1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,300
Sure. My name is Jefferson Wiggins.I was born
in the southern part of the United States.

2
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It’s in a state called Alabama. I was the
5th child, of a family of seven children.

3
00:00:13,310 --> 00:00:23,909
We lived in a very small shack,
at the edge of a cotton field.

4
00:00:23,909 --> 00:00:36,450
And that shack; within that
shack was my mother and

5
00:00:41,640 --> 00:00:45,996
father, my grand mother and
my aunt, and seven children.

6
00:00:45,996 --> 00:00:49,886
My grandmother was the, the… she was the
major of the family. She ruled the family.

7
00:00:49,886 --> 00:00:55,440
Whatever grandma does and
say, that’s what went.

8
00:00:55,440 --> 00:01:02,630
Uh… At that time there wasn’t much…
Uh… The society I was born into

9
00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:10,024
felt that it wasn’t necessary not
advisable for blacks to attend school.

10
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So that there was no, there was no law
that black children had to go to school.

11
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Black children were discouraged
from going to school

12
00:01:16,790 --> 00:01:18,940
when there were crops in
the fields to be harvested.

13
00:01:18,940 --> 00:01:23,937
Until I got to the US army, I had never
been more than 2, 3 miles from home.

14
00:01:23,938 --> 00:01:30,560
Never saw, never seen a large city.

15
00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:48,370
Uh.. Had never really spoken with
anyone, except… who didn’t look like me.

16
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All the interaction that I had
ever had was with my brothers and

17
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sisters, and maybe a young boy
who lived on a farm next door.

18
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It was a life of repetition.

19
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You knew that uh… you were required
to pick a certain amount of cotton the

20
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day and you do that tomorrow you were
required to do exactly the same thing.

21
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It was… a life that… didn’t
have… any diversity to it at all.

22
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How did the plan came about… How
did you join the American Army?

23
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I joined the American army, uh… we had moved
from the farm into a little town, 13 miles away.

24
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As a result of some activity
by the Klux Klux clan.

25
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and my grandmother got me job at a
local drug store in a little town.

26
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And one day as I was making a delivery,
uh… to the courthouse, I came in contact

27
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with this man, a sergeant, who was a
recruiter for the United States Army.

28
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And he looked at me and he said
that uh…. That I looked that

29
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I was, that I would be a lot
better of if I joined the army.

30
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I wasn’t quite old enough.
But I told him that I was.

31
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Uh… He signed me up, and uh… within
5 or 6 days after that, I found

32
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myself in one of the largest posts,
military post, in the country.

33
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Was been in Georgia. There was a lot of doubt
in my mind whether I was qualified for the army.

34
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One was because of age, and two was because: I
didn’t think that I was physically healthy enough.

35
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Uh… but when the doctors
and nurses examined me, they

36
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found that I was a perfect
specimen for the US army.

37
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From there they send me to Fort in Carolina.
Where I got my basic training in field artillery.

38
00:04:21,110 --> 00:04:23,806
Uh… I, I think that… Joining the army was
one of the great things happened to me.

39
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Although I didn’t know at that time.

40
00:04:26,519 --> 00:04:33,563
Because if it had not been for that
master sergeant who felt that my life

41
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was be a lot better in the Army, I
don’t think we had been talking today.

42
00:04:38,460 --> 00:04:48,000
And what kind of unit you were
in, when you went to Europe?

43
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When I went to Europe, I was in what the United
States Army calls a Quarter Master Service Company.

44
00:05:18,190 --> 00:05:25,700
If you are familiar with that,
it simply means that you…

45
00:05:25,700 --> 00:05:27,780
you are mostly the house
keeping unit of the US army.

46
00:05:27,781 --> 00:05:28,760
That’s why we call
it a service company.

47
00:05:28,760 --> 00:05:33,750
Uh… We delivered food, and rations to the troops.
Uh... we… sometimes helped with road building.

48
00:05:34,670 --> 00:05:41,800
But what I found, when I got to
Margraten, was an entirely different life.

49
00:05:41,800 --> 00:05:53,190
I’d never knew that we would be called upon
to do the things in Margraten that we did.

50
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It was one of the most sober
experiences of my lifetime.

51
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And even today it stills
bothers me when I think of

52
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what we saw in Margraten, and
what we did in Margraten.

53
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I remember the day we first arrived in
Margraten, and I looked at this rather flat piece

54
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of terrain and I saw all of these bodies,
laying on the ground, covered with soil.

55
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The Graves Registration Company walking around,
making sure that they properly indentify the death.

56
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And it really, to this day,
kind of chills to my body.

57
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Because, I had never in my lifetime
seen more than one dead person.

58
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I remember back in 1937, my oldest
sister died, and I had never

59
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seen death, until… And I had
not seen death since that time.

60
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I remember that uh… the funeral of my dead sister,
that people were crying, they were mourning her.

61
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And all of a sudden, I’m in this
strange land called Holland, and

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hundreds of dead soldiers lying on
the ground, and, when I looked at

63
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them, I thought that I would pass
out; it was a sobering experience.

64
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It was an experience that I don’t
wish upon any person. Young or old.

65
00:08:15,300 --> 00:08:22,464
You know I read Uh Lincoln,
former president Lincoln address.

66
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And he mentioned in that address, that the dead..
Each young men had given the last full measure.

67
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And when I looked at all of these bodies,
truly, truly was the last full measure.

68
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They had given their lives.
What more could they give?

69
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There was no family around them to mourn
them. There was no ceremony. To speak of.

70
00:09:09,760 --> 00:09:12,450
But yet; here we were. Country boys
like me, who had never seen such…

71
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We was required to give the respect
that these young soldiers had armed, and

72
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were deserving of We were required
to dig their graves, and to bury them.

73
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I think that it is one thing to bury an
eleven year old sister but it’s something

74
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entirely different, when you are
burying young soldiers by the hundreds.

75
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And that’s what we
were required to do.

76
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Those were my impressions.

77
00:09:55,840 --> 00:10:01,782
You know… Let me just go back for a moment,
I remember very vividly, when we arrived…

78
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the first day we arrived, standing on the
outside of the cemetery, were several people.

79
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Mostly young girls, maybe 8 or 10 of them, and I
remember them very well, with the Dutch slippers

80
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on, looking… with a great deal of curiosity,
and I thought that maybe with some fright too.

81
00:10:25,221 --> 00:10:45,460
And uh… when we got into the cemetery and
realized that they understood, these young girls

82
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understood exactly what was happening there,
and it told the story of why we were there.

83
00:10:58,520 --> 00:10:59,718
What exactly, what work did you do?

84
00:10:59,719 --> 00:11:02,609
Did you bury or did you…? Can you
describe the work you were doing?

85
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Each… we had a company of 250 people.

86
00:11:02,722 --> 00:11:06,970
We… each of us was given a
pick and a shovel and our

87
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job was to dig the graves
and JW: bury the death.

88
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The, as I recall it, each soldier was
required to dig 3 graves per day.

89
00:11:25,327 --> 00:11:41,520
So when you realize, that we
got 200 and something people

90
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digging, you can realize the
enormity of what we had to do.

91
00:11:49,720 --> 00:12:03,268
And that time, there was no such thing as a
gravedigger, a machine, it was all done by hand.

92
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The graves were 6 feet deep, 6
feet in length and 3 feet in width.

93
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And as far as we could see there were these
markers, as where the graves were to be.

94
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Very depressing, very depressing.

95
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Not.... Not so much because of the digging, but
because of the faces that went into those graves.

96
00:12:46,750 --> 00:13:05,910
Some of the youngsters were my age,
and I was probably one of the youngest

97
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soldiers in the US army, and uh… some
of these soldiers were of my age.

98
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Uh… Some had been killed days before,
maybe a few weeks before, and

99
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some had been killed on the same
day they arrived at Margraten.

100
00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:20,569
It was an experience that no human
being ought to be subjected to.

101
00:13:20,620 --> 00:13:31,820
And the digging itself? What kind
of soil was it? Do you remember?

102
00:13:31,820 --> 00:13:42,230
Yes, it was in November… Late September.
November, December and January.

103
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The soil was very, very
hard, it was frozen.

104
00:13:57,231 --> 00:14:04,910
When you got down, the first… The hardest
part of it, as I recall was the first

105
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few feet, if you get down, the first…
below the first feet… the soil got softer.

106
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But breaking the crust of the
earth was a real challenge.

107
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And I think you have to remember that
those of us who dug the graves, were all of

108
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the same background, and what I mean by
that was that we were all Afro Americans.

109
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We were there because our society felt that
we were uniquely suited for that kind of work.

110
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Because it was generally felt
that we weren’t educated, we had no

111
00:15:16,740 --> 00:15:26,510
skills and we had strong backs, and
uh… so we were suited for that.

112
00:15:26,510 --> 00:15:30,150
Uh… But something
happened to this unit.

113
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Once it got to Margraten,
once it got to the cemetery;

114
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our company was very juvenile,
very fun loving soldiers.

115
00:15:32,010 --> 00:15:42,400
But the moment the trucks
stopped at the cemetery, and we

116
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debarked, something happened to
these soldiers; it seems to me.

117
00:15:45,334 --> 00:15:46,380
They became very somber,
they became uh… very serious.

118
00:15:46,380 --> 00:15:54,380
And some, some, were actually weeping, because
none of us had never seen anything like this.

119
00:15:54,380 --> 00:16:08,010
Yes, we had seen and we had
read about, you know the

120
00:16:08,010 --> 00:16:13,230
naming and the slaughter
of soldiers on both sides.

121
00:16:13,230 --> 00:16:24,615
But we had never seen it, here we came
face to face with what war was all about.

122
00:16:24,616 --> 00:16:38,180
And even for 8, 9, sometimes 10 hours that
we were digging in the cemetery, each day…

123
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There was, there was an air, maybe an
air of fear, maybe there was an air of

124
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sorrow, but all the things that we normally
did, we didn’t do them in the cemetery.

125
00:17:09,450 --> 00:17:14,670
It was, to repeat myself it was
a very sobering experience.

126
00:17:16,090 --> 00:17:31,600
Was there a difference from day 1 till a
few months later? Did you get used to it?

127
00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:40,070
No. I never got used to it,
absolutely not. Each day was the same.

