Arthur Schmidt, August 13, 2015

Arthur Schmidt, August 13, 2015

World War, 1939-1945

Muhlenberg College

Arthur Schmidt’s college career at Muhlenberg was interrupted by the war’s need for his service in the Army Air Force. Serving in various capacities in the Air Corps, Schmidt found active duty afforded him new opportunities to see how others lived. After service, he returned to college, seeing campus and college culture with new eyes.

2015-08-13

video

WWII_06

Kate Ranieri

Susan Falciani Maldonado

Anthony Dalton

Arthur Schmidt

00:55:39

5.4 August 13, 2015 Arthur Schmidt, August 13, 2015 WWII_06 00:55:39 WWII Muhlenberg Voices of World War II Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, Trexler Library, Muhlenberg College. World War, 1939-1945 Muhlenberg College WWII Okinawa, Japan Air Corps basketball Arthur Schmidt Kate Ranieri Susan Falciani Maldonado Anthony Dalton video/mp4 SchmidtArthur_20150813_video 1:|22(13)|46(6)|70(2)|90(13)|99(4)|122(3)|133(13)|145(5)|164(13)|173(7)|188(7)|203(10)|216(8)|230(8)|240(10)|249(14)|260(6)|271(2)|282(12)|293(4)|309(4)|324(12)|335(7)|345(3)|353(16)|368(6)|377(5)|387(4)|398(15)|411(6)|422(17)|435(7)|446(12)|459(8)|475(6)|487(8)|501(3)|512(11)|535(5)|546(4)|557(16)|567(10)|578(10)|597(4)|606(15)|618(6)|625(18)|639(5)|649(5)|664(5)|689(10)|700(2)|714(13)|735(12)|747(9) 0 YouTube video &lt ; iframe width=&quot ; 560&quot ; height=&quot ; 315&quot ; src=&quot ; https://www.youtube.com/embed/yi1id86Si1w&quot ; title=&quot ; YouTube video player&quot ; frameborder=&quot ; 0&quot ; allow=&quot ; accelerometer ; autoplay=0 ; clipboard-write ; encrypted-media ; gyroscope ; picture-in-picture&quot ; allowfullscreen&gt ; &lt ; /iframe&gt ; 0 Interview Introduction KR: What you know about this project, why you're here today? AS: I don’t know anything about it. (Laugh) KR: Okay. So, I have a blank slate and Susan and I are working on a project AS: OK. KR: that's on a documentary film, if you will, video project of interviewing people who were here at Muhlenberg during Tyson's period of time, but also with the Navy V-12 program. And there are some people that were part of it briefly, some of them later, but that's what we're trying to kind of make that part of history come alive. Really appreciate your taking the time to tell-- 64 Early schooling / growing up in the Lehigh Valley KR: Good. So today, it’s August 13th [2015] and we’re here interviewing Mr. Art Schwartz [The interviewers mistakenly address Mr. Schmidt as “Mr. Schwartz” on several occasions before correcting the error] in the Fulford Room [Trexler Library]. I'd like to kind of begin. I know you've talked a little bit about your background of your relatives, but if you could tell me or tell us what were your aspirations? If you think back when you were a senior in high school, what were you thinking, were you thinking of going to college or work or? AS: Oh, sure I took the college preparatory course. KR: Okay. AS: In high school, Allentown High School. Allentown High School ; Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom (Allentown, Pa.) ; Lehigh Valley 125 Choosing Muhlenberg / First years at Muhlenberg KR: So, Muhlenberg was on your ticket then. AS: Huh? KR: And going to Muhlenberg was what you’d already planned on. AS: Well, I went to Muhlenberg because it was handy. The war was on. My brother went to Princeton. He was ahead of me a couple of years and we were going to join up at Lafayette. But [chuckle] that didn't happen because we had colleges to go to that we were accepted in. And so, he stayed there and -- I actually graduated ahead of him, even though he was two years ahead, but he was in the European theater. So--[chuckle] Allentown (Pa.) ; Emmaus (Pa.) 232 Reflections on Muhlenberg faculty and classes KR: But tell me about some of your experiences in the classroom at Muhlenberg. AS: Well, when I started at Muhlenberg, where there were only about 90 civilians and the rest will V-12 and whatever. Marines and Navy, it’s all Navy. Let's say I had all the old good professors. Started with Luther Deck. I majored in math and physics, but I, Luther Deck and the Everett the English teacher and, oh, Shankweiler in biology and you know, just, Keller in chemistry and Zartmann and Boyer in physics and on and on. And its, you know, I just had, they were all good professors and they're -- the only class only had about six or seven people in a class. So, you had an opportunity to really learn and in chemistry, when I got out of chemistry, if I had pursued that and when I grad -- with Keller, when I graduated from that course let’s say, moved on, I could've taken anything you bought me and analyzed it and told you what it would be, but, uh, I've forgot everything I’ve ever learned, except that H2O is water it’s hydrogen and oxygen [laugh] you know Boyer ; Everett ; John Keller ; John V. Shankweiler ; Luther Deck ; V-12 program ; Zartmann 340 Recollections of Levering Tyson / Eleanor Roosevelt visit to campus KR: OK. What were your memories, Dr. Tyson? AS: Great. Wonderful. We were very close. Actually, they, my parents, I spent a lot of time in the President's home, which is now across the street. It's, what do you call it -- it has a name KR: The Wescoe School. AS: Yeah, the Wescoe building. They played a lot of bridge and in different houses. In their house here, down on Wall Street down at the farm and my parents and they had a home in Bayhead that we would go down and spend a week in the summer time with them and so forth. He was a great guy as far as I'm concerned. And there are a lot of stories there. My grandfather was in the hospital and staunch Republican and Tyson was staunch Democrat. Gabriel House ; Harold Marks ; Levering Tyson ; Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962 ; Wescoe School 537 Basketball at Muhlenberg AS: Because of the V-12, those guys were only here about two years and then the war was over. And maybe it was three, I don't know, but I think they had, they inherited from Long Island University, their basketball team. Long Island University was one of the top ten teams in the nation. And Muhlenberg actually became number six in the nation one year. And I played basketball here at Muhlenberg. I was more or less cannon fodder, you know, but used in practice more than any of the games. But when Doggie Julian left, he put me down as, on a starting team for the next year. athletics ; basketball ; Doggie Julian ; Long Island University ; Mikan, George, 1924-2005 ; sports ; V-12 program 662 Life as a commuting student during the V-12 years on campus KR: And you made friends with people that were in that were in the V-12? AS: Well, it's, it's different when you're living at a college. I commuted, I didn't live there and commuted from the farm or from downtown. And I made a lot of friends with with the V-12 guys, I did. [pause] The funny part is when we had some basketball games, the V-12, which you might say, the junior varsity, JV’s, we would play the varsity team and Muhlenberg’s top team would be paying their JV team because of something to do with what they could, and couldn't do. The rules or regulations __ that happened with the University of Pennsylvania. athletics ; Muhlenberg Weekly ; University of Pennsylvania 737 Enlisting in the Air Corps / basic training KR: Did you know __ what year did you graduate? AS: I was in a class of 47, but I graduated in 49. After I got out of the service, I came back. I only got a year and a half in. And actually, I, in 1944, I enlisted before I would get drafted because I wanted to get any Air Corps and I listed in that. But it