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[Assistant] No, there's an iconic picture they say. Echo says there's an iconic picture. He said the photographer that took the picture had an INCREDIBLE


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[Assistant] Oh yeaah. The publisher wanted a picture of me where I looked more approachable.


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[Assistant] It's the ultimate flank. It is. It really is. It's the ultimate flank because here's the problem. Kids do not listen to their parents.


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[Assistant] Kids listen to a certain percentage of what their parents say, and there's a certain portion of them that is programmed to rebel against you as a parent. They're programmed that way. And the more you fight it, the worse it's gonna get. You come in from the flank, boom.


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[Assistant] There you go. Yep, that's true. Good point. What about, Dave, this is your big night. What about extreme ownership? Feedback.


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[Assistant] It's called the dichotomy of leadership. It's about all those opposing forces you face as leader and I talked about the ultimate dichotomy tonight.


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[Assistant] And so that book comes out September 25th.


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[Assistant] Also, if you need live training, you need a little bit more than the book, you need a little bit more than the podcasts.


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[Assistant] You can bring us inside your organization.


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[Assistant] We have a company called Echelon Front. That's what Dave was talking about tonight. I was talking about tonight. All the companies that we work with, that's what we're talking about. We solve problems through leadership. Boom. Me, Leif, JP, Dave Burke.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Flynn Cochran, and now we also have Mike Cirelli in the house. Alright, what about the muster?


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[Assistant] Yeah, actually it's going to sell out. It's almost there. Yeah.


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[Assistant] We actually designed something else because we wanted to do something. First of all, the muster's got a pretty high price point. It's pretty expensive and it focuses on real broad.


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[Assistant] Leadership across the board, but we have had come to all the musters


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[Assistant] Law enforcement, military, border patrol, firefighters, paramedics, other first responders. We wanted to do something a little bit


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[Assistant] It is September 21st in Dallas, Texas. It's one day leadership seminar for everyone out there in uniform. So,


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[Assistant] If you're a police officer, if you're a firefighter, and we've worked with police officers and firefighters, and we've worked with border patrol, and we've worked with military units, and we still do all of that, but if you want to come and get a one day immersion,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Into the combat leadership principles that we talk about in the book Extreme Ownership that we talk about on this podcast.


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[Assistant] Come to the roll call September 21st in Dallas, Texas. And for both the muster and the roll call, you can register for those at ExtremeOwnership.com. On top of all of that, we have something now called


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Echelon Front Overwatch. EFOverwatch.com.


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[Assistant] And Dave, you've been involved pretty heavily in us standing that up.


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[Assistant] We are, we, in our business, working with companies.


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[Assistant] We are always running into companies that need, what do they need? They need good leaders. They need good people. And because of our connections to the military, all of us having spent extended periods of time in the military in special operations as combat pilots,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have connections there, and this is a place.


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[Assistant] Where we have an opportunity to bring those two things together. People that want great leaders and people that are great leaders that need jobs. So we're bringing those together. Whether you're somebody that wants to employ people or whether you're


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Looking to be employed as a spec ops individual or a combat pilot.


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[Assistant] Then go to efoverwatch.com, put your information in there, and we will proceed down the line of getting you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The best people you can. And I miss anything on EF Overwatch?


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[Assistant] Come and get some. And if you want to kind of


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[Assistant] Keep carrying on this conversation with us. Virtually.


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[Assistant] That is until we see you live, either at the muster or at the roll call.


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[Assistant] Or at the immersion camp up in Maine. Then you can find us all on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on Dasher Facebook.


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[Assistant] Yeah. David R. Burke. Correct. Yeah. That's where you are. And you're there, you're there on Twitter and on Instagram. Yep. And on that.


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[Assistant] Echo is, of course, Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. Echo, anything else?


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[Assistant] You get happy and you're like, man, was armlock a question? Escape of the mount a question?


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[Assistant] Good deal Dave, great to see. Good deal Dave Burke.


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[Assistant] And again, thanks for everything that you've done for me and done for our freedom as a nation and


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[Assistant] I'm sure we will do this many times again in the future.


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[Assistant] So yeaah. This is just the beginning. My brother. Right on. And everyone else in the military that is out there right now protecting our freedom. Thank you. And to the first responders. Police, law enforcement, border patrol, firefighters, paramedics.


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[Assistant] Thanks for keeping us and our families safe and to everyone else that is listening. Thank you.


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[Assistant] And thanks for remembering the heroes that gave their lives so that liberty and democracy


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[Assistant] And let the names of the fallen FOREVER.


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[Assistant] As those glorious ideals for which they made the ultimate sacrifice.


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[Assistant] I've heard a lot about this show and I'm really pleased that you've invited me to come here and speak to you.


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[Assistant] Yeah, that was a real thing. I vividly remember.


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[Assistant] All the good times while eating.


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[Assistant] I joined the Marine Corps. That's the first time I had...


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[Assistant] Adequate food satisfies the hunger within me.


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[Assistant] As the Depression hit, and it really hit the Harvey family. At one time, the Harvey family consisted of 11 people.


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[Assistant] Nine girls, two boys, a father and mother. And my mother was the center of my universe.


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[Assistant] When I went into the Marine Corps in the last night that I spent in Odessa before I got to boot camp, the train stopped in my hometown of Odessa.


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[Assistant] And they had the band, high school band, and a lot of people from town were there.


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[Assistant] To greet us, the conductor said we were going to stop for 20 minutes because the people of Odessa wanted to see you off. There was three of us going to the Marine Corps at that time. When we got there, there were girls there that were throwing kisses on me.


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[Assistant] That I never dreamed of being able to even touch. And I was about ready to quit the Marine Corps and stay there. Well, during all this, somebody grabbed my ear and jerked me around behind the depot. And it was my mom, Jessie Lee.


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[Assistant] She, my mom was a Comanche Indian and she was a warrior. She pulled me around in the dark of the, uh, night behind the, uh, outside of the, uh, crowd so nobody could hear what she had to say.


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[Assistant] And she called me sonny because I was so bright.


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[Assistant] She put these, this hand up in front of me like this right there so I could see it. She said, Sonny.


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[Assistant] She said, number one, when this war is over, you come home to us. Bam.


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[Assistant] And don't you come home no drunkard. And you don't come home no coward.


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[Assistant] That was the saddest moment of my whole life. I'll never forget that. And, uh, my mom was a great mom. She held the family together after he left us.


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[Assistant] He applied for a divorce and I went to the judge's chamber with my mother.


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[Assistant] And the judge calls me and my father to come to him. And my mom was too weak to get up to go to the judge.


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[Assistant] The six remaining children in the family will remain with their mother.


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[Assistant] For six children and herself. And that was the last penny my dad ever spent on us.


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[Assistant] We just divorced him completely from our minds and so forth. I had nothing to do with him after that and, uh, that was the saddest moment of my whole life when


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[Assistant] Yeah. Well, for a while she held off, wouldn't sign the papers for me to go. See, I was just a sophomore in high school.


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[Assistant] And I was failing all my subjects because I was trying to hold down two jobs to help my mom and my sisters. And, uh,


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[Assistant] It was, it was hard times, it was.


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[Assistant] Really bad for us all, but my mom healed the rest of us together and, and I lived through it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and, uh, she fought there on it.


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[Assistant] One day my cousin came home and I went to the recruiting office with him and he signed up.


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[Assistant] Because he was old enough to sign. And I took the papers home to my mom and she was at the clothesline hanging up wet clothes to be dried, you know. And I put that paper in front of her. I said, this is for you to sign.


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[Assistant] She laid that wet towel on the basket, walked down there to the end of the line. I built her a line for drying clothes and there was some excess wire, six strand wire.


