STOCKS:   Well whenever I enlisted, you know it was back right after the Depression in 1940.  I had become 20 years old and I decided I wanted to get away from home off the farm.  Like a lot of boys were doing, they were joining up.  They were accepting a lot of men in service at the time.  A lot of volunteers.  I enjoyed it for a year or two.  When they started the draft, it was a little harder.  They started some hard training there. 

So they got a bunch of new men in the training centers.  Just about all of them were new men.  The old ones had been transferred out on _____, farming _____.  So there were a few of us, some of the better men I’d say (laughter).  While we prepared to go overseas, we left on August 2nd, Fort Bragg, for New York, but we stopped and spend a night in Pennsylvania, Indian Town Gap, that’s where they took our pictures, got us ready with passports.

INTERVIEWER:   What year was that, Nate?

STOCKS:   1942, August of ’42.  From there, we didn't know where we were going, to the Pacific or where, but anyway we got on a train, rode all night and it was still dark whenever we got off the train.  I could feel that we were on a ferry or something.  Everything was blacked out, you couldn’t see nothing.

When daylight come, we were in Staten Island, and a ship U.S.S. Argentina was setting there for us to board.  They had turned that ship into a troop carrier.  It was a passenger ship before.  They put 8,000 troops on that one ship.  It was equipped for 4,000.  They had them on deck, anywhere they could put one.  Took us about all day there waiting for other ships to get into the convoy.  I think there were 5 or 6 or 8 of them.  The biggest convoy that had gone over.

The Queen Mary left a little ahead of us.  She didn't need an escort.  Going over, we did stop in Halifax to wait for more ships to join us.  That was in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  We spent a day there waiting for ships to join up with us.  From there, we just cross-crossed the Atlantic going over trying to dodge submarines.  Axis Sally, she come on the radio and said they destroyed our ship.  We all laughed about that.

INTERVIEWER 2:  Excuse me, who is Axis Sally?

STOCKS:   She was a German newswoman.

INTERVIEWER:   Propaganda. 

STOCKS:   Propaganda, she was a good one.  All of us enjoyed her program (laughter).  She played good music for us.  After we landed over in Scotland, boarded a train.  But before that, a storm came up.  It was a real bad one.  I went inside the ship.  We were on deck.  I went to see if I could find a place to lie down.  I finally found one.  There was a hammock there that was vacant so I unrolled my bed over there.  I woke up the next morning, there were men lying on the floor.  You couldn’t step without stepping on someone.

They’d all come off deck inside.  I remembered leaving my equipment out hanging on the railing.  So I decided I was going out to get it.  I stepped out and I hit the wind and a wave caught me, slammed me up against the railing, I could have gone overboard.  I managed to get back inside and I stayed there.

The next night, the storm was still going on.  I couldn’t find a place to lie down no place.  I saw a nurse’s quarter with the door cracked.  I thought well I’m going to see if there was any room on the floor there.  I opened the door, went in.  I unrolled my roll and went to sleep.  The next morning, the nurse got up, “What are you doing in our quarters?”  I said there was no other place to lie down.  So they laughed about it. 

The storm got over with and we got back on deck, got to Scotland.  Those two nurses were behind me going off the gangplank and they were laughing about me spending the night with them (laughter).  They wished me well.  I didn't see them anymore after that.  Got on a train and rode overnight.  Everything was blacked out.  We weren’t allowed to light a match or anything to smoke a cigarette.

We pulled into a little hamlet there, a little small village.  The 1st division was up about five miles above.  They had been over about a month before we got over there.  We stayed there in _________, ______ was the name of the camp.  They vacated it and let us have it.  Of course we didn't have our food with us, hadn’t been unloaded off the ship.  We were eating all British rations and honestly they didn't have anything to eat.  I thought I’d starve to death.  They had bread and mutton.

The mutton was chopped up with a meat cleaver with a few roaches sprinkled in on it.  It was terrible.  If it hadn’t been for the little canteen, I’d have starved to death.  We stayed there, that was about August 18th that we landed there.  We stayed until Christmas Eve day, we landed on a train for Liverpool.  We got to Liverpool, got off the ship, boarded an English ship.  None of us knew where we were going.  We had an idea.