took a while. That was in October and in the spring, early spring by was actually inducted. The war was going on in, in Europe and in the South Pacific with Japan. I remember when I went to New Cumberland to get inducted there, they said one of the guys that was doing it and said, you're joining a wrong army. Because my name was Arthur Schmidt you know. [laugh] but Air Corps ; B-29 ; Camp Stoneman ; Japan ; Keesler Field, MS ; New Cumberland ; Oakland (Calif.) ; Shepard Field, TX ; World War, 1939-1945 939 Shipping out to Japan AS: So, we, when we got on the ship in, at Camp Stolen, going out under the Golden Gate Bridge I was looking at the railing and it was private, so-and-so carved in it and other like that First World War. And it was an old ship, a troop transport. And I'm actually writing a book about this stuff. [chuckle], but anyway. It, it [unclear] when we left the Golden Gate Bridge out there, the sea was rather rolling and swelling, you know. And about 90% of everybody was sick, there were garbage cans, big garbage cans like this all over, full of vomit or just overflowing. Hawaii ; Japan ; Okinawa ; World War II 1056 Landing at Okinawa and stealing at Kadena Airfield AS: And then when we got to Okinawa, we ended up in a field there full of mud with tents. And the mud was in the tents too. There was no floor. But our commanding officer at the time said, “Look Fellows,” he said, “you're the last ones. We are the Air Corps at Kadena Airfield. We’re the last ones to get supplies, because you have the Seabees, you'll have the Navy you have the Army and, and all this before it ever gets to us. So, you have to do some stealing to get by. He says, you know, judicial stealing, so to speak.” Air Corps ; Kadena Airfield ; Okinawa 1290 Seeing the world in the military / life at Kadena Airfield KR: I understand that a lot of people, for the first time saw Europe or Japan. I mean, they’d never been outside of their own country, like you. AS: Yeah. Well, I had been to Bermuda. [laugh] KR: What was it like for people when they went to different countries? Was it, I mean ---- AS: Well, in the case of where we were Kadena Airfield you don't get involved that much with, with the people, the Okinawans, and they they __ they live, they have the longest life spans of anybody I think, of anyone in the world. But, we call them gooks. And we had our own little enlisted man’s club. And we had a couple of the working in there. But you don't get out in the, we didn’t. We had that Japanese prisoners of war though, and I had them working on the planes, actually, with the war being over, they were just happy to do something and they were better actually than our own men in some of that stuff. So-- Air Corps ; Japan ; Kadena Airfield ; Okinawa ; Suicide Cliff ; World War II 1450 R&amp ; R in Manila and getting busted Things happened too. We went on a rest an R&amp ; R to Manila and we went down there and we had a, instead of a B29 pilot, they recently had a fighter pilot guy who came in and was flying the plane. And we went down there and we got to Clark Field, spent the night there, it was New Year's Eve, actually, and the next day, there wasn't much traffic going into Manila, but we got a flight in the afternoon, and everybody that was there, that wanted to go got on the flight and went down the runway. And he couldn't get it off the ground, it was too overloaded. B-29 ; Clark Field (Philippines) ; Manila ; R&amp ; R ; rest and recovery 1674 Witnessing crashes and accidents during the War AS: I had a lot of experiences like that. KR: Sounds like you found trouble? AS: Well, not necessary, but I I had giving it B-29 we gave it checks, power checks on the engines. The main thing, that's what we were engine mechanics and I was kneeling underneath the B-29, and the B29 is actually big airplane and during the power check, the fire extinguisher was about 12 foot up, over my head, shook loose, it weighed a lot. It weighed about 25 pounds, but it was all metal with sharp edges and it shook loose and it came right down in my head. B-29 ; helicopter ; mowing ; pilot ; plane 1924 Advice to current Muhlenberg students KR: Mr. Schwartz, we have asked everyone's same question. In all your life experience is if you were to talk to the college students that we have here now, what is one thing you would give them, one piece of advice you would give them? AS: Well, to search their own mind and see what they really would like to do. And then you have to have goals. If you have goals and you stick to them, even if a bunch of them fail still, sooner or later maybe something will work. But you have to just go on. I just say you have to how a goal in life and, and pursue it. 1930 Reflections on Reba Tyson KR: One question too. When we were, we were interviewing William, Dr. William Fritz who graduated from here. He was talking about Mrs. Tyson, Reba Tyson. Could you give us a little character sketch about her since you knew them pretty well? AS: Well, as far as I know. She was a lovely person. KR: Did she play cards? AS: Uh Yeah. Then they played my when my parents played over here and that our house just the four of them and they played bridge all the time. Edgar Swain ; rationing ; Reba Tyson ; Women's Auxiliary 2123 Reflections on growing up and living in the Allentown community KR: So you lived at home and then commuted here. You probably knew a lot of people in the community. AS: Oh, just about everybody. And because of my father and my grandfather and, and even in grade school when the kids know, people knew I was a Schmidt and a Trexler. And he thought, wow, he must have money, and which I, of course I didn't have. You got to know, and my parents, the circle and my father was into everything. Bank boards and rationing during the war and the Community Chest drives on the board at Muhlenberg, my brother was on the board at Muhlenberg. Oh, he came from Princeton, but he, I just knew everybody, really did. Allentown (Pa.) ; Community Chest ; Lehigh Valley ; rationing ; Schmidt ; Trexler ; war bonds 2402 Remembering the B-29 plane &quot ; Lady in Waiting&quot ; / accidental visit to a leper colony AS: What actually happened? I had the plane that I was assigned to when I first got there. As one of the crew. There were about six or seven. That plane was called Lady in Waiting and it had this picture of a woman waiting, you know, laying down. And next to us was that on our next hardstand was Ready Heady, and that was Heady Lamar. And I was supposedly after her. The next plane was the Honorable Cock Wagon. [Laugh] Now, what do you suppose? They had a beautiful rooster painted on the side of the plane [laugh]. It's not what people would think [laughing]. But the Lady in Waiting, I was on that more than any plane until I got 12 planes and eventually, I got the whole 24 planes. I will under my, you know, and still has a buck sergeant. Air Corps ; B-29 ; plane 2610 Returning to Muhlenberg after time in the service SUSAN FALCIANI MALDONADO: One question, when he came back, after your service was over you came back to Muhlenberg and just enrolled and just to finish your studies. What was that like coming back? AS: Coming back [pause] It was a little difficult as far as my attention to it. I was a straight A student through high school in first year and a half at Muhlenberg when I graduated from Muhlenberg, I was a straight C. I had 7 C’s in my last, uh but I still learned, but I wasn't well, it's like Preston Barba, taught German, lived in Emmaus. basketball ; Emmaus (Pa.) ; Preston Barba ; West Hall 2844 Reflections on Chapel requirements KR: A lot of building