Robert P., 97 - WWII (42-44)

I was raised during the depression, but as a child, I had always wanted to be an Army Air Corps pilot. So, after I graduated from high school, I got a job, but then that’s when the war in Japan started and so I enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Luckily, I was able to secure the pilot position and so I went through the training and everything was so far so good. After doing pre-flight’s and other drills, next up was 60 hours of solo flying in an open cockpit airplane… that doesn’t happen anymore today. After graduating from twin engine school, I was assigned to an actual unit. The unit was the B-24, which was the largest one that they had at the time. I headed to Boise, Idaho and met my crew. I started out as co-pilot at the time. After the training with the crew was finished, we were assigned to go overseas. We didn’t know where we were going. So, we flew out of Boise and landed in Lincoln to do a final check on the airplane. We were then sent to Morrison Field which was in Palm Beach, Florida. From there we left at night, with an envelope, again, not knowing where we were going. We were told to fly out of here south for two hours, open the envelope and then you’ll know where you’re going. Well it ended up being England. Out of the crew, I was the oldest at 22 years old, we had a very young crew. And here we are on a 12-hour flight to South America, Africa and then up to England. Our navigator in the B-24 never flew over the Atlantic before, so this was his first time. At night, he had to use the stars to navigate. Lo and behold, we hit Africa right on the nose. I thought that was remarkable for a young man who has never done that before. After some time in Africa, we started to fly again, over the Sahara Desert, which was about a thousand miles and went to Marrakech, which is near Casablanca. From there, we took off to England and landed at a British base. We were based in the Eastern part of England, in a base called EYE, that’s where we flew out to 34 missions. All the missions were different, but extremely frightening to say the least. But we all survived. After that, I was sent home for two weeks and I got to enjoy Miami, Florida with my wife. I was than reassigned to Texas, flying bombers up and down the coast and training the soldiers how to fire their guns. I took courses at a flying school and they kept me there as an instructor. Two of my students were the Tuskegee Airmen and they were real gentlemen, excellent flyers. It’s crazy that all the fellows I knew there, none of them backed down or cancelled their flights. They hated to go, because they knew what they were facing, but we had to go. Some of my friends were lost. I am the last one alive from my crew. I think about that a lot….

Walter K., 84 - Korean & Vietnam War (57-60)

We were in the middle of the Cold War with Russia. Strategic Air Command was all over the world, and they're the ones that kept us safe. They had one third of their B-47 fleet in the air at all times. And to keep them up there, you had to get them refueled, well I cruised on a propeller driven Casey 97. So, most of our refueling in Bermuda was done at night.... over the ocean. Once a month we got to come back to the states for over land navigation. Probably the funniest thing that I can remember before I went into the air force, General Curtis Lemay was head of SAC and he came into Cleveland to speak at his nephew's graduation at Case Western Reserve. And he flew in a Casey 97, he stepped off the aircraft smoking a cigar. Well, one of the rules around airplanes, you don't smoke. So, I asked one of the guys on his crew how he could do that, and the guy said the plane wouldn't dare blow up on him.

John V., 94 - WWII (3 Years)

When I went to Gettysburg College as the chaplain, I was there for 14 years. It was the most racist town I've ever lived in. Most of my students were white students, only a half dozen or so were African American. The white students in the dormitories would not take black students as partners in that dormitory. So, what did I do? I did what I learned in the navy. I got ahold of the president of a black college in Kentucky and said, would you accept six of our white students for at least a week in time? He said, "well, sure, I'll be careful with them." And so, I sent six white students to a black college and they learned something about what America is all about. That felt good.

Rowena L., 87 - Korean War (51-55)

I was in my first year of college and I was in the bookstore where people are buying supplies and a lot of the veterans were buying things for themselves and their friends. And I learned that if you have been in the service, you could get your college paid for or at least help with it, that's a good deal I thought and it sounds like an adventure too. So, I went to my job, which was a part time job at the dime store and I had seen a lady in there in a navy uniform and she looked pretty nice and I thought, boy, that's where I want to go, to the waves. At the time it was waves, not regular navy it would became regular navy later while I was in active duty. So anyway, I joined and I went to the Great Lakes where training for, you know, the new troops coming in. And when I had an opportunity to choose what training I would take, I decided to go for whatever was the longest and one I could learn the most from. So, I started with airman preparatory school, went to Florida for that. From there I went to aviation electronics training, which was about 27 weeks. The first two weeks was just in Morse code alone, Dadada Dadada 'hahaha.’ And I learned I had to pass 15 or 25 words a minute in that before I could go on to the rest of the program. So, I made it through and eventually became a third-class petty officer. My assignment when I began to work in my job was at the Naval Air Station in Norfolk, Virginia. My job was to help in a classroom with the aid of a training device where something floats over this big tank of water and the sound travels through the water to a map on the bottom of this tank. And that would be picked up in the form of a video on the scope for radar and the pilots and air crewman were supposed to do that in order to search for enemy submarines at sea. And that's what I did for the most of that time.

