Oral History Interview with Keifer Marshall, January 13, 2009 Page: 1

                                
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Transcription: Keifer Marshall          Ai o
I'll start off by saying today is January 13"', 2009, and my name is James Crabtree and today I'll
be interviewing Mr. Keifer Marshall at his home in Temple, Texas. This interview is being done
in person and it's being conducted in support of the Texas Veterans Land Board Voices of
Veterans Oral History Program. And, sir, we just want to start offfirst by thanking you for
giving us this time to interview you and record your story for posterity and for future
generations.
Keifer Marshall: Well thank you James, and thank the Veterans Land Board for doing this
project. I think it's an excellent thing to record the history of people who were at World War II,
Vietnam, all the wars we've been, as long as they're here. Unfortunately, my generation is dying
off pretty quick.
Sure.
Keifer Marshall: So it's great that we have this opportunity, yes it is.
Tell us a little bit about just kind ofyour background and a little bit maybe about your family
and your boyhood and that sort of thing.
Keifer Marshall: Well, I'm a native Texan and native Temple-ite. I grew up in Temple, went
all through the public schools in Temple, and I was an only child in my family and lived with my
mother, my father and my grandmother all my life, and graduated from high school in 1942. In
January of 1943 I went to the University of Texas on a football scholarship, which was very
important to me at that time, and I had a year at the university, and then I joined the Marine
Corps in 1944 after my 18' birthday.
Wow.
Keifer Marshall: And it was a great experience, the fact that I had been at Texas for a year and
been away from home for a year, so it wasn't as hard on me as the separation was on a lot of
people that got into the service. But we made the long trip from San Antonio out to San Diego,

actually Los Angeles I think. They had picked us up and took us to San Diego and we went to
boot camp in San Diego, and that was probably one of the most defining moments of my life is
what they do to you in boot camp. If my memory serves me correctly, got there say in the
middle of the night sometime. They put us up like gave us someplace to sleep and got us bedded
down, and I think about 4:30, everything went off and we were up and ready to go under the
Marine Corps rules. So I went through boot camp at San Diego. Then I got a seven-day
furlough and in those days, it took two or three days to get home, and get back, so we didn't have
long at home. But we went back and then went to Camp Pendleton. Now you're familiar with
Camp Pendleton.
Yes sir, and MCRD San Diego.
Keifer Marshall: And the recruit depot, too. Camp Pendleton was an experience for us. We
had a, we work in 10 days with a 48-hour pass, and we were there I think about five weeks or six
weeks, something like that, and then one day they said we were going overseas. So we trained
hard at Camp Pendleton, like 10 days on, then 48-hour pass. We were so far back at Camp

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