going on. There's lots of building going on. It. You remember Dean Benfer, Haps Benfer? AS: Very well. Benfer Hall and so forth. I remember the other, another Dean here. Mercer, he said you're not going to graduate. I said why? He says You're 75 chapels behind. And I had about a month to go. See we had to go to chapel every day. My courses were over there, but come and go all the way back and forth. And, and when I did go, I'd sit with Harold Marks at the organ in the back anyway. chapel ; Egner Memorial Chapel ; Haps Benfer ; Harold Marks 2964 Basketball team plays at the Garden with Doggie Julian / luncheonette in the Admin Building AS: Oh, I got this one story I could tell you. We went to with Doggie Julian. We went to New York to play in the Garden and there were about nine of us. We didn't have a big team. And we're at the hotel. I think it was Algonquin for our dinner before going to play. And he the waitress would come by and he'd say he can have that, and he can have that he can have that. They know. And it came to me, he says give him anything he wants, he's not going to play anyway. [laugh] I was sort of a klutz. Administration Building ; athletics ; basketball ; Doggie Julian ; Madison Square Garden (New York, N.Y. : 1925-1968) 3043 Changes in Allentown over time / thoughts on atomic war KR: Well, it's so funny to see how places they used to be here aren't anymore. Like, um, you know what downtown all over AS: the place has changed so much? KR: Yes AS: All the stores, everything. Then I was actually related to the Leh’s. Are they related to us also? And the Young's and I was over in Fairview Cemetery the other day it’s a disgrace, where they have General Trexler’s big monument and what not, and why the brothers are in another section of the park. But everything's overgrown the grass like this, vines going over there and hardly any flowers. And nobody even visits it anymore. Allentown (Pa.) ; atomic war ; climate change ; Fairview Cemetery ; Greenwood Cemetery ; Trexler MovingImage Arthur Schmidt’s college career at Muhlenberg was interrupted by the war’s need for his service in the Army Air Force. Serving in various capacities in the Air Corps, Schmidt found active duty afforded him new opportunities to see how others lived. After service, he returned to college, seeing campus and college culture with new eyes. KATE RANIERI: What you know about this project, why you&#039 ; re here today? ART SCHMIDT: I don&#039 ; t know anything about it. [Laugh] KR: Okay. So, I have a blank slate and Susan and I are working on a project AS: OK. KR: that&#039 ; s on a documentary film, if you will, video project of interviewing people who were here at Muhlenberg during Tyson&#039 ; s period of time, but also with the Navy V-12 program. And there are some people that were part of it briefly, some of them later, but that&#039 ; s what we&#039 ; re trying to kind of make that part of history come alive. Really appreciate your taking the time to tell-- AS: [laughing] I&#039 ; m approaching 90 years old, so I have time. Nobody wants me to work for him or anything KR: Oh, okay. AS: So, I work for myself. I mow a lot of grass. [Chuckle] KR: There you go. That will keep you busy, keeps growing right? Okay. ANTHONY DALTON: Yeah. KR: Good. So today, it&#039 ; s August 13th [2015] and we&#039 ; re here interviewing Mr. Art Schwartz [The interviewers mistakenly address Mr. Schmidt as &quot ; Mr. Schwartz&quot ; on several occasions before correcting the error] in the Fulford Room [Trexler Library]. I&#039 ; d like to kind of begin. I know you&#039 ; ve talked a little bit about your background of your relatives, but if you could tell me or tell us what were your aspirations? If you think back when you were a senior in high school, what were you thinking, were you thinking of going to college or work or? AS: Oh, sure I took the college preparatory course. KR: Okay. AS: In high school, Allentown High School. KR: Ok. AS: All my life has been between, let&#039 ; s say, the river, Arbogast &amp ; Bastian I lived down there, out to the cemetery over here, on Muhlenberg and of course, Dorney Park. [Chuckle] But it&#039 ; s all been within here __ and in the valley there. I&#039 ; ve never left the valley other than during the war and then some business trips, and I did farming overseas and in in Jamaica and Haiti. KR: So, Muhlenberg was on your ticket then. AS: Huh? KR: And going to Muhlenberg was what you&#039 ; d already planned on. AS: Well, I went to Muhlenberg because it was handy. The war was on. My brother went to Princeton. He was ahead of me a couple of years and we were going to join up at Lafayette. But [chuckle] that didn&#039 ; t happen because we had colleges to go to that we were accepted in. And so, he stayed there and -- I actually graduated ahead of him, even though he was two years ahead, but he was in the European theater. So--[chuckle] KR: So, tell me about your years. Tell me about your years in Muhlenberg. When you were here, what were some of your fond memories that you had, your friends, your teachers? AS: How do you know I had any fond memories? KR: Oh, you may not [Laugh] AS: While -- naturally. I wanted to go on to college. The war was on, and, uh, so this was a natural place. I put in, I enter Muhlenberg at the age of 16 and, uh, cause, and it&#039 ; s a big mistake in anybody&#039 ; s life. But, but back then in grade school, I had what they called opportunity. And opportunity was where you skipped sixth grade. Went from fifth to seven and, uh, I went to Central Junior High School and I actually went to just about every school in Allentown, I was right between the -- cause we lived an Allentown in the wintertime and lived on a farm in Emmaus in the summertime, kept going back and forth. So, if that makes any sense. There&#039 ; s a long story to it. Are you, are you recording anything now for posterity? KR: Yes, Yes were rolling? AS: You can edit it out KR: Yes, we can. AS: Ok. [laugh] KR: But tell me about some of your experiences in the classroom at Muhlenberg. AS: Well, when I started at Muhlenberg, where there were only about 90 civilians and the rest will V-12 and whatever. Marines and Navy, it&#039 ; s all Navy. Let&#039 ; s say I had all the old good professors. Started with Luther Deck. I majored in math and physics, but I, Luther Deck and the Everett the English teacher and, oh, Shankweiler in biology and you know, just, Keller in chemistry and Zartmann and Boyer in physics and on and on. And its, you know, I just had, they were all good professors and they&#039 ; re -- the only class only had about six or seven people in a class. So, you had an opportunity to really learn and in chemistry, when I got out of chemistry, if I had pursued that and when I grad -- with Keller, when I graduated from that course let&#039 ; s say, moved on, I could&#039 ; ve taken anything you bought me and analyzed it and told you what it would be, but, uh, I&#039 ; ve forgot everything I&#039 ; ve ever learned, except that H2O is water it&#039 ; s hydrogen and oxygen [laugh] you know KR: That&#039 ; s probably only needed now. AS: Yeah, we need water. At least the West Coast does. KR: So, when you were at Muhlenberg, you were in the Navy, the V-12 program. AS: No, Not I. I was a civilian. KR: You were a civilian, that&#039 ; s right. AS: I was still young to be in. KR: OK. What were your memories, Dr. Tyson? AS: Great. Wonderful. We were very close. Actually, they, my parents, I spent a lot of time in the President&#039 ; s home, which is now across the street. It&#039 ; s, what do you call it -- it has a name KR: The