On the ship, it was the same way with food.  After I think it was about six days we were out there, we pulled in and it was right at dusk.  Some ship pulled in front of us and we just cut it in half.  I didn't know what was happening.  It had just come dark.  I didn't know we were in the port of Irhram, Algeria.  We left the ship on convoy about 50 miles, maybe more, 75 miles and set up camp.  We went through the city of Sidi Bel Abbes.  That was the French Foreign Legion headquarters.

We were above that.  We stayed there until March.  That was in January until March.  They got us ready to go up the Caserne Pass.  We went up there and of course they had taken the pass.  We set up our guns just in case they retook it or tried to.  We stayed there for several days.  We left there and went a little farther up north and pulled into a big field.  We cut our way through that cactus field, put the guns in position.

The cactus was as high as this ceiling here.  We were told by the infantry boys that we’d be bombed first thing, strafed in the morning by Messerschmitts and then after that, the ____ would start shelling us and then the tanks would come in and it all happened just like they predicted.  They had been there several days and they knew what was happening.  So they had issued one man each gun section a little grenade launcher that they used just in case a tank came over your foxhole or something, you might knock a bolt loose and knock the track off.

INTERVIEWER:   You were in a foxhole there.

STOCKS:   Oh yeah.  They bombed us, strafed us, shell fire and tanks.  The commander called down and said the men with the grenade launchers should go out and stop those tanks.  He sent that word down to the gun section.  I told the chief of section to tell that man to go to hell.  I wasn’t facing no tanks with a grenade launcher.  Anyway I took that grenade launcher and I threw it as far as I could send it out of the cactus field (laughter).  I didn't ever hear anything about that.

I wasn’t fighting tanks with no grenade launcher.  Anyway we were there for a good while, several days, a week or so and then we kept moving on.  I can’t recall the names of the towns we went through.  Half of them I couldn’t pronounce.

INTERVIEWER 2:  Let me ask you to back up.  You were telling me before the video tape, you were in a foxhole.

STOCKS:   Oh yeah, in a foxhole while they were dive bombing.  I saw smoke rising and there was a gun, a truck load of ammunition parked right by the guns.  I was afraid that truck would blow up so I got out of my foxhole, started to go to another section to get a little out of the way.  I was pretty close to it, but I decided the safest thing was to stay in that hole.  By the time of the bombing, my foxhole was about 3 feet deep.  I almost had to get some help to get me out.

Anyway I got out and I saw what had happened.  The truck had moved up, wasn’t hit, but there was a command car sitting there burning.  I walked over to it to see if I could help anybody.  There was a man sitting in there, all his flesh was burned off, just bones.  From there, there was a man hollering over 25 yards from me, 15 or 20.  I walked over to see what I could do for him.  He was out of it.  He didn't know what had happened because he was in that command car.

It had knocked him over.  From that day on, I was scared, I’m telling you.  That was a rough day.  As far as my nerves, I didn't ever get over it.  Anyway I went all the way through Algeria campaign and right on in to Tunisia.  We were right at the edge of the city of Tunisia.  From there, we prepared to go into Sicily.  The brigade commander, he wanted to send some guns and it was a big gun and it was a lot of trouble.  Could be a lot of trouble, you know, and get destroyed.  So he told my battery commander, he told him to form another battery, to pick the men. 

They fed us twice a day on the ship, breakfast and dinner.  The experience on the ship was pretty rough going over.  We ran into some bad storms.  Of course there was a lot of activity out there with German submarines.  Escort destroyers were just dropping depth charges all the time out there.  We were changing course.  One time we’d be going maybe north and the next time we’d be going east or west.  We zigzagged across the Atlantic.

Of course in combat, I was telling about Sicily.   They told my battery commander if he would take his battery and go into the invasion of Sicily, they would make him captain and send him home.  They weren’t promising me anything (laughter).  Anyway he told them to pick the men from the whole battalion to make up this battery.  So he picked the men and I was a good soldier and naturally he picked me.

We went into the invasion and we saw…rough waters crossing the Mediterranean to Sicily.  I don’t recall the name, we hit the shores of Sicily and we had just gotten off the ship.  It was just before sundown and the 45th division was on most of the ships.  The 82nd airborne came over to make a jump and they were all destroyed.  The 45th division knocked them out right out of their own ships.  That was a frightening thing, to see what was happening.  I knew it was our planes, paratroopers. 

