THE SOLDIER

John was sent to Fort Bliss in Texas, and due to his artillery training experience, from ROTC, he was able to continue learning more about mortars and other artillery weaponry. He stayed in Texas for four to five months. On the base at Fort Bliss, he learned to recognize the difference between friendly and enemy aircraft. John would later be sent to infantry training at Camp Stewart and Camp Gordon in Georgia. In John’s eyes infantry was the “head of the battle”.

John said he never had a sense of fear or worry in combat. He always seemed to stay clear-headed in any situation, and he didn’t know if he was born with the ability or gained it from his training. During his training, he noticed, how certain groups of soldiers were uneducated and illiterate. Teaching him how different Americans lives were depending on where they came from and how much education mattered.

January 1945, John would receive his first assignment to Europe. He was shipped to France on Queen Elizabeth with his fellow soldiers as replacements for casualties from the Battle of the Bulge.

On the sail to France, John noticed the class divisions between the British and the more privileged officer.

After fourteen days on the ship, John would arrive in Lorraine, France where he met his company and battalion. John was assigned to the 9th Armored Division of the US Army, 9th Armored Engineer Battalion, C Company.

The division would move from Lorraine to Belgium then into Nazi Germany. John said while in transit his division experienced the cold winter of Central Europe. Snow covered tanks and frozen mud roads. While going from destroyed and bombed town to the next, John learned about the tolls and causalities of war. The loss of life and of hardship put upon the people is what instilled a sense of duty in John to fight for a better world without war.

He would come into his first brush of combat in Aachen, Germany.