[Virginia Roberts] Recording this is a test.
Here we go. This is Virginia Roberts.
Today is April 10, 2008.
I am interviewing Paul Jackson.
The interview is taking place in Horseshoe Bay, Texas.
This interview is in support of
the Center Pacific War Studies Archives
for the National Museum of the Pacific War,
Texas Historical Commission for the preservation of
historical information relating to this site.
Paul, welcome.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share
your experiences during World War II
and a little bit before that.
[Paul Jackson] You are welcome.
[Virginia Roberts] We're going to start with
a little bit before that,
and I'll ask you when and where you were born?
[Paul Jackson] Okay. I was born in Fort Worth,
Texas in July the 10th, 1926.
[Virginia Roberts] Twenty six, interesting,
and your parents?
[Paul Jackson] Nancy Jackson and my dad was Edgar Jackson.
[Virginia Roberts] They were also born in Texas?
[Paul Jackson] Yes.
[Virginia Roberts] You mentioned before we started,
you had brothers and sisters.
[Paul Jackson] I had many brothers and I was the youngest.
[Virginia Roberts] Oh, my goodness.
Could you start at the top?
[Paul Jackson] Okay. Carrol was the oldest,
Leon, my sister Regina,
Eddie, Mark Wallace,
Emma Ruth, Cleo and me, Paul.
[Virginia Roberts] That's exciting. You went to
school in Fort Worth?
[Paul Jackson] Fort Worth high school.
[Virginia Roberts] Your high school was?
[Paul Jackson] Paschal High. P-A-S-C-H-A-L.
[Virginia Roberts] Did you go into the military right
away or start college or?
[Paul Jackson] I enlisted on my 17th birthday.
Marine recruiter was quite happy to sign me up.
I did not report to San Diego until August the 20th,
which is a longest month-and-a-half well spent.
[Virginia Roberts] Yeah, you had to wait until
your 18th birthday?
[Paul Jackson] I had to wait until they called me.
No. I just waited until they mustard me and
sent me their traveling orders did show up
there on the 20th of August.
[Virginia Roberts] That was?
[Paul Jackson] 1943.
[Virginia Roberts] Forty three. December the 7th,
1941 had already passed. Where were you?
[Paul Jackson] I was playing softball in
Fort Worth on a vacant lot,
a block from my home when we heard
that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.
[Virginia Roberts] Did a lot of your high school friends
also join or did they wait to get drafted?
[Paul Jackson] No. I think quite a few of them joined.
Most of my buddies joined the navy,
and one waited until his draft is in the army,
and I went down being big
and happy and enlisted in the Marine Corps.
[Virginia Roberts] Why did you select the Marines?
[Paul Jackson] Well, I had a brother
that was in the Marine.
He was already oversee.
Cleo one next to me had spent, what was it,
30 months overseas,
and he was on Guadalcanal,
Peleliu and a couple of others besides (inaudible)
[Virginia Roberts] He was in some real active battles?
[Paul Jackson] Yeah.
[Virginia Roberts] Were any of your other brothers and
sisters in the military?
[Paul Jackson] Yes, Eddie who was in the air force,
and he was killed in England.
I had a oldest brother,
Carrol was in the army. He was drafted.
He had spent time in North Africa and Italy.
He made the invasion in Italy and came
back pretty shock up.
[Virginia Roberts] One brother was lost in the marine?
[Paul Jackson] Right.
[Virginia Roberts] This was Fort Worth,
and your father was still in business in Fort Worth?
[Paul Jackson] He was a carpenter.
During the depression,
he did about anything that had to be done.
[Virginia Roberts] Yeah, I understand that.
I was born in '32,
so I was just (crosstalk) Yeah, sure was.
Where was your first training?
[Paul Jackson] I completed boot camp,
and went to a radio school in San Diego.
I completed that class.
They told me if I had complete the radio,
I told him I wanted to fly.
I wanted to be in the airway.
They said, well, I
qualified as a aerial designer and a radio operator.
He says, "If you finish your radio,
we will send you to Norman,
Oklahoma for a gunnery.
You will be a radio gunner."
Two weeks before I was to graduate,
I was called down with
seven others to the top sergeants all of us.
He says, "Guess what?"
"They're forming a new 5th Marine Division up here at
Camp Pendleton and they need radio operators."
Congratulations infantrymen.
They should've locked me up. (laughing)
[Virginia Roberts] You went ballistic.
[Paul Jackson] Because I hit the ceiling.
Surprisingly, I didn't
want anything anything to do about it.
[Virginia Roberts] Yeah, so you didn't get to fly?
[Paul Jackson] No.
[Virginia Roberts] You got to fly.
[Paul Jackson] When I graduated, they put us on
a bus and they called us up to Camp Pendleton,
and they call out group of names.
He says, "Those of that I call out follow over here."
Well, I was one of the first names called.
He says, "Congratulations,
best man, your merits duty for 30 days."
I have to feed these people that are graduating.
Again, I went ballistic.
I will again learn to
become known as the ballistic marine.