128
00:17:40,310 --> 00:17:42,510
We would leave our barracks, get into
the trucks, going into Margraten…

129
00:17:42,510 --> 00:17:45,520
And the soldiers were talking,
telling jokes and some were singing.

130
00:17:45,520 --> 00:17:55,852
And the moment those trucks got into Margraten,
it was, it was different. Absolutely different.

131
00:17:55,852 --> 00:17:58,870
If you had the opportunity to
observe the faces of these soldiers,

132
00:17:58,870 --> 00:18:14,840
you… realize that once we got there,
we were on a different landing.

133
00:18:14,840 --> 00:18:17,450
Yes, it was different.

134
00:18:17,450 --> 00:18:26,480
The barracks that you stayed in, can
you remember something about that?

135
00:18:26,480 --> 00:18:31,210
I remember the barracks.

136
00:18:31,300 --> 00:18:38,510
But I don’t… remember…
Until this day I’m not sure

137
00:18:39,220 --> 00:18:51,192
whether we were in Belgium
or whether we were in Holland.

138
00:18:51,192 --> 00:19:00,990
I… my mind tells me that uh… we were probably in
Holland. But I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t bet on it.

139
00:19:00,990 --> 00:19:10,496
Uh… we were.. The barracks were in…
uh… it looked like a campground.

140
00:19:10,496 --> 00:19:14,570
You know, like you might go, matching
your children when you… for the summer.

141
00:19:14,570 --> 00:19:28,330
Uh… and the... uh… I think that
there were 3 or 4 of those, that

142
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probably housed the whole number;
the 3 or 4 housed were probably 200.

143
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Or so.

144
00:19:32,750 --> 00:19:44,360
And then of course the officers… uh… lived in
a house. Maybe a quarter or half a mile away.

145
00:19:44,870 --> 00:19:49,087
You know, I was in a very
unique position because

146
00:19:49,087 --> 00:19:53,940
I was the first sergeant
of the uh… of the company.

147
00:19:54,080 --> 00:20:02,921
And uh… and I’m not sure that I always knew
what I was doing but I was the first sergeant.

148
00:20:02,922 --> 00:20:13,502
I was 18/19 years old, and that was really quite
an, as far as the army was concerned, quite an

149
00:20:13,502 --> 00:20:15,037
accomplishment, because the average first sergeant
in the US army was between 40 and 45 years old.

150
00:20:15,110 --> 00:20:16,686
And all of a sudden you had this young guy, you
know, I was always accused of impersonating.

151
00:20:16,687 --> 00:20:24,550
So, you know, my position was unique. And that…
I… had to carry out all the orders of the captain.

152
00:20:24,550 --> 00:20:43,440
And the officers. And yet, I had to keep the moral
among the soldiers as high as I possibly could.

153
00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:52,830
So, you know, I often thought that:
hey, I’m getting too much, too soon here.

154
00:20:53,130 --> 00:21:00,180
But uh… In later months, the
experience served me well.

155
00:21:00,180 --> 00:21:19,190
You were already talking about
the girls you saw, did you

156
00:21:19,190 --> 00:21:24,410
have any contact, did you
see the local people around?

157
00:21:24,410 --> 00:21:35,310
I don’t recall seeing
up close, adults.

158
00:21:35,310 --> 00:21:38,600
But I did see the young
girls, every single day; of

159
00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:44,947
course I saw them twice a
day, we saw them twice a day.

160
00:21:44,947 --> 00:22:00,820
They would be there in the morning when we
came, and they would be there in the afternoon.

161
00:22:00,820 --> 00:22:10,637
When we, when the trucks
came to pick us up.

162
00:22:10,637 --> 00:22:11,500
Uh… The young girls never
got… it took them a while to

163
00:22:13,690 --> 00:22:19,798
come, to become comfortable
enough to be… to talk to us.

164
00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:29,770
And I remember this one young… she told
me her name but I’ve forgotten now.

165
00:22:29,990 --> 00:22:35,620
Uh… she looked as if
she was maybe 12 or 13.

166
00:22:35,620 --> 00:22:45,103
And she talked to me quite a
lot after the first week or so.

167
00:22:45,103 --> 00:22:54,460
Uh… because during the first period, the first
week… uh… they would not get close to us.

168
00:22:54,770 --> 00:22:55,960
We weren’t allowed
to get close to them.

169
00:22:55,960 --> 00:23:00,680
Later on we understood that they had
heard all kind of stories that, you know

170
00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:01,591
about black Americans and I think that
after several weeks when they realized,

171
00:23:01,591 --> 00:23:01,783
that: hey, these guys are human, and
we started to get closer and closer

172
00:23:01,784 --> 00:23:05,670
to them… uh…instead of talking to
them when they were 10 or 15 feet away.

173
00:23:05,670 --> 00:23:06,475
We were talking to them
now, 2 or 3 feet away.

174
00:23:06,476 --> 00:23:07,211
And I remember this young, this young
12 or 13 year old… she wanted to know…

175
00:23:07,211 --> 00:23:11,097
she spoke perfect English, wanted to know
what the schools were like in America.

176
00:23:11,097 --> 00:23:15,036
And, wanted to know if uh…
how much education I have had.

177
00:23:15,037 --> 00:23:42,130
And she wanted to know, that when I got back
to the… to America: What did I want to do?

178
00:23:42,130 --> 00:23:44,940
And I mentioned to her, that I wanted to
go to school, and she said that: what do

179
00:23:44,940 --> 00:23:51,909
you want to talk about, what do you want
to read about, what do you want to study?

180
00:23:51,910 --> 00:23:58,810
And I said…. And I didn’t know very much about
college. I didn’t know anything about it

181
00:24:05,530 --> 00:24:08,545
And I said I wanted
to be a Psychologist.

182
00:24:08,545 --> 00:24:08,815
She called it ‘Zy-chologist’, I’m not
sure but she said, you know, and I

183
00:24:08,815 --> 00:24:11,130
remember when I came back next day, she
said yeah you want to study ‘zy-cology’

184
00:24:11,130 --> 00:24:13,730
And I said We call it psychology.
She said We call it ‘zy-cology’. Uh.

185
00:24:13,730 --> 00:24:24,220
But she seemed to be… the…
I don’t know if it was the

186
00:24:24,220 --> 00:24:26,890
fact that the other young
ladies couldn’t speak English.

187
00:24:28,020 --> 00:24:34,050
But she seems to be the
spokesperson. For the whole group.

188
00:24:34,050 --> 00:24:44,873
And uh… and I know that… when she asked a
question, though, the other young ladies, the

189
00:24:44,873 --> 00:24:46,181
other young girls would, you know, would nod
their head and agree and all this kind of thing.

190
00:24:46,182 --> 00:24:52,990
I’ve thought of her very often
and I hope that when I come

191
00:24:52,990 --> 00:25:01,530
to Holland… uh… in September;
I hope she is still alive.

192
00:25:01,530 --> 00:25:03,770
If she was 12 years old,
at that time, even when she

193
00:25:03,770 --> 00:25:06,620
was 12 at that time, she would
be in her seventies now.

194
00:25:06,620 --> 00:25:07,697
And uh, I was 18, 19.

195
00:25:07,698 --> 00:25:10,219
And now I’m in my eighties, so I’m sure we can
have quite a conversation now, if I could find her.

196
00:25:10,220 --> 00:25:14,790
How did they look like, those girls,
how were they dressed? Do you remember?

197
00:25:14,790 --> 00:25:16,850
Short. Is that called short? You know, the,
the, the wooden shoes, short skirts. Uh. Uh.

198
00:25:16,850 --> 00:25:19,120
Some of them had short sleeves
dresses, just short sleeves. Uh.

199
00:25:19,340 --> 00:25:22,007
And others had what we call a
shawl, dripped over the shoulders.

200
00:25:22,008 --> 00:25:28,190
Uh, but uh… they were laid on, when they
got to know us well. All were very friendly.

201
00:25:28,190 --> 00:25:28,950
Very friendly.

202
00:25:28,950 --> 00:25:34,553
They were curious about black soldiers,
because as I could understand these young

203
00:25:34,554 --> 00:25:35,469
people had never seen anybody who looked
like us, so we were a novelty to them.

204
00:25:37,560 --> 00:26:06,650
You know, when I recall the 11 or 12 year
old, uh… we had a conversation one day,

205
00:26:06,650 --> 00:26:19,708
and as I was, as the conversation concluded,
and I put my hand out to shake hers.

206
00:26:19,708 --> 00:26:23,230
She was extremely reluctant,
but even she put her hand out

207
00:26:23,230 --> 00:26:39,590
and not… there wasn’t a grasp,
but she just touched my hand.

208
00:26:39,590 --> 00:26:43,306
Then she looked at her hand to
see if anything happened to it.

209
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:52,780
Do you remember any white dresses
of the girls? I ask this because…

210
00:26:52,780 --> 00:27:13,170
I remember the oldest
girl, that was 12 or 13.

211
00:27:13,170 --> 00:27:20,328
I remember her dress in most occasions
was very light, but they also had,

212
00:27:20,328 --> 00:27:35,340
what we call, sometimes call
embroidery on the front and on the back.

213
00:27:35,340 --> 00:27:42,420
I believe. Yes, I
remember that very well.

214
00:27:42,420 --> 00:27:43,818
How was it after this first day
when you arrived in Margraten,

215
00:27:43,819 --> 00:27:45,180
did you talk with the people in
your unit about your experience?

216
00:27:45,180 --> 00:27:45,810
Oh, absolutely.

217
00:27:45,810 --> 00:27:58,330
The first day we were there, I believe during
that day, we didn’t bury as many people as we

218
00:27:58,330 --> 00:28:06,372
were supposed to bury, because the Graves
Registration Company were having some problems

219
00:28:06,372 --> 00:28:13,830
identifying certain soldiers and they could not
bury them until they were properly identified.

220
00:28:13,830 --> 00:28:31,860
And that night, first day, that night,
most of us had problems with sleeping, you

221
00:28:31,860 --> 00:28:47,690
know, because we always felt that uh…
that when you went to, if you saw a dead

222
00:28:47,690 --> 00:28:59,220
person, when you went to a film, they
were placed in a nice casket, and they

223
00:29:00,570 --> 00:29:08,610
were loaded into the ground, you know,
with prayer and it wasn’t that way there.

