I’ve had two careers: one was in...

I’ve had two careers: one was in the Army and the other was teaching journalism in Hawaii for 10 years. The second was much more satisfying, but I was able to do a better job teaching because I had been in the Army.

My military career began a few months after Pearl Harbor. I graduated from college on June 9, went into the Army on July 7 and went overseas on Sept. 5. I was trained as a anti-tank gunner with the 34th Infantry, a National Guard division with a bunch of iron miners. I was sent to Tunisia for the North African campaign. The 2-pound projectiles from those 37-millimeter guns I fired just bounced off the German tanks. When the campaign ended, the military were getting rid of those guns and, and I went on to join the 3rd Infantry Division.

One day my name was sent up to division headquarters because they were looking for a writer. I was interviewed by an officer who had been the assistant city editor for the Portland Oregonian newspaper. So I was selected, and here I was a private reporting to a general. He gave my instructions: publicity will be in inverse order of rank. I wasn’t supposed to write about the war. I was supposed to write about the GI.

With the troops, we always had a bunch of reporters, photographers and artists including George Biddle and columnist Ernie Pyle. These guys were real war correspondents. They always knew where we were and what we were doing, and they never had any escorts or handlers, and there were no violations of national security. That’s why I’m very critical of the Gulf War. There’s not enough news coming out because of the limitations put on reporters.

I went out and wrote stories about the GIs, and we also put out a division daily newspaper: 5,000 copies mimeographed, and we never missed a day. During that time we were in Italy, France, Germany and Austria.

The idea was to see to it that the people back in the United States knew what the 3rd Infantry Division was doing because it was good for the morale of the troops. Especially when we were four months on Anzio Beach in Italy under fire 24 hours a day.

That’s where we learned the Anzio crouch. We didn’t stand up, we crouched. We couldn’t dig a deep foxhole because Anzio Beach was a reclaimed swamp. You go down a couple of feet and hit water. We had a lot of noncombat casualties--pneumonia, trench foot. We also weren’t eating very well. We had C rations of beans, hash or stew. It all tasted the same, and sometimes we didn’t get our three cans a day. But we survived. We did have beef every once in a while. The civilians had all been evacuated but not the cattle. Every now and then the mess sergeants would go out and find a poor cow trapped in barbed wire somewhere. Nobody questioned where the cow was trapped.

Then we liberated Rome, and that was one of the toughest assignments I had. We broke out of Anzio after four months. We had lost nearly 1,000 men killed and wounded. I went on ahead with a division battle patrol of about 50 guys at the head of the infantry. Real early one morning, we sneaked up the hill near Rome and put a chain around a sign that said Roma and dragged it away. That was our souvenir. Word got back to division headquarters that the 3rd Infantry Division had entered Rome. We were the first. Our small group didn’t go any farther because a German tank was sitting up on the hill.

We liberated Rome and had 17 wonderful days there before going on to 168 more days in combat. I had been hit by a bomb fragment in the leg but, after being pinned down on Anzio Beach for 4 months, I was going to Rome. I tied my leg up with a GI bandage. Five days later I went to the division surgeon and he stuck a scalpel in it and it spurted with infection. He said I could have lost that leg.

When we liberated Rome, I went with a photographer to St. Peter’s and to the Sistine Chapel. It was just wonderful to look up at Michelangelo’s “Creation.” It was just the greatest experience after going through all that mud, mules and mountains to get there and then to see something so wonderful.

When the Vietnam War began, I had already retired. I remember I retired in January 1965 after 22 years in the service, a lot of it in combat. But, in November 1965, I got a call, and I was back on active duty, this time in Vietnam.

In the Vietnam War, I had different kinds of challenges as a master sergeant. My writing was going to outside papers. During the first tour I covered the MASH unit, the Mobil Army Surgical Hospital, the first one in Vietnam. It was just like the television show, and the real-life surgeons were just like Hawkeye and Trapper on the show. They were hand surgeons, general surgeons, specialists in their field from Mayo Clinic and other hospitals.

After three tours of duty in Vietnam, I retired again. I extended my last tour by two years, but my family needed me, and I had had enough.

I’ve seen too many dead people. I don’t want to see any more. I served in 17 campaigns, nine in World War II and eight in Vietnam. I don’t believe in war. It doesn’t solve anything.