Wescoe School. AS: Yeah, the Wescoe building. They played a lot of bridge and in different houses. In their house here, down on Wall Street down at the farm and my parents and they had a home in Bayhead that we would go down and spend a week in the summer time with them and so forth. He was a great guy as far as I&#039 ; m concerned. And there are a lot of stories there. My grandfather was in the hospital and staunch Republican and Tyson was staunch Democrat. And he brought in Eleanor Roosevelt as a speaker or something, at a commencement whatever. There are pictures of it. And he took her down to the hospital to visit my [laughing] grandfather. [chuckling] And he was livid. He didn&#039 ; t like it at all. I&#039 ; m talking about my grandfather have Eleanor Roosevelt would come in into the room. [laugh] KR: Did he throw her out? AS: Just about [laughing]. We had a lot of experiences there. Nothing I can tell you about Tyson. So, he was a fun guy. In fact, he kept my diploma behind his back for about a minute before he handed to me. [laugh] But what they were playing cards one time with my parents and General Ewell [?] and his wife. General Ewell was a good friend of the family and related to Marks, who use to the Marks, Harold Marks, as far as women were concerned. But anyway, General Ewell was very strict. He was in charge of the -- he was a teacher at West Point and then he was in a third in Omaha, Nebraska -- the third, whatever they call it during the war. But they were playing cards and he, Tyson was playing, you know, and somebody trumped, they were playing Hasenpfeffer actually, six person Hasenpfeffer. Somebody trumped, he said son of a and he didn&#039 ; t bitch, but he said beach. And the General almost got into fisticuffs. You then in front of these women that he could talk like that. It was a bad scene. No don&#039 ; t put that in [laughter]. KR: You were saying as far as you were concerned, President Tyson was a good guy. Was there&#039 ; s some reservation that you think. Is there&#039 ; s some reservation about Tyson? AS: No, not at all, not as far as I&#039 ; m concerned. KR: Right. Do you think other people seem to have different opinions about him? AS: Not that I know of. KR: Just checking. AS: Because of the V-12, those guys were only here about two years and then the war was over. And maybe it was three, I don&#039 ; t know, but I think they had, they inherited from Long Island University, their basketball team. Long Island University was one of the top ten teams in the nation. And Muhlenberg actually became number six in the nation one year. And I played basketball here at Muhlenberg. I was more or less cannon fodder, you know, but used in practice more than any of the games. But when Doggie Julian left, he put me down as, on a starting team for the next year. He went to the Celtics. And we played one game though against George Mikan. George Mikan was the first seven-foot center, actually was six eleven and a half. But he stood right in front of the basket and boom, boom, boom, and just knocked everything away. And it was after that game, as far as I know, that they introduced goaltending that you cannot touch the ball when it was in a downward trajectory or it was counted as a goal. And so, but, Muhlenberg had some good teams. They had the Baietti and, and Capehart and, you know, Munson, had a good team, Davis. KR: These were people who were brought here from Long Island University? AS: Yeah, they were with the V12 program, and that&#039 ; s what made Muhlenberg the great team they were then, but they&#039 ; ve had some good teams. KR: Did you play any other sports at all? AS: And I played all kinds of sports, but not at Muhlenberg. I think I did play a little baseball, but not, not much. [Chuckle] KR: And you made friends with people that were in that were in the V-12? AS: Well, it&#039 ; s, it&#039 ; s different when you&#039 ; re living at a college. I commuted, I didn&#039 ; t live there and commuted from the farm or from downtown. And I made a lot of friends with with the V-12 guys, I did. [pause] The funny part is when we had some basketball games, the V-12, which you might say, the junior varsity, JV&#039 ; s, we would play the varsity team and Muhlenberg&#039 ; s top team would be paying their JV team because of something to do with what they could, and couldn&#039 ; t do. The rules or regulations __ that happened with the University of Pennsylvania. KR: Where you also when you were at Muhlenberg, did you have, did you participate in anything like the Muhlenberg Weekly? AS: Yeah. I help work on that. And that was I Tool Toey [?], he was one of the guys and Mike Rogers that help, especially Mike Rogers, very innovative. I think he went all on pretty, to do some pretty serious stuff in entertaining and that type of thing KR: Did you know __ what year did you graduate? AS: I was in a class of 47, but I graduated in 49. After I got out of the service, I came back. I only got a year and a half in. And actually, I, in 1944, I enlisted before I would get drafted because I wanted to get any Air Corps and I listed in that. But it took a while. That was in October and in the spring, early spring by was actually inducted. The war was going on in, in Europe and in the South Pacific with Japan. I remember when I went to New Cumberland to get inducted there, they said one of the guys that was doing it and said, you&#039 ; re joining a wrong army. Because my name was Arthur Schmidt you know. [laugh] but KR: So, tell me about your years then in the Air Force, the Air Corps [AAC] AS: Well KR: What was it like when you first got in? AS: I was, spent about a couple of days at New Cumberland just to get clothes and a little orientation and so forth. And was shipped from there to Shepherd Field in Texas and there for basic training. And after basic training, I was sent to Keesler Field in Mississippi to be an engine mechanic. And as an engine mechanic that was getting ready actually for the push into Japan. And after there we left. The war had ended in Germany, but it was still going on in the West in Japan. So, in the early summer of that year of &#039 ; 45, at Keesler, we were doing this engine stuff and we shipped out of there. We had a choice. Actually, we didn&#039 ; t have a choice, but there were two things. One group of the mechanics was gonna go to, to what they call Fox. And the other one was going to be was Nike. And we ended up one of my guys that I knew, said that he knew the guy that was deciding some of this stuff. So, instead of sitting around, he pushed to get us out of there to go home on leave and so forth. As a result, we were given Nike, which meant we were going to Japan. So. instead of Germany, which I think, who knows what the difference would have been in my life. But anyway, we went to, we went to Japan by way of the West Coast, Oakland. We shipped out of Oakland. We were there for at a camp out there for Camp Stoneman for about a week, getting things like how to treat the Okinawans, how to how to disease [?] booby traps, that type of stuff. And while we were in route than crossing the Pacific, the war ended. They dropped the bomb and that was our whole purpose, to go over there with all these B29s to keep on bombing in there. So, we, when we got on the ship in, at Camp Stoneman, going out under the Golden Gate Bridge I was looking at the railing and it was private, so-and-so carved in it and other like that First World War. And it was an old ship, a troop transport. And I&#039 ; m actually writing a book about this stuff. [chuckle], but anyway. It, it [unclear] when we left