They hadn’t been in battle before, all green and slaphappy.  We finally got up and out of that position there.  We got into a red tomato field and set up our guns.  Of course the tomatoes were all dried up.  By the way, they were these little egg shaped tomatoes that we see on the market.  We didn't have them over here at the time.  They were developed in Italy or Sicily.

INTERVIEWER:   Do you remember how you got to shore, landing craft?

STOCKS:   Landing craft, LST landing craft.

INTERVIEWER:   What caliber was your gun?

STOCKS:   155mm.

INTERVIEWER:   Okay go ahead.

STOCKS:   From 16 to 17 mile range.  It was the biggest gun they had over there.  We got through the invasion alright, right on through there.  It took us about 28 days to go through Sicily.  Beautiful country.  Then we got on the…we had a couple of invasions there.  They had a bunch of Germans in a pocket there.  We went around them and made another invasion on an LSI, small landing barge, one gun.

We went around that.  We got into position there.  About dark, we got orders to turn that gun around and point it out to the Mediterranean, there was a ship out there that was unidentified.  So we were ready to fire on that thing when we got word it was an American ship.  The next morning, there was a plane that came over and the pilot bailed out right up above us.  He headed his plane into a mountain side and bailed out.  He landed in a little olive tree.

Well I went up the tree and got him untangled.  He was scared to death.  They were rifle bullets, every third round was a tracer.  It looked impossible that a man could come through that fire.  The whole 45th division was firing on him, but he landed without a scratch on him.  I was surprised.  He said he thought he was in friendly territory whenever he bailed out, but after he jumped he thought he was in enemy territory.

So a jeep picked him up right quick and took him away.  I said then that there were more men killed by our own men than there were by the enemy.  I saw it happen.  The German planes, they’d come over and antiaircraft would shoot at them, but they’d make it back across the lines and vice versa.  A lot of our bombers go over, that was in North Africa, B-19’s, the big bombers and they’d come back over our lines. 

It was a frightening time over there whenever you were under attack.  I saw a lot of it.  The gun that I was on, they decided to go in Sicily and fire 50 rounds across over into Italy across the straits of Messina there.  We went around and put our gun in position, fired 50 rounds over there just as fast as we could load that gun and got the heck out.  We expected all hell to break loose you know.  So we got out without any fire being returned on us.

Got back and joined up with the rest of the men.  Then we got ready for the invasion of Sicily.  That’s when we went in at Salerno.  About all of the villages and towns in that area were destroyed.  Nothing but rubble left.  We fought right on up to Arno, right on through.  They said that Rome had fallen so there were three of us guys who left the gun to go in and see what Rome looked like. 

We got in there.  There were a good many soldiers there.  We went in a hotel, spent the night.  Got up the next morning, there was nothing to eat.  MP’s had rounded the boys who had gone into town.  They told us to get out.  We got back and there weren’t enough men to put the gun in position.  They’d all taken off and gone to Rome (laughter).  We were about 18 miles out.  That was a sight to see.

INTERVIEWER:   How old were you at that time?

STOCKS:   I was 20, 21.

INTERVIEWER:   What was your rank?

STOCKS:   PFC, that’s as high as I got.  There was no rank end to artillery (laughter).  Unless a man was knocked out and if you think about it, they replaced a man with a rank from the States.  We got green men in there that didn't know anything.  I’d say about 80% of the men cracked up.  That was one way of going home.  I went on sick call one morning and this fellow I had been in the tent with him several times.

The commander in chief section brought him in and his nerves, he said he wasn’t going to fire a gun anymore.  He was one of these patriotic fellows that joined up.  He was past draft age.  He had a wife and three kids.  The first day in battle, he said I picked the wrong thing, “I’m going back home” (laughter).  Well there was no way out of it then.  We were up about 300 miles up above Naples, Italy.

We got in ______ and they sent me to the hospital.  I reckon it was my nerves more than anything else.  So they sent me to the general hospital in Naples.  We got down there.  I didn't say much to Pruitt about you know, he didn't come out that night for ______.  We got to the hospital there, sitting in the hall waiting for the doctor.  The doctor came out and he said, “Which one of you men is Pruitt”.  Pruitt said he was Pruitt.  He said, “What’s wrong with you”.  He said, “There’s nothing wrong with me, I’m just through with the war” (laughter).

INTERVIEWER:   He quit (laughter).

