was an enlisted man and showed him the patch on my arm. When I did, he saw the bulge in my back pocket where my wallet was. He came over and pulled the wallet out of my pocket and then went back to where he was standing still pointing the gun at me. I thought, “I could take this guy down so easily because he’s just a scrawny little thing.” But if I did the other guy would probably shoot us both and I couldn’t coordinate with the Major. But I thought, “If he doesn’t give me back my wallet I’m going to get him.” He must have read my thoughts. I had thirteen dollars in the wallet and he took that out then threw the wallet on the floor. The other guy had some hedge clippers and they used that to cut the telephone wire then the two of them bailed; out they went. As soon as they were gone the Major went next door and called the M.P.’s. The M.P.’s found a hole in the fence where they must have come through. A couple days later they said they had someone in custody and had me look out a little window at the guy outside but I told him he wasn’t either one of them. They told me they thought he was the get-away driver. The next Monday I went in and gathered my pay. The Major had got paid but had paid off a lot of bills. He had $90.00 in his wallet they got away with. They got $103.00 between the two of us.

The Korean’s were always stealing stuff. You had to watch your watches because they would take them right off a guy’s wrist. One time we were down in Seoul in the ambulance. It was summer time so the windows were open. This mama-san jumped up on the running board and tried to take my watch right off my wrist while I was sitting there. I moved back where she couldn’t reach me so she finally gave up and left. She left the driver alone. She didn’t want to go on that side.

Another thing I thought was interesting; now remember this was 1955, 1956, in Seoul there was only one traffic light and it was manually operated. It was up on a pedestal with an umbrella. The Officer would sit under the umbrella with this big handle and whenever he felt like it he would turn it 90° so the red lights and the green lights would face in opposite directions.

Every once in a while we had to take our turn going TDY; temporary duty to the stockade. That would be a one week assignment. You’d go inside the stockade and there was a dispensary in there and you’d stay there for a week; that was it. Prisoners would get sick and they’d come in. Nobody told me but as

8 you cross the yard if there are prisoners out there and they’d see someone that was not a prisoner they were supposed to stop at attention, slam their hat against their thigh, and stand there until you told them to carry on. I didn’t know that so I just walked on by and left the guy standing there until one of the M.P.’s on guard duty called out “Carry on.” After that, one of them came into the dispensary and explained things to me.

Once a month we had to do a stand-by near Kimpo air force base in Seoul. There were a small group of paratroopers there and they had to practice parachute jumping. They would fly over the Han River. There was a big wide sand bank and they would try to land on this sand bank without hitting any of the little trees. We would have to go out and stand on the sand bank and watch them jump. We would look up and see the bomb bay doors open. Then we’d see faces and outlines of the guys looking out the bomb bay doors getting ready to jump. It was kind-of neat watching them come down. Luckily nobody got hurt while I was there but I understand one day one of them landed in a tree. He got hurt pretty bad. To keep busy while I was there their Sergeant had a 45 so he took it out and was shooting beer cans on the beach. He said, “You want to try it?” I said, “Sure” but I couldn’t hit one for the life of me. There was such a kick to that thing, unlike shooting my syringes. They didn’t kick like that.

I was in Korea a total of 13 ½ months. I spent 4 months up in the DMZ and 9 ½ months in Seoul. There were figmo charts; figure the months. When you would get down to 90 days from going home you would start X’ing off the days from the calendar to see how close you were getting. The closer you got to going home you would get more and more cautious trying to make sure you didn’t do anything to keep you from going back home. Since I was a medic I talked to the doctors and said, “You know I got really sea sick on the way over here. Can you do something about that?” The doc wrote up a slip that said due to my sea sickness they would have to fly me home. So they flew me to Japan in a big, what they called a ‘crash master.’ It’s a big cargo carrier where the doors open up in the front. One day this type of plane was flying between Japan and Korea. The doors opened up in mid-air and it lost its aerodynamics. It crashed and everyone on board was killed. So after that they were called ‘crash- masters.’ If you were going on R & R or going home they would fly you over to Japan in one of those.

In Japan I had to wait several days for an opening on a MATS plane; military air transport service. That was a four engine prop job. We flew in the middle of the night and there was nothing but blackness around. You could see the blue exhaust from the engines. I was sitting near the wing, kind-of ½ awake and ½ asleep. All of a sudden these flood lights came on. They had these flood lights built into the fuselage. They shined them out on the engine on the right side; the closest one to us. Instead of blue coming out of the exhaust it was red. They trained the lights on that one engine and then they started feathering the prop. You could hear the change in sound as they changed the angle of the propeller. They kept watching that for hours. It seemed to be overheating and I think they were concerned it would catch fire.

Anyway, we flew from Japan to Wake Island. I don’t know how they found it out there in the pacific; it was this little island sitting there all by itself. We flew all night long. I looked down on that little island and all that was there was a runway that went from one end of the island to the other. Out to the side

9 were a few little buildings and some little vehicles. We landed there and they fueled us up, checked the plane out, and repaired the engine.

From Wake Island we went to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I got out of the plane and went to the terminal and into the cafeteria. I looked in the case and saw a Boston cream pie – WOW! I hadn’t seen one of those for a couple of years. I ordered that Boston Cream pie and savored the whole thing. I was in Hawaii for 28 hours. I could see Diamond Head, Honolulu, and the ocean from where I was but I couldn’t leave the post. I had to stay within ear shot of the P.A. system because they would announce your name and the flight you were going out on. I came home on a commercial flight.

After I reached Oakland, California they bused us two hours north to San Francisco. I stayed there for two days and then caught another commercial flight to Philadelphia. From Philadelphia we got on another bus that took us to Fort Dix. I remember when we were at the bus station in Philadelphia there was a cop and he had a civilian by the throat holding him up against the wall waiting for back-up. The cop was short; he was maybe 5’6” and the guy he had was a good 6 feet tall.

At Fort Dix it took about a week to process us out of there. They called us for K-P one morning at 4:30 am. I was an E-4 so I figured they would have me do a head count when everyone came in that morning. The Sergeant marched us over there and the door was locked. We knocked several times but no one would let us in. We walked around the building and could see people inside working. We found another door and knocked on it but no one came. The Sergeant dismissed us and told us to go back to the barracks. All we could think of was someone got their wires crossed and called two groups to K-P duty at the same time and the other group got there first. We got the day off.

When we were processing out they had to do blood tests on us. They put us in a room and had us sit on chairs in a big semi-circle. There were about 28 of us. They had a syringe, needle, tube, and a plastic bag. They plunged a needle into our arms and let the plastic bag hang from the needle while it filled up with blood. The plastic bag was about the size of a sandwich bag. Then they popped the needle out. It was sure a strange way to draw blood. I had never seen it done like that before; don’t want to see it done that way again either. There were about a half dozen of us going back to Massachusetts and one of the guys had a car. We all chipped in for the gas and he drove us home. He dropped me off in Worcester. I took a Greyhound bus from Worcester to Pittsfield where my girlfriend and future wife at the time lived. The bus driver dropped me off right on the corner. They usually are only supposed to drop you off at the station but since I was a soldier in uniform he dropped me off at her corner and I walked to her house with my duffle bag.

At first I went back to work at the hospital as an orderly. Then I decided to go to college. I signed up for Business College in Fitchburg. Meanwhile I got engaged to Patricia Lawrence and married her on the 1st of June 1957. I found an apartment in Fitchburg, Worcester County. I had the GI bill to help pay for school and I had saved up enough money to buy all the furniture and appliances we needed. I got a part-time job at the Old Mill Restaurant in Westminster and worked there for two years while I was going to school. After I graduated from Business College I went to work for Leominster Savings and Loan association as assistant treasurer. Accounting was backwards for me there. In a bank, a loan was

10 considered an asset rather than a liability. From there, I went to work for a plastics company also in Leominster. After that I went to work at Simonds Saw and Steel Company where I worked for several years. I was doing well there but they were not particular generous with the wages.

I had learned to program computers and there was a big demand for programmers at that time. Someone convinced me to go look for another job. I went to Boston to a head hunter and they sent my resume out to different companies. When my former boss who had left Simonds and Saws earlier found out I was looking for something new he hired me to work for Polaroid Cooperation where he was working. I worked there about twelve years doing more systems analysis instead of computer programming. I enjoyed that work. The slump in the economy started to hit and there wasn’t much opportunity for advancement.

There was another company, Digital Equipment Cooperation that was building computers like gang- busters and hiring like crazy. People I knew who worked there said, “You need to come work for us. It’s a great place to work.” So I finally submitted my resume and got a job offer in financial systems. Another friend I had who worked in their engineering department wanted me to come work there to implement a quality cost system. I thought that sounded like more fun than what I was doing so I transferred there for a few months. They decided to disband that department so I found another job in the company and it was going well until the company started down-sizing. At that point the company employed 130,000 people and over the next few years they got rid of 100,000 before they went belly up. They had a good severance package if you volunteered to leave so I took it. It was 2 ¼ years before I found another permanent job again because the economy was so bad. This was in the 1990’s.

I got a temporary job as a consultant for Wang Computer Company but while I was there they went bankrupt. I went to work in the corporate offices of a retail company; Filene’s, doing EDP computer systems auditing. They owned a lot of retail stores but they were really stingy with their money. I was probably making 53% of what I was making at Digital. I got a call from a head hunter unsolicited. My boss had actually got the call and turned it over to me because he thought I would be interested, and I was. I filled out the resume and they were interested. They asked me how much I wanted and I told them. They called a few days later and said they were sorry to tell me but they didn’t want to hire me for what I wanted. They wanted to pay me $5000.00 a year more. Sold!

After working there for a while my boss there went to work for another company and took me with him. It was a raise and closer to home. After working there for a while I retired.

After I retired I said I could live anywhere I want. I had two children that went to school at BYU. We would visit them on our vacations. One of my sons worked part-time in the Roof Restaurant in the Joseph Smith Building in Salt Lake so I came out to visit and attend my son’s wedding. I liked Utah so my wife and I moved to Lehi in 2004; I lived with my son in Sandy while our house was being built.