the Golden Gate Bridge out there, the sea was rather rolling and swelling, you know. And about 90% of everybody was sick, there were garbage cans, big garbage cans like this all over, full of vomit or just overflowing. In fact, the bunks were, were three or four high and I was in one of the middle ones. A guy up, threw up. and it was dripping down on my chest, and so forth. [Chuckle] It was a, it was a bad scene [laugh]. But the ship got to Hawaii and stop for supplies for a day. Actually, some of the guys could go to Waikiki Beach. We didn&#039 ; t see any of the Pearl Harbor stuff, but [chuckle] after we left, there, we were only about two days out of Hawaii, the ship blew a boiler. [Chuckle] And it drifted for a couple days while they were getting this thing fixed and the war was over. But there was an aircraft carrier, off in the distance just sort of watch in trailing around in case there was some submarine commanders that didn&#039 ; t know the war was over from the Japanese. [Laugh]. It took us 34 days to cross the Pacific. We ran out of food. [Laugh] It was something. And then when we got to Okinawa, we ended up in a field there full of mud with tents. And the mud was in the tents too. There was no floor. But our commanding officer at the time said, &quot ; Look Fellows,&quot ; he said, &quot ; you&#039 ; re the last ones. We are the Air Corps at Kadena Airfield. We&#039 ; re the last ones to get supplies, because you have the Seabees, you&#039 ; ll have the Navy you have the Army and, and all this before it ever gets to us. So, you have to do some stealing to get by. He says, you know, judicial stealing, so to speak.&quot ; So, [Chuckle] we did that. And eventually and he said you can build any kind of shack wanted to live in, if you can find materials? Well, we found some boards and different things and we made a nice little shack with four of us were living in. We didn&#039 ; t have a floor and [chuckle] there was a pile of that came in of plywood for was sitting there on a lot and it kept going down. People were grabbing it to put it in their tents or whatever building they were putting together didn&#039 ; t realize it was there for the officers are not for the enlisted men. So, one night, one guy and I said it&#039 ; s our turn. We went [chuckle] over and we grabbed two sheets of plywood and started running off with them. And a flap over tent opens up and out comes see the C, um, MPs [laugh] with their guns and their flashlights, we ran and they started shooting. And I go well their trying to warn us and so forth, but we both got into the jungle, but it was only a small about, two acres and then it was open again. So, he gave up. They found him and he gave up. So, I think I better do the same thing. So, we did and they we sat all light with their guns trained on us till morning so they could turn me, over to the commanding officer. At that time, I was [inaudible] doing up, I was a flight chief for that point. And I guess maybe just still a crew chief at that time, I became a flight chief and then a line chief, but that&#039 ; s later on. He said, &quot ; What were you thinking?&quot ; I said, &quot ; Well, you told us to steal.&quot ; &quot ; Yeah,&quot ; he said, &quot ; but not from your own outfit. [laugh] So, [unclear] he said you&#039 ; re going to have to be punished.&quot ; And I was supposed to be a tech sergeant with my job, the five stripes. And I never got beyond Buck Sargent. And of course, with Buck Sergeant, he says, &quot ; You&#039 ; re back to private again.&quot ; [laugh] So, I kept bouncing back and forth. But he says I need you down on the line, so you gotta get down there. But he said first you&#039 ; re going to take the morning off and part of your punishment is to go over to the Red Cross quonset hut that had been constructed and help the girls clean up the mess you guys cause. And it&#039 ; s only then I realized they were shooting at us, not up in the air. [laugh] So you&#039 ; re never know. A lot of people die not from being shot or not by the enemy. Just accidents, carelessness, backing, like in the case of B 29&#039 ; s, mechanics backing, into a propeller not realizing it because it&#039 ; s things like that. A lot of people. So-- KR: I understand that a lot of people, for the first time saw Europe or Japan. I mean, they&#039 ; d never been outside of their own country, like you. AS: Yeah. Well, I had been to Bermuda. [laugh] KR: What was it like for people when they went to different countries? Was it, I mean ---- AS: Well, in the case of where we were Kadena Airfield you don&#039 ; t get involved that much with, with the people, the Okinawans, and they they __ they live, they have the longest life spans of anybody I think, of anyone in the world. But, we call them gooks. And we had our own little enlisted man&#039 ; s club. And we had a couple of the working in there. But you don&#039 ; t get out in the, we didn&#039 ; t. We had that Japanese prisoners of war though, and I had them working on the planes, actually, with the war being over, they were just happy to do something and they were better actually than our own men in some of that stuff. So-- KR: So, you&#039 ; re planning on writing a book about your experiences? AS: Of the war, but everything, everything my farming overseas and all different things that took place. Things, I mean there&#039 ; s a lot we visited uh where they all jumped off the cliff in, in Okinawa, suicide cliff. The Japanese for the emperor, they committed Hari Kari their generals and so forth. For the other guys jumped off hundreds of them. We were visiting, maybe it was four months afterwards. If someone, things rot pretty fast down there and been cleaned out pretty good by other people being there before. But one of my friends that was with us when we went there found he raised his hand like this. He had a leg bone with a shoe on the end of it. [chuckle] Had, wow, with all smiles. Out of the shoe came this green orange pus had started going down is arm. I bet he&#039 ; s still trying to wash it off. [Laugh] People are crazy. Things happened too. We went on a rest an R&amp ; R to Manila and we went down there and we had a, instead of a B29 pilot, they recently had a fighter pilot guy who came in and was flying the plane. And we went down there and we got to Clark Field, spent the night there, it was New Year&#039 ; s Eve, actually, and the next day, there wasn&#039 ; t much traffic going into Manila, but we got a flight in the afternoon, and everybody that was there, that wanted to go got on the flight and went down the runway. And he couldn&#039 ; t get it off the ground, it was too overloaded. So, he said, let&#039 ; s give it another try. Turned it around, went back. Now I said this time I want a lot of you to move forward, so I get a tail off the ground. And then when I tell you to go back, he says I will try to get all airborne. Well, it worked, but we could get a little, just a little over the tree tops. And we went into Manilla landed there. And it was interesting. We&#039 ; ve slept in jai alai court, had maybe 300 beds and cots and so forth. [chuckle] And so when it came time to go, after our few days there, he said, &quot ; I&#039 ; ll tell you what,&quot ; he said, &quot ; I&#039 ; ll go out to Clark and get the B-29 by myself.&quot ; I said, &quot ; How can you do that?&quot ; He says,&quot ; I can, you have to start the put-put in the back of the plane which is generator to get the power to turn over the pops and all that.&quot ; But, but he did it. And he said, &quot ; Go to Nielsen and go out to the far end of the runway.