Frank G., 96 - WWII (43-45)

I was a flight engineer, but had multiple purposes, on a Boeing B-17G, 384th Bomb Group - 556th Squadron. My station was on top of the plane, in that bubble popping out, fifty caliber machine guns on each side, that’s why I don’t hear very well anymore. Behind me in my station was a tall piece of plexiglass. I wasn’t hit, but the plexiglass behind me was hit by flak one day. The plexiglass marbleized down my back, my imagination went wild. I could imagine nothing but blood running down my back. I’m yelling, “I’M HIT, I’M HIT!” The copilot says, “get up here and we’ll take a look.” He starts laughing, there’s nothing there. There wasn’t a scratch on me. Our average missions were 22,000-26,000 feet and negative sixty below zero. It was cold up there. You didn’t dare take your gloves off, if you did and touched the side of airplane, you’d let your skin be hanging. I had my oxygen hose get disconnected one day. You had about 1.5 minutes to live. Thankfully I was able to get it back together. That was scary. Another task I did was help with the dropping of the bombs. Sometimes the bombs would get hung up and didn’t drop. And I was the guy that had to go up there with a screwdriver and fix it so it could drop, the entire time you could see below. I flew on a total of 35 missions including, Battle of Normandy, Battle of the Bulge and Operation Market Garden.

Melvin V., 83 - Army (56-58)

I joined the Army to launch missiles. Thankfully I never had the chance to see combat or be in the war.

Philip G., 89 - Korean War (51-53)

We went to Puerto Rico to the rifle range and I never shot a gun in my life. I was the first one up to shoot the targets and when I was done shooting, I had ten straight bullseyes. My GI buddies were happy for me. The next day I did pretty good again, but not ten in a row. I was happy.

Leonard L., 91 - WWII (1945)

I hear my name, Leonard, Leonard report to the forward gangway, Leonard, Leonard report to the forward gangway. 10 49 54 8, 10 49 54 8, that’s my serial number. Anyway, so now I'm running through the ship and ask, "where's the forward gangway?" a sailor responds, "I don't know, I just got on the ship." I finally got to the forward gangway, I run up to him and I said, I'm Leonard and he said, "come here to the entrance way", "your parents are down there waiting for you.” So, the other troops are all waiting, you know, waiting for the ship to hit the road. He said, "now, look, I'm going to let you go down there and talk to your parents and they're going to hook up the cables to take the gangway away and when I tell you to come up here, you get up there." So, I ran down and as I run down, everybody up there is cheering, you know. I saw my mother and father, and my father says, "here I'll give you some money." I said, Pop, don't worry about that. I don't need any money where I'm going 'haha'. So, we had a couple of hugs and I hear "come on up here." So that was that. Everyone on the ship heard the page of my name all the way through the ship, so that was an exciting part. So, now I'm on my way to China, from Norfolk, through the Panama Canal, and later we stopped in Honolulu to refuel and resupply the ship and took off. And well, I ended up in China. It was interesting.

Don M., 86 - Navy (50-57)