I lived in Lehi for three years when my first wife died; December 21st, 2006. It didn’t take me long to realize that I didn’t like living alone. I went to Massachusetts to see my sister. She took me for a drive and we went to the cemetery so she could show me where everybody was buried; boy that was a real fun place to go after losing my wife. There was this big brown envelope on the floor of the car and I

11 kept kicking it with my feet. I reached down and asked her what it was for. She told me it was for Peggy and that she needed to take it to her sometime; Peggy was my sister’s ex-husbands sister. We went to deliver the envelope to Peggy. I hadn’t seen her for 40 years. Well, we hit it off. I asked her if she would like to come to Utah with me and get married.

She told me she would come out and try it for a couple of weeks. She didn’t know if she would like it because there are no trees. I told her I had six trees. She told me the only thing she remembered about Utah is when she got out of the Navy she drove through Utah and there were no trees there. She didn’t think she could stand it because there is nothing but trees in Massachusetts and she lived on 30 acres in the middle of a forest. She came out and we stayed with my son in Herriman. The next day I heard her talking on the phone to her sister and she said she was staying. I thought, “Wow!” So I married Margaret (Peggy) Lehoux Valcourt on October 27, 2007. So Peggy is my sister’s ex-sister-in-law and now her sister-in-law again. My sister’s ex-husband is now her brother-in-law. We’ve continued to live in Lehi ever since.

I am the father of eight children; Judy, David, Brenda, Keith, Kevin, Michael, Matthew, and Carlton II. I am the step-father of three children Lance, Laurie, and Travis.

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Glen Nielsen Interviewed by Judy Hansen June 2015

My parents were Sylvia Hansen and Heber Lavel Nielsen. My parents divorced when I was about twelve years old and they both remarried. I was born December 2nd, 1930 in the Provo hospital but when I was young we moved from Provo to the east bench north of where the Mt. Timpanogas temple is in American Fork. That was the old Hansen homestead. We were four miles from the town of American Fork and we didn’t have a car; we had a team of horses. A lot of the neighbors around there were like that. I lived there until I was about ten years old and then we moved to American Fork on 5th North and 277 East. I lived there until I got married. I graduated from American Fork High School in 1948. I was drafted August 14, 1951. There were eight of us from American Fork that got drafted together. The ones I remember were Ern Hindley, Glade Stiner, Bob Nelson, a Pulley kid, a Jackmen that went through but they declared him a 4-F1. He had a hernia. I had a large hernia so I didn’t think that I would get drafted but the doctor I got checked me over and said, “You’ll be fine to go into the service.” I said, “What about that hernia doc?” And he said, “They’ll take care of it for you in the Army.” Ern Hindley had one eye. He got hit in the eye with a baseball and he didn’t think he’d get drafted but they drafted him too. We were inducted into the Army at Fort Douglas. They swore us in and we were there just overnight. They put us on the trains and sent us to Fort Lewis, Washington where we were issued all our clothing. We packed everything in our duffle bags and they put us on the train and sent us down to Camp Roberts, California. It is inland between San Francisco and Los Angeles. That is the worse place I was at the entire two years I was in the Army. It was so hot there. We had basic where we had to run in from the rifle ranges that were maybe four miles out and it was so hot kids toppled over with heat stroke. Even our Captain that was in the orderly room, when some of these Lieutenants would run us in, he would come out and get rid of them because he said he was raised in that country and he couldn’t stand that heat so he knew us young guys couldn’t stand the heat with a pack and a rifle.

1 4-F (US military), is a military classification for candidates found to be unfit for military service after formal examination. Class 4F meant you had one or more medical conditions which totally disqualified you from serving in uniform.

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My hernia bothered me quite a bit there but I wasn’t going to go in and take care of it because I was trying to stay with my buddies (he laughs) but we all got divided up and they told me everywhere I trained that I was going to Korea. Korea was going pretty strong in 1951. I got lucky. I was pulled out with about fourteen other guys and sent to Wisconsin where I was attached to the 5th anti-aircraft battalion guard unit that got activated and was being sent to Germany. We had 40 mm and quad-fifty machine guns. That is what they used during the 2nd world war and we were using them at this time. Our purpose when we went to Germany was to defend a bridge that crossed the Rhein River. If the war broke out with Russia they had to get the dependents across that bridge over into France and get them out of there. There was quite a bit of trouble with Russia at that time in Berlin over the Berlin Wall. The Russians were shooting Germans that were trying to escape. We were pretty nervous that something would break loose out there because we were outnumbered by the Russians. They had more troops than we did. Every time something broke lose in Berlin we were put on alert to go down, set up our guns, and defend that bridge. We were outside Wiesbaden, Germany and it was close to Frankfurt. I read they have a big hospital in Wiesbaden where they bring the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan that are injured. We still maintain quite a presence in Germany. I was so fortunate to get sent to Germany because Germany was such a beautiful country. There is so much to see and do there. When I went into the service the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints gave us a packet. We had a Book of Mormon, a songbook, and they gave us a small directory that we could carry in our shirt pocket that listed where they held all the church meetings throughout the world. I was fortunate to get stationed in Wiesbaden. There was one other LDS fellow in the 5th Anti- aircraft battalion; Sheldon Law that went to church with me. We had Captain Savage from Ogden that was our church leader. He had to fly somewhere every month to get his flying hours in. He would come to church, tell us when he was going, and tell us to get our passes to come and go on the plane with him. I got to go to France and Algiers, Africa with him. I was scheduled to go to Greece but I got to come home a month early because I hadn’t used my furlough. They also gave us this LDS dog tag (as he shows it to me) that says, “I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In case of injury notify member.” We couldn’t wear it in basic training. The catholic boys couldn’t were their crosses, a ring, or anything with their dog tags. On our dog tags it has our blood type and our religion. They wouldn’t let us have LDS on our dog tags. They just put an ‘X’ for other. They had ‘P’ for Protestant, ‘C’ for Catholic. You always had to have your dog tags on you for identification. I couldn’t wear my LDS tag in basic training but after I got to Germany they let us wear it

2 on our dog tags. The church meant so much to me in the service because I always had something to do. They even respected that I went to church on Sunday mornings and I had a pass. One time we were going to fire up in Grafenwöhr. They told us no one could get off because we had to go fire. When Sheldon and I went to church we told Captain Savage that we couldn’t go to conference with the missionaries and servicemen because we had to go fire on that date. Captain Savage said, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it.” We told him not to get us into trouble and he said we wouldn’t be in any trouble (he laughs). Here came a letter down from the Chaplains office telling the battalion commander that this conference was going on that day and the Chaplains office wanted us to attend that conference. I was up on the 4th floor of the barracks and my battery officer, he had never come up to our room whereas I was a cook, he just left us alone up there; Well, where he got that letter he come up to the room and said, “Nielsen, you’re going to a LDS conference in Frankfurt.” I told him, “Sir, I’ll go fire that’s all right.” He said, “You’re not listening to me, I said you’re going to that conference.” So when Sheldon and I got to the conference with Captain Savage we had a two star General come from the chaplain’s office. Of course he wasn’t LDS but he praised all the LDS servicemen. He said, “You men are doing what we want you to do. You’re mingling with the German people. You’re working with their children and you are good public relations for us. Anytime you have a church function or have anything to do with the German people we want you to let the Army know because you are to be off to go to these things. If you need to, contact the Chaplains office and we will take care of it. You’re not out fighting with the people in town and drinking, you’re doing what we wished the other guys would do. You’re working with the German people.” He really praised us. We did do those kinds of things. We tried to coach little soccer teams. If we ever needed to give those kids a treat or something the mess hall was open to us. We could take them there and give them ice cream. They looked up to us because we were working with the German people. It made my time in the service enjoyable. I love Germany and I would sure like to go back and go to my old barracks to stand in the doorway and have my picture taken. There are a lot of memories there. I think the camp I was in, Camp Pieri in Wiesbaden probably has been turned over to the German army now. When I first went into Germany I was a truck driver and pulled a 40 mm gun. You were responsible for that gun and the truck you were driving. I had to go to ordinance once time and pick up a gun that needed some work done on the wheel bearings. When I was pulling it back to Camp Pieri I lost a front wheel. I was on cobblestone road and it was raining. You couldn’t see that gun behind the truck; the truck was so big with that canvas cover. The German’s on the sidewalk would point and point. I wondered what was wrong. I finally turned a sharp corner and I could see that gun was tipped down and the front wheel had come off of it (he laughs). I pulled over right then and we were able to call on a phone to the camp and they came out with a wrecker and hooked onto the gun. We never found the wheel that came off. They tried to get me to pay for that gun because I was responsible for it. I had volunteered to go to cook school and was down in Stuttgart, Germany for eight weeks to learn to be a cook. When I got back and checked into the clerk’s office they told me I had to go to headquarters. When I got there they had paperwork for me to sign to pay for that gun (he laughs). That meant I would have to stay in the service. They said I’d get rank advancements and wouldn’t notice any pay cuts. That is what

3 they used to get us to be more conscientious and take care of things. They agreed with me that Ordinance was responsible for that gun because they didn’t put a cotter kit back in to hold the wheel on. It wasn’t my responsibility so I didn’t have to take care of that gun. When I released to come home that gun was sitting in the corner of the gun park. They never fixed it. It was obsolete because missiles were coming out. I really enjoyed being a cook. We cooked for 3,500 men in a new mess hall. We had German KP’s. All the soldiers wanted $2.00 a month taken out of their pay to give the German civilian men and women jobs working in our kitchen. They washed all the trays. The cooks washed some of the pots and pans that we cooked with but that was all. We didn’t have to peel spuds. The German women would peel all our spuds. The German’s did the bulk of taking care of it because the G.I.’s didn’t want to pull KP. They would rather pay the $2.00 a month. We had a lot of German’s working in our mess hall. Our pay was $75.00 a month and when I was made a Corporal I was making $121.50 a month. If I had signed up for another six years in the Army like my friend did I would have made Sargent and my pay would have went up quite a bit better. If you were a Sargent or above you could have a wife over there and draw extra pay. You could even live off post and have an apartment. There were a lot of guys over there that had their wives with them. When we had church activities we’d be just a regular church group. We had parties and there was always something to do to make the time pass. I was active going to church and they respected that. I was always off on Sunday even though we would cook one day on and one day off. I could trade because there were kids that wanted to be off Saturday night. They would trade with me so I could have Sundays off all the time. I could get off for activities that we had during the week, all I had to do was tell the mess Sargent when I wanted to be off and they would arrange it. I was discharged around the 15th of July 1953. I was only in the Army for 23 months because you got furlough and if you didn’t take your furlough time off then you could get out early. Me and my buddies knew this so we didn’t take our furlough time and got out together. I regret that I didn’t take a little furlough time and go to Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; some of those places I was so close to. I went across the ocean on troop ship. It took ten days and you are crammed in there like sardines. You are in bunks seven high. Going over I was in a top bunk and coming home I was on the very bottom bunk right down on the floor. I couldn’t turn over because the guy that was above me sunk down so close to me that I would have to slide out to get into a different position. The top bunk was the best but it all worked out fine. They have rooms in those troop ships and all there is are bunks. They fold up against the wall to clean the ship out. On the way over we landed at Bremerhaven, Germany. The Atlantic Ocean is rough because of the storms and those troop ships are not as big as you would think they would be. They really rock up and down. We’d have storms going across and the ship would just shake when the propellers would come out of the water when the ship dipped down into the ocean. We couldn’t get on deck because it was chained off and the doors were locked or there was a guard on the doors. You couldn’t go out or you would get washed off the ship. When it

