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officer and I have to talk to you that way." I said, "I hope you're in good shape, cause
you're going to have to go up that hill." "Aw, I'm in good shape" and he went up
that hill in good time.
Anyway, I thought they were going to send me back overseas when they picked three
other guys and I to teach officers. We went over to the big major, heavy set guy, he
was the head training command. We were supposed to see him in his office,
Quonset hut. We knocked on the door, "Come in, come in, men" and now I know
it, "Know what? What's the matter with you fellas? What do you look so down in
the dumps about?" Yeah, I'm sure of it now, "When do we go back over?" "No", he
said, "You're not going back over, you're going to teach some officers when they
come here." When we first came back from overseas, they put all us old veterans
that got back from the war on the side of a hill. There was a general and a couple
of captains and that. They had a speaker, mike. And he looks up at all of us and
he said, "Alright, Men, your vacation in the South Pacific is over!" There was one
big rumble, " You sb!" I mean that was really a rumble. He said, "That's right, go
ahead and call me that, but I'll tell you one thing. We're going to make instructors
out of you. You already know what to instruct, we're just going to teach you the
methods of instruction." then he says, "If you flunk out, then in six months you go
back overseas in combat." so I made up my mind right then that I was going to be
the best instructor there, and I was. In fact, he came around one time, the major
did, went down in the boonies - trees - and had the guys sitting in the shade there.
I was lecturing them. After I lectured quite a bit (I didn't know he'd sneaked in
behind a tree) finally I gave them Lieutenant _____ and he came around and said,
"Well done, Sergeant!" "Thank you, Sir." "I couldn't have done that well myself."
I said, "You're just saying that cause it's true." He got a kick out of that, he had a
sense of humor. Anyway, I promised myself I wasn't going back overseas.
Well, that about winds it up.
M: Had a thought or two if you will.
H: OK
M: When you were there were you aware of what was going on with the war - or at
home? Did you feel that you were being supported by your government?
H: No, no. We didn't know anything. We were just shooting a war. One thing I've got
to tell you. Going clear back to Boot Camp (you just reminded me). We were out
drilling one day on the parade ground "three- four - your left, threep - four - your
left; left flank march; right flank march; and they do that: rear march, rear march,
rear march, round and round in circles. We do that so much it gets automatic. One
day I got to dopin' off; I was marching and all at once, I heard a voice way off, says,
"Hey, Dope, where are you going?" and I looked around and the platoon is way to
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heck behind me. He said, "left flank march" and I did right flank. I went one way
and the platoon went the other way, and we got quite a ways between us. Boy, I felt
really sheepish!" "Hey, Dope, where you going?" That wasn't normal from what he'd
have said to the average guy. That do it then?
M: You told me earlier about the doctor and the shrapnel, and the reason you still
carry yours in your eyebrow. Would you like to tell that now?
H: Yeah. That was after Tarawa. We got aboard ship and they had a shrapnel line
going along side the ship going into a hatchway. And the doctor was standing right
inside the hatchway taking shrapnel out of guys. The guy ahead of me had a piece
of shrapnel above his right eye and it curved around his head to the right side,
darned near to the back of his head up on the side, and it was sticking up under the
skin there, but you could see the whole route it took; thank goodness it went around.
I couldn't see what the doctor was doing until the guy ahead of him; then his turn
came and that doctor sees what he's got so he reached in - had a pair of long nosed
pliers - must have been six inches long, the plier part, real slim. So he starts in on
the front where that shrapnel went in and started trying to go around the curve with
a straight plier. He just tore the darned skin as he went around. Well, the guy
screamed and fainted and down he went. Well, he just hung right on to his darned
head, got the guy down in that hatchway trying to get around to get that. I looked
down there and I said, "Hey, Doc, what the hell are you doing?" He looked up,
"What?" I said, "My God, why don't you take a scalpel and just snip it and it'll flip
out." "You shut your mouth or you'll get a court-martial, Fella." I said, "Oh, oh!
You're not taking no shrapnel out of my head. You'd probably go through my rear
end to get it." So that's the reason I've still got it in my head. That guy was a
butcher! He was a - what do you call a guy who operates on your rectum? Piles!
He was a "piles specialist". That's what he was, they said, before he went in the
Navy. He had a blue beard. He could shave and his face was all blue from that
darned beard.
M: Howard, tell us about your medals. Your records were lost?
H: We didn't have any records at all. In fact, in the records I've got in the Veteran's
Administration - there's no record there at all. In fact, on my discharge papers there
it says due to combat conditions, these are incomplete.
M: That means they were lost in battle - sunk on a ship?
H: Yeah, they must have been because before we hit Tarawa, always before we hit an
island, they would take all our seabags and put them together on some ship and then
they'll follow wherever we go and we'd get our seabags. But on Tarawa, we never
got any; they never found them; they must have sunk someplace. All our company
records and everything was gone. Our company first sergeant got killed on Tarawa
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