I went to the gate of my permanent job in the navy and they said, "Don, oh wait a minute", He went back in the building and he comes back out. He said, "there's a message here that you are to report to the commanding officer of the Naval Station." "What did you do?" I said, well, I know what it's all about. So he said, "well, get in the truck." So once arrived, I run in, he said, "go down the hall and turn left." And I thought, I'm going to pull a sneaky. So when I walked in, an officer took me to the door of this office and he said "you have a message here, you're to report to commanding officer, what the hell did you do, you're in trouble already?" I said, no, I think I know. So when I walked in, I thought you don't salute officers when you're inside a building, you salute them when you're outside. And I thought, I'm going to salute this officer. And I walked in, this guy was sitting at his desk and I walked up in front of his desk. I said, seaman, Don M. reporting for duty, sir, (saluting him), and he looked at me and he reached over and he had a chair over there and he pulled it up beside his desk and he put his feet up on his desk. He said, "you're 22 years old, you got a college degree.... what in the hell are you doing in that uniform, you should be wearing the uniform I'm wearing." I said, I'm here to serve my country. He says "what the hell am I going to do with you?" He said, "well, go back to the barracks and I'll call you in a little while." So I went back to the barracks, it took almost all day but they came to get me and took me back. And this was the third man in command. There's a commanding officer, the executive officer and operations officer and that's who they took me too. He said, "you're going to have a tough time" and I said, why? He said, "because you're 22 years old, these other guys are only 17 and a half." I was told I was going to be working with the operations officer. The operations officer, who's third in command had a desk, right beside him I had a desk. I worked with him and I moved people from departments. I was older than some of the officers as well, but it was fun.

Robert H., 86 - Korean War (52-54)

I was sitting out in front of my compound in Korea one time, a truck went by, a kid I went to high school was in it, yells “HEY BOB!” Anyways, as a combat construction worker, we did a lot of removal of landmines, we’d probe for them… that was fun, only if you were careful. We built bridges across rivers, we also blew bridges up. I also drove supplies up to the MASH units. I did nothing special, it was just a job.

Dimitry B., 98 - WWII (41-46)

There were two to three thousand people on a boat, they called them troop ships and we had to move from island to island. When you got on those ships, you were always conscious of the fact that there were two, three or four destroyers following us. The Japanese just wanted to kill as many people as they could, they would just wait at the ports in their submarines, just waiting. One of our ships were headed to Iceland and a destroyer got them, killing five hundred people. The natives at the island of Saipan were told to watch out because we were going to be invading the island and killing as many people as possible. They were so scared. So, when they heard this stuff, they took their families to the highest point and committed suicide. There were times when we had to climb down rope ladders from the troop ships, because they could only go so far, onto navy ships to bring us to waist deep water. Well, when people climbed down on the rope ladders from the troop ships, a lot of them fell off and drowned because of the gear and water movement from the ships. That happened a lot.

John W., 84 - Korean War (53-55)

After eight weeks of advanced training, they kept me to help raise the flag every morning. One day, I didn't do that. So technically I was an honor guard and they would raise the flag every morning. Anyways, one day I did not. So, the lieutenant says, "White you didn't show for flag raising today, you're out of here, pack your bags." So, I packed my bags, I head out of there, he just didn’t want me around anymore. So, I'm on my way over to headquarters and as I approached the headquarters, up on a tank there was a sergeant sitting up there, full of all kinds of strengths. And he's sucking on a sucker and he says, "hey son, you play ball?” I said, yes, I do sir. He said, "well when you get your stuff packed away, you come down here and see me." So, that was that. I was on the special services baseball team.

Stanley G., 90 - WWII (46-49)

I was born at the right time, so I was lucky to have survived World War II and the Korean War. I enlisted in the U.S. Army and served from 1946 until 1949 in the Quartermaster Corps. Most of the time I was deployed in the state of Virginia, stationed in Camp Lee, south of Petersburg and the scene of many battles. It was common sight to pick up mini spent balls from the former battle fields. I was not drafted. I enlisted for three years because I heard about the GI Bill being willing to pay for a large part of college expenses. I had various summer jobs, but I needed more income to pay bills. The Army found out I was good with typewriters and some shorthand, so they sent me to Clerk School, Advanced Clerk School, and 13 weeks in a stenographic school. I did well and maintained almost straight; A’s, something I never did in high school. My evenings were filled with studying and socializing. I still felt lonely at times. I joined the NCO Club (Non-Commissioned Officers Club). The NCO boss hired me as a bookkeeper and clerk to handle their paper work. For this, I was paid fifty-cents an hour plus tips. Working there enabled me to earn a little more money which I badly needed for college. The Army gradually increased my pay checks as they assigned me to various highly regarded positions. First was my assignment to three personnel officers, a manor and two captains. Then I was assigned to various officers in the Brigadier General’s west wing of the building. Believe it or not, my new position was that of Assistant Post Sergeant Major with the rank of Sergeant on the payroll. And I was only 21 years old and entrusted with vast sums of money, maintaining the duty rosters for Officer of the Day as well as misc. tasks. I was the envy of nearly every soldier in the Camp Robert E. Lee. I did not see combat. My memories are like those in the movies, especially “Saving Private Ryan.” In that film, you see the day to day experiences of these dedicated soldiers. I can’t imagine what it would be like. I’ll take that back. Because of the excellent film coverage, I can see and mostly hear what is happening to our young men. As a member of the QM Corps, I was involved with the safe delivery of food, clothing, shelter, weapons and ammo for our young men.