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[Assistant] She took that thing and twisted it into a long whip-like thing. Came back to me, took my left hand, her left hand, and whacked me across the rear. And I made a complete circle around it.


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[Assistant] And I stopped and glared at her and I could see that she was shedding tears. The first tears that I've ever seen her shed. And that broke my heart. And, uh,


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[Assistant] I stood there for a while and she turned and walked and went into the house. And then, uh, I cried, I cried hard. And so,


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[Assistant] About a week later, I came home from school and she handed me a paper that she had signed for me to go into the Marine Corps.


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[Assistant] And, uh, so that was the birth of my Marine Corps. How old were you?


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[Assistant] No, I was in school, but it was a Sunday day.


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[Assistant] We called her Big Berther's. The little coop was too small for all of us to sit abreast of each other. So I said on her lap, I just weighed 118 pounds and she probably outweighed me by 5 or 6 pounds.


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[Assistant] And, uh, we heard that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.


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[Assistant] That was the day that I learned that I was going to be


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[Assistant] Involved in a war because of that age, you know. And so, uh,


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[Assistant] Be a paratrooper. And then I thought I'd go into the army and be a paratrooper. Then I found out that the Marines had paratroopers. So I joined the Marine Corps instead. And I found me a home.


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[Assistant] Through boot camp, okay. But a big problem, when they lined us up,


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[Assistant] We fitted out with shoes and clothing and everything. When it came to the shoes right there, they made them and they said, son,


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[Assistant] You can't join the Marine Corps because your feet are too small. And I thought, well gosh, he's not going to send me home, is he?


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[Assistant] And so I had an old pair of shoes that I'd worn out, should have been thrown away. And I play a lot of poker. I knew how to play poker before I knew my ABCs. Well anyway, I carried deck cards around all the time. So when I went to Marine Corps, I had to use a whole deck.


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[Assistant] Putting about three into my shoes that had holes in them. My civilian shoes that had holes in them. And, uh,


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[Assistant] They finally, one night, uh, I'd always take the top bunk in the, wherever I went, what barracks I was in, you know. So I put my shoes on the deck.


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[Assistant] Under the bunk, the next morning I woke up and it was, looked like somebody had taken a car tire and cut out soles for me. It was about that thick, you know. So I had a pair of shoes that I could march in. Anyway. And then, uh, when, uh,


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[Assistant] I had to cut down my dung, have dungarees cut down, you know, because it was too big, and so forth.


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[Assistant] And I had a lot of trouble because I was so small. And the other, at one time I was small enough that, uh, Ralph Hall, my captain, or my platoon leader, he was the first, uh, lieutenant at that time, and Art Ferris picked me as the,


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[Assistant] Uh, runner. And so, one night, we were sitting around a campfire, and uh, and I said, why'd y'all pick me as a runner?


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[Assistant] And they said, well, you were so small, so you made a small target.


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[Assistant] He was so fast afoot that you could outrun any Jap in the world. So that was the reason I was made a company runner.


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[Assistant] Well, it wasn't exactly the boot camp, it was when I came back from overseas and found out that I was going to be in, uh, a, uh,


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[Assistant] Demolition man in the assault squad. The assault squad was composed of five men with specials and, uh, uh, I was going to be a, a, uh,


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[Assistant] Demolition man, I was supposed to carry so many pounds of demolition on my bike and, and on, uh,


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[Assistant] On front, I would carry my regular pack, you know, and so forth. So I couldn't handle a rifle.


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[Assistant] So, out first I said, well, we'll try to get you a pistol.


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[Assistant] The Marine Corps doesn't have any pistols, any left. And so I was desperate. So I called my mom. I said, Mom, find me a pistol. I'd like to have a Colt, 1911 Colt. And my mom went out


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[Assistant] And, uh, looked all over town. Well I looked all over San Diego here for a pistol myself. And there just wasn't one that we had, you know. And so...


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[Assistant] I called my mom and told her what I needed and she, uh, I sent her the money. I sent her $75. That is one in a poker game.


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[Assistant] I sent that to her and she went around all over town looking for a pistol.


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[Assistant] Couldn't find one until she came to a trailer house down close to the railroad tracks with a guy that had a gun shop there.


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[Assistant] What kind of pistol do you need? She said, she took out the piece of paper that I'd written it on, Colt 45, 1911. And he said, I just happen to have one of those.


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[Assistant] He said, well, that's all I got. Why do you need such a big pistol?


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[Assistant] And so he said, well, this is the only one I have, but $200.


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[Assistant] And, and so she backed out of the door and went down the road.


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[Assistant] And she said, well come on back, we'll work up a deal. So she walked out with that pistol, cleaned the cosmoline.


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[Assistant] I needed to get there as soon as she could, you know. So she went down to the bus station, got on a bus with a paper grocery bag in it with extra clothes, you know.


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[Assistant] And got on the bus and 36 hours later she got to San Diego.


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[Assistant] Now she crisscrossed the cause. In those days, you know, military guys had, uh, priority. And she'd be in one place, they would, uh, bump her off, let a guy come in, take her place. And she crisscrossed, you may go in Arizona.


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[Assistant] Yeah, for 36 hours. When we were loading up.


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[Assistant] Go overseas. And, uh, Cobber Darts and I were up on the.


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[Assistant] With a bunch of sea bags and, uh,


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[Assistant] Fisher, my sergeant at that time, uh, was sitting in the cab with the driver and everything. So we went through the gate over here at Camp Pendleton and the gate guard said, is there any Marine up there named Harvey, Fred Harvey?


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[Assistant] And Carver woke me up. I was asleep. Woke me up and said, hey, they're calling for your name. So I looked over and I saw my mom look up at me.


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[Assistant] And I slid over that thing real fast. I came off it real fast. Well, uh,


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[Assistant] I want to let your mom sit in the seat and I'll get up there with y'all. And so we drove down town and was looking for a place for her to stay. We couldn't find a place anywhere. I mean, we tried every hotel and so forth.


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[Assistant] So finally I, uh, this is around 12 o'clock at night. And so, uh, I went to a policeman and I said, sir, can you tell me where we might find a place for my mom to stay? A hotel or hotel or something, you know.


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[Assistant] I'll tell you what, I'll call my wife, if your mother would stay with her, I'll call her and we'll go out there. And so the wife said, yes, bring her, bring her out.


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[Assistant] So, uh, he called the office and the police car came out and drove him to the house and his wife welcomed us with open arms, you know. And she stayed there three different nights.


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[Assistant] And then I was able to, uh, Fisher would let me off, uh, quite a bit at the time, those three days that she was here. And then she finally had to put her on the bus and he wrote a note


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[Assistant] Making the priority she wouldn't be bumped in anything when she got home. Well that was the story of how I got my pistol.


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[Assistant] The second time I went overseas. Okay. But the first time I went over was on the Bloemfontein.


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[Assistant] But I thought that's the way it was, you know, I hadn't seen the ocean until I'd gotten in the Marine Corps. And so, uh, they,


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[Assistant] They put us on, on the balloon fountain. And it was in a cattle ship.


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[Assistant] A Dutch, had a Dutch captain, and he was, uh,


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[Assistant] He shipped, I mean, he transferred cattle from Australia over to, uh, uh, to the Dutch holdings in the South Pacific. Well, when the war broke out, he had just dumped out


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[Assistant] A load of cattle, and when he found out that it was at Warwell, he headed for San Francisco.


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[Assistant] When he got to San Francisco, he offered it to the Navy, and, uh, the Navy took it, made it into a troop ship.


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[Assistant] Of course when they started sailing that ship would buckle and everything and that.


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[Assistant] Cows dropping just whatever for, you know. And the bunks were stacked up eight high. And I was lucky, I was small enough to get in there without any trouble. A lot of those little guys couldn't get in. And the head, uh, you know in the Navy and Marine Corps,


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[Assistant] Bathroom is called the head, you know. Uh, the head was just a long shed.