STOCKS:   He said, “I’m not firing that gun no more”.  They put him on a ship.  He was home in another 10 days or so.  Well I was in the hospital at that time.  I might get mixed up here a little bit.  At that time the best I remember I saw several doctors and none of them could find out what was wrong.  The biggest thing was I had been in the mud so long, my knees just didn't work.  The boys had to lift me out of that mud.

I was in the hospital a couple or three times.  One time there right when the Belgium Bulge started, they unloaded the hospital and sent every man that could walk out of there.  It took me two weeks to find my outfit.  I went through three different staging areas.  I got back…

INTERVIEWER 2:  Was that in Italy?

STOCKS:   That was in Italy.  I got back to my outfit.  They had lost my equipment or didn't have it.  They started to tell me I was going to have to pay for it and I told them I wouldn’t pay for nothing.  Anyway they investigated that.  Some man from the finance office, he came down to the guns and asked me, he wanted to know how I lost that equipment.  I told him, I said I didn't lose it, that I had gone on sick call and they were supposed to pick it up or take care of it.  I knew nothing about it.

He asked if that was what happened and I told him yes.  He stomped his foot and said, “Damn” and he headed for the CP.  He was trying to get me to pay for something I wasn’t supposed to.  But anyway the sergeant told me, the next time you lose something, you’ll pay for it.  I told him I hadn’t lost anything yet.  But it happened again, same thing.  He told me that I would pay for it.  Investigated again, same thing.

I wasn’t charged for it.  About that time, President Roosevelt died.  They announced his death.  We started the push there that didn't end for about six weeks until the Germans surrendered.  We were up in the mountains right at the edge of Switzerland.  Finally went on up to the edge of Austria.  The war ended.  The next day, they told me I could come home.  My nerves were shot at that time. 

INTERVIEWER:   Did you get home before the rest of your outfit?

STOCKS:   Oh yeah.  Yeah, there were two of us, me and my gunner.  The gunner, we were picked to come home.  The supply sergeant came around and told me to turn in the equipment of course.  I didn't pay him no mind.  I was writing a letter to my wife, told her I didn't know when I’d get home.  I thought maybe at that time, the Germans were in Austria and probably we would go right on in there and meet up with them, the Russians.

We got on trucks, two of us, rode all day down to _____ Italy, got on a plane there and flew down the next morning to Naples.  I had my discharge papers in a big envelope like this under my field jacket.  Well a man down in Naples at the processing center there, he had a list of all the names that were coming in on that plane.  He asked for my records.  I felt up under my jacket and I didn't have them.  On that plane, whenever I got off, the suction from the propellers sucked it out and I didn't know nothing about it (laughter).

So we set down and made up new records.  I noticed that Algeria wasn’t mentioned.  They had Tunisia and Sicily and Italy.  So I just took a pen and put on my discharge Algeria so I wouldn’t forget it.  I put it down there.  That was some experience.  I wouldn’t want to go through it again for a million dollars.  My experience, I wouldn’t take a million dollars for it.

It was pretty rough for all the men.  They got to where they were just cracking up.  They don’t do that to men now in the service.  They don’t keep them over there that long.  But I did look at my records on the plane and it stated 658 days of combat.  I saw in the paper, some fellow out here had a few more days than that.  He might have been in the same outfit, I don’t know. 

INTERVIEWER 2:  How long did it take you to come home?

STOCKS:   Well we got down to Naples and the processing officer said they had started a project there of flying some of the men home.  He said if we wanted to fly to put it down, that there was no guarantee that we would get a plane home.  This fellow from Connecticut, I said, “Carson, let’s fly home”.  He said no, that plane would go down there in the ocean.  Well I said I was going to take the plane, there was no guarantee.  So he left right away on ship.  Me, it took me two weeks waiting around. 

Finally they announced, the next morning a plane would pick me up.  So we got on a B-19.  They had turned it into a troop carrier and flew over to Casablanca from Naples.  From Casablanca, a plane from Pan America, C-56, passenger and they would carry 50 passengers.  I thought that was a big plane then.  We were about three or four days flying.  We had to hop islands.  Too many planes coming in at LaGuardia airport in New York so they came into Miami.