4 was a smooth day we could all be out on top of the deck and look out over the ocean. They do have some big storms going across the Atlantic. My buddy Sheldon Law was sick the whole ten days. As soon as we pulled out on the ocean he got sick and didn’t eat. He lost 30 pounds going over. He couldn’t keep a thing down even though they gave him pills for sea-sickness. I’d take him oranges and soda crackers; stuff like that from the mess hall. They would stay down just a little while and it would all come back up (he laughs). It was a fun experience coming across on the ship. Sheldon and I went over and came back together. He was sick both ways from that motion sickness. Down in those room when we’d have storms it was quite an experience. I spent twenty days of my military service crossing the ocean. We went pass the White Cliffs of Dover. We could see where some of the battleships from WWII were sunk in the English Channel. I was there six years after WWII ended and it looked like they intentionally left all the areas that were bombed out. You could go up above a city on a hill and you could see where those planes went through those cities and wiped out railroad stations, railroad tracks, and buildings. There was just a path through the cities. The cities were bombed that bad. They built out around to re-build but they hadn’t built that much. Germany was still trying to get on their feet and the people didn’t make much money. Us GI’s had quite a bit of money compared to the German people. They were poor people. They rustled what little bit of wood they could get to cook their food. They couldn’t cut anything green in their forests so they would pick up the dry stuff. You’d see a bike coming down the road and it would look like a bush. Those guys could tie those old dry twigs around on the bikes and they would be inside the twigs peddling the bike. They have a lot of forests in Germany. You could see how bad WWII damaged that country. Have you ever been told what that notch is in a dog tag (as he holds up his dog tag)? When you find another soldier that is dead you are supposed to take one of his dog tags off, you have two dog tags, and put it between his teeth and take the butt of the rifle and drive it up in so he can be identified. The enemy likes to get the dog tags because they like to get the names of the soldiers that are killed. War is terrible. I feel so sorry for those guys that are over in Iraq and Afghanistan – it is a bad, bad war. Vietnam was terrible and Korea was really a bad war. I’ve talked to my buddies and they tell me Korea wasn’t anything like what they went through in Vietnam. This war over there now has so many of the veterans that have mental problems that they have psychiatrists in the hospital to try and help them. It has completely changed. When I went in the Army it was the cold war with Russia. We were just occupational troops to show a presence there. We would defend Germany if Russia started anything and Russia sure acted up until Reagan got Gorbachev to knock down the Berlin Wall and free Germany, East Germany the Russian sector. We were in the West, the American Sector. Of course the English, the French, and Americans all worked together but Russia was more difficult. When I was drafted you just went in and accepted your duty and did your job. There was only a few National Guard activated like the one I went in as a replacement troop. Today the guard gets

5 activated and has to go. They have a lot of married men and they didn’t do that so much back then. The Lehi guard or the American Fork guard never got activated back then. After we got into the military a lot of my buddies and I said we should have joined the guard (he laughs) and stayed home. I was buying a new car and had a girlfriend and hated going into the service but it was an experience that I am so glad I was in for two years. I was fortunate that they took me into the service. The military said they would take care of our health and our needs. The VA hospital in Salt Lake City is keeping me seen because of my wet macular degeneration. They give me shots in my eyes every month and this has been going on for three years. By putting the shot in my eye it makes it so the macular doesn’t weep and I am able to have my eyesight and still have a driver’s license. I’m 84 years old and I really appreciate how the hospital in Salt Lake City had treated me. That’s my hospital. I started going there over forty years ago and it is an excellent hospital. They give us very good care there and so it was good for me that I did go into the service. When I was driving truck and loading fire on the 40 mm guns it damaged my hearing and I wear hearing aids because of it. The VA pays for my hearing aids. They can tell by hearing tests why you have hearing loss on the job you had in the service. While I was in the Army I got to travel a lot and see a lot of country. That made it very nice. I was so fortunate because all my friends went to Korea and when I was writing to them there wasn’t much to do in Korea compared to what we had in Germany. It was a good experience going in there for two years and I am glad I did because of the opportunities it has given me. I have been a member of the American Legion for fifty years and there is a nice bunch of active guys in the American Legion here in Lehi. Four years after I got home from the Army I married Connie Kirkham from Lehi. We married in 1957 and she moved me to Lehi and we have lived here 60 years. We have five children; Bruce, Sandy, Julie, Bill, and Emily. Emily is here with us now and her new little baby 18 months old and we sure have fun with her (he laughs).

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Donald Stafford Palmer By Don and DeAnn Palmer

My name is Donald Stafford Palmer, I served in the United States Air Force from January 1956 to September 1959.

I was born in Williston, North Dakota, October 6th, 1936. I am the son of Elbert Henry Palmer and Susie Amanda Morkve Palmer. I have three sisters: Bernice, Betty, and Alice.

We loved our home in Williston, however it was always cold. My father, being a great handy man, made cement tulips to adorn our sidewalk. He painted them various colors to lively up the front yard. (Last time we visited, there were still there). Great memories growing up there.

In 1946 my father was heavily involved in raising mink. There was a great market for the pelts at that time however; the feed was not easily assessable and producing it by yourself was not practical or profitable. After a lot of consideration, my parents decided to come to Utah where there was a mink cooperative that produced the feed they needed. They chose to live in Lehi. The purchased five acres located about 380 East and 400 North. A lot of their property was later purchased by the state, to make the overpass road going to Lehi High School.

I was 10 years old when we moved to Lehi, Utah and I wondered what it would be like and if I would be accepted. I remember being the only non LDS boy in the school. However, everyone treated me well and friends were quickly made and friendships have lasted throughout our lives.

I loved my school years in Lehi. I was fortunate enough to play on the basketball, football and baseball teams and served as a Student Body Officer. I had a great time in school and enjoyed my teachers and remember the fun filled days. I especially remember Mr. E.N. Pearson, my wood shop teacher. I learned so much from him and decided to become a industrial arts teacher also.

I remember the fun times I had in my senior year at Lehi High. Each High School in the district had a traveling assembly. In my senior year I had the opportunity to be the MC for the assembly and we had the opportunity to present it to every school in the region. It was great fun, we were able to meet many kids in other schools and we thought life was wonderful!

I graduated from Lehi High School in 1954. I decided to attend Utah State University in Logan, Utah. Many of my friends decided to attend there also. Glade Peterson, Lewis Berry, Cary Peterson, Gary Evans. Great friends. When we came home or a weekend, we would car pool together. Lewis Berry’s mother would send a delicious caramel cake with us to eat when we returned to our apartment. It rarely made it there. It was so good; we couldn’t wait to eat it. I was working toward a degree in history, education, and administration.

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While I loved my time at college and was having great fun, however; I also felt the need to do something else. My father has served in the Army during world war! Many relatives served valiantly during their lives and I felt that maybe that was something I should do. I always had a love for our country, my parents made sure of that, and I began to think I needed to grow up a little. By the end of my 5th quarter of school, I made my decision. I went home and talked it over with my parents. I wanted to join the Air Force. With their consent and blessing I left Utah State University behind me and went to the “Fort Douglas Enlistment Center” in Salt Lake City. I enlisted in the Air Force for four years. I felt it was something I needed to do. Within a few days—I met up with my assigned group, got on a train headed to “Parks Air Force Base” near Oakland, California. The airmen I was with was all from Utah or Idaho. It didn’t take long on the train before I wondered “what did I get myself into?” No more fun - forever! It was a very L O N G ride to California. Seriously though, there was also a sense of pride and I still knew I was doing the right thing. Yes, I was a little worried, a little insecure and a little scared–but– I was doing the right thing.

I was lucky to be with this great group of young men for a few weeks. Boot camp is a training place - that’s it. It seemed like it rained every day during our training. Enough that many of the men became ill. I happened to be one of them. I came down with a good case of pneumonia. I was sent to the base hospital and was there for some time.

I remember well the orderly, nick named the vampire. Let’s just say, he wasn’t the best trained, or maybe not the most talented in obtaining blood samples, which we had at once a day. We dreaded his visit more than our illness. Several attempts to “find a good vein” was not uncommon, and he was not gentle, therefore the nickname. One day during the vampire visit, I heard a big thump next to me. My friend in the next bed passed out and hit the floor. (Probably trying to escape) Anyway it was quite a teasing point from then on.

Because I was detained in the hospital, I was not allowed to ship out with my original group of airmen. I was really sad about that, they were great guys and we got along really well. By the time I was released I was attached to another group to finish my training. This was not so good. There were to divisions among them. One was all the men from Watts, California. They were big and black and mean. The other part were Scandinavians from Minneapolis, Minnesota also big, white and just as tough. I did not fit into either group.

There were fights in the Latrine every night, I guess it was their nightly entertainment. All I could do was pull the covers over my head and never took sides in the confrontations. They broke that latrine more than once, they were always in trouble. I was happy just to get through that time. I was excited when I received my orders. I was soon on my way to my assigned base. AMARILLO, TEXAS AIR FORCE BASE.