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[Assistant] From the bow of the ship back to the...


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[Assistant] Uh, holdings, you know, where the captain stood and so forth. And what had happened, they had made a train, uh,


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[Assistant] Yeah, water would flow down the thing right there. Then they had a pipe for you to sit on. Well, you just sit on that pipe and then...


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[Assistant] Uh, do your thing and get up and leave, you know. Well, that thing broke down. And so here we were out at sea with no way to


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[Assistant] The deal is on the side of a horse, you know. You just go up there and drop your pants and sit down on that thing and, and drop it and feed the fish, you know.


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[Assistant] Because you didn't need them because there wasn't any on there. That was a problem the whole time I was in the Marine Corps overseas was toilet paper.


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[Assistant] Oh, that was something. But that's the way we traveled there. And, uh,


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[Assistant] When you go through the, I was seasick. I was seasick all the time. They put me in the sick bay.


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[Assistant] I don't know what it was doing on a troop ship, but there was something on there. And so...


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[Assistant] I'd eat a couple of those every hour and I'd hide them or nobody else could get them. And we was on that ship for 29 days to get to New Caledonia.


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[Assistant] And, uh, one day the ship broke down. Here we are drifting out there, and we drifted for, oh, probably 30 or 40 hours, you know. And we was taking bets as to where we would drift to in South America. And, and they,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They passed the word out that we were supposed to keep our life belts on at all times and keep your eyes looking out for submarines.


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[Assistant] Because we didn't have any escort. We were just out there by ourself in a slow cattle ship. And, uh, we was in real trouble. And,


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[Assistant] And we drifted for 72 hours and they finally got the engine going again. So here we are going to overseas. We didn't know where we were going, you know. And, uh,


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[Assistant] And then we got a scare that there was possibly a Jap submarine in the area, so we pulled into the nearest


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[Assistant] That island we were close to, you know, we pulled in there and I fell in love with that, that island.


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[Assistant] It was, uh, Tonga to Pooh. And we just went in there. It was one of these things you see in the movies, you know. And we pulled in that bay and dropped anchor. And here the natives came out paddling canoes and they had, uh, coconut.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well anyway, they came, came back that night and entertained us on the deck of the ship. We were sitting around there and they were


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, doing their dances, the hula dances. And, uh, it was a beautiful island. I mean, it was beautiful. And I swore right there, I said to myself, Fred Harvey.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a lot more in this world than Odessa, Texas. And I'm gonna see some of it before I die. And so they put on a show and at last they sung their island song.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so we pulled out and finally got to, uh, uh, New Caledonia. We'd been at sea for 29 days and, uh, we was all tickled to finally get there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that ship was a hell of a ship, you know. And uh, when we got there, they took us off the ship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the rest of the troops, you know, the first parachute battalion was already there. In fact, they were involved in the Guadalcanal. And, uh, so uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, we were going down there to replace the guys, so I was, uh, went to the first Parachute Battalion. They were 60 miles from, uh, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The bass that we came in on, uh, I can't remember the bass.


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[Assistant] That we landed at, or the port we landed at.


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[Assistant] Uh, it was the capital of New Caledonia, and our, the parachute battalions were stationed out, oh, about 60 miles from, uh, New Mayo. Yeah, New Mayo was the capital of that place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I was assigned to the 1st Parachute Battalion.


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[Assistant] Uh, we went later when we went up to, uh,


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[Assistant] Our first action together after Guadalcanal was, uh, uh,


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[Assistant] They let us scrimmage. We went up to find some of the old guys that had, uh,


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[Assistant] The hunger I had then during the depression. Well anyway.


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[Assistant] We was in line there, waiting to go in to get the child, you know. And, uh, then I heard a lot of laughing and carrying on.


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[Assistant] And there's three bedraggled Japanese that just come out of the li- out of the jungle and got in line.


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[Assistant] And uh, and an officer got, came down there that could speak Japanese and they said they were hungry and everything. So they took him up there and fed him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'd see him coming down, you know, the trail or anything like that. I'd jump in the jungle, keep, because I was scared of him. Well, everybody was scared of him, because he was tough. He just drove us. He found out that Japanese marched


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're gonna beat that. And we marched 50 miles with full packs.


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[Assistant] No problem. In fact, I was put on bread and water. I had a buddy there that was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Went through the parachute platoon with me right there, and he nearly got us killed. I won't give him his name, you know. But he passed away several years ago, but I don't want to say anything. We don't want to incriminate his actions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well he, uh, when we was going through parachute school, his name was,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well I'll tell you his name, uh, last name, his name was Harmon, so when we lined up alphabetically in everything we did, you know, well he was always right behind me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, when we went to parachute school, we wound up together, you know, because of our names being real close to one another. Well anyway, uh, now,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When we jumped, the Marine Corps jumped from the plane, we dove out head first.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their theory was that when you jump out and that parachute opens right there, you kind of swing with it right there. Well the army jumped them out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Feet first and came down so forth. So we jumped em, we jumped out head first.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were training there in, uh, out here in Camp Gillespie. That's where the Parachute School was. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We lined up to make our first jump. Will Harmon was behind me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well in the plane we had, we called it the Blue Goose. Now we had to borrow that from the Navy because the Marine Corps didn't own any planes itself. So we used the Blue Goose.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they took us out there in a truck, you know, the guys that had volunteered to go into the parachute school. And that truck driver drove us out there and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the barracks and the offices and everything was on top of this hill and below was the runway and that's where we jumped into that area right there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That truck driver drove up there and stopped real fast. He said, they're fixing to jump. You guys want to watch? And so we all jumped out of the truck. There was about 10 or 15 of us, you know, jumped out of the truck and watched them. It flew over. Man, here they come diving out. One of them was coming down fast. He was flailing like this. His parachute didn't open.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just before he hit the deck, that parachute opened. He had to pull out his.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a reserved chute. Now the reserved chute was on the front, and it didn't have a pilot chute on it. So when you pull the rip part, you're supposed to pull out that silk yourself. Well, it wasn't silk, it was nylon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, he was pulling that out, just he got it filled out, he hit the deck, and a jeep was on its way down there, and they put him in that jeep, put a parachute on him, got him out on the plane.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The plane went up there and out it came again. And that truck driver said, any of you guys want to go back to boot camp?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, we had to pack our own chutes. We learned how to pack chutes and we...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In every step you took at parachute school, you had to be running.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you weren't running and an officer or an NCO would catch you, you were in trouble, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So every step we took, we learned how to pack chutes, ran up and down. I got where I could pack a chute in 12 minutes. One day they said, you're going to pack a chute today and you're going to jump tomorrow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said, uh, I better take a little bit more time. So it took me 30 minutes to do that one. Well that night, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, what was that end in his name, but, uh, was it? Ira Hayes. Ira Hayes. He was in my platoon. You heard of Ira Hayes. His hip raised a flag on the eagle. He was real quiet. And there was another end in there with him. And that night before we jumped