224
00:29:08,610 --> 00:29:16,380
Each soldier was placed into a…
cloth bag and loaded into the ground.

225
00:29:16,380 --> 00:29:26,280
There was maybe… There was always at least
one chaplain, at the cemetery, but uh…

226
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:35,540
because we buried so many bodies, he could
not always be at the grave site of each one.

227
00:29:35,730 --> 00:29:37,850
But he was in the cemetery.

228
00:29:37,850 --> 00:29:46,280
And this was one of the most depressing, sorrowful
experiences that any of us, had ever had. Uh.

229
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:49,770
We got back to our barracks at night.

230
00:29:50,260 --> 00:29:51,320
We talked about… I think each
soldier remem… each of us

231
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:55,710
remembered a certain amount of
dead that happened at the cemetery.

232
00:29:56,910 --> 00:30:00,587
This uh… this person had
has his arm blown of; this

233
00:30:00,588 --> 00:30:03,840
one had, you know, had a
part of the face blown away.

234
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:10,810
But to us it didn’t matter what
the condition of the body was; the

235
00:30:10,810 --> 00:30:18,200
fact remained that this was death,
and it was… it was depressing.

236
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:43,070
How did you like the surroundings where you were?
Did you have any… what did you think of the place?

237
00:30:43,070 --> 00:30:46,417
At that time, the army had what they called
a non-fraternization policy.We weren’t even

238
00:30:46,418 --> 00:30:49,487
supposed to talk to any uh.. of the… uh…
I don’t want to say ‘ladies’, we were not

239
00:30:49,487 --> 00:31:00,480
supposed to talk with anyone; there was no
interaction.And that was especially true for

240
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:06,966
black soldiers, because there was some suspicion
on the part of our American counterpart,

241
00:31:06,967 --> 00:31:18,470
that we would see all of these.. uh… beautiful
young foreigners and we’d go stone crazy.

242
00:31:18,470 --> 00:31:25,882
There was suspicion among the
natives, that maybe we were

243
00:31:25,882 --> 00:31:27,860
a little bit dangerous, because
of what they had been told.

244
00:31:27,860 --> 00:31:41,050
Because I remember when we first got to England,
uh… The English were absolutely frightened to death

245
00:31:41,050 --> 00:31:46,801
for us, because they have been told that, you
know, we were almost like wild animals in Africa.

246
00:31:47,030 --> 00:31:51,770
Uh. It wasn’t that bad in Holland.

247
00:31:51,770 --> 00:32:13,279
But, there was that air of: not getting
too close. Not taking any chances.

248
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:13,694
But once, after, let’s say
three weeks, to a month… uh… I

249
00:32:13,695 --> 00:32:20,990
think they realized that we
presented no danger to them at all.

250
00:32:20,990 --> 00:32:28,523
And uh… Well, we looked different, we had the
same heart and soul and feelings as they had.

251
00:32:28,850 --> 00:32:35,290
Your work as a first sergeant,
did you have to dig yourself also?

252
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,550
No, I did not, I did not have to
dig. Mine was a supervisor role.

253
00:32:38,550 --> 00:32:45,020
But one of the good things about being a first
sergeant is that you can endear yourself

254
00:32:45,090 --> 00:32:47,251
to those you command, by occasionally
doing exactly the same thing they’re doing.

255
00:32:47,251 --> 00:32:48,210
So I did, I would uh… I did
a walk by a grave and see a

256
00:32:48,210 --> 00:32:59,220
soldier down, 3 or 4 feet, know
that he was totally exhausted.

257
00:32:59,220 --> 00:33:07,960
And I would say: Come on out. Let
me help you out. And I would dig.

258
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:19,490
And… so the word got around that the first
sergeant that’s not my work- he is a hard worker.

259
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:22,070
But I don’t know it wasn’t quite
mine, mine was administrative.

260
00:33:22,070 --> 00:33:31,780
What were the kind of things
you did outside the cemetery?

261
00:33:31,780 --> 00:33:31,921
Well. We.. played a lot
of games. Softball.

262
00:33:31,922 --> 00:33:39,248
Baseball,. We tried, the captain, Captain
Solms tried to organize a boxing team, but it

263
00:33:39,248 --> 00:33:52,262
didn’t go very well, because we felt that uh…
our live was hard enough for hitting each other.

264
00:33:52,470 --> 00:33:56,710
Uh. We didn’t get much chance
to visit the surrounding area.

265
00:33:56,710 --> 00:33:58,017
Again, as I said to you, they
had non-fraternization policy;

266
00:33:58,017 --> 00:34:01,006
but we did have, uh… some
instances of soldiers going AWL.

267
00:34:01,006 --> 00:34:01,536
You know what AWL is?

268
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:08,630
Absence without leave they
would sneak away from the

269
00:34:08,630 --> 00:34:11,900
camp you know, to try and
find a… maybe a tavern, a bar.

270
00:34:11,901 --> 00:34:22,858
Just to see what life was like. Because, they
are, again, most of us soldiers were country boys.

271
00:34:22,858 --> 00:34:27,300
They have never been exposed to any culture
except the one that they were born into.

272
00:34:27,300 --> 00:34:37,580
So we did have some ‘Absent
without leave’, we had… we had

273
00:34:37,580 --> 00:35:01,830
quite a bit… not quite a bit,
but we had some sickness also.

274
00:35:04,970 --> 00:35:14,290
Uh… I think that some of
the sickness was due to… uh…

275
00:35:14,290 --> 00:35:24,110
was not physical sickness but
it was emotional sickness.

276
00:35:24,110 --> 00:35:29,420
I think that, I’ve seen young soldiers,
placing these bodies in graves, who just

277
00:35:29,420 --> 00:35:33,630
became physically and emotionally over
and we’ve had to get them out and get them

278
00:35:33,630 --> 00:35:42,620
to sick home, but uh… those kind of things
that I just described that we did outside…

279
00:35:43,740 --> 00:35:53,900
I recall our first… I don’t recall exactly
how we got to uh… the largest city?

280
00:35:54,470 --> 00:35:56,620
Maastricht? Maastricht?

281
00:35:56,620 --> 00:35:56,990
No, no, no, the one with this….

282
00:35:56,990 --> 00:35:57,126
Liege?

283
00:35:57,126 --> 00:35:58,350
No, it is in Holland, we
talked about it this morning.

284
00:35:58,350 --> 00:35:58,560
Amsterdam.

285
00:35:58,560 --> 00:35:59,790
Amsterdam!

286
00:35:59,790 --> 00:36:09,380
To this day I don’t recall how we got to
Amsterdam, but uh… I saw Amsterdam and

287
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:21,524
I saw these ladies, some were sitting
inside, what I call storefront buildings.

288
00:36:21,524 --> 00:36:25,100
You know. Scarcely dressed.

289
00:36:25,100 --> 00:36:43,570
And I was so young and so ignorant, you know, I
didn’t know the meaning of that, of all of that.

290
00:36:43,570 --> 00:36:50,629
But I also saw uh.. just people on
the streets, who uh… who were not

291
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:57,840
necessarily taking to us, but they
were talking about was, uh… I think I

292
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:02,850
told you before that we had very
little interaction between with adults.

293
00:37:02,850 --> 00:37:11,930
But on the day that we went to… I
think we went to Amsterdam, for a

294
00:37:11,930 --> 00:37:25,070
Saturday and a Sunday and uh… that’s
when I got the feeling that the

295
00:37:25,070 --> 00:37:29,163
young people spoke and understood
English pretty well, very well.

296
00:37:29,164 --> 00:37:31,350
And older people, you know,
had some struggles with it.

297
00:37:31,350 --> 00:37:41,726
‘Cause they… they would try and engage
in some kind of conversation with us and

298
00:37:41,890 --> 00:37:51,092
we didn’t know what they was saying and
they didn’t know what we was saying.

299
00:37:51,092 --> 00:37:55,290
But it was obvious to me, and to
all of us, that they had an interest

300
00:37:55,290 --> 00:37:58,939
in us, both as being black soldiers,
and as being human beings.

301
00:37:58,940 --> 00:38:12,300
In the time you were in Margraten,
did you have showers in your barracks?

302
00:38:12,300 --> 00:38:15,400
No, we didn’t have
showers in our barracks.

303
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:23,970
What they had was: the American Army had a…
company, that brought… that you could either

304
00:38:23,970 --> 00:38:27,489
go to and take a shower; and in some cases
they were mobile, they would come to you.

305
00:38:27,490 --> 00:38:42,700
So we got a shower probably uh… no more than once
a week, sometimes: once every two weeks. Yes.

306
00:38:42,700 --> 00:38:56,370
We had our own kitchen, we use one of
the buildings for cooking and dining.

307
00:38:56,370 --> 00:38:58,850
The food was I guess it was as good as
it good be, under the circumstances.

308
00:38:59,260 --> 00:39:11,060
But we adapted to it, we
adapted to it very well.

309
00:39:11,060 --> 00:39:16,130
We were always very hungry
because we worked so hard.

310
00:39:16,130 --> 00:39:16,569
Was there also any singing?

311
00:39:16,570 --> 00:39:16,725
Yes, absolutely.

312
00:39:16,725 --> 00:39:27,600
You know, before we got to the Netherlands, there
was always a lot of singing, a lot of acting.

313
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:29,310
Even during the duty.

314
00:39:29,310 --> 00:39:37,990
But when we got to Margraten, the
conditions of seeing all the dead, burying

315
00:39:37,990 --> 00:39:49,000
all the dead was so depressing, until
there was very, very little singing.

316
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:49,857
I remember: We had one soldier,
his name was Arthur Johnson.

317
00:39:49,858 --> 00:39:52,460
Arthur Johnson was from South Carolina,
he was a professional gospel singer.

318
00:39:52,460 --> 00:39:56,199
And uh… he would try and,
ordinarily, when Archie… you know…

319
00:39:56,199 --> 00:40:06,240
tried a lead in singing, you
were fine, you were ready.

320
00:40:06,620 --> 00:40:23,639
But in the cemetery of
Margraten, it just wasn’t there.

321
00:40:23,639 --> 00:40:27,069
Once he would get started
the singing, thinking that

322
00:40:27,070 --> 00:40:30,550
somebody was going to follow
him, it just did not happen.