I boarded a C-47 plane. It was a rickety old thing. I wondered if it was going to make it. It took a full day to get to Texas. We left California and proceeded to Winslow, Arizona. We got off the plane there and I remember how bleak it was. There was nothing but sagebrush and tumbleweeds. They gave us something to eat and drink and loaded us back on the plane for the remainder of the trip.

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When we got to Amarillo they assigned us our barracks. I remember it was night and it seemed like there was about ½ inch of dirt on the bed. That was an experience I’ve just never forgot. We shook off the dust and went to bed. The next morning we started our training. For me, it was mechanics. That was the area I tested high in. I went to work on F-86 D planes. They were single engine jet fighters, with a radar nose. The F-86 D plane looked like it had a nose on it, but that area was filled with the radar equipment.

While attending training classes, they looked into my record and saw I had attended college and was interested in becoming a teacher. An officer approached me and said they needed some help over in the B47 school. They were retraining airmen into the mechanics field. He asked me if I was interested in helping with that. I said “sure”. I was happy about the offer as I was under orders to be sent to Japan to be a crew chief working on single engine jets. I was happy to stay in Amarillo. I did not have a lot of training on the B47 up to that time, but I had to learn it fast.

They sent me to bomber school and gave me a 13 day crash course on injection seats, fuel systems, hydraulic systems, you name it and I had to do it.

At the time I was an airman, not an officer. When I started my new assignment, I found out I was teaching college graduates and civilian employees with many years’ experience. I was teaching fourteen different systems on the B-47, which was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. Everyone treated me great and if I ever needed help they would come and assist me. It was an experience for a YOUNG airman to be teaching Master Sergeants and Technical Sergeants about the B-47 airplanes and the maintenance that needed to be done on them.

Some funny things happened while serving in Amarillo. One day as we were out for Armed Services day, the traditional “fly over’s were scheduled and the band was playing, everyone was happy. All the airmen were standing at attention, waiting for the “pass and review”. Some pilots came in on some F-84's, which were just like a stove pipe with wings on it. It is an old. Old, jet, left over after the Korean war. Well, two of them came in just perfect and taxied around to the assigned spot. Here comes the third pilot and were all standing there watching. He goes right off the end of the runway and snags the security fence that guards the base from route 66, the national highway. He drags this fence, until it’s finally to heavy and he comes to a stop. Then you see this canopy jettisons and flies off and goes sailing through the air. The pilot jumps out and runs about fifty yards, stops and looks at the plane. Of course we’re at attention and trying to maintain some decorum in the ranks, but it just wasn’t possible. We were all laughing so hard. I’ll never forget that Officer running out there looking at his jet with all the fence hanging off the wings. I bet someone got reprimanded for that.

Another time we were on parade. I hated parades and standing for hours. I think it was another Armed Services parade. I must have borrowed somebody’s hat for some reason I can’t remember. As we were standing at attention the officer came by, looked at me and said “you don’t look right Airman. What hat have you got on?” I said “I got the best hat I could find” “that hat is too small and it sticks up there and puts his hands up past his ears - It’s terrible” he said, “come with me, fall out” So I went over around the corner of the hanger and He said “We don’t need you today so go home” I was so happy I didn’t have to stand out on the tarmac for a

3 half day or more. It was a good choice.

While on leave in 1956, I met a beautiful girl (on a blind date). Helen DeAnn Palmer. We dated and corresponded when I returned to Texas. We decided to get married upon my next leave in 1957.We were married on August 2nd 1957 in Lindon, Utah. We stayed in Salt Lake for our one night honeymoon and the next morning went to her parents home to gather up our gifts and belongings. DeAnn seemed to think we had more time, at least a day or two, but to her surprise, and dismay, we were headed to Amarillo that day. She cried most of the way. We had a old Ford car and we always wondered it is was really going to get us all the way to Texas.

Two young people, far away. One car, which I had to use to get to the base. We lived on the 2nd floor of a home. It was owned by two older ladies, they lived on the first floor. They were Christian Scientists and true believers. However one of them was quite ill and would cry all day when her sister left her alone. Since they did not believe in Doctors, there was nothing DeAnn could do to help her. It was very interesting.

We did not make much money during our stay in the Service. DeAnn received $91.30 and I got some where around $$50.00 every two weeks .We hocked my Elgin watch so many times just to make it through the month. DeAnn washed my fatigues and shirts in the tub and ironed them perfectly. We could not afford to have them sent to the cleaners. It was very difficult. We learned to depend on each other and go without many things. But we were no different than most of the others there. We had to pull together which is a good thing for young married couples. We would not want to do it again though, but we did it and made it through. It was quite an experience. We found out that we were going to have a baby and were happy but DeAnn was very sick and being alone did not help.

They closed B-47 school down around late in the Fall of 1958 as I remember. I received orders to report to the Mc Connell, S-A-C base in Wichita, Kansas. We loaded up our little clunker car and headed for Wichita. There we found a cute little apartment located on top of a garage. The roads in our area were rec brick. It was really beautiful, in a nice neighborhood. DeAnn was still having problems.

This was a “Strategic Air Command- base. Therefore, we did not know when we left the house in the morning if we would be home at 5 pm or 7 pm or not at all that night and we were not allowed to make any calls. This was hard on DeAnn, she was alone a lot of the time.

I was assigned to the flight line again, doing engine repairs etc. We did all types of stuff out there and I had to work a lot at night, it was spooky for DeAnn.

There was also some down time at the base. When working the day shift, we would gather at noon to play volleyball in the hanger. There were six bombers in the hanger. The bombers had a canopy like a fighter would have. The canopy opened upward like a hinge. One particular day all six were lined up in the hanger. We still had plenty room to play volley ball. Somehow the ball got spiked too hard, it hit the floor, bounced up and hit the handle of the Emergency water lever which opens up all water spouts in the hanger. We could hear the gears grinding and just looked at each other and saw the water going through the canopy and down the ladder that was

4 used to get into the airplane. It looked like we were standing in six inches of water. Immediately it looked like Niagara Falls. The airplanes were just soaked. OH MAN did we get in trouble. That ended the volleyball in the hanger. It’s a wonder we all survived.

I had made two really good friends, Bill Moeller and Dale Petersen. Bill had a gift of gab and could talk his way into anything. He had given a plush job of overseer of the Officer’s swimming pool. They were L.D.S and good guys. Bill asked me if would like to work at the pool - right? He pulled some strings and there I was - at the pool. This was in 1959. My last summer in the Air Force. We had a great time.

Although I did not serve in war time. I did not carry a gun nor did I save any lives. I do know the work that I did kept pilot’s safe and we were ready and able to be activated if necessary. I am proud to have been in the Air Force. I love this country. I know it was founded under the inspiration of our Heavenly Father. It is my hope that everyone will pray for the safety and freedom of this great nation. THE GREATEST NATION IN THE WORLD !

On the base there were designated days for the airmen to see the doctors and days for the family members to be seen. On February 22nd 1958 DeAnn started to have problems. It was a day that was primarily for the servicemen. When we got to the hospital we had to wait. DeAnn thought she could wait a little longer, but as luck would have it. Our little son was born far too early, and only lived for a few moments. DeAnn was not doing very well and did not get to see our little son. It was very sad, it was hard for us. It was also sad for our Doctor that could not save his life. He was just too small, about 2 1/4 lbs. Today, with all the modern techniques we have available and the great doctors, our little son could have made it, However, there is another part to this story.

As I was not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I did not know who to call for help. I was lost, I didn’t know what to do or where to begin. DeAnn was always faithful in the gospel and though she could not help, told me who to call. It was President T. Bowring Woodbury, President of the Central States Mission and the Branch President: Brother Bryant. They were wonderful. They helped me with everything including the grave side service. DeAnn was not able to attend, she was still in the hospital. It was very difficult and sad for her - and for me.

I did not know these fine men before, however; as difficult and sad as the circumstances were It was the beginning of something special and wonderful in my life. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was taught the gospel by President T. Bowring Woodbury of the Central States Mission, Wichita, Kansas. I was baptized a few months later, in 1958.in Wichita, Kansas. I love the Gospel!

I filed for early release in order to attend Brigham Young University. I wanted to attend the fall semester. It was granted early release and we were able to come back to Lehi in late summer of 1959 . I entered B.Y.U and graduated three years later. I taught in Murray Jr. High School and also worked on my Masters degree, which I received in 1968 from B.Y.U. in History, Industrial Education and Administration.

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As I mentioned before President Woodbury taught me the gospel, the plan of Salvation. I knew it was true and I have been faithful and carried a position in the church since that time. I have served in most positions in the ward, including Bishop. I, along with my wife have served a part time mission in the Central States Mission, 5 years at the Missionary Training Center, served on the temple committee for the Mount Timpanogos Temple during the construction, helping with the organization for the open house - tours. We were asked if we would like to take the first group through the temple. It was a marvelous experience and blessing, what an opportunity. We work on our genealogy. We have served a mission in Ireland, and served as a mission couple for the seminary. We served in the temple for a few years and continue to serve where we are asked. Our five daughters have been married to good men in the temple and raising children in the gospel. What more can we ask for?

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Dennis Schiess Interviewed by Judy Hansen January 2015

I was born December 11, 1940 in Provo, Utah to Daniel and LaRita Schiess. We lived there and I attended school until the sixth grade. My mother and father divorced after he came out of the US Navy serving in WWII. Mother remarried Joe Colledge so we moved to Lehi down by the Jordan River on his farm. It was straight west down 1500 North by the Oxborrow Farm that was run by three brothers: Tom, Jack, and Joe. I have two sisters that live here in Lehi, Deann who married Arnie Cardon, and Nancy Bond who lives over on fifth west. I have one half- brother living in Clearfield, Gaylon Joe Colledge.