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That guy jumped off and hollered gung-ho, you know, and broke both of his ankles. So that ended his parachute. But I was, uh...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was, he was a good Marine. He was quiet, you know. He never, never said much. And I'd talk to him, you know, because my mom was a Comanche Indian and I had some Indian blood, you know, and I'd tell him that, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we became close friends, but he was so quiet, you know. He was a great guy, but he was just quiet. Well, you know the history of what he did and what happened to the poor guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We came out and that first jump we made, we made a jump. And when I came out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I dove out when my chute opened. I was standing on another chute below me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it was Harmon. He should have been above me because he was coming out of there. We didn't think much about it, you know. I just thought that's what jumping was like. Well, the next day, we jumped again and we came up. We were tangled together. And, uh, and their chutes, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When they're slanting up like that, air was going up too fast when holding the sheet. And when we hit...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Man, there's like a ton of bricks hitting, you know. Man, it hurt and everything, cause that chute hadn't, uh, wasn't able to, those chutes weren't able to hold us up. So we hit the ground pretty hard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The jump masters and the guy on the deck watching things, he says, what happened?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, they didn't ask anything of Harmon, you know. It's always me they're looking at, you know. Well anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well in fact they was looking at me because I didn't even have boots on there. One time I said, where's your boots? I said, they all don't have any that'll fit me. So they finally got me a pair, a six size and told me to wear four pair of socks, you know what I mean? Those were the first boots I had. Well back to Harman. Well the next time we jumped,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I came out bruised up and everything, went into a jump roll. Uh, I was, my chute, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The shroud lines are tangled up in my boots, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I whipped out a K-bar knife and cut those two strangers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When my parachute, when I jumped out, or dove out of the thing right there, I was facing the plane.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And my sciatic line was playing out between my legs. And so that's where my movie came from.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Man, they came up there and they decided I was too light to be in, in a parachute, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, uh, the sergeant over there at the, at the loft where we, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Packed our chutes, you know. He and the officer would talk and they'd say, well, he's just too light.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was standing there talking, I said, I said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Y'all can't get me out. I want to stay in this outfit. I want to stay in it. And so that sergeant...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said, why don't we put him in a army-navy canopy? Now the army-navy canopy was only, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the carriage, you know, I forget what they called it, you know, where you folded your chute and put it on there. And so here I am with a parachute, you know, made out of silk instead of nylon. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Silk reacts a lot faster than nylon does. So, so when that shoot opened, I got a pretty good, uh, kick out of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well when we came out, and that day we were gonna jump with weapons, and so they gave us all a rising gun. You ever heard of a rising gun? No. It was about as worthless as a grease gun, so we called it a grease gun. It was a terrible weapon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They outlawed them in the military right quick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Harman hit me and knocked my rising gun down and it went down, stuck in the garden and they, they, uh, this was our, our fourth jump. And, uh, and the sergeant said they were,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were considering just really to drop me, send me back to boot camp to be assigned somewhere else, you know. With tears in my eye, begged them to let me stay, you know. Well, and then the sergeant said, I'm gonna go up tomorrow and watch and see what is happening. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he went up there and found out what was happening. Right here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're coming down this white line in the fuselage of the plane.


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[Assistant] And then a white line was right there leading out the door. So we were supposed to come down and make a sharp turn and dive out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well I was coming down there and going out the proper way. Harmon was coming down there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was cutting across and he was going through the door the same time I was and it was knocking me against the side over there. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he just knocked me out. He, he was, the chute was opening before mine was opening. And so we got that straightened out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that wasn't the only trouble I had with Harmon, but that's a different story. Maybe I shouldn't bring it up here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I won't go into the pink house. Better do it in the book, don't I? I don't know.


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[Assistant] Our day off was Wednesday. First Battalion got Wednesday off, you know. They didn't let us all off at the same time because they didn't want another Pearl Harbor type thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because the Japs were still on the offensive at that time. So, uh, he, uh, he got where he would go down there every Wednesday.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, he fell in love with one of those girls and they fell in love with, or she fell in love with him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He went in there and he didn't get the bus, last truck going back to base and he didn't get back in time. So he had to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hitchhike. I don't know how he got there, but he got there about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, about an hour after roll call and everything. So when he showed up,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, Fagan just put him on five days' bread and water.


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[Assistant] Well, when you buy it, we'd buy something over there from the PX. You couldn't go in and buy one bar of candy or one can of beans or anything like that. You had to buy a whole box.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So on his third day I went, went over and got me a, uh, Joe Boy. Now Joe Boy was, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, non-chocolate, uh, you couldn't have chocolate candy in the tropics because it'd melt, you know. So they had this nougat, uh, covered with, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Peanuts and it's called Joe Boy. So I went by there one night and I opened up and I was eating one of them and I hollered at him through the barbed wire thing. He was in a tent and it was kind of in a clearing in the woods, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said, tell me one of those things. I haven't had anything but bread and water for three days now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I said, nah, I'm not going to throw you out against the road. Oh, come on, please, I would do it for you. Just a couple of them. So I looked around, took two of them out and threw them in the old, uh, carpenter to the guard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, he came over and he said, put this guy in there. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Aunt Ferris happened to be the Corporal of the Guard at that time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said, well we can't, we're all packed up, you know, we don't have, they're just one, uh, bunk, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What did the thing give? Caught. Caught in there. And the rest of them are all packed and ready to go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The next day, I was sitting there and I had, I'd already had a couple of loaves of bread and water. He came by with a box of candy. I said, come on, throw me one of those things I'd throw to him. He said, no, that's against the rules. I don't want to get in trouble.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you know, we was island hopping over there. What we would do would evade an island.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Put in an airstrip and, uh, everything and to use to hop to the next island.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it didn't, when it was through, when it's nearly vacated, uh, in the old out, uh, the airfield that you put in and everything. And so Velo the Bella was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, one of those stages and everything. And across the bay there, I think is something like 13 miles or something, was Colombo-Ngara. Now that was just an island just sticking up, uh, volcanic island just sticking up in the ocean. And it was, uh, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, the Jap occupied it. And, uh, but we took Vela la Vela and put in an air strip there. We landed there and that was when I had my first taste of action.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're supposed to follow our sin, you know, and start building our, well the CBs was a tough outfit. They were getting ahead of us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we'd had to show them back. So they made a, asked us get on the, put snipers on the, their tractors, and that's what we did and everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uhm, then we moved, when we were moving out of the beach, we had to send out on patrol.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We found that there were some up there, so we were going to go up and attack them before they could get down.


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[Assistant] And work over the CBs that were building the airstrip, you know. And so, it was so hot.


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[Assistant] The jungle was so thick, we had to have, uh, guys using matches, you know, to chop our way through there. Well, we'd last only about 10 minutes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Using those choppers to get through there. They're just big blades, you know, just used, uh, used just to chop through the vines. Well, we were staggered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A guy was here, I was here, and another guy was here. And we were working our way through it. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a Jap, uh, Nambu opened up on us and this Jap was up in a tree and he shot


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it killed these two guys that were in this line over here in Iowa.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was over here, so he didn't get us, get at all, three of us. Well anyway, then he,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Went after me and I just jumped under the shreds and, uh, uh, the brush and everything and I just crawled one place or other and I don't think he could see me but he was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably see the leaves and branches working. He is firing at me and everything. And so, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A guy, a big guy had an A4 machine gun. You know, that's an Eric Holt 30 caliber, uh, weapon. And he had a Abbestos glove, and he was big enough and strong enough that he could fire a short bust at a time with it and everything. So he said, Harvey,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What tree is that guy in? I said that big one over here on the left.


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[Assistant] He said, that doesn't mean a thing, they're all big on the left and right. And so...


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[Assistant] I said fire at one of them right there and I'll give you directions where to go. So uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That guy fired at me and they saw where he was shooting at.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this guy, I wish I could think of his name. This big guy. I admired him because he was so big and strong. But he just saturated that thing with that A4 machine gun. And sure enough, here came a Jap hanging out. He had a rope around his foot and that, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nambu machine gun, that's the first Jap weapon I'd seen, that's the first time I'd been shot at, you know. So I remember the Nambu real well. Well anyway, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was my first action and man, I hated those jet machine guns. But if I had to go to war right now...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would get me a Jap Nambu machine gun.