323
00:40:30,550 --> 00:40:33,640
That was how depressing
burring the dead was.

324
00:40:33,640 --> 00:41:02,480
Uh… Also, uh.. in addition to the snow
melting, we had some rain in Margraten.

325
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:04,531
Quite a lot of rain, and that made
it you know sometimes, you dig 4 or 5

326
00:41:04,532 --> 00:41:04,754
feet down, you thought you were doing
okay, and the grave would cave in.

327
00:41:04,754 --> 00:41:05,349
You know, because of
the wet conditions. Uh.

328
00:41:05,350 --> 00:41:15,180
But in answer to your question,
that was singing outside

329
00:41:15,180 --> 00:41:17,150
of Margraten, but there was
no singing in Margraten.

330
00:41:17,150 --> 00:41:17,200
Now.

331
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:35,680
When we were in uh… in… our Captain
Solms was there with the Smaha mister

332
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:42,110
Smaha was there and they remembered
some incidents that I didn’t remember.

333
00:41:42,110 --> 00:41:49,730
Uh… Captain Solms said that he
remembered an incident where uh… a soldier

334
00:41:49,930 --> 00:42:05,533
was digging a grave in uh… in Margraten
and he had uh… he had gone to sleep.

335
00:42:05,533 --> 00:42:09,810
And the captain remembered
that he had kicked some dirt

336
00:42:09,810 --> 00:42:13,717
into the… into the uh… to
the grave with the soldier.

337
00:42:13,718 --> 00:42:15,580
That may, or may not have happened.
I didn’t remember that one.

338
00:42:16,140 --> 00:42:20,844
And it seems to me that that is
something I would have remembered.

339
00:42:20,845 --> 00:42:22,581
And if I didn’t remember
it, the captain would have

340
00:42:22,581 --> 00:42:22,761
told me, he would called my
attention: then and there.

341
00:42:22,761 --> 00:42:26,860
It was never called to my attention.

342
00:42:26,860 --> 00:42:36,410
You know what I’m trying to say is
simply this: is that… If there are… If

343
00:42:36,410 --> 00:42:50,139
there are differences in the captain’s
uh… view of all of this, and my view,

344
00:42:50,139 --> 00:42:55,250
as a black soldier, we all kind of see
things, based upon our own experience.

345
00:42:55,920 --> 00:43:05,950
We were asked in Ohio… by the newspaper,
I was asked if I thought that all of the

346
00:43:07,050 --> 00:43:23,520
grave-digging, was all because we were
black, and I said yes, I thought it was.

347
00:43:24,060 --> 00:43:26,906
Mr. Smaha and captain Solms
disagreed very vehemently that.

348
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:36,240
They didn’t think it was because we were black;
they thought it was because we were available.

349
00:43:36,240 --> 00:43:47,350
We were in the Quarter Master Service
Company because we were black.

350
00:43:47,350 --> 00:43:48,699
So it seems to me than that… if you are in
this Quarter Master Service Company because you

351
00:43:48,700 --> 00:44:04,169
were black and they put you in Margraten to
dig graves, you know you put 2 and 2 together.

352
00:44:04,170 --> 00:44:18,650
Now, were they wrong in their view? No. Was
I right in my view? Not necessarily. But.

353
00:44:18,650 --> 00:44:18,936
We see two different incidents, through
two different sets of eyes, through

354
00:44:18,936 --> 00:44:28,210
2 different sets of experiences, and
we react according to those… to that.

355
00:44:35,190 --> 00:44:41,030
Uh. I have no criticism with mr. Smaha,
I have no criticism with mr. Solms.

356
00:44:41,030 --> 00:44:43,240
I hope that they would
have no criticism with me.

357
00:44:43,240 --> 00:44:58,490
Because of our differences in the way we
view things. But uh.. that is how it is.

358
00:44:58,490 --> 00:44:58,860
Well, that is how it was
and that is how it is.

359
00:44:58,860 --> 00:45:06,024
You can’t uh… You’d to have a
framework, for what you believe, for the

360
00:45:06,025 --> 00:45:14,685
way you react on things, and they had
a framework for the way they view

361
00:45:14,685 --> 00:45:17,780
things, for the way they reacted
to them, based on their experiences.

362
00:45:17,780 --> 00:45:25,360
I had the same thing; you know.

363
00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:26,965
Uh… doesn’t mean that I was
wrong and they were right,

364
00:45:26,966 --> 00:45:32,660
doesn’t mean that I was
right and they were wrong.

365
00:45:32,660 --> 00:45:36,630
But we had two different
kind of experiences.

366
00:45:36,990 --> 00:45:41,450
And also I think, two completely
different lives afterwards.

367
00:45:41,450 --> 00:45:45,156
What are the things you can
remember, what are the things

368
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:54,759
you remember the most, or
what you thought about later.

369
00:45:55,310 --> 00:46:00,290
The most?

370
00:46:00,290 --> 00:46:14,960
Every time the word ‘Margraten’ was
mentioned, the first thing that came into my

371
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:36,070
mind were the young girls, who were always
there, who were always at the cemetery,

372
00:46:36,070 --> 00:46:51,650
who uh… At first… when we first got there,
they were very stand offish, very humble.

373
00:46:51,650 --> 00:47:12,200
They would not allow themselves to get close to
us. But as time went on, you know, the gap closed.

374
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:14,100
And then I remembered the… The cemetery itself,
this vast expanse of very flat land, the tents…

375
00:47:14,100 --> 00:47:20,710
you know, inside of the cemetery where the
proper identification of every soldier was made.

376
00:47:20,710 --> 00:47:23,870
The trucks delivering bodies to the
cemetery and being placed in these long

377
00:47:23,870 --> 00:47:29,607
lines and these… these tapolions,
covers placed across them to identify.

378
00:47:29,608 --> 00:47:44,610
And then I remember the actual placing of the
bodies in the graves, and what bothered me more

379
00:47:44,610 --> 00:47:51,638
than anything was, I was so disappointed, because
I thought that each… and bear in mind I was

380
00:47:51,639 --> 00:47:57,959
very young, I thought that each soldier was
placed in a coffin and was loaded into a grave.

381
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,640
And it was devastating to me,
to find out that this body

382
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:01,334
was placed in a cloth body
bag and loaded to the grave.

383
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:05,540
Sometimes, depending on
how warm the weather was.

384
00:48:10,370 --> 00:48:25,030
Sometimes, by the time you dug a six
foot grave, half an hour or an hour later

385
00:48:25,030 --> 00:48:35,445
it had begun to fill with water because
of the weather had gotten warmer.

386
00:48:35,446 --> 00:48:51,300
So sometimes you placed that body
and this is something I never got

387
00:48:51,300 --> 00:48:57,812
used to you placed that body in this
clothed body bag, into a grave that

388
00:48:57,812 --> 00:49:02,280
was already begun to fill with
water, and I just never got over that.

389
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:07,760
You know, but again, I spoke this was what
president Lincoln was talking about when he

390
00:49:08,380 --> 00:49:10,870
was talking about the last full measure: once
you gave your life, you’ve given everything.

391
00:49:10,870 --> 00:49:14,450
You know.

392
00:49:16,590 --> 00:49:24,964
And I just, sometimes used to dream that
if enough people could see Margraten, and

393
00:49:24,965 --> 00:49:35,290
what happened at Margraten, maybe it would
take an entirely different view about war.

394
00:49:35,290 --> 00:49:52,880
Because if Margraten didn’t sober
you, maybe you could be soberer.

395
00:49:52,880 --> 00:50:00,090
And again, I say: it is one thing to
bury one eleven year old girl, my sister,

396
00:50:00,090 --> 00:50:03,337
but it is something entirely different
to bury hundreds of people every day.

397
00:50:03,338 --> 00:50:29,620
Who… in many cases never knew what hit them.
They never knew, uh… what life was all about.

398
00:50:29,620 --> 00:50:38,950
That was the thing that bothered me
65 years ago, and it bothers me today.

399
00:50:38,950 --> 00:50:48,540
Janice and I, my wife, we talk about a
lot of things that happened in World War

400
00:50:48,540 --> 00:50:59,450
II, but I’ve learned that talking about
Margraten is so emotional to me, until I

401
00:50:59,450 --> 00:51:08,343
tried the best I can to avoid talking
about it unless on an occasion like this.

402
00:51:08,343 --> 00:51:12,190
I didn’t sleep much last night, and I…
I didn’t get much sle… rest yesterday

403
00:51:14,420 --> 00:51:33,389
because I knew you were coming, and
that I knew that I was going to be

404
00:51:33,390 --> 00:51:34,850
required a prompted to talk about and
remember things that I’d rather forget.

405
00:51:34,850 --> 00:51:39,125
But there again, you know, I think that
it is proper that we do this, because

406
00:51:39,125 --> 00:51:52,150
if we don’t talk about them, it means
that we’ll help them to happen it again.

407
00:51:52,150 --> 00:52:03,034
But if we talk about them, maybe
some of us, maybe some of them can

408
00:52:03,035 --> 00:52:06,082
solve some of the problems that led
to Margraten in the first place.

409
00:52:06,082 --> 00:52:14,110
I don’t know if it makes
sense but that’s how I feel.

410
00:52:14,110 --> 00:52:16,510
Where you thinking; it must occurred your
mind at that time, that you were glad

411
00:52:16,510 --> 00:52:19,260
that you didn’t, that you didn’t go into
the grave yourself, but that you were

412
00:52:21,420 --> 00:52:26,690
the ones burying; that you didn’t have
to fight; to be in the front troops?

413
00:52:26,690 --> 00:52:27,080
Was that something or…?

414
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:35,580
Yeah, yeah. We… we had two, I
had two thoughts about that.

415
00:52:35,580 --> 00:52:38,290
Most black troops had
two thoughts about that.

416
00:52:38,290 --> 00:52:51,160
That, the first one was… If there had
not been all this segregation, black

417
00:52:51,160 --> 00:53:06,455
troops had been allowed to fight the
way white troops were required to fight.

418
00:53:08,420 --> 00:53:23,797
Maybe the war would have ended a
few months earlier. Maybe. Uh.

419
00:53:23,797 --> 00:53:25,130
Then the other thought: I’m glad
it was him instead of me. You know.

