This is written as the thoughts come to me. So it will be pretty disjointed to a professional author. So if you are expecting professional writing you'd better buy a book. Also if you are interested in my entire experience after reading this go to the start by scrolling down and reading up. You've heard of writing from right to left so leave it to google to read from the bottom up. That's a joke son. There will be some pictures. Remember to click on a picture to see a big picture. The next post will show links to the first stories of this blog.
Please leave a comment if you take the time to read this. I'm going to see if google has a page counter. Maybe no one is reading it anyway.
For all you WW2 types whose eyesight is perhaps not too good I will increase the size of the print. Near Camp Roberts is the Military Reservation, Hunter Leggitt, where the trainees go for their final training where they put their knowledge into practice. Somehow I had acquired a camera or had someone else take the pictures. As I said before my memory is/was bad and unless I had a reason to remember it, it is gone. Pictures are a good way to remember what was going on. I managed to contact my friend Burdette Anderson who was in the Infantry at Camp Roberts and as I talked to him it brought back many memories but not of Camp Roberts Basic Training but things in general of army life. Of course he is about my age and considering that he lived through 85 plus or minus years and 90 days of combat on Okinawa I think it is remarkable that we are still around to talk about it.
I don't remember much of Hunter Leggitt but someone did take a few pictures of me there,
Of course they gave us various training in weapons. In the artillery soldiers don't normally carry rifles they carry carbines. So the infantry manual of arms is pretty much unknown to the artilleryman. Later in Germany at Worms when they handed me a n M1 rifle for guard duty I had to do a quick learn of the manual of arms. Not too tough actually as I'd seen them do it a lot of t mes. A real Marine or infantryman would probably have had a laugh if I had actually had to do it. The duty was guarding the perhiphery of the camp. Not too hard as we were a long ways behing the fighting at this stage of the war. This is the first I came in contact with the hunger and starvation going on in Gemany at this late stage. I remember one little kid trying to play and keep up with the other children who had not suffered so much malnutrition as he had. Small spindly legs, very thin, large shoes that kept him from keeping up with the others. I was to see a lot more of this but sheltered in the army with plenty of food, not living in the poplulation at large, the impact on us was less how bad it was for the Germans. Of course we had to know as the women congregated around the post liquor bars, willing to sell themselves for something to eat. But more of this later. But if you are under the impression the the American soldier was popular because of his winning ways you can forget that. I wonder this late date where all the people lived that had occupied Darmstadt and many other cities in 1945. One day late in the war the British or Americans raided the town of Darmstate with a population of around 120,000 killing 30 thousand or so. Take of look at Darmstadt in the summer of 1945. I took this picture Not a soul living here or even a place to stay by the looks of it. where did they go?
Enough for today more on basic before we graduated and sent on to other adventures. A spot of leave then on to the war for some.
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