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[Assistant] And there's a picture of it right there. That weapon was something else. Had to shoot, had a magazine that hold 20 shells and boot. And I ran across another one at the Iwo Jima and that's another story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that was really tough on me, you know. I remembered my sisters, you know, and thought how terrible it would be if they were hit like that. It stuck with me all these years, you know. I remember that little lady in that jungle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were sitting up, uh, what was the name of that beach?


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[Assistant] Corey Beech. We'd heard that the Japs were, uh,


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[Assistant] Fixin' to come up here, so since first battalion up here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the company of Raiders up there, we went up there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Left our base at about 12 o'clock and it was 12 miles up the island. And when we invaded, invaded it during the night, we waited until it began to get light. Well there was a Japanese officer came in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Walked into the group. I didn't see him because I was out on the flank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was a Japanese officer, he came down there hollering instructions and everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he didn't know it was Marines that had come ashore. He thought it was things, because they were building up to invade that, uh, area where we were building the airstrips, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so they shot him dead right there and then all hell broke loose because we were outnumbered ten to one. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I finished with doing my job and hurting that little girl, well, I ran to catch up with a bunch, you know. Well, the first guy I caught up with were Whitey Maynes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was in my company and everything. So we went on up there and we was on the very end of the flank there. And, uh, we both had Johnson rifles and that's all we had to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Protect that flank with. And that's a weak part of the line. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hall came up there, oh I'd say about nine or ten o'clock. He said, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What are y'all doing down here? You're supposed to be up there with us. And they had gone on up there and we work, uh, B Company. We were with B Company and A Company was in the middle of the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well it was a coconut grove that we hit into and they had a road behind that coconut grove and those Japs were using that whole material up there to invade that airstrip. And so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here, Wiley and I were on the flank there, and that's where we were detected. Wiley began to ascend.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, planes, uh, down there, they were strafing that road, uh, that we were, uh, struggling along, you know, and those planes were coming,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hard and fast. If they hadn't come up there to protect us, they'd have wiped us out. It was a whole regiment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of Japs that are fixing to invade that deal right there. And those planes were coming just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One after another. And they didn't even bother to put up the landing gears. They just left them down and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We'd come along strafed and they'd drop bombs along the way. And we were on the very end. We were afraid they was going to start shooting before they got to. We'd get out there and wave at them right there and they'd go by us and wave at us and start strafing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the commander down at the, at the database told him to, to, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they're just sending it up, uh, uh, Kraus to take us off. And Viggins answered, no, we're not going to be the first man, uh, Marines to be pushed off of a beach. We were scheduled to be taken off at seven o'clock and that's when we will start.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we was out all day long. And it was a long day. And Hall came up there a few times and we had Johnson rifles. We didn't have the N1 rifle. We had the Jert, uh, Johnson rifles was a .30 caliber.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, cylinder fed, uh, they didn't use clips in them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I thought it was the best weapon that I had beside, in the war beside the Nambu.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, Hall would bring us ammunition up there. And then he'd finally come up there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Late in the afternoon, he said, you gotta make this last, cause there's, we're nearly out of ammunition. And so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here we were, and it was, couldn't do anything until seven o'clock. So, ships.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Higgins boats were out there circling, waiting for seven o'clock, I guess, because then, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Ott Ferris came up here and he said, now we're gonna be taking off and we'll start at seven o'clock and that's about an hour and a half from now. And,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The guys next to you, they're in company B now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because of the mix-up, you know, uh, Wiley Mains and I was involved in. Well anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Ott first told us that when these guys over here, they're gonna leave. And when they leave, they're gonna holler and let you know that they're leaving.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You count to 50 as fast as you can and then get down to the beach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so we sit there, we sit there, we hear these boats coming in and taking off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Shooting and everything on it right there. I said, why the gosh, what time is it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, we should be getting out of here and everything. And why do you say that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hollered over at those other guys right there and they didn't answer us. So I walked over there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They'd already lived and didn't call it out. So here we were, only two guys left on the beach, I guess, and we started running. Well, I was pretty fast, so I took, uh, why this, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Johnson Rifle and I carried both of them down there, and I still beat him down to the bus. I mean, to the, uh, Higgins' Volt. But it wasn't a Higgins' Volt, it was a... It was a what? LCVP.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] LCVT is heavier than the Higgins boat and it's all steeled right there. So here we are running down there and hollering, don't leave, don't leave, and everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, Oddfarish is on the deck, and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the ramp on that LSV was at about a 45 degree angle because that was taking shots from the Japs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Captain Hayes, he's a captain by this time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was trying to hold us up and everything, and Fagan was on that boat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this little coxswain on the thing right there said, we're moving out out there, we're leaving out there. Fagan said he fought his way through those guys down there and put that pistol in that kid's hand. I said, put this back on, I'm gonna blow you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bleep head off. So he put it back on there. And the guys that are around, they're telling us about what happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so here we are running and so forth, and I got down there and, and Art Fairstuckles, uh, to Ralph and threw him up on, up there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] into the boat, and, uh, uh, Hall got him to lower it a little bit, right there, uh, thing, and then, uh, uh, Aunt Ferris took us, took us by our foot, you know, and heaved us up there, and Hall pulled us on in, and I got up there and hear,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Old Wiley Mains finally got there and, uh, that's how we got off the island.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It took about 30 to 40 minutes, I guess, to get everybody off there and we were the last two to get off the island. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'd been on the beach before at night and I didn't want to be on the beach again in Japanese territory.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, we got back, uh, uh, they took us out, we got back on a destroyer and was heading back in, uh, to, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Empress Augustus Bay, that was on Volgonville, that's where we invaded to set up a airstrip, you know, to attack New Guinea. But anyway, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We got the word, uh, I forget exactly when we got it, that breaking up the paratroopers was coming back to the states. Oh, okay. And so we got back to the states and was integrated into the fifth division.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we came on back to America. We was on liberty ships. Okay. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they got, uh, got us back to Pendleton and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We got a little leave, I don't know how long it was. It might have been a 30 day leave, you know. And then we started forming up in the 5th division. And that's when I, uh, well when we got back,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was, uh, I had what you call, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The crud, you know, I broke out all over the body just like having an athlete's foot on your whole body. And, uh, so they brought us back and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And another story that I might throw in here. We were stationed over there at Camp Pendleton.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, we lined up one morning to go into Chow, you know. It was still about half dark, you know. And we were standing there and, and, uh, Otfar's is out in front. And there's a,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A group come marching up there, turned out to be women.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, Aud Fer said, well,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This man's outfit is going to pot. We have dogs in there and then we have this group in here and everything. Now we got women in here. He's just shaking his head.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we heard a guy up here said, fire two for effect. Another guy down here hollered back, bam, bam.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His group was over there at the child line one time and several of the guys said, that's Barcelona, that's Barcelona.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course he is my hero too, you know. So, as soon as we got there, line up there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I go into the child hall, I snick over and I said, sir, can I shake your hand? He said, certainly not the time to shake my hand. I went back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that was my experience with Bachelon. Now, Cabra d'Arche had told me quite a bit about Bachelon because they were, he was about, how far did he say he was?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 30 years from Barcelona, when Barcelona was earning his, uh, Congressional Medal of Honor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, he was the first enlisted man to be awarded Medal of Honor in the Marine Corps in World War II.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, and then, uh, you know, he came back, he was in praise and, oh, bond drives and so forth. And he had it made, but he wanted to get back to the Marine Corps and work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the Marines groups again. So we joined up and came back and he got killed at Iwo Jima.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Water canal, yeaah. He was talking about water canal all the time, you know. And I'd never heard of, uh, Chester Puller until Carver started telling about it and everything. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, he wasn't little like Chester Puller was, but he was a efficient leader of men right there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, let's see, it wasn't too long, you know, they, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had to go over there, I told you I had to go to the hospital and be treated for, we called it Japanese crud, no, Chinese crud. And it was just breaking out, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kind of like, I always thought it was kind of like athlete's foot oil with their whole bodily. And the only treatment they'd put some kind of blue medicine on it and that kind of thing. And so I was over here in the Balboa Hospital for nearly a month before I was released.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From there, where I got re- There was a lot of us in that same position, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well we trained over here for a couple of months and then


