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Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
How did you feel about the Germans?
People say I'm crazy, but I always felt if the Germans would have made friends
with every country they conquered instead of making enemies, I think they would
have whipped the world. They had a good fighting machine. When they went
through Poland, instead of making friends with them, they were still their
enemies, and those people didn't care for that. Of course another thing they did
wrong was go to Russia in the middle of the winter. They weren't ready for that
because they didn't have the equipment or clothes for the climate that they had in
Russia. They had what they called the Cold War and we were just a bunch of
kids, but we were still in the Marine Corps. Of course, Russia was still supposed
to be on our side, but everybody felt that we should have just stayed in there and
started fighting Russia right then. I guess if we had, it would have been the best
thing that had ever happened. Patton was running over the Germans. He was
going to go right into Berlin, and you know how he stopped them? He was tank
commander, and they stopped him by not giving him any fuel. He couldn't go
any farther, and they let Russia go into Berlin first, and they built that Berlin
Wall. As soon as they got there, they more or less went against us.
How did you feel about the Japanese?
Well, I didn't like them at the time, but most of those back then are dead now.
They died of old age and things like that. And I think using the atomic bomb was
the right thing to do, because if they'd a had it, they'd would have used it on us
right quick. These younger people think that was a terrible thing to do, but no
telling how many Americans would have gotten killed if they'd have tried to land
in Japan. It's not like Galveston and a low beach. They've got cliffs and all that
stuff you've got to get up before you can do anything.
Do you remember what you were doing when you heard about the atomic bomb?
We were back in the states getting ready to go back over, and they just held
everybody up. They had a point system where every month you were overseas,
you got so many points; if you were in battle, you got so many points. I can't
remember exactly how many points you had to have not to go back overseas, but
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