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Hayley 2/6/08 Interview My Great-Great-Uncle Gene was a soldier in the war. I called him for an interview on the 30th of January. My Great-Great-Aunt Shirley had to communicate what I was asking to him, as his hearing is going bad. I wrote down everything he said, and he had a //lot// to say. He was born on October 17, 1921, and grew up in West Virginia during the Depression. His only job was being in the military, and later being the Commander of Legion post in his hometown. After the war he married my Great-Great-Aunt Shirley and on January 31, 2008 they celebrated their 62nd anniversary. Now they have a great-great-grandson. His hobbies are just hanging out with his family and watching Wheel of Fortune. His most vivid memories from the war include flying out of North Africa and bombing railroads in Italy and Berlin. He remembers one particularly difficult mission when his plane got back to their base too late. Planes weren’t allowed to land at night, so he had to land between two mountains (his base was near the Alps). When the morning came he returned to the base to find that only one other plane had returned. The rest died going over the mountains because they couldn’t reach the altitude necessary. The hardest mission he remembers going on was a night mission. Usually, they traveled with many other planes, but on that mission it was just them and three other planes whom they never saw because they were working different areas. They were discreet and accomplished a lot on that mission, but they were the only crew that made it back alive. He often had to fly over the Alps, which was very hard for planes in that time. In addition to cold temperatures, anti-aircraft guns were constantly firing at them. The worst thing in the world was seeing an Allied plane go down, and no one escape on a parachute before it exploded. In the mountains, not only was it a battle with the Axis, but a battle with the weather. The temperature often dipped under 50 below, and their heating systems weren’t as effective as they are now. Uncle Gene once fixed his unit’s heating box with a band aid when the temperature was 40 degrees below 0. His best memories of the war were taking breaks at rest camps. After a lot of missions, he was able to go to a rest camp in Africa for two weeks. The camp sat right on the ocean and he has never enjoyed a vacation more. A few years later his unit was sent to Italy for two weeks at a rest camp. Those breaks were like heaven. Being on over 102 missions, he received a lot of awards. His major awards were 14 Air Medals, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the European Air Medal. He also received 8 clusters for his European Medal and 9 pins on his Air Medals. Each award and mission was worth so many points (usually 5 or less for clusters, pins, and missions), and you needed 85 to get out of service when the war was over. My great uncle had 145. The war seemed to bring a lot of people together. He grew up in the south where everything was segregated, but after the war he and most he knew seemed to forget their prejudice. When the war came, the young people of the nation answered the call, and he is so proud. Now things are different. The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are so unlike World War II and we are facing new things. It’s weird for him to hear “Post 9-11” when he was here to hear “Post ‘61”. As a country, he is afraid the fear of terrorism will change the way we think, for the worse. When asking him what seventh graders in 2008 can learn from WWII, he didn’t understand the question at first. I am just going to write everything he said. “It seems to me we haven’t learned anything from the war. The way we fight the war today, we fight the way they want us to. We’re losing more men now than I remember from WWII. We’ve got the stuff to stop it, but I don’t know, I just don’t know. I know if they were fighting like we did, it would have been over a long time ago.” Upon understanding the question: “We had a lot of Allies, and they’re still with us now. But they didn’t respect life enough, and some countries still don’t. It was always we live the way we want to and leave us alone. But it’s changing, the world is changing. It used to be no one could get in, but now terrorists can get in. It will be up to the new generation to change the way of thinking. And politicians, you don’t have politicians anymore. You have financial manipulators. You can’t trust any of them. And people are gonna have terrorism on their minds for a long, long time. A lot of people don’t worry anymore. And the U.S. that I’ve known for a long, long time is gonna be changed. With everything that’s going on right now…” There is so much to be taken away from what he said. He had a lot of advice for the future. World War II made him think differently. It made him sit up straighter, walk proudly, and just know a lot about the world. He’s lived through the War, the Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, JFK’s assassination, and so much more. Small interviews like this have a world of meaning; it’s just a matter of understanding what he had to say.