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We, uh, we was trained up for


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To go overseas and we made a practice invasion of one of the little islands off of here and we invaded it, you know, practicing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when we got there, we was lined up on the beach and we kept sitting there waiting to be told to move on in or something like that. We sat there and sat there and everything. Finally officers came out and told us, said, hey, we're going back on the ships. We're heading overseas again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, we went back aboard ship and went over here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Came over here to Camp Pendleton and started getting ready to go back overseas again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's when I asked my mother to find me a pistol and that's when she came over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah. The camp was called Camp Taro. So we trained there. And I was, that's when I was assigned to an assault squad. And, uh, there was a demolition guy in that thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that was quite an experience. And, uh, let's see.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then we trained and got ready to go to, to, uh, EWO. And while we were training there,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At Camp Tarva on the big island, you know. They'd line us up every Tuesday. No, I mean Wednesday. And give us two cans of Lucky Lager beer. Well I didn't drink right there, but Carver loved that beer. And so I would give my two to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he swore me to secrecy. Don't you tell anybody that I got the... So when he hit the island of Iwo Jima, he was carrying 14 cans of beer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he threw away his, uh, gas mask and had four cans of beer in that gas mask.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We heard on the ship, we listened to Tokyo Rose. You know, we like to listen to her because she...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She said, well I hear that the Marines, she always said, well I heard that the little Marines are going to be hitting one of our islands soon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, she said they better bring their gas mask. And we heard that, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said, Copper, what you gonna do? I'm gonna shoot you. And so, they didn't use gas, gas on us, thank goodness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we, we were on the board ship before we, well we got aboard ship, and,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We sailed around and we went over and made a couple of practice landings in those islands in Hawaii, you know. And so we went ashore, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We anchored out at Pearl Harbor, you know, and they gave us...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three or four hours leave off the ship, you know. So there's a group of us together. We was bound in town here in Hawaii.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is not Hawaii though, is it? Anyway, we were off down there and one of the guys in my group was walking around and gawking at everything, you know, on the island and this guy named Lucas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was in my group when we were walking around and he looked at, he said, there's my cousin over there. And so we went across the street and it was, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Lucas, his cousin, you know. What was his name? Jack Lucas. Jacqueline Lucas, you know. And so he stayed with us and walking around there and everything. And we said, we gotta go back to the ship. And so we went back to our ship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jacqueline Lucas was still with us, and when we got aboard, he went in, checked in. He was on there about three days out. I said, uh, I talked to the other Lucas, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, he was there for about three days and I said, you better take your cousin over there and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tell him that he's not aboard this ship where he's supposed to be with his outfit. He was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gonna be a replacement in the first division, but he wound up in the fifth division.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, he was in the 26th Marines with us. And, uh, he, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He got hurt, he threw himself on a hand grenade and, and, or two hand grenades and saved him, his buddies, you know, and he got to Congressional Medal of Honor. You've probably seen or heard of him, cause he, and, uh, he was from, uh, Mississippi.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I forget the name of the town, and I just, I was going over to see this guy in, in Georgia, and I, uh, went through that town and, and I


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I turn around, as I turn around going back, I heard on the radio that he had passed away during the night. And that was last I seen or heard of him, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, we didn't, we had no idea what was just another island. But when I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When it got light and I looked around and saw all those battleships and, and just,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, uh, Odd Fairs and Captain Hall, I was their runner and I was telling them before I'd ever seen any action, I said, I don't know how it'll be when we see.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Captain Hall said, uh, that's what you want to be. You want to be scared to death. He said, you should be scared half to death. And, you know, there's no meaning to that, being scared half to death, because I was just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you're scared, when fear takes over, it dumps adrenaline into your brain, into your muscles, and you react and everything. And I know that's what happened to me, because when I got hurt, I was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wasn't wounded at all. Now, Carberry had been wounded before we hit Iwo. He had been wounded at, uh, Guadalcanal. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He got, uh, that night that Barcelona was, uh, did his thing. And he was, oh, about 30 or 40 yards from Barcelona on that line, you know. And the shell hit him, so they took him off. And he had, a lot of those guys got malaria.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he had malaria real bad and they took him to, uh, Australia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there was a ship there going back and he was so with that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That wound that they hadn't been able to treat it because the Navy took off with all the, the, uh, medical gear and everything. So he actually didn't see a doctor until he got back to Australia. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he went back, got back to the states and he wouldn't take a discharge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They sent a corpsman back with him, you know, and he just put on a merchant ship going back. It wasn't a Navy ship at all, it was a merchant ship that was going back. And that corpsman said, probably they're sending you home to die.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, they're going to discharge you. And, uh, so Carver, he said he didn't know whether to believe that corpsman or not, but they sent him up to, uh, Tillamook, Oregon. And, uh, there's, they had a balloon station up, uh, you know, they put


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Big balloons up in the air on cables, you know, to protect areas, you know, uh, military areas that the Japanese would


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably shoot if they tried to invade us. So he got in with, uh, Cross, Bill Cross up there at that time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a guy named Horsefly, he's Horsefly. I can't think of his name. But he's from Wichita Falls. And we nicknamed him Horsefly. He was always talking about horses. Well anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were up there guarding a naval base at Tillamook, Oregon. And they was trying to get back to the fleet marines, you know. And they wouldn't send them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they was doing things that they shouldn't be doing. They wrecked a jeep and that brought it to a head and they said, you're going back there to a rifle company. So that's the way he got back in to a rifle company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was when I was put in the hospital where the Chinese crud and, and lost, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Contact with my outfit and so forth. And I wind up with, uh, uh, nails Copeland and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and the barracks over there are nearly empty. And so, uh, I went over there and checked in. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Copeland was the sergeant in charge, and he was the only guy in the whole barracks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said, where is everybody? He said, well, they just emptied out. We were waiting to fill up again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said, just go down there and find a bunk anywhere in the inn. I said, well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What room do you want me to be in? Well, lower floor, they said, there's not three or four guys down there anyway, just take any.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Any bunk you want, you know. So I fooded around there and ate supper and everything and, and got in, in the bunk, hung my uniform on the end of the bunk on a hanger and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was sound asleep at about 10 o'clock.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lights went on, all these guys were hollering, singing and everything right there. I said, you guys knock it off and turn out that light. Who said that, big boy?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who said that? Well I said, I said, I get those lights turned off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And here he comes over, a warrior, a warrior. So he comes down there, he was gonna fight me. So I jumped off that bunk, I was mad enough to fight anybody. So here he come, he was not much bigger than I was, you know, because he's been hurt, you know, and everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Come on over here, we got some, uh, uh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Come on over here and join us. I said I'll eat a sandwich so I don't drink beer. And so that's how I met Carver Dard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, we'd go on Liberty together and, and they liked their booze and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And HotFly liked his booty stew and he drank pretty heavily.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it would wind up, I didn't drink so I happened to take care of horse fly and they would, had dates and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He and Cross, uh, Cobber and Cross would go off to somewhere and I had to take, uh, care of, uh, Horsefly. Well, we ca- we were out in Olive Grove or someplace here in