I was glad to hit that soil.  The Everglades were on fire, burning and smoke, I thought I’d stifle that night.  The next morning, we got on a troop train real early.  First of all, they put us through disinfectant, delousing us.  We got on the train and it took us all day long from Miami to Jacksonville, Florida.  We got off there, had dinner and got back on the train. 

Whenever we got back on the train, I was on the tail end car and that thing was swinging up until Augusta.  We got to Augusta and the train stopped there and there was some girl out on the platform.  She was cussing and raising hell.  She had a furlough and they wouldn’t take her on the train.  So they hooked another diesel onto that thing and I’m telling you, from Augusta to Aberdeen, North Carolina, that tail thing felt like it was in the air (laughter). 

I got off in Aberdeen and a man picked me up and carried me over to Fort Bragg.  The thing about it, I had breakfast and walked out on the sidewalk there and picked up a paper and was reading it.  I saw two feet go by.  I said that’s Charlie Stocks.  I looked up and sure enough, it was him.  I said, “Hey Charlie”, he looked around and said “When did you get in”.  I said it was a couple of hours ago and he said he had just gotten in.  He’d come from the Pacific.  So that was a coincidence, you know, seeing him, my cousin.

INTERVIEWER 2:  This was when, the summer of ’45?

STOCKS:   Yeah, June 1945, no it was in May.  Along May 5, I believe that we got back to the States.  May 20th or something, I was discharged.  I forget now what date it was.  I know the last person I saw at separation, he was signing people up to join the reserves.  I set down in the chair and he said how about joining up in the reserves and I told him to go to hell (laughter).  I had had enough of it.

But I took _______, that was before I got my discharge.  The doctor told me that I had some trouble with that knee and I had better get it checked out before I got my discharge.  I didn't want to go to the hospital to check it out.  Anyway I thought maybe I should.  I went over there.  I said I was told to come over there to get an x-ray.  He said well in the war, they’ll check you out at so and so and I said I didn't come over here to go to a war.

He said if you see a doctor, it won’t be until morning before you leave.  I thought that over and that night I got kidney colic about 4:00 in the morning.  I had had it about four years before and I knew what it was.  I couldn’t find a nurse so I went to four different wards and I couldn’t find anybody.  Finally I got to someone and he asked what was wrong.  I said I had a case of kidney colic and I couldn’t find a nurse.  He said what ward was I in and I told him.  He took me back and said he knew where she was.

He went into the supply room and he found her.  She was sleeping on a mattress back there.  She got up, boy I’ll tell you, she was hot.  “You draftees coming in here trying to beat the Army”.  I said “Wait a minute, nurse.  I’m a combat man and I don’t like your attitude a bit”.  She apologized.  She kept apologizing.  She got me some pills to ease my pain.  She came to me before she went off duty and said she was sorry.  I told her it was alright, I could understand it.  The whole ward was filled with young men trying to beat the draft.

I stayed there.  The doctor came through that morning.  He walked into the office and I expected him to see me.  Well he left and I thought he’d be back.  He didn't come back.  I spent the day there.  The next night the same thing, another attack.  He come in that morning and he didn't call, left out.  On the third morning, I said well whenever he comes in, I was going into that office with him.

He come in and I followed him right on in to the office and I told him, “Major, I come in here three days ago for an examination and you haven’t seen me yet”.  He wanted to know what I came in for.  He said I didn't have hookworms.  I said I didn't have a hookworm treatment, I had a bad knee that was giving me a lot of trouble and I’d like him to look at it, the doctors over at the separation center told me to have it done.

He told me to roll up my britches.  He said he didn't see anything.  I said that none of the other doctors saw anything and I couldn’t see anything, but there was something wrong there.  I knew what it was, it was exposure to all that mud.  I went six weeks without pulling off my shoes or changing my clothes.  Six weeks.

INTERVIEWER 2:  Without taking your shoes off.

STOCKS:   That’s right.  My feet, I thought they’d rot off.  Didn't have water to shave with, just enough to drink.  Didn't shave, take a bath.

INTERVIEWER 2:  Did they ever do anything about your knee?

STOCKS:   No, it gives me trouble still, bad weather.  We were strafed, bombed, shelled, everything but the screaming meanies.  We were in Italy, Messina, and every army they had in there, the British, Canadians, all of them trying to take that place and they failed.  I think, I forget now who finally took that.  We pulled around over to Anzio to help them out.

INTERVIEWER 2:  You were in the Anzio invasion then?