&quot ; Now, the Nielson runway was 4500 feet around there, B-29s require 8,000 feet. So, [chuckle] it&#039 ; s only half of what he [unclear], so, he came and Nielsen was in a transition period. There was I think, it wasn&#039 ; t really an operating airports as such, some planes, but was changing. Anyway, he came in and brought it in. And I don&#039 ; t know. There must not have been much wind because he went this way, and turn it around. We all jumped on. [laugh] The MP&#039 ; s were coming, and he took off going back the other way, them chasing, and when we got airborne and about 12 thousand feet or whatever, he saw one of our aircraft carriers in Subic Bay. And being a fighter pilot, he said, I&#039 ; m going to give them [laugh] a dive bomb, and he put this B 29 and only realize the weight of it and everything else. He barely got it over this ship. And I swear, because I was there at the open door on the back, the wing tip actually clipped the wave as he was pulling up. And you know, the strange thing is when we got back to the Okinawa, I never saw him again. [Laugh] So, I think his career ended, right there. But anyway, we got drinks, booze in Manila, and we brought that back. And they were waiting for us when we got back to the compound, I was driving the jeep. I called it a weapons carrier, with the booze and so forth. And this was in the dark and there were the MPs. So, I got busted again. Uh [laughing] I had a lot of experiences like that. KR: Sounds like you found trouble? AS: Well, not necessary, but I I had giving it B-29 we gave it checks, power checks on the engines. The main thing, that&#039 ; s what we were engine mechanics and I was kneeling underneath the B-29, and the B29 is actually big airplane and during the power check, the fire extinguisher was about 12 foot up, over my head, shook loose, it weighed a lot. It weighed about 25 pounds, but it was all metal with sharp edges and it shook loose and it came right down in my head. And immediately I felt like somebody hit me with a shovel, and the blood just [gesturing with hands] and I couldn&#039 ; t see and I was stunned and I staggered out from under the plane. And then number three engines right there. And fortunately, one of the guys tackled me just before walking right into it or I wouldn&#039 ; t be here talking to you. But things like that happen. Helicopters falling out of the sky right near me one time. He was, this guy was with this helicopter, and the blade left the plane, went up, and it came down into a pile of lumber and he got a broken leg, but he lived. [chuckle] And another guy, about maybe a quarter of a mile away, this fighter plane came down, ba-ba-ba boom, right into the ground. Big crater, we thought, oh my gosh. So, we went over and, know what it really was a big crater in the ground, and we thought the poor guy. You know, about ten minutes later, he comes down through the clouds with his parachute. He bailed out real high. [laughing] AD: Guys, give me a second here. I want to switch out the lens. AS: Is what matters the most are where you&#039 ; re going when the last guy gets it. So, I went down the line and want to be just before I went to the last one, I dropped the papers and they came apart and I clipped them back together and I evidently didn&#039 ; t put them at the right spot because--[unclear] Otherwise, I should, but maybe it&#039 ; s just as well, I wasn&#039 ; t a pilot. So, what they did is he says, but I said, well, what do I do? He says he says I&#039 ; ll help you, and but how he helped me was he said he declared me unfit for overseas duty. So, but carrying our own papers, well then that&#039 ; s why was shipped to Biloxi, Mississippi along with other misfits. [chuckle] And on the way there I took the papers out and tore them up. And when I got there, they didn&#039 ; t have any clue, so they then put me on engine and that was good. I enjoyed that. KR: How did Muhlenberg, do you think help you? The courses? You talked to you about some of your professors. Do you think they helped you to be a better mechanic? Or AS: Well, yeah, I always was __ I like except for my house where I live alone for 45-year. I like that. He&#039 ; s actually pretty neat and so forth, but uh mechanic. I did mechanical work on a farm on the tractors and stuff and I&#039 ; d been mowing grass. I won the record, I think I hold as a world&#039 ; s record for mowing the most lawn grass because I was mowing at the age of eight, already 30 acres a week, except winter time, and it continued when I build a golf course, kept mowing and mowing and I&#039 ; m still mowing. KR: Mr. Schwartz, we have asked everyone&#039 ; s same question. In all your life experience is if you were to talk to the college students that we have here now, what is one thing you would give them, one piece of advice you would give them? AS: Well, to search their own mind and see what they really would like to do. And then you have to have goals. If you have goals and you stick to them, even if a bunch of them fail still, sooner or later maybe something will work. But you have to just go on. I just say you have to how a goal in life and, and pursue it. [chuckle] And of course, what it all falls apart when you get married [laughing] no matter what you may plan, that&#039 ; s where your life really changes, and people don&#039 ; t realize that they can be wonderful, but so many people get divorced now. Nowadays, it&#039 ; s maybe better because people are living together and they know what the other person is like a lot better that way when I was in my age group back then. In the forties, thirties, forties. KR: Susan, do you have any questions? AS: But Muhlenberg was a big help, it really was. The professors were great and the classes were small. [chuckle] And you really, you really can learn if you put your mind to it. KR: One question too. When we were, we were interviewing William, Dr. William Fritz who graduated from here. He was talking about Mrs. Tyson, Reba Tyson. Could you give us a little character sketch about her since you knew them pretty well? AS: Well, as far as I know. She was a lovely person. KR: Did she play cards? AS: Uh Yeah. Then they played my when my parents played over here and that our house just the four of them and they played bridge all the time. KR: She was also a member of the Williams [stuttering], we&#039 ; ll see if I can do this. She was a member of the Women&#039 ; s Auxiliary? Reba was. AS: Aha, she a __ one person of course, actually Edgar Swain, another one that my parents played a lot of bridge with. They didn&#039 ; t have television in those days. They didn&#039 ; t necessarily go to the firehouses. They played, had card parties and everybody smoked. [chuckle] And but I would say it was just a great experience as far as Muhlenberg, but was different than most people because I was living at home. The ones that were living here, like Dave Miller and some of the ones writing were a little younger than I am, but different. KR: So you lived at home and then commuted here. You probably knew a lot of people in the community. AS: Oh, just about everybody. And because of my father and my grandfather and, and even in grade school when the kids know, people knew I was a Schmidt and a Trexler. And he thought, wow, he must have money, and which I, of course I didn&#039 ; t have. You got to know, and my parents, the circle and my father was into everything. Bank boards and rationing during the war and the Community Chest drives on the board at Muhlenberg, my brother was on the board at Muhlenberg. Oh, he came from Princeton, but he, I just knew