I attended Jr. High in Lehi and to the 11th grade at Lehi High. I wanted to quit high school at seventeen. I went down and tried to join the Navy. I filled out the paperwork and all I needed was my mother’s permission but it never got that far. The recruiter said, “Whoa, this is not going to happen. I’ve got you all set up but you’re going to go back and finish high school first.” I was so adamant to quit school that I told him I would go and join the Army instead. This recruiter talked me out of it. Later on, the recruiters came over to the old Lehi High School and this same man was there. He asked me how I was doing in High School and I told him I think I might make it. I was having some problems so I went to live with my Uncle in Blanding Utah and graduated from San Juan High School. That was quite a shock. I thought Lehi was a pretty quiet town until I got to Blanding. Blanding is pretty darn quiet.

I finish High School in Blanding and came back to Lehi. I thought about going back and joining the Navy but I changed my mind and decided jumping out of airplanes in the Army would be better. I went down to join the Army. I had to walk right by the old post office building in Provo. That was where the line was for the Navy recruiter. As I walked by, three guys from Lehi were standing in line ready to join the Navy: Jesse Cardon, Dick Watkins, and Loil Dubois. I changed my mind again and decided I would join with them. When I got in, there was a different recruiter than the one I had worked with so I told him I had been in before. He pulled my file and said, “We don’t have to do anything, you’re ready!” The four of us joined and a day or two later they took us to Fort Douglas, swore us in, put us on a bus to the airport, and then flew us to San Diego, California by Western Airlines1. I went in July 6, 1959.

1 In 1987 Western Airlines merged with Delta Airlines.

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They discovered Jesse Cardon had some medical problems so they sent him home. Dick Watkins was on the same ship I was on for the entire four years, and Loil Dubois went back east to Norfolk, Virginia.

My new life began at the San Diego Naval Training Station. We spent three or four months in basic training. They whipped us into shape. I couldn’t believe how many of these men didn’t know how to swim. They would take us up on a high dive to teach us how to jump off a ship deck. If someone didn’t jump they got pushed. Everyone knew how to swim within a week. They made healthy people out of us but they also taught us how to do for ourselves. We had to learn to wash our own clothes as well as everything else we would need to do in life. They taught us in a way we wouldn’t forget (he laughs). A lot of people thought it was harsh, but it wasn’t harsh it was just basic training. They tried to make men out of a bunch of boys. They shaved all our hair off and we started new. From that day on we were theirs. You do as your told, when your told, and there are no two ways about it. If you don’t like it you can run, but if you run you’re going to get caught, then you’re in big trouble. When you go AWOL things happen and that is not a good thing to do. It was miserable for the first little while but you get used to it because it really was just a routine. We went to the exercise field, paraded, marched, and done all kinds of dumb things. Then we went to classrooms and learned anything and everything that has to do with the Navy, military, justice; the whole thing. When we got out we had a pretty good understanding of what was going on. Then they assigned us to our next duty station.

Right after boot camp I had a two week leave so I came home to Lehi. On the way back I had developed an ear infection and I ended up going to the USS Haven; which was a hospital ship that was ported in Long Beach. I’d never had anything hurt that bad in my entire life. They had to do surgery and ended up lancing my ear. It took a long time for it to heal and it was always draining.

I had been assigned to the U.S.S. Bremerton. It was named after Bremerton, Washington and was a heavy cruiser. When I showed up to catch it in Long Beach California it was being decommissioned; put out of service. So we sit in Long Beach for a long time. They would assign us different things; go out on destroyers and different cruises but we always came back to Long Beach until they found a home for us. I remember this whole time my ear continued to give me problems.

They finally put us on a train in Los Angeles to Seattle. I think I could have walked faster than that train went. It took forever to get there. I had a really hard time during that ride because of my ear. The ship we were supposed to go to fell through so they put us on a carrier that was sitting in dry dock. They ended up taking us off that ship and moved us over onto the U.S.S. Point Defiance. That is where I stayed for most of my sea-going life; and there I went, sailing, sailing, over the bounding main!

I had been waiting to get into several schools but they never did open up. After I got onto the USS Point Defiance this guy came down and told me that I should just get out of this waiting mess and go to Q Division; which is Quartermaster Division or navigation in the Navy. He told

2 me there were a lot of openings there and I would be able to make rank so I transferred into N- Division. They sent me to striker school that was only a week or two long. They taught me the very basics about navigation, fathoms, and how to navigate by the stars. I was a quartermaster. Once I actually got into the job I found it was a lot more complicated than what they had taught me.

My focus from then on out was navigation. We were part of the 7th fleet. I worked with the Navigation Department and I’d help them plot courses and shoot stars. Every night we would go up and use their sextants to measure the stars. Then we would go down and put little X’s together on all the charts to figure out where we were sitting in that big ol’ Pacific Ocean. There was one Navigator on ship but several Quartermasters. At every port we went into we would have to pull out the chart for that port and make sure it was correct. The US Geographic Survey in Clearfield, Utah would send us information, charts, and everything we needed. We had to go in and find buoys’, reefs, or whatever and mark them into the chart. We also ran the Helm. They would train some of the Quartermasters as Helmsmen who would sit and steer the ship; but everybody had to take their turn because there wasn’t enough Helmsmen to cover 24 hours a day. We also cleaned the bridge areas and the chart rooms. There were charts; hundreds of thousands of charts that we had for places all over the world. There were charts for every sea, port, and ocean that we would have to use. A lot of it required a special clearance. This is basically what I done for four years.

Even though most of the time our home port was Long Beach, I don’t think there is any place in or around the South Pacific and Indian Ocean that I haven’t been close to. When we went on deployment we were gone for at least nine months at a time. We toured Japan, Korea, and Okinawa. US Navy WESTPAC; as they called it had a naval base in Yokosuko, Japan which is what they called home port when you were over there. We would go out and do exercises & patrols with other fleet ships. We would take LSD’s; landing cruises and land Marines and their equipment on the beaches of small islands. We also did experimental stuff. We done things the US government never told the American people we were doing. When the Vietnam War started they were flying sorties2 over there that nobody knew about.

We got orders one day to leave California and we went somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There were a lot of ships with us. We spent two or three days just steaming around in a big circle. One day when we were out in the middle of the ocean going around in circles; here came an airplane. We watched that airplane and pretty soon all these guys started jumping out of it. We sent out landing craft and picked them up. These guys had our orders; nobody knew where we were going until they arrived on our ship. That was when we ended up in Bangkok, Thailand. We went up there and unloaded all this stuff we had for a landing force. It was shortly afterwards the Vietnam War started. Our Government never told anybody that we were there. They wouldn’t allow us to take pictures going up into the Chao Phraya River. It rained so hard going up that river. We had to stop and drop the anchor because it rained so hard the radar wouldn’t navigate. I’ve seen monsoons but I’m telling you they really had monsoons there. We went in and unloaded everything we had on ship then we were out of there. They didn’t allow us to even go on shore. They wouldn’t tell us anything about what we were doing.

2 A deployment or dispatch of one military unit, be it an aircraft, ship, or troops, from a strongpoint. The sortie, whether by one or more aircraft or vessels, usually has a specific mission.

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To this day, I still don’t know much about that mission. I do know that the American public was kept in the dark at that time. They didn’t want people knowing what was really going on. In fact they sent me a letter after I got out and told me I could apply for a Vietnam Campaign Ribbon. I never did.

I remember I got a good conduct medal but I had to wait for it because I had gone AWOL once (Dennis laughs). I’ll tell you what happened. It was in the beginning of my military service. We were temporarily assigned to this carrier and we went into what they called X-Division. That is where they brought all the new people. These ships are massive; I mean they are BIG! People can’t find their way around on them so you go into an X-Division and they would teach you where to eat and all the different places on ship. It was all exciting. They had this Officer; a Lieutenant JG (Junior Grade) and he said, “We’re going to teach you guys about this ship but you haven’t got a full sea bag until you have a haircut like mine and you’ve gone AWOL.” Well, he was a bald as a cucumber. Me and some other guys figured we wasn’t going to get a haircut like him but we could sure go AWOL. We did! We wasn’t gone very long, we were just late getting back one night. It wasn’t like we took off on a trip. We were punished by being restricted to the ship with extra duties and it prevented us from getting a good conduct medal for a while.

Anyway, once we hauled this missile over the ocean to fire at the sun3. It cost over a million dollars. (Dennis laughs) We took that missile out and spent days getting it ready to go and at the precise moment they hit the switch, nothing happened. So we spent more time and done it all again, nothing happened. They decided it wasn’t going to work so they took it out and punched it full of holes and sunk it (He laughs). Some of the things our government does just blows your mind. When they were doing all the nuclear tests on the Atolls in the Pacific we were part of the guinea pigs that would go out to sit and wait. We’d go out there where there was nothing but bird dung and they’d see if it was adequate to have a bomb blast.

They had put a new attack submarine in service on the east coast; the USS Thresher, for its deep dive test but it never came back up. They had a bathysphere; a deep diving vehicle down in San Diego and we loaded it and took it over to the east coast to look for the USS Thresher. This bathysphere was a one or two man devise and they would get in it and ballast it with BB’s. We had so many 55 gallon drums of BB’s on board ship you couldn’t believe it. They would fill this bathysphere up with BB’s and it would submerge a long way; really deep in the water. It had big plastic windows and lights but they never did find any traces of the USS Thresher. They lost the entire 129 member crew. They figured there must have been some kind of flaw in the frame that collapsed under the pressure. They eventually sent us back to the west coast.

Toward the end of my military career ol’ Fidel Castro decided he wanted to conquer the world. They had a big announcement that our enlistments would be extended for one year and maybe longer. We went down the west coast of California through the Panama Canal as part of the Cuban crisis. I remember I ended up making four passes through the Panama Canal during my military service.

3 Point Defiance became one of the first rocket-launching surface ships to support the 1958 International Geophysical Year Solar Eclipse Expedition to the South Pacific. Launchers on deck fired eight Nike-Asp sounding rockets to collect scientific data during the eclipse. (wikipedia)

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Every vessel is different. When I was getting close to getting out I had an Executive Officer that had been stationed in New Zealand. For a long time they had ice breakers go down to the Antarctica and break ice. He told me that was an assignment I should go on. I tried to go but could never get transferred down there. They won’t even let the Navy in there anymore because of the nuclear vessels; if you’re a nuclear vessel you’re not getting into New Zealand.