STOCKS:   The invasion, no.  I was in Cassino at that time.  They had had the invasion there and had gotten into trouble and they pulled us out and sent us around there to help them out. 

INTERVIEWER 2:  You were on the beachhead after that?

STOCKS:   No, I didn't go on the beachhead.

INTERVIEWER 2:  How did you get to Anzio?

STOCKS:   We got there by convoy, trucks.  Two and a half ton trucks. 

INTERVIEWER 2:  You did see Cassino?

STOCKS:  Yeah, it was nothing, everything was destroyed.  That town, you know, the Germans had it.  There was a monastery there and President Roosevelt accepted that, you couldn’t bomb it, couldn’t shell it.  Those Germans were looking right down at it, pulled them guns out of the caves and would shoot at us, the screaming meanies at us, that’ll drive you crazy.  It was pretty rough.

INTERVIEWER:   Again, what is a screaming meanie?

STOCKS:   It was a rotating gun that the shells would come out and make a screaming noise.

INTERVIEWER:   This was a German gun.

STOCKS:   Yes, a German gun. 

INTERVIEWER:   Let me ask you another question.  When you said (laughter), you were saying that they wanted to charge you with losing your equipment.  For the record, tell us, what kind of equipment were they talking about?

STOCKS:   Well they had an M1 carbine rifle, all your clothing.

INTERVIEWER:   Mess kit.

STOCKS:   You didn't have much to carry around.  They issued you two blankets.  Well I managed to get a couple of extra ones.  I forget now how I got them, but I got two blankets and I carried them for a right good while until they were lost.  They said they were lost.  I never did get the two blankets back. 

INTERVIEWER 2:  But it was cold in the winter.

STOCKS:   Cold, my gosh, there was snow on the ground in the Alpine Mountains.  It was cold in North Africa at night.  Of course it was March, but there were still places up in the mountains of Algeria where there was snow on top of the mountains.

INTERVIEWER 2:  You got stopped at Cassino with everybody else, didn't you?  Did you ever fire on the monastery?

STOCKS:   Oh no, we didn't fire on it.  A lot of men lost their lives, there were too many.  The infantry guys would go up and take a hill between us and Cassino there.  Two or three of them would come back the next morning, where’s the rest of them.  They were lost. 

INTERVIEWER 2:  Did you ever have hot meals much, Nathan, or did you have to live off…

STOCKS:   Well yes, we had hot meals most of the time throughout Sicily and Italy.  Each section was issued rations and we had a couple of boys that could fix a pretty good meal.

INTERVIEWER 2:  You had a little kitchen with you?

STOCKS:   No, we didn't have a kitchen.  We had our own pots and pans that we gathered up.  Most of the time, they didn't set up a kitchen for the battery.  They’d issue each gun section or each section rations.  Now through North Africa, we almost starved.  We had K-rations. 

We got into Sicily right in the spring of the year and they had beautiful vegetable crops.  We ate good there, fresh vegetables.  We’d swap some of our stuff for olive oil to cook with and some of their squash, zucchini.  The first time I’d ever seen zucchini was in Sicily.  I thought it was a cucumber and they cut them up for salad you know, it didn't taste like a cucumber.  It was smoother.  After a while I learned.  When I got back to the States, I started gardening and I got zucchini.  I’ve been growing it ever since. 

INTERVIEWER 2:  What month and year did you go into the Army again?

STOCKS:   I went in in June of 1940.

INTERVIEWER 2:  So you had five years of it.

STOCKS:   Yes, four years, 11 months and 10 days. 

INTERVIEWER 2:  And you got battle stars in North Africa and Sicily?

STOCKS:   Yeah, I’ve got four battle stars.  I went through several campaigns.  Algeria, Tunisia, Sicily, Naples, Rome, Arno, Foggia.  I was one of the first men that went into Florence. 

INTERVIEWER 2:  That’s a pretty city, isn’t it?

STOCKS:   It was a beautiful city.

INTERVIEWER:   I’ve got a final question for you.  I want you to look right into the camera because you’re now talking to your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren.  Tell them what did all that war experience teach you, what did it mean?

STOCKS:   What did it teach me?  It taught me that freedom is worth fighting for and it cost a lot of lives.  Every person that served in service that didn't come home, may the Lord bless them.

INTERVIEWER:   Thank you sir.