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Closer to San Diego, I guess. Well, it's closer to LA, I guess.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I couldn't find a taxi or anything. And I didn't know what to do. Couldn't find a place to stay with him and everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we went in there, and we both went to sleep, woke up the next morning, the films were still showing, so I got him out, we finally got home, and we were back to camp, and uh, that was my experience with Hoss Fly. Hoss Fly was killed at Evo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, before Iwo, the Japanese always tried to stop us before we got to the beach. At Iwo,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They let us get on the beach and that's when they really opened up with everything they had, you know, and, and, uh, and it was more effective than trying to stop us before we got to the beach. Well, we were on the beach and, and a lot of officers and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it sloped and guys were laying down on that thing and went over to the martyrs. Those martyrs that were coming in like land, raindrops. When they'd hit and they...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's supposed to go out and up, you know. When it was all laying on the ground and that was just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Inviting those shells to come in close to us, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, Culver said, we gotta get off this, off this beach. So we started trying to get.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hollering, getting off the beach, run. So we ran, man, I ran and first thing you know I'm on the beach on the other side. That's when I realized we were on a little island. And, uh, so we got over there and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, I heard that Hall had been killed on the boat and I cried.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I love that man, I mean, he was treating me like a son.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hall got off right on the beach and one of those shells got him. And I was, uh, we got over there and, and it wasn't,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They weren't firing in that area so we spread out waiting for somebody to come or take over, you know. We didn't know what to do. So I was laying there propped up against a deal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I heard a shot real close to us and everything. I looked around and, uh, and I couldn't see anybody shooting, you know. And then I looked over about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Twenty or thirty yards of the piece of tin raised up and a rifle come out, shot some


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I made another shot. So I told the guy and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Over next to me. And he had a riot gun, we called him. It was a 12-gauge shotgun with just a few balls in the, uh, uh, cartridge, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I said, come on, follow me. He said, where are we going? I said, we're going to go over and have some fun. So I said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a sniper in this hole under this piece of tin. I'm gonna raise that up and you just shoot. Just shoot in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I raised the other and the Jap looked up there and that guy cut loose with that shotgun about that far. What a mess that was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That guy had never seen action before with, had a shotgun. He threw up. And, uh, but that's, that's the first real thing I did on, on the EWOL.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, you couldn't lay on it. It's called, it's the steam heat coming from


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Up through that volcanic ash. You know, they keep talking about the sands of Evil Jim. That wasn't sand, that was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it was cold at night, you needed something over here. So we'd lay something on the deck, you know, box or cardboard or extra blankets or something just to get off the thing. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then you put a poncho over and that would hold the heat to keep you warm, but it wouldn't scald you, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let me tell you what I heard about. Uh, we heard about the razor grass, uh, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] MacArthur decided he wanted to use paratroopers in the jungles of New Guinea. And so they,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Decided to send in a regiment, I forget how many are sent in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they took pictures of where they wanted to land in the jungles, you know, and they found this place, grassed-in area and, uh, no trees in that part there and so forth. Ideal place to land. So they jump in there and it was that razor glass, 12 feet high.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they had guys all cut up on it, ruined all the parachutes and just, that grass was terrible. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two of them were killed in the jump and a couple of them landed in the jungle, you know, and were hurt bad, badly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then they told us two guys were never heard of or seen again. Then they had to march out because you couldn't land a plane in the jungle to take them out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it took them six weeks to get back to their base, and they had to be, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you know, fed along the way, they'd have to parachute stuff into them and so forth. So that's when the Marine Corps said, hey, we're not using the paratroopers in the jungle. So that's when they brought us back to the States and put us in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, as well as I can remember, I guess it was the first day. Because I had to go back and get some TNT.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the guy was with me, he had to get some napalm, you know, he was a flamethrower. And, uh, we saw this group of guys over there and, and,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a guy giving the last rites to someone, I said, what's going on here? And this guy said, Barcelona just, was just killed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I heard that Hall had been killed. I cried again. I cried unashamedly, you know, because they meant a lot to me, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just found out where Hall was buried. You know, he didn't evidently didn't have a family, I mean a wife or anything like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I couldn't find out where he, where he was, you know, where he'd been buried or anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I told her my problem and three days she had this magazine on the way. She found out the computer, you know, what it was all about and I was amazed at that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, uh, she found out that Hall had been buried in, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, at first, at evil, they got so many dead that they...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hospital ships couldn't take them and so forth. So they had to do something with the bodies so they began to bury them there. And they stayed there temporarily for several years and brought them back to the states and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, he was buried at, uh, no wonder he cleaned his body. He was buried here in, I mean, in Hawaii at the Punch Bowl, I think it was. And I'm gonna go over some day to visit his grave because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Possibility, you know, I found a second cousin to Amesia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He, uh, works with the, uh, Symphony Orchestra in Cincinnati. And he didn't, uh, he never met Raoul, but he just heard his second cousin. And he didn't know anything about Ken folks or anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The deflation in the volcanic ash. And it was kind of a slope and then a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Depression and that bullets would hit at that above us, you know, that was as low as he could get, you know, and we were safe at that, as long as we stayed down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was just normal, you know, they were throwing a lot of mortar shells in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the ships were firing the heavy stuff but not right in that area where we were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On a patrol and a platoon of us and we met some Japs and one guy was hurt and we didn't know he was hurt and we fell back a little bit and then we realized that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This guy, his name was Joe, something I can't think of his last name now. And the Japs had captured him. And we dug in for the night. And, uh, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, and he would, you know, scream and everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're just trying to get you in position. Don't move, don't move and everything. We sit there and listen to him into the night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in the morning, when it got light, you know, we went in after him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was tied to the base of a tree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With his penis cut off and it was in his mouth and they'd taken scripts of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The skin pulled it off that long. I just really tortured him, something terrible. And uh, we, when I, we found out that they were royal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Manchurian Marines, you know, Japanese had, in Manchuria had a colony up there and they were bigger than the regular Japanese. They might have been Chinese.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were big guys and, and we got, got back at them. There were about 10 of them, I guess, in that group. And we finally caught up with them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that poor guy suffered and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was hard not to jump up and go, but that's what they wanted us to do, you know, to come out of those holes. Because once we got in our...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Foxhole at night, we were not supposed to move for any reason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you had to use the toilet where you used, dug a hole in your hole, and, uh, and those holes in the jungles would, water would seep in them overnight and you're constantly using your, uh, tin cup to take water out and throw it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fighting in the jungle was terrible. It was really terrible. You know, the conditions were bad. Uh, the mosquitoes were bad. Just jungle fighting. I hated that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you didn't get that at Iwo Jima, you know. I don't remember seeing a mosquito or having a mosquito bite in, uh, at Iwo Jima.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I take, uh, Joe out myself because I didn't want him to suffer like that either.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course I didn't tell him that I was going to shoot him, but I was ready to do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was a long day for me, but, uh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I just kinda shoveled it back. I didn't actually catch it. I just shoveled it out. Just struck my hand and I got it out of the hole completely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But not where I should have. I wanted to go back toward the guy that's on it. But that didn't happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, it landed at my feet. I kicked it and it kicked back. Took me out of the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The ninth night. Okay. That was the same night that my buddy, Lee Darch, was wounded and so forth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was a good Marine. I mean, when the chips were down, he played the game. He was put out front, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, he was a scout sniper. That was his designation. And he had in the hole with him, uh, a young guy that had never been in action before, Danny Kruehl. And Danny was a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, B.A.R. man. B.A.R. that's a Browning Automatic Rifle. So they're in the hole. Carver's in his poncho.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Getting arrested and Danny was supposed to be on watch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Covered with sound asleep and he was awakened by a kind of a gas


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cry out, you know, and he rose the poncho edge real slow like, look, and he saw that, uh, Jap had straddled, uh, Danny Kruehl and had cut his throat. Well, Carvery had his K-bar knife


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right there, about beside him, stuck in the thing, so he took him out and was able to get the jab in the, in the back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Got to his knees, turned, and those, uh, jabs began to band-aid him. So they got him in the chest, got one lung, they got him in the chest three times, and he had his arms up to protect himself, and one jab stuck his


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the other Japs put the same hurt on this, on his left side. So here he is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Flexing his muscle, they can't drag the, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The bandit's out, because when he flexed the messle, it tied him up. And so he's struggling there. Well, a guy...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Back up on the side of the hill figured, he saw this action figure that Cobber and Danny Crowell had had it. So he throws a hand grenade down there. And it didn't go in the hole, but it must have done some damage to the, uh, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, the Japanese were scared off so they left.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I scrambled out of the hole and the copper was able to get his arms.