420
00:53:25,130 --> 00:54:01,010
Somebody had to die, somebody did
die, but it was him, and it was not me.

421
00:54:01,010 --> 00:54:03,360
And then maybe, maybe
there was a third part.

422
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:05,010
Third part: I experienced, there
was always this guilt, you know.

423
00:54:05,011 --> 00:54:07,290
This young white boy, you know,
died, and I was saved. Why?

424
00:54:07,290 --> 00:54:22,240
So there again, the… The situation that I’m trying
to describe to you; there was also a lot of guilt

425
00:54:22,240 --> 00:54:25,792
because we were not allowed, you know, and we
were not allowed to fight because, uh… I guess it

426
00:54:25,793 --> 00:54:28,529
was for another reason, but one was, some famous
general said one time, I don’t recall his name.

427
00:54:28,530 --> 00:54:33,640
You don’t want, you know, in these day you don’t
want to put guns in the hands off all people that

428
00:54:34,130 --> 00:54:42,150
you oppressed all of these years, because if you
do, you never know who they point that gun at.

429
00:54:42,150 --> 00:54:55,010
And I thought, I’ve always
thought that we should be allowed

430
00:54:55,010 --> 00:54:56,636
to do the same thing that every
other American soldier did.

431
00:54:56,636 --> 00:54:56,713
But it just did not happen.

432
00:54:56,714 --> 00:54:56,856
And I feel guilty and I know
that there are a number of black

433
00:54:56,856 --> 00:54:59,470
soldiers, hundreds maybe
thousands, who felt the same way.

434
00:54:59,470 --> 00:55:23,618
You know, we are in this war, let’s all
join together, and get it all with as

435
00:55:23,618 --> 00:55:26,520
soon as we can, so that we can all go
back home, but it didn’t happen that way.

436
00:55:26,520 --> 00:55:33,710
And that’s, to me that’s tragedy.

437
00:55:35,960 --> 00:55:45,180
That sounds very heavy to me. You are being
suppressed and you even feel guilty about it.

438
00:55:45,180 --> 00:55:48,770
Absolutely. Absolutely.

439
00:55:51,600 --> 00:55:52,448
What bothers me a lot about World War 2, or
about any war, is the fact that: I’m an American,

440
00:55:52,449 --> 00:56:08,230
I’m a human being, I ought to be able to enjoy
all the privileges that every American is

441
00:56:08,230 --> 00:56:19,390
entitled to, and ought to be able to do make the
same sacrifices that every other American makes.

442
00:56:19,390 --> 00:56:23,750
And when that does not happen,
somebody pays the price.

443
00:56:24,050 --> 00:56:29,147
If I had been able to fight
the same way as my white

444
00:56:29,147 --> 00:56:32,920
counter part, maybe I would
have been killed, I don’t know.

445
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:35,597
But if I had, then, I don’t think, that I would
have feel the same guilt that I felt at Margraten,

446
00:56:35,598 --> 00:56:47,640
knowing that everybody that, everybody that
I laid into the…. Into the grave, was white.

447
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:51,760
I never recall, never recalled
burying a black soldier.

448
00:56:51,760 --> 00:57:05,470
Uh… now does that mean that I would have
been glad to give my life? Not at all.

449
00:57:05,470 --> 00:57:09,723
I don’t think that anybody… If you are
glad to give your life, you are crazy.

450
00:57:09,723 --> 00:57:21,760
But it, to me, uh… freedom carries
a price, and to those young

451
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:48,300
Americans we buried in Margraten,
the price was their life.

452
00:57:48,300 --> 00:58:12,220
And to those of us, who were called
upon to bury them, uh… was sometimes,

453
00:58:12,220 --> 00:58:36,480
wonder, if that could have been me,
and that’s were the guilt comes in.

454
00:58:37,110 --> 00:58:38,290
Was it different to bury American
soldiers than German soldiers?

455
00:58:38,290 --> 00:58:41,803
I think the mind set was
different. Yes, I think so.

456
00:58:41,804 --> 00:58:42,190
I think that many of us felt that, you
know… And sometimes it was sad, that

457
00:58:42,190 --> 00:58:49,140
uh… if you bury a German soldier, that
is one less you have to face later.

458
00:58:51,100 --> 00:59:27,099
But at the other hand, you know,
there was the feeling that, it

459
00:59:27,100 --> 00:59:29,984
was either me or him, and I’m
glad that it was him instead of me.

460
00:59:29,985 --> 00:59:31,190
But, there was also that tense of, uh...
Of guilt, that here another young soldier

461
00:59:31,190 --> 00:59:34,380
had… had his life taken, and whether he
was German or whether he was French or

462
00:59:34,380 --> 00:59:44,470
from the Netherlands or American, he was
a life that never reached its potential.

463
00:59:44,470 --> 00:59:51,520
When did you leave Margraten?

464
00:59:51,520 --> 01:00:15,950
I left, we left Margraten in early 1945, and uh…
you know, we thought, I thought I was going home,

465
01:00:15,950 --> 01:00:24,140
I thought I was coming back to America, but uh…
we moved from there to a camp in Limburg Germany.

466
01:00:24,890 --> 01:00:36,070
I’m gonna try and get back
to Limburg when I’m coming.

467
01:00:36,070 --> 01:00:40,478
Uh… and we found at that time, that
you know instead of going home we were

468
01:00:40,478 --> 01:00:42,320
replacing another company, so we stayed
I think for some 4, 5 months later.

469
01:00:42,550 --> 01:00:49,030
And then you did different work?

470
01:00:49,030 --> 01:00:49,940
Different. Absolutely. You know what?

471
01:00:49,940 --> 01:00:57,222
Yet we did different work, but mostly
we didn’t do that much, you know.

472
01:01:00,740 --> 01:01:02,274
We would have the regular army formations
in the morning, what they call: reveille.

473
01:01:02,275 --> 01:01:07,035
We would have sick call.

474
01:01:07,035 --> 01:01:13,850
Uh… But for the rest of the day we just
kind of goofed off, you know, and all

475
01:01:14,110 --> 01:01:23,970
we started uh… Our time could be used
better than that, but I didn’t complain.

476
01:01:23,970 --> 01:01:33,100
Did you keep in contact with
men of your unit after the war?

477
01:01:33,100 --> 01:01:33,682
No, I didn’t. I kept
in contact with one.

478
01:01:33,683 --> 01:01:36,300
We had one soldier who
lived in North New Jersey,

479
01:01:36,300 --> 01:01:39,307
which was maybe an hour from
here, an hour and a half.

480
01:01:39,308 --> 01:01:40,093
He named: sergeant Stevenson. Sergeant
Stevenson was an automobile mechanic.

481
01:01:40,094 --> 01:01:40,588
And uh… on several occasions I took my
car around to have him fix it for me.

482
01:01:40,589 --> 01:01:45,000
But for the most part I
didn’t keep in contact.

483
01:01:45,000 --> 01:01:54,010
Because we were… We were, uh… a couple of soldiers
from every part of the country, and of course,

484
01:01:54,010 --> 01:02:23,340
when we left to go to the army, our lives were a
mess, and when we came back they were even more a

485
01:02:23,340 --> 01:02:32,334
mess, so when we came home we tried to use as
much time as we could, on what they call the ‘Bill

486
01:02:32,334 --> 01:02:37,308
of rights’. Got to go to school, to… homes, to
get decent jobs, so we never really kept in touch.

487
01:02:39,910 --> 01:02:42,240
Do you think this episode
in Margraten changed you?

488
01:02:42,240 --> 01:02:43,350
O god yeah, absolutely,
it has changed me.

489
01:02:45,210 --> 01:03:02,792
I think it changed me more than anything
that I saw in the US Army, because,

490
01:03:02,793 --> 01:03:11,430
there again, we saw, I saw… the… the
in game of wars, that is: the death.

491
01:03:11,430 --> 01:03:13,260
You know.

492
01:03:14,650 --> 01:03:19,340
We used to read in the army newspapers
‘stars and stripes’ and we would hear on the

493
01:03:19,340 --> 01:03:24,050
armed forces radio, about the number of
Germans killed, during the last 24 hours,

494
01:03:24,050 --> 01:03:33,090
the number of Americans killed in the
last 24 hours, but to me that was abstract.

495
01:03:33,090 --> 01:03:33,564
When we got to Margraten and the ‘stars and
stripes’ and Armed Forces Radio said that there

496
01:03:33,564 --> 01:03:41,143
were 500 killed in the last 24 hours… We saw
the 500, they were there, we buried them!

497
01:03:41,144 --> 01:03:42,379
And that made the difference.

498
01:03:42,380 --> 01:03:42,919
I don’t think that any of us,
who spend time in Margraten,

499
01:03:42,919 --> 01:03:52,330
will ever be the same as we
were before we went to Margraten.

500
01:03:52,330 --> 01:04:05,490
Because uh… we talked about
life being precious. And it is.

501
01:04:05,490 --> 01:04:13,465
Uh… Margraten was the end game, when
you got to Margraten, that was the end.

502
01:04:13,466 --> 01:04:29,790
Yeay, uh… I’ll never
forget Margraten, never.

503
01:04:29,790 --> 01:04:50,820
I’ll never forget the flat land, I’ll never forget
the… the cold weather, the rain, the snow. Uh…

504
01:04:50,820 --> 01:04:57,959
And I’ll never forget the faces of the five or
six young girls, that were always there. You know.

505
01:04:57,959 --> 01:05:04,639
I didn’t think so when I was in Margraten
but once I got away from Margraten, it

506
01:05:04,640 --> 01:05:10,748
was almost like if these young ladies were
coming to the graveyard to place flowers,

507
01:05:10,749 --> 01:05:11,671
we could never placed any flowers… but
it was always if they were coming to

508
01:05:11,671 --> 01:05:17,280
Margraten on Memorial Day, to place flowers,
or to pay tribute to somebody they knew.

509
01:05:17,280 --> 01:05:20,488
I don’t think that you can
bear a place like Margraten.

510
01:05:21,770 --> 01:05:26,449
I don’t think that you can help to
bury as many people as we had to bury,

511
01:05:26,449 --> 01:06:01,650
and come away, feeling the same as
you felt before you went in there.