everybody, really did. KR: You mentioned rationing. I understand there was rationing of all kinds of things. AS: Yes, but the main thing was gasoline and the speed limit was 35 miles an hour everywhere. [chuckle] KR: Were you part any of the drives that they had, as far as like scrapping? Do you remember any those kind of drives, like? AS: I used to go around to, but not for the war, but for community chest and thing like that to the different manufacturing places in the valley and solicit funds, you know, to reach the goals. Back then, if they reached a 100 thousand, that was terrific. But [chuckle] that&#039 ; s peanuts today [laugh] KR: people were selling war bonds, they had war bond drives? AS: Yeah, we had war bond drive, but my father was in charge of rationing in Allentown or and I remember going down there because I was still a teenager at that point, too young to be in the service or Muhlenberg, so I was probably 15, 16, and went there to sort out the books and everything, who got what. Right there at eight street across from what was Tuttle&#039 ; s barbershop. Do you come from the area? But you just knew everybody. You went to the movies. Like the Embassy, which then became the Boyd, and then and now is nothing. But or the Colonial or the Rialto all these downtown and you&#039 ; ll be waiting for the show. They wouldn&#039 ; t just go in at anytime. They&#039 ; d wait till a show was over, people would gather in the lobby and was like old home week and all with the families different than it is today. KR: Now. They have their face in the cell phone all the time. Right? AS: So, what did you do in the service? KR: I was the flight nurse and a labor and delivery nurse. Yeah. I had two specialties. Flight nursing AS: That&#039 ; s what I need is a nurse. KR: Do you. Uh, that my father, my husband, why did I say father for, my husband flew B-52&#039 ; s. AS: Are they still fly them? I thought they were mostly held together with baling wire and stuff now. KR: I don&#039 ; t know that they&#039 ; re flying them and now or not really don&#039 ; t AS: That&#039 ; s still they&#039 ; re big Bomber. Yeah. I know I was I had a friend was flying them. He was stationed up at Pease in Maine. And uh KR: Pease was mostly KC-135&#039 ; s. I know, the reason I know about that is because my sister was and her husband were stationed at Pease. We used to, if you had leave, you can just catch on any plane other than a fighter, even just jump on a plane? Would jump on a plane and wherever it went that&#039 ; s where we would go. We thought we&#039 ; re going to Spain would be in London or someplace like that. And so, we just got around that way for free. So that was fun. Anything you have questions of us. Do you have a question for me or Susan? Any questions about the project? AS: What actually happened? I had the plane that I was assigned to when I first got there. As one of the crew. There were about six or seven. That plane was called Lady in Waiting and it had this picture of a woman waiting, you know, laying down. And next to us was that on our next hardstand was Ready Heady, and that was Heady Lamar. And I was supposedly after her. The next plane was the Honorable Cock Wagon. [Laugh] Now, what do you suppose? They had a beautiful rooster painted on the side of the plane [laugh]. It&#039 ; s not what people would think [laughing]. But the Lady in Waiting, I was on that more than any plane until I got 12 planes and eventually, I got the whole 24 planes. I will under my, you know, and still has a buck sergeant. But what I was ready to leave the island. We, we changed from the project, I&#039 ; m going into Japan to the Sunset Project, bringing the planes home and the crews and they would try it out, do each other with a buzz job as they left the area. Actually, one plane didn&#039 ; t make it. But these things you don&#039 ; t hear too much about. But anyway, the Lady in Waiting was transferred to another island with a good friend of mine who was the pilot. He went with it actually. And it was in the newspaper, that It went down in the China Sea, Uh, this is routine stuff when the war is going on, but that&#039 ; s why I said there&#039 ; s a lot of things happen all the time that aren&#039 ; t related to the war anymore and Army, you know, there&#039 ; s always somebody gets hurt or killed. And so, my parents saw this in a paper and they hadn&#039 ; t heard for me for a number of weeks. I didn&#039 ; t write home. And actually, the reason I did it right home is, one time on a sunny some of us found an old Navy boat that we got running and we saw an island off in the distance, I thought were going off there on to that island, and look around and I think it was the island that Ernie Pile died on. But we got there, went ashore and we were surrounded by these people and they looked, no ear, no nose, we were in the middle of a leper colony [chuckle] and that really sent me. And then we looked in the background, there were people who were bigger than these gooks, you might say. And they were obviously Japanese soldiers. And we didn&#039 ; t know whether they knew the war was over or not. So, we got out of there pretty quick. [chuckle] KR: You have some amazing stories. AS: Well, that&#039 ; s only half of it, [laugh] but I had an amazing life, especially after I got divorced. KR: Oh, did that improve your life? AS: And I did a lot of things that nobody else would have been doing, like agricultural overseas and all these different things that I did and got involved SUSAN FALCIANI MALDONADO: One question, when he came back, after your service was over you came back to Muhlenberg and just enrolled and just to finish your studies. What was that like coming back? AS: Coming back [pause] It was a little difficult as far as my attention to it. I was a straight A student through high school in first year and a half at Muhlenberg when I graduated from Muhlenberg, I was a straight C. I had 7 C&#039 ; s in my last, uh but I still learned, but I wasn&#039 ; t well, it&#039 ; s like Preston Barba, taught German, lived in Emmaus. Actually, he used to walk from Emmaus on good days to Muhlenberg and back again. [chuckle] But that&#039 ; s a different type of living, you know, and he was a good guy, but he had a Pennsylvania German course. Now I can speak a little bit of Pennsylvania Dutch or German, but I wanted to learn more. And so, he we thought this would be a good course to take. Well, it was hardest course I&#039 ; ve ever had the homework. He wanted a paper every, every week on something and more work than any of the other courses. So, but he, he wanted some big paper on, on something, so I chose apples. Now I don&#039 ; t know whether you want to print this to, but anyway, I made this report on apples and how the early apples and the different names and all this stuff. And I made it all up [laugh]. I remember him saying to my brother was on the board later. &quot ; That paper your, your, your that your brother wrote on apples,&quot ; he said, never has had anything was so great. And it was all fiction, but [laugh] KR: You never told him AS: [laughing] No. I never told him. [Laugh] And the one I had in math who was a close friend of mine and the family played cards with them. If I play cards with most of the professors, and different things, so I knew them and it helped me get through, I think. But uh not Deck, the other fellow that was probably, white hair, here for years as they will come to me anyway, I&#039 ; m bad on names, have even my own children I have trouble with. But uh I took an exam and I failed. This was the final exam