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[Assistant] Divorced from the bayonets and he was, took Danny Kruehl's BAR and shot those two jobs as he ran down the hill.


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[Assistant] Well as I told you before, Carver loved his beer.


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[Assistant] When he hit the island, he had 14 cans of beer. Well on that ninth night left, on the ninth night,


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[Assistant] When both of us were hurt, he had only eight cans of beer left.


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[Assistant] Well they finally get to cover and get him on a stretcher and they're carrying him back. Now this isn't the dark of the night.


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[Assistant] And they get him on the stretchers and they take him to the rear for help and everything. And he's having trouble because blood is forming in his mouth, nose and so forth. But he's able to tell the guys, I tell you, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I forget the sergeant that was carrying him, but uh, but he said, when you guys get back, there's beer in my...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They run back there, got the beer and drank it while they're still in the hole. Come back, they can't find Darch. It's dark and he's calling out to them.


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[Assistant] And he can't be heard because he had so much blood in his mouth and everything. So he laid there until dawn until it got light enough to find him.


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[Assistant] Well, he loves to tell his story when he gets around a bunch of guys at the USO and at the American Legion and veterans of foreign wars. And I'll take him over those from the hospital. I'll take him over and he tells that story. He says, this is my buddy. He nearly got me killed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did not tell the true story, you know. He nearly got himself killed. He was a character and I loved that guy. He was really a guy.


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[Assistant] Well, uh, I think I was raised about the third day there, I guess. It was somewhere like that. But I was on the far side of the island on the other beach. I think I'd alluded to that earlier tonight. Well, anyway, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's, that's how that was happening. Oh! I was working, there was a big cliff there, and, uh, and there was a, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pillbox on the side of that other beach, you know, we ran to that other beach over there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well there's a pill box there, and it was, they had, uh, uh, uh,


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[Assistant] Nambu, I guess, was firing at those ships that were sitting out there. There were small boats and everything. Well, we're sitting up there and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this pillbox is on the side of this sloping hill, down to the, down to the beach, you know. And, uh, so,


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[Assistant] They loaded me on a rope to put a shape charge on the top of that, uh, pill box, you know, concrete. So they loaded me down there and I put a shape charge on that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that didn't phase that stuff. So they pulled, pulled me back up. And then a guy was with us, radioed that, uh, uh,


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[Assistant] Oh, that little ship out there, let's see, uh, uh, Landing Craft Empty, LCI, and they had a twin


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[Assistant] Clips with four of those shells on it, putting them up there, and this guy would fire, and then another guy would pull him off there, and they'd get there, and they'd laugh, and then whooping it up, and they finally just drilled a hole in that thing, that, that, uh, pillbox just exploded. We were up there cheering, every cheering on the thing. And later on that day, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We come up to a cliff, a hill thing and there was a big door over a cave on the side of that cliff and it was heavy with wood and metal and so forth.


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[Assistant] I had to use, I was going to use TNT to blast it in. So I put the TNT, I put a whole pack on the pole and I was carrying it.


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[Assistant] And I was going to come up the side there and the guys were protecting me, you know.


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[Assistant] Around any, any Japs that came out to meet me or anything. So.


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[Assistant] I'm slipping up there and I have my pistol that my mom had sent me. I had that in my right hand and I had this, uh, uh,


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[Assistant] Uh, charge of TNT on a pole. And I was slipping up on that thing from the side.


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[Assistant] And I was going to put that down there and put a sharp fuse on it and let it blow it out. Well as I was walking up there,


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[Assistant] I jumped come runner from around a rock right there and he had a bandit come charging at him and I took a pistol and shot him about three times in the belly. And that's the only time I had ever.


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[Assistant] Knew that I'd kill. That was my kill right there. Nobody fired. Cause other times...


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[Assistant] When we'd see a job, there'd be four or five of us firing at the same time, you know, so you couldn't claim, but that was my kill. They all cheered me back over here. And uh, so I'm, I sit off that TNT, and it didn't phase that door at all.


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[Assistant] And so, as I was coming back, we were looking at that guy's rifle, and he was out of bullets.


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[Assistant] The one that I had shot, you know. And so, about that time,


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[Assistant] I heard a cheer. A man that cheered just like somebody that made a touchdown, you know.


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[Assistant] And then I step back, look up there and there, that flag has just been raised. And I was about


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[Assistant] And I thought, man, the war is over right there. We've won right there. But it went on for another 30, 30 days, you know.


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[Assistant] But, uh, Ira Hayes, uh, was one of the guys that lifted that thing, and I knew him, and, uh, of course,


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[Assistant] At one time I thought I was the only guy on the island that didn't help raise that flag because everybody was saying I was one of those guys that raised a flag.


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[Assistant] Uh, the ninth night there. But there was some, uh, discussion about that we were hurt the third night or something. Was it the third night?


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[Assistant] Yeah, well anyway, uh, he was hurt the same night I was and, and, uh,


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[Assistant] Long ditch that they just used a bulldozer and the volcanic ash just dug a hole there and it was about


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[Assistant] 100 yards long, and it was just lined with...


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[Assistant] Guys on stretchers and guys who were working on them. And, uh, I woke up and, uh,


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[Assistant] I'd been doped up, you know, and I woke up and I knew somebody was working over me and, uh, they got to my boots and I wanted my boots. I was proud of those boots, my paratrooper boots, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said, ah, one of them's no good. And I said, I want to make him be fixed. And...


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[Assistant] I was, I was nearly in tears, you know, because I was hurt and I was under the influence of morphine and stuff like that. So I said, I know, I want my boots, I want my boots.


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[Assistant] And so he took him off and I was laying on my stomach and I hugged those boots right here, pulled them up to me. Cause I wasn't gonna...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lose my boots, I was so proud of them. And then, uh, I went out and the next thing I know I'm being put on a, uh, a board.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was in a LS, uh, uh, a, uh, below an LST and they were going to take me off that board with, uh, four other guys with a platform on cables. They started pulling up and one of those, uh, stretchers fell off. It was metal.


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[Assistant] Uh, uh, farmed and, uh, chicken wire on the bottom of it because it was a metal stretcher. And that went to the thing. And there were about 12 sailors.


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[Assistant] On the Higgins boat and on the LST. Man, they dove in there trying to get to that guy, but he just went down so fast and just wasn't able to save him.


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[Assistant] So they pulled me around to the front, or the rest of us around us about.


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[Assistant] Four or five of us still on, on there, so they pull us around.


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[Assistant] And they opened those doors on the LST and let the ramp down and that boat just went up.


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[Assistant] Higginsville just went up and they took us off.


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[Assistant] Took us up on the top deck, pulled alongside the USS Ozark.


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[Assistant] Uh, supply ships, uh, and troop transports were named after


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[Assistant] So the L.S., uh, the U.S.S., uh, Ozark, that's where I was taken up there and I was on the deck. It was raining and, uh,


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[Assistant] And a doctor was going through and picking them out.


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[Assistant] And he got to me and said, he said, take this guy in first, take him right on in. And I said,