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sold for a nickel a piece or something like that. It was during Prohibition too. We didn't have any money. In the winter time, ladies who would bring home their groceries; I would help them and take them up to their house and they would give me a nickel or a dime. I would tell them "I'll shovel your sidewalk for a quarter." And they would say okay and let me do that. So that's how I made money. We had gangs in Butte and we were in fights all the time. Butte was divided up into sections; Hungarian Section, Mick Town, Dago Town, Wop Town, Jew Town and people lived in all those different sections. Butte really had quite an effect on me. It made me get to the point where I was very frugal. My mother was too because any money we got we couldn't spend very frivolously. It was a hard time for us. Mr. Misenhimer Where did you go to high school? Mr. Finley Well I'll tell you. I went to high school at the Consolidated School of Ennis, Montana. It was a four year high school and we had 80 kids in it. Most of us came in from the country by bus. I rode 7 miles. My uncle was the school bus driver for 50 years and he was a Mason for 50 years. He was a Star Mason. That's where I went to school out there. Mr. Misenhimer
What year did you finish there? Mr. Finley 1941. Mr. Misenhimer When did you actually go into the service?
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Albert Finley. Finley joined the Marine Corps around December of 1943. He provides vivid details of his boot camp experiences. He served with Headquarters Company, 4th Marines, as a radar mechanic on Corsairs, repairing radio and radar gear. Beginning in September of 1944 they traveled to Guam, Kwajalein, Pearl Harbor and Majuro in the Marshall Islands. Finley shares a number of anecdotal stories, including working with POWs. He was discharged in the fall of 1946.
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