William H., 81 - Vietnam War (60-66)

My name is William, I served in the US Navy for five years or so. One day I was working in the yards and docks in Washington D.C. and I got a call to perform this particular duty. That duty was to go to the White House so, I took six sailors and myself, I was an officer at that time. I went to the White House, and on the front porch was Jackie Kennedy, welcoming me and my crew. She said, "you have the wrong entrance, you have to go to the back entrance." She met us back there. I was delivering hospital furniture and room furniture for the Lincoln Room in the White House, which was going to be Joe Kennedy's place to sleep. He had a stroke and they were taking care of him at the White House. Jackie was very pleasant, pleasant, very, very skilled public relations wise and Jack was too. During these transactions, I did have a chance to see and talk to Jack Kennedy. Once when I was at the station, Jack Kennedy came in with his staff, looked at me and came over to ask me where I was from so forth and so forth. I will never forget that I went to the White House. I also went to Rosie Road switches at the naval air station in Puerto Rico south of San Juan, huge base, and we were building there because we thought our friend Castro was going to come in and destroy it in the future. It never happened, but that was exciting. I had few instances like that. The highlight was to see Jacqueline Kennedy. She was dressed in aquamarine slacks and a white shirt. She was extremely gracious, extremely. She was different than the person who came after her. So, I went and did various things in the navy delivering things and that's about it.

Robert P., 72 - Army (67-70)

The Army promised that I’d be a photographer, my dad was a Marine, but they didn’t promise that I could be a photographer. So, I enlisted in the Army for three years, was in the signal corps and was stationed in Fort Devin’s, which was a short timers fort. My CO was much smarter then I was because at the time I was married and had a kid. He refused to send me, which I’m now very thankful for because who knows what could have happened. As a photographer in the Army, we used a camera called a Speed Graphic (shown.) I’d photograph sporting events, which was a real treat, officer portraits and sometimes I’d go up in a helicopter to take aerials. But one of the things that really hit me hard was having to photograph wounded soldiers coming back from Vietnam. Back then, the only way to document their progression of their wounds was by taking pictures. So, I had to take pictures of soldiers with missing limbs and other horrific wounds and document the different stages. That was very tough… it was tough for us to see this stuff. When I went in, I was very immature, but being in the service for three years, it really made me a lot more mature. I was thankful for the opportunity and wouldn’t trade it for anything. After the Army, I assisted a few photographers and eventually worked at American Greetings for seventeen years. After that, I opened my own photography studio in Cleveland.

Edwin M., 86 - Korean War (54-59)

As a graduate from college I had a draft notice waiting to pick me up to go to Korea to fight in the war. So, I had a choice of either being dirt soldier or joining the navy or air force and I chose to join the air force. I became a pilot in the tactical air force and we were a part of the mobile task force that would put an American air force anywhere in the world within two or three days, operational. We would refuel jets as we flew across the ocean. I had visited almost every island between Japan and England to do the job of refueling. 600 miles west of Wake Island we received orders to proceed directly to the Philippines. The Chinese had decided to take over a little island that was off the coast of China and they were showing it. Our mobile strike force was there in two days. The Chinese saw the F-104 fly over at 1,400 miles an hour, the first time anybody had done that. Through negotiation they called that off. I was in the Philippines for about four months. Our first-born child was born a week before I left and I didn't see him again until he was six months old. I had the opportunity to visit Wake Island, Midway Island, Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, England, Japan, and all over the United States when we would fly out to do our missions. I entered the air force in September, and then the Korean armistice was signed at the end of that year so, I didn't have to be shot at and I got to go back to college. So, I went, after I got out of the air force, and got a PhD and became a professor. So, it worked out well.