When I was getting ready for discharge, the Navy wanted to send me to New London, Connecticut to submarine school. They had a lot of promises but I thought, “No – I want out of here.” I couldn’t get in to any school when I first got into the Navy because everything was full and now they were begging to put me in. They offer so many good schools that I tell these young guys that it’s crazy not to get into the military. I tell them to go for their six months and go to a meeting every weekend, and training every year and if they can put up with that for twenty-five or thirty years and get it all over and done their life is pretty easy after that. They never have to pay another medical bill; heck they don’t have to do anything. My brother-in-law Gary Evans tried to get me to go into the active reserves but I never did. I would have been a lot better off now if I had. I wouldn’t have had to pay medical bills and I would have had a little more retirement money. Oh well, you live and you learn!

I’ve done all kinds of wonderful things out there where they call the big ol’ Pacific Ocean. I would have never known any of those places I went to even existed except in a book. After having a chance of seeing how the other part of this world lives I’m dang glad to be home here in the United States; I’ll tell you that. I’m glad I live where I live because I know what those people have to go through to live. I know the freedoms we have that they don’t have. They can’t just jump in their car and run to the store – heck, a lot of those places they don’t even have cars. It is an eye-opening experience.

I’d been dating Marilyn Fox from Lehi since the seventh grade. Her parents didn’t know we were meeting at the show house up on State Street holding hands. Her dad got transferred to Colorado the year I went to Blanding but she was back living with her Aunt going to beauty school when I was home on leave. The second time I went home on leave I asked her to marry me and she said, “Yes.” Marilyn came to San Diego to an open house with a couple of her girlfriends while I was stationed there.

A Navy base can sponsor free open houses where the public can come in and tour the ships. If people are in the area and pass up an opportunity to attend one of these they are blowing the ball game; because it is worth doing. San Diego has a lot of them. They take the pubic on an open house in an aircraft carrier. You get on one of those aircraft carriers and they are so huge it still blows my mind how they can float. I know they are airtight and I understand the mechanics; but ships shouldn’t float on the water when they weigh 800,000 tons, but they do. When you’re on one of these open houses they give you a tour of the whole ship and it is worth the time. They take you through flight scenarios and do all kinds of things with you. The ships are just massive; a peace time crew on a carrier is probably around 5,000 men and during war time when they get a squadron on it can carrier up to 8,000 people. They’ve opened the USS Midway Museum in San Diego which is an aircraft carrier but you have to pay for that one. There are several other

5 ships they have turned into Museums; the USS Iowa in San Pedro, the USS Utah and USS Arizona in Hawaii, and the USS Intrepid in New York to name a few.

I was discharged after four years of active duty on July 1, 1963. In August of 1963 I married Marilyn. I had to stay in reserves for another two years but was never called. I was officially terminated on the 8th of July 1965 for a total of six years’ service.

I bounced around from job to job. I’ve lived in Lake Tahoe working in the casinos, Las Vegas where our children were born. I’ve worked labor, construction, and painting when I was younger but I ended up being a truck driver. I did that for a long-long time. I drove over the road for quite a while but I decided there had to be a better way to make ends meet so I transferred into the office and became the dispatcher/manager for Swift Transportation. We moved back to Lehi in 1968 and have been here ever since. I have three children; my sons Trent who lives in Lehi and Tracy who lives in Heber, and one daughter Teralin who lives in Grantsville,

It was all a new experience for a little farm kid from Lehi, Utah. I learned a lot in the military. I think every male alive should do some service in the military for their country. It is an experience they will never forget. There is also a pride that goes along with it. Veterans just have a different outlook on everything. If someone has served in the military they have a real tender spot in their heart for their country. I get emotional just talking about it (as he says with a tear in his eye). If I hear the National Anthem I become very emotional. That is something I acquired through my military experience. I would recommend the military for everybody. I think the draft was a good thing and I don’t think they should have ever stopped the draft. I think every male should have the responsibility to serve at least two years for their country. I really enjoyed my time in the military and was glad for the experience.

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Newell Brown Turner Jr. Interviewed by Judy Hansen April 2015

My name is Newell B Turner Jr and I was born in Salt Lake City July 30, 1922 to Newell B Turner Sr. and Mareda Poulson. I moved to Lehi in 1928 and went to school until the 11th grade. I quit school and joined the Civilian Conservation Corps then I finished High School the following year. I then went to work for the Lang company in Salt Lake City as a sheet metal worker helper.

The war came along and I was the first volunteer from Lehi. I tried to get into the Navy, but they wouldn’t take me because I was partial red/green color blind. They wouldn’t take me in the Marines, because I was deaf in one ear. Then they lowered the standards, from peace time to war time standard, so if you were warm (alive) you could get into any of the military. I joined the Army. I went to Fort Douglas. There were about 110 draftees and volunteers that went through that day, and every one of them wanted to go into the Air Force. They asked me what I wanted and I said the Calvary. They said, “We don’t have the Calvary anymore.” My dad was in the Calvary and I had thought that would be good but they said the Calvary was the tanks now. I told them that the Army was good enough for me. Then they found that I had been working in sheet metal up at the Lang Company and that was a critical military occupational specialty (MOS), so out of the 110 people that tried to get into the Air Force they only took three of us. I only had a high school education and some of them had two and three years of college. They put them in the Army and I went to the Air Force. It was the best move I ever made in my life because I’m sure some others didn’t make it all the way through the war.

I was 19 years old and I had to have my parents sign for me because I wasn’t old enough to sign for myself. I was sworn in December 12th, 1941. When they swore me in, the Captain told me to raise my right hand, and just then a Sergeant came running in with a piece of paper. The Captain read the paper and it said from now on instead of being enlisted for three years, which was the Army regular enlistment, you were enlisted for the duration of the war plus six months. So he said, “Soldier, you are the first one in the State of Utah to be sworn in for the duration of the war plus six months.” Everyone ahead of us had to sign up for three years. We laughed at

1 them when we got back to the barracks, “Hee-Hee you guys are going to be in for three years, and we’ll be out in a year because the war will be over” (he laughs).

They sent me to Sheppard field, Texas for basic training and that is the only place you can stand in mud to your knees and have sand blowing in your eyes. Then I went to Mobile, Alabama and from there I went to Columbus, Ohio to the Ohio Institute of Aeronautics at 340 East Broad Street. We stayed at the KofC1 Hall. I went to school for sixteen weeks and then I went back to Brookley Field in Mobile, Alabama. While in Mobile, I went to a café for lunch. The girl took our order and we waited and waited but no meal. I got the manager and asked him why the delay. The waitress told him, “I’m not serving no DAMNYANKEES”. That is the first time that I knew DAMNYANKEES was one word.

Basic training was a pain in the butt. Being in the Air Force we got the basic, but it wasn’t like the infantry where they got all the rifle training. We didn’t have rifles to train with, so they trained us with boards cut to look like rifles. When they finally got some rifles, we went out and shot five rounds into the ocean and that was our training with the rifle. They didn’t have ammunition and they didn’t have rifles.

While in Mobile, some of the guys were on leave. The Germans were sinking ships just outside the harbor. One day a submarine was spotted just off the coast. They tried to get a plane in the air to scare them and make them dive. They had to send him up without any ammunition or bombs, because the soldier that had the keys to the bombs and ammo was in town on leave. The Army wouldn’t admit it because they didn’t want the people to panic, but we would go down to the beach and there would be all kinds of oil and debris on the beaches. The German were actually sinking ships just outside Mobile with their submarines.

I left New York on a hunk of rust called the USS Uruguay. We were assigned our sleeping schedule. I was assigned to sleep from 8 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. The bunks hung from chains on the walls; four bunks high. Some of the soldiers got sea sick and heaved over the side of their bunks onto the three bunks below them. I went down to sleep on the first day and it stunk so bad that I never went back. I slept on the stairs or in the hallways or anyplace I could lie down. We were 16 days like this. No fresh water to bath in or shave. Almost every soldier went the 16 days without shaving or bathing. Imagine how we smelled when we finally disembarked. Have you ever tried bathing or shaving in salt water? They had a marine on each water fountain to see that you didn’t take more than a canteen of water at a time.

I was in the 8th Air Force. I went overseas and we landed in Swansea, South Wales. I was stationed all over England. They sent us to Langford Lodge up near Belfast, North Ireland to a place call Loch Neagh; which is the largest inland body of water in the British Isles. We didn’t have an airfield and we didn’t have any airplanes, so we had to build an airfield. We were Air Force but they put us on construction building the airfield. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) they claimed didn’t start up until after the war but they were actually active then. We had a lot of Irish helping to build the runways but they would sabotage the equipment. They would put sand in the tanks and they would mix cement without enough cement in it so the cement would crumble. The IRA was pro-German.

1 Knights of Columbus Hall

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I was on guard duty rather than construction. It was a better job. We would work four days and then have three days off. We would go to Belfast on our days off. They had a lot of trouble with the IRA in Belfast too. We were in a pub one time, when a fight started between the Americans and the Irish. Somebody shouted, “Here come the bobbies,” you know, their police, and they were all over six feet. They had on tall hats that made them look about eight feet tall. They had horse- shoes on their heels and hob nails in their soles. You could hear them a mile away as they come clomping down those cobblestone streets. Me and this guy named Fox, I don’t remember his first name - took off down the street and hid in a doorway. The bobby came after us and went right on by. Fox jumped out and hollered, “Hey, here we are!” (He laughs) You could actually see the sparks from that guys shoes and his horseshoe heels as he slid on the cobblestone street. He came running back to get us. I said, “You crazy little son of a gun” and he took off one way and I went another. I don’t think the bobby was that interested in catching us anyway.

I had lots of experiences - some good and some bad. I’ve seen many people crash in airplanes and get killed. In Ireland, American civilians were assembling YP-38’s2. They had our pilots take them up and unwind them to see if they would stay together. We had Sergeant Pilots then, that is something else some claim we never had. We did have Sergeant Pilots, but they eventually made them all officers. One evening two pilots took off side-by-side in two new YP- 38’s. They went up and were going to turn over to fly away. The one turned over to fly away but the other tried to finish a loop right from the ground. I was watching with a pair of binoculars. He tried to pull it out and you could see that it was mushin’. He came down and smashed right into the runway. Just before he hit, he put both hands in front of his face. The plane just disintegrated. Of course when it crashed everyone came running. I was only about 100 yards away and was the first one on the scene. They brought four medics out and each took a corner of a blanket. They went along the runway picking up pieces of flesh, bone, and whatever they could find throwing it into the blanket. They only found maybe eight or ten pounds. I looked over and there was something on fire. I thought it was part of the engine. I went over and saw it was what was left of the pilot with his leather flight jacket on. He had his Sergeant stripes and his Officer bars pinned on the top of his shoulder. The top of his head and his hands were worn right off. He was on fire so they brought a fire extinguisher over and put him out.