512
01:06:02,960 --> 01:06:09,630
We went… In 1998, Janice and I flew to
Paris, and we got a bus and we went down

513
01:06:09,630 --> 01:06:13,300
to Normandy, and we saw the cemetery
there, there were 9800 people there… This

514
01:06:13,300 --> 01:06:23,600
cemetery was 3 or 400 yards, from the
invasion point, and you know, I thought that…

515
01:06:28,610 --> 01:06:39,100
You know somehow, I one of the most moving
experiences I have ever had in my life.

516
01:06:39,100 --> 01:06:53,115
And I am sure, I am certain, that
going back to Margraten would

517
01:06:53,115 --> 01:06:53,648
be even, more devastating to
me, than it was seeing Normandy.

518
01:06:53,648 --> 01:06:56,121
Because I didn’t help bury anybody in Normandy,
but I have buried hundreds, hundreds at Margraten.

519
01:06:56,122 --> 01:06:56,372
So it’s gonna be, you know, I’m
sure, I’m gonna do the best I

520
01:06:56,372 --> 01:06:56,480
can, but I’m sure it’s gonna
be a very emotional experience.

521
01:06:56,480 --> 01:06:58,600
It must look very different from
how it looked when you were there.

522
01:06:58,600 --> 01:07:13,530
I saw online, I didn’t recognize anything.
Anything at all, and… I’m glad I didn’t.

523
01:07:15,160 --> 01:07:30,171
I’m glad I didn’t; we just got to show what the
people of the Netherlands, especially the… in

524
01:07:30,171 --> 01:08:02,760
the Margaten area, it just go to show what…
what value they placed upon what happened there.

525
01:08:02,760 --> 01:08:05,220
You know, during the war.

526
01:08:05,220 --> 01:08:10,430
Were there any markers on
the graves in your time?

527
01:08:10,430 --> 01:08:11,260
Temporary. Temporary. Uh.

528
01:08:11,260 --> 01:08:24,060
When the grave was filled in, they
put a temporary cross or Star of

529
01:08:24,060 --> 01:08:29,840
David, with the name of the soldier
written in ink or something, you

530
01:08:29,840 --> 01:08:34,100
know… uh… until they had an opportunity
to put properly markers on.

531
01:08:34,100 --> 01:08:48,109
But they were marked, but just
on a temporary bases, right.

532
01:08:48,110 --> 01:09:10,720
Is there anything else that I forgot to ask about
of Margraten, this is would I would like to add?

533
01:09:10,720 --> 01:09:20,720
I think so, one of the things that uh… I
always think about is how can we, you know,

534
01:09:22,120 --> 01:09:30,050
negotiate, navigate or… some of out differences,
without killing each other, and I read

535
01:09:30,050 --> 01:09:40,880
a poem some time ago; it was written by a
woman, I don’t remember her name, but it

536
01:09:40,880 --> 01:09:51,771
sometimes remind me of the young people that
we met in the Netherlands, and I often wonder

537
01:09:51,772 --> 01:09:55,970
if they passed on to their children the same
lessons that they learned in Margraten, and

538
01:09:55,970 --> 01:10:03,040
the thing that I would really want to say,
in my point of view: saying, remembering and

539
01:10:03,041 --> 01:10:07,190
saying that poem that I’ve learned and with
your permission I would love to say it.

540
01:10:13,050 --> 01:10:22,550
The poem is called: the bridge builder.
Maybe you heard that, I don’t know.

541
01:10:22,550 --> 01:10:23,570
BRIDGE BUILDER.

542
01:10:23,570 --> 01:10:29,970
An old man, going a lone highway,
came, at evening, cold and gray,

543
01:10:29,970 --> 01:10:34,702
to a chasm vast and wide and steep,
with waters rolling cold and deep.

544
01:10:34,702 --> 01:10:41,780
The old man paused in the twilight dim.
The sullen waters had no fears for him.

545
01:10:41,780 --> 01:10:48,455
But he paused, when safe on the other
side, and built a bridge to span the tide.

546
01:10:48,456 --> 01:10:56,950
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“You’re wasting your time with building here;

547
01:10:57,250 --> 01:11:03,286
your journey will end with the ending day;
and you never again shall pass this way.

548
01:11:03,890 --> 01:11:09,370
You’ve crossed the
chasm vast and wide.

549
01:11:09,370 --> 01:11:16,291
Why build ye this bridge at eventide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head.

550
01:11:16,292 --> 01:11:17,115
“Good friend, the way I’ve
come,” he said, “there followeth

551
01:11:17,115 --> 01:11:18,170
after me today, a youth, whose
feet must pass this way.

552
01:11:18,170 --> 01:11:30,420
The chasm that was as naught to me to
that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.

553
01:11:30,910 --> 01:11:34,560
He, too, must cross
in the twilight dim.

554
01:11:34,560 --> 01:11:47,010
Good friend, I am building this
bridge for him.” Will Allen Dromgoogle

555
01:11:48,110 --> 01:11:57,026
And as we sit here now,
you and… anyone else.

556
01:11:57,027 --> 01:11:57,460
I hope that this interview, this conversation
will serve as a bridge builder to

557
01:11:57,460 --> 01:12:11,490
better understanding, not only of the races
but of people in general, so that we can

558
01:12:11,490 --> 01:12:27,010
built enough bridges, that we don’t have
to kill each other in order to understood.

559
01:12:27,010 --> 01:12:28,180
That’s what I would like to leave.

560
01:12:28,180 --> 01:12:32,890
I wanted to go back o the first day, can
you describe what you saw? The first time?

561
01:12:34,180 --> 01:13:01,860
The first, on that very first day, uh, we, I
saw all these bodies, laying out on the ground.

562
01:13:01,860 --> 01:13:02,764
It was a very gray day. It
had been raining, it was cold.

563
01:13:02,765 --> 01:13:06,390
And all of these bodies that were
laying out on the ground, covered

564
01:13:06,390 --> 01:13:26,469
by tarpaulin, so we, all we could
see of the bodies were the boots.

565
01:13:26,469 --> 01:13:26,984
The face was completely covered.

566
01:13:26,985 --> 01:13:30,350
Then the… the man who was in charge
of the Graves Registration, an army

567
01:13:30,350 --> 01:13:32,710
soldier, came to me and he said that:
it’s okay, you can start the burial now.

568
01:13:32,711 --> 01:13:34,216
I removed the… I had a
couple of soldiers remove the

569
01:13:34,217 --> 01:13:35,926
tarpaulin from the bodies,
and… I almost past out.

570
01:13:35,927 --> 01:13:41,499
Because again… I had never in my
life seen, but one dead person.

571
01:13:41,500 --> 01:13:54,524
And that was my sister, and when I saw
it, that dead body, she was warm, she

572
01:13:54,525 --> 01:14:06,596
was dressed in Sunday dress, and looked
like someone who was just sleeping.

573
01:14:13,790 --> 01:14:18,574
But these soldiers were… in many cases
mutilated when they were killed, there

574
01:14:18,575 --> 01:14:18,921
was, uh… there was a lot of blood on
their uniforms and on their bodies.

575
01:14:18,921 --> 01:14:38,180
The Graves Registration Company had done
as much as they could to clean them up, but

576
01:14:39,590 --> 01:14:44,515
in the wintertime when blood is hardening
on the body it is very hard to get it off.

577
01:14:45,780 --> 01:14:47,299
So I walked up and down the line,
looking at all these bodies,

578
01:14:47,300 --> 01:15:05,510
and uh...It did hit me that this
is what war is really all about.

579
01:15:05,510 --> 01:15:13,200
The killing, the mutilation. And
all the pain that goes into war.

580
01:15:13,790 --> 01:15:24,130
I’m not really sure what my reaction
was to the soldiers who surrounded

581
01:15:24,130 --> 01:15:33,390
me, but as I recall no one said
anything to me, because they were

582
01:15:33,390 --> 01:15:38,610
probably just as stunned as I
was, to see all these dead bodies.

583
01:15:39,270 --> 01:15:44,890
Again, that’s what I
thought at that time.

584
01:15:50,150 --> 01:15:52,643
Abraham Lincoln meant, when he
talked about the last full measure;

585
01:15:52,644 --> 01:15:52,760
if anyone had given his last full
measure, was this hundreds of dead

586
01:15:52,760 --> 01:15:52,869
bodies laying out, on the cold
ground of the fields at Margraten.

587
01:15:52,870 --> 01:16:00,839
I saw in your papers that
you saw a German girl?

588
01:16:00,840 --> 01:16:10,650
Yes… This was, I’m not really sure whether this
was the first day that we were at Margraten

589
01:16:10,650 --> 01:16:25,640
that we saw the German girl, or it may have
been the second day, I just can’t be sure.

590
01:16:25,640 --> 01:16:25,870
But.

591
01:16:33,770 --> 01:16:39,970
I’m leaning towards the second
day, because on the first day we

592
01:16:42,980 --> 01:16:59,670
were so stunned at what we saw,
that we didn’t do any talking.

593
01:16:59,670 --> 01:17:11,345
But on the day we saw the German girl, you
know, we… there was a lot of talk about the war

594
01:17:11,346 --> 01:17:12,290
could be almost at an ending because now the
German army was sending women into battle.

595
01:17:12,291 --> 01:17:16,277
And whether that was true or not, I
don’t know, but this one woman was there.

596
01:17:16,277 --> 01:17:21,173
And the Graves Registration people came over and
said that we couldn’t touch that body because

597
01:17:21,174 --> 01:17:23,040
they had not been able to identify; they
suspected that it was a German, and that we just

598
01:17:23,040 --> 01:17:33,770
would have to skip that body and go on to the
next one, until they had some identification.

599
01:17:33,770 --> 01:17:36,190
And as I recall sometimes
later that afternoon.

600
01:17:36,190 --> 01:17:46,010
I believe it was late that afternoon, or
late that morning, the Graves Registration

601
01:17:46,010 --> 01:17:49,020
people came back over, and said that she
had positively been identified as being

602
01:17:49,020 --> 01:17:53,337
German, and they had a special place in
Margraten, where they bury German soldiers.

