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agent had kind of built things up a little bit and they took us to our state's room and they had oh a huge bouquet of flowers in there and a bottle of champagne with glasses and the champagne was in ice. And they had a bottle of Black Velvet sitting on the counter with some glasses and oh we were treated royally. Mr. Misenhimer: Well Bud, that's all the questions I have, have you thought of anything else about your time in the service? Mr. LaCounte: I don't think so, no. I don't. Mr. Misenhimer: Oh, when you got out did you have any trouble adjusting to civilian life? Mr. LaCounte: Well not really, I was always kindof, I was a carpenter when I first started my working years. And I got a job right away and of course I hadmy wife and my son to take care of, so. Yeah, no I didn't really have any problem. We had a school, the government paid us I forget $100 or something to go to school. And we had vocational stuff, carpentry and welding and stuff like that, you know. Wehad a teacher, in fact he came from Billings and he was up in that little town of Bainville and that was his sole job was to teach the veterans weldingand stuff that maybe we could use you know. I went to that for about a year and a half. But I was a carpenter. I don't think ..., I got a fishing pole right away and I spent my leisure time fishing of course. Mr. Misenhimer:
Have you hadany reunions of your outfit? Mr. LaCounte: I've never been to one. When I first got home for years I'd get notices of reunions and they were always on the East Coast because most of our outfit was from the east, East America. And I never hadmoney and I didn't have time to go out there. So I didn't have money enough to go to any of them, so Inever did get to one. I would have loved to have gone, but I didn't make it.
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Willard LaCounte. LaCounte was drafted into the Army in September, 1943 and trained as an antiaircraft artilleryman at Camp Haan, California. In late 1943 he was assigned to the 118th Antiaircraft Automatic Weapons Battalion as a jeep driver in an industrial section of England and recalls defending it against German air raids. He landed at Normandy one day after the invasion. His unit eventually set up in Holland and shot down buzz bombs heading across the Channel. After the war LaCounte helped arrange R&R trips for soldiers.
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