for the course. And he said, alright he says I&#039 ; ll tell you what, I&#039 ; ll give you another chance at a test, you know, so I didn&#039 ; t do any preparation, I thought well, I met one of the football players with a friend of mine, who I knew had a good mark. And this I was walking to take my test, and I said, do you still have it, it was open book. He says, yeah, he says, here&#039 ; s the test. I got myself an A. Dumb luck because he gave me the exact tests I failed. [laugh] But we the basketball I enjoyed also, but we practice in West Hall in the bottom there was a gym there and then we went to Rockne Hall to practice there and have the games. And then it was while I was still overseas in &#039 ; 46, I think they started to build the new center somewhere back in there. KR: A lot of building going on. There&#039 ; s lots of building going on. It. You remember Dean Benfer, Haps Benfer? AS: Very well. Benfer Hall and so forth. I remember the other, another Dean here. Mercer, he said you&#039 ; re not going to graduate. I said why? He says You&#039 ; re 75 chapels behind. And I had about a month to go. See we had to go to chapel every day. My courses were over there, but come and go all the way back and forth. And, and when I did go, I&#039 ; d sit with Harold Marks at the organ in the back anyway. But I had friends in that went every day. So, I explained my problem to them and they would write my name. And because they were well over, I would have maybe ten a presence on one day. I was there, they&#039 ; d sign my name. So, I made them up and I graduated [laugh] KR: So, when you were in school, you had you go chapel every day? AS: No. You have to have two a week. I think it was and of course, you didn&#039 ; t dress like we do today. You had a coat and tie for all your classes. It was different, [chuckle] but probably better. KR: Thank you very much. I really appreciate your stories are wonderful. AS: Well, there&#039 ; s a lot more, but I know I don&#039 ; t want to hold up without you, but I&#039 ; ll tell you, get done editing, there probably won&#039 ; t be much left KR: You&#039 ; d be surprised where there&#039 ; s a lot. AS: Oh, I got this one story I could tell you. We went to with Doggie Julian. We went to New York to play in the Garden and there were about nine of us. We didn&#039 ; t have a big team. And we&#039 ; re at the hotel. I think it was Algonquin for our dinner before going to play. And he the waitress would come by and he&#039 ; d say he can have that, and he can have that he can have that. They know. And it came to me, he says give him anything he wants, he&#039 ; s not going to play anyway. [laugh] I was sort of a klutz. KR: One thing that occurred to me, way back then, there was a place that was called the Rose Mark. It&#039 ; s a little luncheon that AS: Yeah. Well, no, it was the luncheonette was in the basement of the administration building. KR: Oh, it was. Oh AS: I think it was Kenny&#039 ; s something or other. KR: There was a barbershop, apparently there was a barbershop and a luncheonette that AS: It was well, I don&#039 ; t know why the barbershop, but the luncheonette that was in the basement there and there may have been something down on the other side. I didn&#039 ; t get to. KR: Well, it&#039 ; s so funny to see how places they used to be here aren&#039 ; t anymore. Like, um, you know what downtown all over AS: the place has changed so much? KR: Yes AS: All the stores, everything. Then I was actually related to the Leh&#039 ; s. Are they related to us also? And the Young&#039 ; s and I was over in Fairview Cemetery the other day it&#039 ; s a disgrace, where they have General Trexler&#039 ; s big monument and what not, and why the brothers are in another section of the park. But everything&#039 ; s overgrown the grass like this, vines going over there and hardly any flowers. And nobody even visits it anymore. But it it it just was terrible. Now they have sprayed I see around a lot of stuff, but they don&#039 ; t take care of it whoever is responsible for it. It used to be the Eckert&#039 ; s and Eckert and his father, Blimpson. But I don&#039 ; t know who, who owns it now? KR: They look really shabby. The the cem, cemetery that&#039 ; s on like somewhere around Gordon, I think Gordon AS: Between 10th, 11th. KR: Okay. Is that what it is? A disgrace. AS: And I&#039 ; m on this one over here. Green, green, Greenwood agreement. Okay. Right here by the fairgrounds. Okay. But I&#039 ; m not this section, I&#039 ; m that section. KR: I noticed in some cities they have cemeteries that are separated by religion, AS: Yea. Yes, I know. But then people are getting cremated and they&#039 ; re not going into the cemeteries, they&#039 ; re not putting a grave there or anything. And it all used to be so great. You could check out a family&#039 ; s history and everything else, go and see the different tombstone and now they&#039 ; re all over the place. KR: What do we know? That if everyone is cremated and they keep the ashes or them scatter them? AS: Yeah. KR: There&#039 ; s no record. AS: I know That&#039 ; s that&#039 ; s that&#039 ; s the way it is to tell the world has changed so much. In fact, I don&#039 ; t think it&#039 ; s going to make the next century. KR: You mean as far as the earth itself, or AS: Earth and the people and whatever. And that&#039 ; s something I stressed in my book, is the atomic bomb. Because those that went off, the Little Boy at Hiroshima and you had Fat Man at Nagasaki. Those were toys. And they killed several hundred thousand. But those were toys KR: Compared to what we have now AS: Right? So, I don&#039 ; t know. And yet we&#039 ; re worried about Iran. And yet what about the nut in North Korea. He has hydrogen bombs you know. Just and then global warming, there&#039 ; s no question there&#039 ; s a change and all that, KR: especially if you&#039 ; re thinking about all this stuff like the history, urban history, but they say the Union of Concerned Scientists, 99.9% agreed this is a problem AS: Right and there have been many times, maybe four or five times, that the Earth has killed off its life, uh going back to billions of years when dinosaurs, things like that. But where does life come from and what is the main thrusts? And I get into all of that. And it&#039 ; s basically all around reproduction is what it amounts to. You&#039 ; re here to reproduce, whether it&#039 ; s people or it&#039 ; s animals, or it&#039 ; s grass or trees. And then there&#039 ; s another thing I get in to, we have this one universe that we&#039 ; re aware of and so forth and so on. But there are some scientists think there could be as many as one with 500 zeros behind it. Other universes beyond everything. And actually, instead of three dimensions, there could be as many as 13 dimensions. And maybe it&#039 ; s that other way. That&#039 ; s how you, there&#039 ; d be warp speed and stuff which we don&#039 ; t know what&#039 ; s going on. Except this world is in trouble. That&#039 ; s all The interviews in the Muhlenberg Voices of World War II Collection were gathered by faculty and staff of Muhlenberg College with the purpose of preserving them for the College's archives. Copyright for these interviews remains with the interview subject or his estate. They are being shared publicly here with permission. video It is the sole responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy any claims of copyright before making use of reproductions beyond the conditions of fair use, as described by the United States Copyright Law. 0

WWII

Okinawa, Japan

Air Corps

basketball