I was stationed all around England and Ireland for a couple years and then we went to France. The British had a saying that the Americans were, “Over-paid, over-sexed, and over here!” They weren’t too happy about this because the Americans were going with their girls. Some of them got married and some were over there long enough to have families and even bought houses in England.

I was transferred into the 9th Air Force when it first became active. We were the first Air Force Troops to land in France. We were what they called a MR&R, mobile repair and reclamation outfit. On the way over, there was ship in front of the ship that was ahead of our ship, and when they saw they were going to collide they told them to reverse the engines. So they were backing up, but when the lookout on our ship with the telephone told our people to reverse their engines, the telephone didn’t work, and we plowed into the other ship - full steam. It knocked one of

2 Later the YP-38’s were just called P-38’s. The P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a single, central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament (Wikipedia)

3 their screws3 off. We were on what was called a LST, landing ship tank. It damaged our doors and knocked our anchor off. We were in danger of sinking because of the high waves and we might take on water. I didn’t care if the ship sank, but I was worried that the salt water would ruin a new pair of binoculars that I had just bought. I was teaching aircraft identification and I was always trying to identify anything in the air. We had to go back to England and they welded a patch over the hole where the anchor got knocked off. Then they fixed the door and we went back and landed at Étretat, France.

The first night we were there, we had our shelter halves. Each man had a shelter half and you would hook them together to have a tent that two could sleep in. That morning we had a big air raid and when we got up some of the tents had shrapnel holes in them. The next night we had fox holes dug and we were down in there with planks, armored plates, and everything else over the top of us because everything that went up had to come back down. We had air raids almost every night. At night (we were right close to the ocean of course), the Germans would come and drop magnetic mines in among the ships. They would explode if they got around a magnetic field. A Ju 884 came over and our guns must have hit one of the mines he had in his airplane because you had never seen such an explosion in your life when that thing went off. There is nothing more beautiful than an air-raid if you’re far enough away from it, but when it is right over-head it is not a lot of fun.

Like I said, I was in a mobile-reclamation and repair outfit so we were always the ones closest to the front lines - or the airfield closest to the front lines. When our planes ran into trouble and couldn’t make it back to their base, they would land at our field. When we first got over there, they were flying from England and would land on our field to refuel and get ammunition. Then at night they would fly back to England. The infantry finally captured enough land that they brought a bunch of planes and landed them in France so they didn’t have to fly back to England at night. They weren’t too happy about that, because we had primitive conditions and they had nice quarters in England.

We were all bottled up and when they broke through at Saint-Lô, I was up on a hill and watched the 8th Air-Force destroy the town. I went through France, Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg, and Germany. We just kept moving to a different base, whichever was the closest to the front where the emergency planes would come in. We saw all kinds shot up, land with no wheels down, maybe one wheel, or damaged really badly. We saw a lot of crashes.

I was supposed to be a sheet metal man but I took the assignment of being a truck driver. When we were on forward bases we would take two 10-wheel trucks pulling two trailers, a Jeep, two tents, sixteen men, and a cook. We were self-contained, by ourselves with never any Officers. We would go set up in a field someplace and work on these airplanes where they came down. If the airplane was repairable we would repair it, but if it wasn’t repairable, we would take it apart and send it back to Paris on a low-boy5. We would put the airplane fuselage in the center of the low-boy with the engine still on it and a wing on each side. Some of those places we were at were 20 degrees below zero and we were out there working on those airplanes in the storms.

3 Propeller 4 The Junkers Ju 88 was a German World War II Luftwaffe twin-engined multirole combat aircraft (Wikipedia) 5 A low-boy is a trailer that is built closer to the ground than a regular trailer.

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One airplane we fixed so it could fly back to the base for major repairs. They brought in a bull- dozer and a road patrol. They took out whole rows of fruit trees and a house, bulldozed them right down, so they could fly that airplane out. We’d take all the armor plates, and guns and strip everything out to make it as light as possible. Then we put in just enough gasoline so it could take off as quick as it could and fly back to Paris. That’s what we would do out in the field. Sometimes we would have airplanes come down behind Germany lines, but we were advancing so quickly we knew we would have it back in a few days. If we were lucky and got there before the British, we would have a pretty good airplane, but if the British got there before us they’d strip all the Plexiglas and the eight day clocks. They would take this Plexiglas and make all kinds of jewelry out of it. They were really clever. They would make hearts with flowers inside and everything. They would steal the eight day clocks too. Most of our fighter planes were too shot up and damaged to be able to repair and fly them out, so we almost always had to salvage them.

Like I said, I assigned myself a truck driving job. When we would go out into the field we always needed parts and mail. I would go back to Paris and pick up the parts and the mail and take it out and give it to the guys. Sometimes it would take me a day or two and you could always stop at any Army Base or British Base to pick up gasoline and get something to eat. We hated to eat at the British bases because they would have fish for breakfast on Fridays and things like that. It was terrible. They would complain about our rich American food but whenever they got a chance to come to our base they always came over to eat rather than have their own rations because we had a lot better food than they did. I had a little French kid that I took with me all the time because he spoke five languages. Over there you would change countries like you would change counties here. You would go to a different country and there were no signs to tell you where you were at. We didn’t have GPS or anything. The only way you could find out where you were was to talk to the civilians. I had this French kid dressed in a GI uniform and he would talk to the people. Almost everyone over there is bi-lingual. If he couldn’t talk to them in English, French, or German he would find some other language he could communicate with them in. He was just Me and Robert (Robear) – my French interpreter a life-saver for me.

5

I was in Belgium the day the Battle of the Bulge started. I had a load of broken down generators that I was taking to a place to have them repaired. They were generators that we used on our mobile trucks to make electricity to run our equipment. They were poorly made at best. We had machine shops on trucks that we used to repair planes in the field. When I got up to where I was supposed to go in Belgium, the soldiers were all excited and I asked what the deal was. They said the Germans had broken through and we’ve have to get out of there fast; the Germans are coming right over the hill. I asked them to help me unload the generators. We threw them off the truck. I said we would let the Germans fix them. On the way back, I started picking up GI’s that had lost their outfits. I picked up about thirty and took them back to Paris.

Whenever you would stop at a crossroad, the Americans had a check point. They had what we called a quad-50 on a half-track6. They had one guard on the north/south road and one guard on the east/west road so nobody could drive through. You had to stop or they would shoot you. We stopped at one and they had a barbed-wire enclosure about 30 or 40 feet in diameter. It had about seven or eight soldiers inside. I asked who they were and was told they were American speaking German spies. They had dropped with parachutes behind American lines to interrupt and slow the Americans down. To interrogate the soldiers, they would ask us to say a whole bunch of words that had w’s and v’s in them because Germans have trouble pronouncing their w’s and v’s. They would say, “Who is little orphan Annie?” “What was little orphan Annie’s dog’s name?” “Who is Joe Palooka?” and ask a bunch of questions like that. Then they asked me, “Who is the 16th President of the United States?” I said, “Hell, I don’t know” and they said, “OK, go ahead.” I said, “Wait a minute, I don’t know who the 16th President of the United States is.” Then he said, “If you were German you would know.” Because I didn’t know who the 16th President of the United States was they knew I was American (he laughs). Anyway, I got through all right but they told me I better keep going because if it gets any worse they would give me a rifle and shovel and tell me to dig a fox hole and stay right there until I was relieved. Well, we did get back to Paris ok, but I thought it was the funniest thing that happened to me during the war, not knowing who the 16th President of the United States was.

I was at one place where the British had four search lights, one on each corner of a large field. They also had what they called a predictor, which was the precursor to the radar. It was primitive but it worked. This British Sergeant and I used to like to play cribbage together. We were in his tent playing cribbage and a British Soldier came running in and said there was a formation of Germany planes coming over, of Me with my British Sergeant friend

6 A half-track is an American armored vehicle used by the United States, the British Empire, and the other Alies during World War II (Wikipedia)

6 course they were bombing every night anyway. So the Sergeant said, “We’re just about done, wait until they get a little closer.” So he waited until they came a little closer and he came running back in and the Sergeant said, “Wait a minute, we only got one more hand.” Finally the guy said the JU 88’s were only so far away. We went running out and the Sergeant yelled, “Lights!” There were large generators that powered these huge searchlights. They were tracking all the time with this predictor and when they turned the searchlights on, there the Germany planes were right smack dap in middle of their center beams. Of course all the artillery opens up on them. This Sergeant that I played cards with got credit for shooting down a German 88. It came down real low and he had either a bren gun or a sten gun but he started shooting at it because he could see the exhaust. He said, “I just started shooting between the exhausts.” He started the plane on fire and as it went out over the harbor, the ships opened up on it and shot it down. They gave him credit for shooting it down because he started it on fire and lit it up. One of the British Generals came and gave him a medal. My British friend was a real nice guy.

Another thing that happened was real funny (he laughs). When we were in Belgium, the Germans were sending buzz bombs7 directly over us all day and all night. They were shooting at Liège, Belgium and London. Anyway, we had seen dozens of those buzz bombs come over. We got to where we wouldn’t even watch them because they were so common. Well, a guy from Idaho came running in yelling, “The Wars Over, The Wars Over!” “Whad-da-ya mean the wars over?” He said they just dropped an adam, A-D-A-M, bomb on Hiroshima and it has the equivalent of 50,000 tons of T-N-T. He said it was so big the sound will be heard clear around the whole world. Just then we heard a great big BOOM. He said “there it is now.” Of course we didn’t know anything about Atomic bombs because it was super-secret. Well, they had been taking ammunition out into the North Sea on barges and blowing them up. This had been going on for quite a while. But the timing could not have been more perfect. Of course we didn’t know what the Atomic bomb was but he called it an ADAM bomb. They kept that top secret. They didn’t want anyone to know anything about Atomic bombs.

