March 2, 2012
I took basic training in Amarillo. I took the test for pilot. I was—always loved airplanes—or model airplanes. I passed it. I marched in in 1944. I stayed there until March. They eliminated us without prejudice. We didn’t do anything wrong. The whole school was gone because they had too many pilots. I went be-fore a colonel and he says, “What do you feel like?” I said, “Well, sir—” He says—and then he told me, “I’m going to send you to a gunnery school. You’re going to be a gunner in an airplane.” And I said, “Sir—” I thought I’d impress him. I said, “Sir, if I can’t fly the airplane, nobody’s going to fly it for me.” He didn’t say anything, wrote something down, and then he said, “Next.”
The next day I was in the infantry. They transferred me to the infantry. They sent me to Reno, Nevada. I did nothing but went out in a truck in the sand and stayed in a tent. They were training us to go to North Africa. Fortunately, I got my orders changed, I don’t know why. They sent me to Greensboro, North Carolina. There, I was in a track meet. I won everything. Then they sent me to Boston. I shipped out of Boston, fourteen days to South-ampton, England. Out of the fourteen days I was seasick thir-teen. [I’d never been on the ocean before.] And you had a bunk and the—if you were lucky you got the top bunk, because the guy at the top would vomit and it would come all the way down. And it would—it happened. It happened. Oh God, I suffered. Oh!