603
01:17:53,338 --> 01:18:05,936
Uh... this woman was very clean, she didn’t
have on an uniform, she did have on some… what I

604
01:18:05,937 --> 01:18:08,297
described as… a pair of
pants, uh… she had on a

605
01:18:08,297 --> 01:18:12,508
white blouse that was
partially streaked with blood.

606
01:18:13,000 --> 01:18:22,160
But other than that, she just looked
as if, you know, she had died.

607
01:18:22,160 --> 01:18:23,950
But the Graves Registration later informed us
that indeed, she had died as soldier in combat.

608
01:18:23,950 --> 01:18:25,090
That was… it must have been the second day
because, you know, the fist day was, like

609
01:18:25,090 --> 01:18:53,050
I described: we were so stunned, seeing
so many, till.. we were almost speechless.

610
01:18:53,050 --> 01:18:56,830
We were speechless.
As a matter of fact.

611
01:18:56,830 --> 01:19:09,720
I know that I was speechless, because my mind
went back to, to Alabama, and my youngest

612
01:19:09,720 --> 01:19:23,964
sister, and uh… and just as I had hoped, then
that I would never see another dead body.

613
01:19:23,964 --> 01:19:25,119
And now I’m here faced with hundreds of them.
And uh… it just kind of… kind of blew my mind.

614
01:19:25,120 --> 01:19:35,790
Can you also remember exactly how that went, the
bodies came on trucks? How did the unloading?

615
01:19:36,030 --> 01:19:48,840
How did it look? How did the unloading
go and how did the burial exactly go?

616
01:19:48,840 --> 01:20:11,030
The bodies came on what we call six by six
truck, that’s, that’s… and they were stacked in

617
01:20:11,030 --> 01:20:17,765
the.. in the body.. in the.. yeah, in the truck,
almost like if you would stack chord wood.

618
01:20:17,766 --> 01:20:17,990
Okay.

619
01:20:17,990 --> 01:20:56,660
It was obvious that some care had
been given; you know, in the placement

620
01:20:57,170 --> 01:21:09,740
of the soldiers, you know they were…
they weren’t just thrown in there.

621
01:21:12,800 --> 01:21:12,844
Uh.

622
01:21:12,845 --> 01:21:14,442
But is was also obvious that
the trucks that picked them

623
01:21:14,443 --> 01:21:16,850
up had to… carry as many
bodies as was possible to carry.

624
01:21:16,850 --> 01:21:23,563
Uh. When the trucks arrived, for the most part, the
Graves Registration people unloaded the trucks.

625
01:21:23,563 --> 01:21:25,151
Because they didn’t want any
instance of misidentification.

626
01:21:25,152 --> 01:21:28,211
They would unload them, then they would
go s… body by body. Trying to identify.

627
01:21:28,212 --> 01:21:32,099
You know, who, who
the body belonged to.

628
01:21:32,099 --> 01:21:37,220
Once the identification was made, then they
brought the body over to where we were digging

629
01:21:42,490 --> 01:21:44,620
the graves, placed them on the ground again,
another inspection to make sure that they

630
01:21:44,620 --> 01:22:05,220
had made no mistake in identification and
then they gave us permission to bury them.

631
01:22:05,870 --> 01:22:06,020
Uh.

632
01:22:06,020 --> 01:22:12,260
These Graves Registration Companies were so efficient,
till they, they just… If there was any doubt,

633
01:22:12,260 --> 01:22:12,681
about the body not being American or German or
which nationality, they would not allow to bury.

634
01:22:13,080 --> 01:22:28,020
We got to realize that, when The
Graves Registration people said: this is

635
01:22:28,020 --> 01:22:35,110
an American or this is a German,
almost 100 of the time they were right.

636
01:22:35,110 --> 01:22:38,230
And how could they identificate someone?
What was the method of identification?

637
01:22:38,230 --> 01:22:41,980
What was the procedure
of identification?

638
01:22:41,980 --> 01:22:49,150
First of all: dog tags. Again, we
indicated: each soldier had two dog tags.

639
01:22:49,150 --> 01:22:49,710
And, the first procedure
of identifying that person

640
01:22:49,711 --> 01:22:54,910
was to look around his neck
to see if he had dog tags.

641
01:22:54,910 --> 01:23:06,510
If he had dog tags, uh… that was the
largest part of the identification.

642
01:23:06,510 --> 01:23:11,171
Then they went for his wallet or
whatever he had in his pockets

643
01:23:11,171 --> 01:23:16,820
to see if what he had in his
pocket, corresponded to the dog tag.

644
01:23:16,820 --> 01:23:23,486
And if that didn’t work, but
99 of the time, it did work,

645
01:23:23,487 --> 01:23:27,530
then they tried to find the
soldiers commanding officer.

646
01:23:27,530 --> 01:23:35,300
Or someone who was in the same company as he
was in, to make a positive identification.

647
01:23:35,300 --> 01:23:39,760
The identification process
itself was almost airtight.

648
01:23:40,150 --> 01:23:42,610
If they identified him as
being John Jones, then you

649
01:23:43,750 --> 01:23:50,480
could be pretty sure that
was exactly who he was.

650
01:23:50,480 --> 01:23:54,170
A complete different question;
but you told us that there

651
01:23:54,170 --> 01:23:57,990
was not much singing anymore
when you went to Margraten.

652
01:23:58,500 --> 01:24:02,010
What was the kind of
singing before then?

653
01:24:02,010 --> 01:24:05,100
Gospel singing you know.

654
01:24:05,100 --> 01:24:17,199
We… I think I may have told you something
about uh… what was his name again? Uh.

655
01:24:17,199 --> 01:24:19,120
He was from South Carolina, he was a
professional Gospel singer, and when we were

656
01:24:20,900 --> 01:24:28,370
outside the cemetery in Margraten, back in
the barracks uh… he would organize groups

657
01:24:28,370 --> 01:24:34,984
and they would sing, you know, gospel
songs that almost all black soldiers knew.

658
01:24:34,985 --> 01:24:40,780
You know, there would be
clapping, in some cases dancing.

659
01:24:40,870 --> 01:24:49,517
Uh… but once the trucks rolled into the cemetery
in Margraten, there was almost total silence.

660
01:24:49,518 --> 01:24:49,753
Almost total silence.

661
01:24:49,754 --> 01:24:50,019
Each soldier, you know, got his pick
and his shovel digging the graves and

662
01:24:50,019 --> 01:24:51,430
when the grave was dug, uh.. He would
call over the… one of the non commissioning

663
01:24:51,430 --> 01:24:52,728
officers to make sure that the proper
identification had been made and it

664
01:24:52,728 --> 01:24:57,500
was okay to place the body bag around
this soldier and lie him in the grave.

665
01:24:57,500 --> 01:25:01,360
This, this… silence inside
the graveyard, told me, and I

666
01:25:01,360 --> 01:25:13,870
think it told most soldiers,
what a solemn task we had.

667
01:25:13,980 --> 01:25:45,620
And that the best way we could show our respect
for the dead soldiers, was, through silence.

668
01:25:45,620 --> 01:25:59,630
I can’t, there may have
been, but I can’t recall a

669
01:25:59,631 --> 01:26:06,430
single instance where there
was singing in the graveyard.

670
01:26:06,430 --> 01:26:12,280
I can always, I can recall instances,
that as soon as we got on the trucks, going

671
01:26:12,280 --> 01:26:20,268
back to the barracks, the singing, the talking,
the joking, all started all over again.

672
01:26:20,268 --> 01:26:25,670
And it continued that way, until the
next day when we got back to Margraten.

673
01:26:25,670 --> 01:26:31,167
It was almost like Margraten was such
secret place, until uh… you just kept quite.

674
01:26:32,450 --> 01:26:42,950
Now that we are talking again I remember
uh… some passages in the holy bible.

675
01:26:42,950 --> 01:27:04,440
Where it said: the Lord is in his holy temple,
let all the earth keep silent before him.

676
01:27:04,440 --> 01:27:08,900
I don’t know if there were other
soldiers who have read that, but it was

677
01:27:08,900 --> 01:27:16,880
almost as if they had read that, because
you know… The trucks arriving at the

678
01:27:16,880 --> 01:27:20,000
cemetery, the driver would get off
the…would come around to the back of the

679
01:27:20,000 --> 01:27:31,790
truck, you know and lower the tail
gate, and say: it’s time to disembark.

680
01:27:32,500 --> 01:27:37,620
And then all the talking would be done.
Absolutely all the talking would be done.

681
01:27:37,620 --> 01:27:43,089
At noon time, when the trucks came back to
bring lunch, uh… just outside the cemetery,

682
01:27:44,310 --> 01:27:58,939
just… my guess is that where we had lunch
every day was no more than 50 feet, maybe a

683
01:27:58,939 --> 01:28:07,310
100 feet away from the cemetery itself, and
even during lunch, there was almost silence.

684
01:28:07,310 --> 01:28:14,737
Each soldier got his lunch, found a
place to sit on the ground, he ate it.

685
01:28:14,770 --> 01:28:20,080
And when it was time to
go back to the cemetery.

686
01:28:20,690 --> 01:28:27,810
It was almost airy, you know, because
you got 200 soldiers all in one place,

687
01:28:27,810 --> 01:28:30,364
you know, you expect to hear all kinds
of talking and joking and laughter.

688
01:28:30,365 --> 01:28:30,628
Total silence. Almost total silence. And,
and five o’clock came, or six o’clock.

689
01:28:30,628 --> 01:28:48,540
Or whatever time we stopped work,
when the soldiers loading on the

690
01:28:48,540 --> 01:28:59,614
trucks to go back to the baracks,
and then you heard a lot of talking.

691
01:28:59,615 --> 01:29:01,374
Soldiers were inquiring whether or not we
would get mail that day… totally different.

692
01:29:01,374 --> 01:29:03,260
From being inside.

693
01:29:03,260 --> 01:29:06,176
And I think that is one of the reasons that
I’m so interested in going back to Margraten.

694
01:29:06,177 --> 01:29:20,050
Because it was… it was a
sanctuary to me. You know.

695
01:29:20,050 --> 01:29:34,434
You wanted to do some thinking,
if you wanted to uh… to… be

696
01:29:34,434 --> 01:29:38,660
alone in a crowd, Margraten
cemetery is the place to be, yes.

697
01:29:38,660 --> 01:29:45,940
And you were telling about the girls, who
were coming to the graveyard, every day.