At the end of the war, my First Sergeant came and said to me, “Pack up your gear, you’re gonna go home.” I said, “What do ya mean I’m gonna go home? I can’t go home tonight, I got a date.” He said, “Well you’re going home anyway. You either leave now or you’re gonna miss your chance.” I got thinking, “Well, if I leave now I’ll be home in time for the deer hunt.” That’s the thing I missed the most. He said, “You got to leave right now.” So I went back and got everything packed up and got on a G.I. truck. They took me down to the train station and put me on a German passenger car that had been strafed and bombed about a dozen times. It had holes all through it and the windows were knocked out. It took me four or five days to get out from where I was in Germany because they would shuffle us off to the side track to let the Army trains through that were more important. This darn thing had flat wheels and it would go bump-bump- bump every time they went around. I finally made it to Paris. When I got there, there were about a dozen of our guys there. I had more points than anybody in the outfit; I had been

7 A V-1 flying bomb. The 'V' came from the German word Vergeltungswaffen, meaning weapons of reprisal. The V- 1 was developed by German scientists. . . They were nicknamed "buzz bombs" by the British due to the distinct buzzing sound made by the pulse-jet engines powering the bombs, which overall resembled a small aircraft. Other British nicknames included "doodlebugs" and "flying bombs. (http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/v1.htm)

7 overseas longer and got all these points. When they first figured the points out, I was the only one qualified that had enough, but then they reevaluated and these other guys were eligible to be sent home too. They put them on an airplane and sent them to Paris and they had been there three or four days before I even got there, and I had left before they did (he laughs).

I wanted to be in Paris when the war officially ended. I thought, “Boy, they are gonna have a party and a half.” I waited and waited and waited until I finally thought it ain’t gonna happen so I’d go across the English Channel to London. I was sure they would have a big celebration there and I had never seen London with the lights on. I was sure they would turn the lights on. I got right smack dap in the middle of the English Channel and it come over the radio that the war was over and the whole world was celebrating. There I was on a boat in the middle of the English Channel with a bunch of G.I.’s (he laughs). No party for me!

I came home on the USS General A. E. Anderson. I think it was a liberty ship. The seas were so rough that even some of the sailors got sea sick. I stood on the deck looking over the side and when the front of the ship came up out of the water, I noticed a great big bulb on the bottom. I didn’t know ships were built like that. I thought they were pointed all the way to the bottom. When the front end would dive under water, both screws on the back would come out of the water and turn in thin air. It would make the whole ship shudder. We started developing cracks in the hull and the sailors got pretty excited. The ship had broken the anti-magnetic belt and they thought we might hit a magnetic mine.

We landed in New York and saw the Statue of Liberty: that was quite a sight. After we got off of the boat and onto the soil of the good old U.S. of A., they took us to the mess hall and you could have all the steak you wanted to eat. That was what everybody wanted was to have potatoes, gravy, and a big steak. You could have all the steak you wanted to eat but you found out you couldn’t eat that much anyway. We all floundered on our steak.

In those days the only transportation was on trains, so the trains took us everyplace. The trains brought us home. We got on a train to come home and I knew I was going to go through Lehi so I gave the conductor a note to drop off at what they called the dog house. They used to have a station right there by the old Lehi Hotel on Main Street that controlled the traffic on the railroad and there was always somebody in there. I wrote this note to be dropped off there and I stood on the other side of the train ‘cause I knew it went right by my house at 444 W Main Street. My dad was standing out in the yard watching the trains go by. I hollered at him and he recognized me. He called my mother up in Sandy and by the time I got up to Fort Douglas and unloaded, I had my family waiting for me there.

When I got out of the Army they asked me if I wanted any clothes. I had a barracks bag packed full of clothing. I said I didn’t want anything to do with the Army and that I would go downtown and buy new ones. Then I went downtown and found out I couldn’t buy ANYTHING! You couldn’t buy a pair of shoes, you couldn’t buy a pair of socks, you couldn’t buy nothing so I had to wear my uniform for several days or more until I could finally get to enough places where I could round up some civilian clothes.

8

My mother put on a big feed for me. She had all these ration coupons. I had been over in England where they got one egg a month or one orange a month. That was their ration. She ordered steak and all this other food. I couldn’t believe it. I said, “Boy, you don’t need all this stuff.” I had never seen ration coupons other than the ones the British had but she was using them to buy all this stuff. It blew my mind that they could have all that food here in the United States. I couldn’t believe it. It was so different than what was over there.

I served for three years, nine months, and seventeen days; overseas, three years and one month. Now they go overseas for six months and when they come home they tie ribbons on all the trees and have parades and everything. They have cameras at the airport and big huge signs everywhere. When we came home, we came home and that was it. There were no parades - no nothing - nobody could have cared less. Now I wear that hat over there (he points to a hat) that says WWII on it and I get on a bus and some of those boy scouts that have been taught if you see a veteran to salute them, will salute you because you have a WWII veterans hat on.

9

An Introduction to the Military

A Tough Decision:​ At just eighteen years of age in 1957, I wanted to become a flying officer in the United States Air Force. The USAF Recruiter told me that I had passed my tests however; I needed to go to Denver, Colorado to take further tests and physicals. History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.­U.S.S.R space race. I was caught in a National re­focus of the Air Force Mission. The sizes of Aviation Cadet Classes were cut in half because the nation suddenly became geared up for the missile­age. This placed persons who had passed the tests on a “waiting list” for a class to open. My plans were about to be altered again by a situation over which I had no control. I was #2 on the Big Horn County Draft Board list and draftees were being taken at the rate of two per month. I had less than thirty days to decide whether to be drafted in the Army or enter the Air Force as an enlisted man. I chose the latter.

Basic Training:​ I seriously wondered if I permanently ruined my life by enlisting in the U.S. Air Force. The "Reception Center" for the USAF is located at Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas. I climbed off the bus from the airport along with about fifty of the most diversified group of "kids" I had ever been around. Two men in Smoky Bear hats, our Training Instructors (T.I.'s), arranged us by height into a rough formation. Our bags were at our feet. They showed us the position of "Attention." Heels together, toes slightly out, back straight, shoulders back, thumb and forefinger touching pant seam, eyes s​traight ahead, no motion, no sound, staring at the back of the head of the person in front of you. They spoke as though they were angry with us for being there! This is how it all began. In basic training at Lackland AFB, Tex., airmen learned a new way to count: Hup, Toop, Threep, Forp. (It was spelled that way in the drill manual.) Until we were marched to "The Green Monster" and issued military clothing, we were known as "Rainbows" because of our diverse appearance. In retrospect, there is nostalgia for certain aspects of those days. I actually survived Basic and now consider those times as "character building" experiences.

Military courtesy rules were covered repeatedly. The rules on appearance were a short haircut every week, a shower and shave daily, and polish all shoes daily. Clothes must be clean every day, hung with the left sleeve out and spaced precisely 1” inch apart; bed made with hospital corners with the top blanket tight as a drum. The T.I. would bounce a coin on the bed and if it did not bounce, he would grab the blankets and sheets, pulling them off the mattress and toss them aside, issuing a “gig” to the offender. No pictures or personal items were permitted outside a small space in the footlocker. Clothes in the footlocker had to be neatly rolled in a manner that they would not open when the inspector grasped the material by the edge and shook them. The Inspector might command a person to recite, word perfect, one of the eleven Security Instructions, (General Orders) of a sentry, a chain of command or general knowledge question­­woe to the person who did not first respond by saying, “S​ir”​ in his answer!

Target Shooting:​

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An Introduction to the Military

The .30 Cal. M­1 Carbine was introduced to us while on bivouac during basic training. We were instructed that when the “Red flag is raised on the control tower, target firing is in effect. We were further instructed that during firing, if we had a problem, we would put the weapon pointed down­range on the ground, and raise our hand. “Sharpshooters are in the tower and they will shoot you if you point your weapon at any direction other than the target.” We received “familiarization” with the SMS acronym meaning, “Safety on, Magazine out, and Slide open and locked.” When it came time to fire, we were given ten rounds of ammunition to put in the magazine; up to fifty men lined up and assumed the prone position to “sight in” our weapons. After firing, we were permitted to check our targets for any needed adjustments to the sights after the “All Clear” signal. Firing for “Record” meant that we fired ten rounds from each of five different positions, without checking our targets until completed and the “All Clear” signal whistle. When I approached my target, the “bull’s­eye” was completely obliterated! I felt good about my shooting record until I learned that the men on both sides of me failed to qualify—all three of us were shooting at my target!

The Chaplain: James K. Seastrand My “persona” was reduced to “Name, Rank, and Serial Number” and at times, I had to reach into my soul for an identity. One of the peaceful comforts I received came from the only LDS Chaplain that I ever met in my “active” tour of duty. Lieutenant James K. Seastrand provided me the LDS Serviceman’s kit containing a small, brown­covered Book of Mormon and Principles of the Gospel and an LDS “dog tag.” Chaplain Seastrand was kind to me and even drove me to a San Antonio Stake Priesthood meeting off base. A self­satisfied feeling overcame me when we went through the gate and received a salute from the guard. I felt very privileged to make this trip with Chaplain Seastrand. During the meeting, a plan to attend General Conference aboard military aircraft was revealed. LDS Pilots needing flight time would fly a transport to Salt Lake City with “Permanent Party” personnel wishing to attend. Unfortunately, my “Training” status denied me this privilege. Thirty­seven years after I was discharged, I located Chaplain Seastrand in Las Vegas, Nevada. I was unable to speak with him but his wife Roselle, told me a little about him. James died, July 1997 while speaking before an Inter­faith Council; he served as Mayor of Las Vegas for 16 years; he was a Regional Representative and Temple Chairman—instrumental in obtaining the Temple in the Las Vegas area. A remarkable man, he was a “mover and shaker” in real estate and as a community leader. I am honored to say that I knew the man as my Chaplain at a time when spiritual guidance was desperately needed in my life.

This was my introduction to military life and the many years experience following provided a rich appreciation of the military.

Philip A. Wasden Lehi, Utah March 2015

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