James G., 82 - Army (59-61)

I couldn't wait to eat, I set my plate down and this sergeant says, "you had enough, get out." I said, what in the hell. I said, I'm not even sat down yet. "Get up!" Well, to hell with him. I sat down. Here he comes again, "I told you to get out of here." I said, who are you? He said, "I said, get out of here." Maybe I better go. I go outside and there he is standing. He said, "take this knife, go over and start peeling onions." I said, what? He said, take the damn knife, go over and start peeling those onions. I said, who the hell are you anyhow? He said, "GET OVER THERE or you'll find out through Christ who I am." Maybe he is something. He's going back in the door, I was last one. I said, hell it worked on me, it should work on the next guy. So, I go back and find a guy. I said, take this knife and peel these onions. He says, "who are you?" I said, take this knife and start peeling onions. And he said, "who the hell are you anyhow?" I said, get moving. He started walking real soft. I said, don't look back at me, go on, get those onions. He started, I said, it's going good. I started easing around the side of the building. As soon as I got to the corner, Sergeant James comes out. He said, "where's that SOB Green at?" He said, "he's the SOB to give me this knife." He said, "go get him". So, I'm not facing the sergeant, I run up one bank, down the other, three barracks I went through. I got away from it.

Lloyd W., 93 - WWII (44-46)

I was responsible for the radio and telephone communications for the naval ground observers. I was a staff sergeant in the Army. I still remember my Army serial number, I will never forget it, #35843... They never lost a man until Normandy, they had 608 men and brought back 187… I was one of the replacements. Luckily, I didn’t end up going. I was the happiest when the war was over. There were close to a million service men in the San Diego area. It was one hell of a party. It took me two days to get back to normal.

Paul M., 92 - WWII (45-49)

After going to college at age 16, I was drafted into the war. I was an operations sergeant in Korea, I had to plan all the movement of the ships in the port. I still remember my Army serial number, #35861.... I was very happy when I was discharged.

James H., 69 - Vietnam War

I was an electrician on an aircraft carrier and we picked up the Apollo 10 astronauts. After we did that, they scrapped it. So, I went to Vietnam, no one's an electrician when you get there, everybody's a whatever they need. I spent a year in Vietnam, being discharged was my favorite part. But then when I left there the navy tries to give you a preferred sea duty or shore duty. So, I got tugboats in Groton, Connecticut, it's a submarine base. And we were the only Vietnam veterans on the base where the guys ran the tug boats. It was cool because it was an eight to four job.

Paul V., 97 - WWII

U.S. Marine Corps

Glenn K., 52 - Army

I saw my life flash before my eyes. We were doing a training exercise and we're flying in, they call it an air assault, we were flying in helicopters and it's supposed to be flying in a formation. There were three helicopters, I was in the lead, staggered formation and suddenly, the chopper on our left came up almost side by side with us and suddenly it went spiraling right toward us. And I was on right side of the helicopter, and I'm just watching it and I'm like, not much I can do. And then the pilot got control again and made an emergency landing. Here something broke on the helicopter. But it was probably less than 50 yards from hitting us.

Dick W., 78 - Army (63-65)

I was drafted to the Army and was stationed in Fort Hood, Texas. I had experience as a mail clerk from Akron, Ohio. So, they decided to put me as a mail clerk and legal clerk in the Army.

Lester D., 89 - Korean War (52-54)

When I graduated from Ohio State in the ROTC program, I was assigned to the air force for training in San Antonio, Texas for three weeks. I received my orders to report for duty to Bolling air force base in Washington D.C. The location for reporting was the naval station in Northwest District of Columbia. I reported there and according to my orders reported to a specific individual. My chain of command was, I reported to a civilian who reported to the navy commander who reported to an army colonel, no one in the air force was within my chain of command. My engineering background apparently led to the assignment where I was involved with designing monitoring equipment for NSA and they monitored the entire iron curtain as well as South Korea. So, I spent two years in that role coming up with new equipment that was better each and every year for obtaining all the intelligence that was necessary. I proudly relate to that organization because today they are doing a marvelous job of gathering intelligence. My Air Force service, per say, I served one day at Bolling air force base as officer of the day and I was never on the base before or after. I received that assignment because I convinced myself that they wanted intelligence rather than brawn 'ha-ha'. If I gave you any more information, I would be subject to federal offense for giving up.

Ken B., 89 - Korean & Vietnam War (47-67)

I enlisted because I just got out of school and there were no jobs. I’m most proud of my last rank that I received, Senior Chief E-8. While in the Navy, I oversaw the engine rooms, fire rooms and the destroyers. I was in charge of 75-80 people on the ship.

Walter B., 94 - WWII (43-46)

Army