698
01:29:45,940 --> 01:29:46,510
Were they at the
graveyard or the baracks?

699
01:29:46,510 --> 01:29:46,890
The graveyard.

700
01:29:46,890 --> 01:29:49,640
And where? I think they were not
allowed on the graveyard itself.

701
01:29:49,640 --> 01:29:59,350
They were not allowed in the graveyard.
They were not allowed in the graveyard.

702
01:29:59,350 --> 01:30:16,660
But they stood out, to the entrance of the
graveyard, about maybe… 100 yards away from the

703
01:30:16,660 --> 01:30:24,270
entrance, and.. you know, when the trucks stopped,
they would uh… they would come closer and closer

704
01:30:24,270 --> 01:30:33,880
to the, to the… they would not engage in a
conversation, initially, but they were always there.

705
01:30:33,880 --> 01:30:38,141
I can’t remember a single day
that these 5 or 6, sometimes

706
01:30:38,142 --> 01:30:40,149
as many as 10 young people
were at the graveyard.

707
01:30:40,150 --> 01:30:51,350
I would like to think… and I’m not
sure, but I would like to think that

708
01:30:52,900 --> 01:31:06,140
the… instead of coming to see us,
that they came to pay their respect to

709
01:31:06,140 --> 01:31:18,270
the, but I can’t be sure, although
I can be sure that they were there.

710
01:31:22,060 --> 01:31:32,670
two more questions.
About the drama of war.

711
01:31:32,670 --> 01:31:39,270
When we talked about how it is
visualized, how it most wars go,

712
01:31:39,300 --> 01:31:46,643
you said that at Margraten, you
found there is no drama in war.

713
01:31:46,643 --> 01:31:47,440
Maybe you can tell that to us.

714
01:31:47,440 --> 01:31:53,330
Absolutely, that there was no drama at
Margraten, and I’d like to believe that there

715
01:31:53,330 --> 01:31:58,910
was no drama in other cemeteries, although
I had, I did not have exposure to others.

716
01:31:58,910 --> 01:32:09,285
I don’t know how it was at the part of the cemetery
that made the identification and all but I do

717
01:32:10,570 --> 01:32:27,230
know that for the…for the… for
the African Americans who were in

718
01:32:27,710 --> 01:32:33,329
charge of digging the graves, and
putting the bodies into the ground

719
01:32:33,330 --> 01:32:39,325
and covering the graves, it was…
it was almost the same every day.

720
01:32:39,325 --> 01:32:53,900
There was no laughing, there was no
talking, uh... And when one soldier felt

721
01:32:53,900 --> 01:32:55,504
that he had to interact with the
other, uh… the tone of his voice was so

722
01:32:55,504 --> 01:33:06,700
low, until he had almost get face to
face to understand what he was saying.

723
01:33:06,700 --> 01:33:26,550
You know, we are talking here, I am,
I don’t know how long we’d been in

724
01:33:27,940 --> 01:33:28,696
Margraten, but we’d been there for
a while, and, this young soldier,

725
01:33:28,696 --> 01:33:28,927
very, very short, was uh… had a
reputation for being extremely religious.

726
01:33:28,928 --> 01:33:30,090
And he was covering a very and I
had not noticed that he was crying,

727
01:33:30,090 --> 01:33:47,565
but the soldier who was helping him
to cover the grave, had noticed.

728
01:33:47,566 --> 01:33:50,180
And this young soldier turned around and said:
what the hell are you looking at? You know.

729
01:33:50,180 --> 01:33:57,290
I have the right in the
world to cry if I want to.

730
01:33:57,290 --> 01:33:59,590
And you know, this other soldier, as
I recall, uh… replied: you know, you

731
01:33:59,590 --> 01:34:06,650
are crazy, I would not even look at
you, I didn’t even see you, and… And the

732
01:34:17,720 --> 01:34:22,841
first soldier said: it maybe will do
you some good to cry once in a while.

733
01:34:22,841 --> 01:34:31,640
That was the most talking that I
had ever heard in the cemetery.

734
01:34:31,640 --> 01:34:42,970
I just remember that there was a day, at
the cemetery, when we were getting paid.

735
01:34:43,550 --> 01:34:53,470
It was payday, and apparently (I hope I
have the story right), apparently one soldier

736
01:34:54,860 --> 01:34:59,220
there was always a lot of gambling going
on you know: shooting dice, playing cards,

737
01:34:59,220 --> 01:35:09,000
and there was one soldier, there was one
soldier, uh… who’d gotten paid; apparently

738
01:35:09,000 --> 01:35:26,690
he owed another soldier some money, and he
places his hand in his pocket to get the

739
01:35:26,690 --> 01:35:31,564
money out to pay the soldier, and a pair
of dice fell off his pocket and the soldier

740
01:35:31,564 --> 01:35:38,670
who owed the money almost went ballistic;
you know, he said to this young guy.

741
01:35:38,810 --> 01:35:47,190
I don’t believe you, you
had the nerves to bring a

742
01:35:48,260 --> 01:35:58,890
pair of dices into the cemetery;
what was you thinking?

743
01:35:58,890 --> 01:36:06,540
And the kid was trying to explain that
uh… he didn’t realize that the dices were

744
01:36:06,540 --> 01:36:17,872
there, so he said: well maybe you don’t realize
that all these guys around us are dead.

745
01:36:17,873 --> 01:36:18,134
I am… I hope you go straight
to hell when you die.

746
01:36:18,134 --> 01:36:18,196
And, I’m not quite sure I thought too
much of that, that time, but 65 years later

747
01:36:18,196 --> 01:36:24,670
looking back on that, I think it showed the
kind of reverence that most of us try to

748
01:36:26,980 --> 01:36:47,724
pay to the death; it shows the kind of respect
that we had for the work we were doing.

749
01:36:47,725 --> 01:37:03,490
And I also think that uh… it showed that, these
as distasteful as burying all these people

750
01:37:04,400 --> 01:37:13,020
were, we owe them the respect and the kind of
dedication that they had given fighting that

751
01:37:13,020 --> 01:37:25,540
we owe that same kind of dedication and
respect, that we could give them in their burial.

752
01:37:26,250 --> 01:37:37,760
You were telling earlier that this
identification went by these dog tags.

753
01:37:37,760 --> 01:37:40,800
Did you also have dog tags?

754
01:37:40,800 --> 01:38:01,550
Oh yes, every soldier in the
US Army have their dog tags.

755
01:38:01,550 --> 01:38:14,330
And you slept with them, you took a shower in
them, you were never to remove them from your neck.

756
01:38:14,330 --> 01:38:24,540
And when a soldier was killed, the first
thing they looked for were the dog tags.

757
01:38:24,540 --> 01:38:32,921
And if the, and they took one
of the dog tags off, that

758
01:38:32,921 --> 01:38:33,640
was placed on his grave and
left the other one there.

759
01:38:33,640 --> 01:38:43,560
And I’m sure that when the, uh…
soldiers who were laid or send back

760
01:38:43,560 --> 01:38:51,640
to the US, I am sure that they
found those dog tags in the graves.

761
01:38:51,640 --> 01:39:02,620
There I’m almost certain of that
that was a positive identification.

762
01:39:02,620 --> 01:39:07,990
And the army considered it, you know, an offense
if a soldier was caught without his dog tags on.

763
01:39:07,990 --> 01:39:28,620
Because otherwise you have no way of
identifying him, except trough those dog tags.

764
01:39:28,620 --> 01:39:33,148
Of course you could make a
identification, it took some time,

765
01:39:33,290 --> 01:39:34,308
you have to take fingerprints
and all this kind of things.

766
01:39:34,308 --> 01:39:34,640
But the dog tag was a positive,
positive identification.

767
01:39:34,640 --> 01:39:35,844
You still have yours?

768
01:39:35,844 --> 01:39:36,531
No, I don’t.

769
01:39:36,532 --> 01:39:37,398
I… I think until maybe 20 years ago I had them,
but you know like everything, they came missing.

770
01:39:37,399 --> 01:39:40,236
There was another identification you
could make too, they used to identify…

771
01:39:40,237 --> 01:39:45,238
we did not have talked about almost
forgotten that is your serial number.

772
01:39:45,435 --> 01:39:55,125
Each soldier has a serial number.
That serial number was on the dog tags.

773
01:39:55,125 --> 01:40:03,576
If, in some massacres the dog tags were
left… uh… were lost, the first thing

774
01:40:03,577 --> 01:40:10,613
the identifying officer wanted to find
out was: what were your serial numbers.

775
01:40:10,918 --> 01:40:15,462
And uh… I’ve had a lot of instances where
my serial number came in very, very handy.

776
01:40:15,463 --> 01:40:19,222
Once when I was commisioned, the commissioning
officer wanted to know: what is your serial number,

777
01:40:19,222 --> 01:40:22,730
and mine was 14069712, and then of course when
you got commissioned you got a new serial number.

778
01:40:22,730 --> 01:40:27,132
A serial number of an officer and
that one was uh… was uh.. 0229646.

779
01:40:27,133 --> 01:40:29,196
I remember that for
the rest of my life.

780
01:40:29,197 --> 01:40:30,257
But those didn’t seem so important
at that time, but in death

781
01:40:30,258 --> 01:40:30,660
they became very important for
the identification process.

782
01:40:30,661 --> 01:40:39,770
And uh… I would, my guess would be that
if you met one of those soldiers after 65

783
01:40:40,193 --> 01:40:44,369
years, he would be able to tell you without
blinking what his serial number was.

784
01:40:44,370 --> 01:40:47,370
I know I’ll never forget mine.

785
01:40:47,370 --> 01:40:51,015
Okay. Thank you, once again.

786
01:40:51,015 --> 01:40:55,162
Thank you, thank you. This to me has been a
day of sadness, and it’s been a day of joy.

787
01:40:55,163 --> 01:41:19,891
Sad that I had to talk about uh… people…
Soldiers who lost their lives in the service

788
01:41:19,892 --> 01:42:07,879
of the country, and glad that I could
remember some of the details, because I think

789
01:42:07,880 --> 01:42:18,500
that that at least in a small way paid tribute
for what they did, and for who they were.

790
01:42:18,695 --> 01:42:20,299
So I thank you very much.