Anyway, after completing that,
it's 33 days instead of 30 days,
I went to Field Signals School.
I must make a little sidestep right now.
Had I not been chosen for
(inaudible) I would have
gone on on the end with the rest of their troops,
finished the field signals school and shipped
overseas but I said about half of them got killed.
It was fortune. Anyway, I finished
the six weeks of field signal,
hence learning how to live in fox holes one of
my favorite subjects (laughing).
After completing that,
I was assigned to
the second battalion of the 27th Marine Regiment,
or the fifth (inaudible) at camp (inaudible).
We continued to make
numerous assault landings in both in
Higgins boats and LCTs and what have you.
We made all kinds of assault landings.
We landed on their actual fire
where there was shooting and from their planes,
and firing their weapons,
dropping their bombs around us.
Anything to get us accustomed.
We trained that way.
I went through a couple of other enemy jamming schools.
Of course we learned code and all that in school.
So we were learning an actual operation.
They got ready to ship us overseas,
it was August the 6th,
I think it was and we took all of them.
[Virginia Roberts] Now, you were on a ship board?
[Paul Jackson] Pardon.
[Virginia Roberts] Ship board, you sailed?
[Paul Jackson] We sailed to Hilo, Hawaii.
By this time I was used to being aboard ship.
We hit all the islands up and down
the California coast in practice.
We landed in Hilo
and he couldn't have picked
a better spot for us to train.
We were based up in
the lava flow from the mountains there.
Lava was so bad that I could wear a pair
of marine boondockers out in about two months.
It was terrible. You'd be walking
alone and you'd be in a whirlwind
and it'd be raining on you.
I mean, it was beautiful.
[Virginia Roberts] (laughing) Trial by fire.
[Paul Jackson] We trained and trained quite heavy.
I would be assigned not only me,
but others radio people,
would be assigned to go with the companies,
but to different companies or squads.
They had mountains there that were up around 5000 feet.
There wasn't any timber until you got about 3500 foot.
I'd have to carry that radio plus
my gear and in devil time with these people.
They didn't have any patience whatsoever.
Finally I told them, I said,
"You don't slow up, you're not going to have a radio."
We turned it up,
we got up into the top of this mountain
and they're both (inaudible).
It was raining so hard.
We were in thick jungle where you held
onto the guys pack ahead of you.
Some wise marine up there got to playing around,
didn't hold onto the guy.
He broke us, he made a right turn,
realized he made it wrong.
The rest of us slept in
that jungle that night and I chopped weeds,
not weeds but limbs down until I
make it high enough here and then when I get onto that,
I'd sink down and I'd be in the water.
I'd chop, build up some more.
I spent the night there because of this guy breaking up.
But anyway, that's just a side (crosstalk).
[Virginia Roberts] How did you get back with your unit?
[Paul Jackson] I had the radio, they didn't. I had the radio.
The officers in charge,
made us out there to stay put and he tried to backtrack.
He got within yelling distance so we could
find him but I got to spend the night there.
Made me want to re-enlist (crosstalk) (laughing).
Anyway, That's the type of training we
got in getting ready to go to Hilo.
[Virginia Roberts] How long were you there, in Hilo, how long?
[Paul Jackson] Well, we were at camp (inaudible) Hilos
was where we landed and we were there until December.
We boarded ship.
It went up to Pearl Harbor,
gave us two days liberty.
No, before that we made a landing
at Moli, a practice landing.
Then we went on up to Hilo.
We left there,
we spent 50,
I think it's 53 days aboard ship.
By the time we got on Hilo,
I was so out of shape.
I had to ran in that volcanic sand
and you know what type of volcanic sand it
is and I could hardly move.
That was our introduction to the landing at Iwo Jima.
We made one error on the stop at Saipan,
we were already loaded with ammunition and what not,
but we boarded the amphibs and made a simulated landing
on Tinian and with there was choppy waters, quite rough.
We went in within probably 100 feet of
the beach and turn around and went back.
Then the fun came from climbing up to
the net rope with a ship heaving to on this rope.
Everything was just making it feel at home.
From there we shipped out went on to Iwo Jima.
I think it was a three-day trip.
[Virginia Roberts] Paul, since my husband Evan was on
Iwo Jima with the Marines later in the '50s,
I'm going to turn over the interview to him
because he'll know the things to ask you.
[Evan] Thank you, Virginia. Paul, if you
would please tell us,
just take the Iwo landing.
If you can remember,
tell us which beach that you landed on at Iwo Jima.
Sarabachi would have been on your left as you landed.
Just tell us the story as it happened to
you and as you were and your unit was involved.
[Paul Jackson] Okay. Well, we got out of
our LSTs in a hurry.
We were aboard the LST from Saipan up to Iwo Jima.
We circled out there until they got
us staged in the correct position.
I was in the fifth
wave and (inaudible).
We spread out and it started
and the waves are going to be three minutes apart.
We must have been two or three miles or more out.
I remember us coming in and when we got spread out,
we're going in towards the beach.
We were not too far from one of the battleships and
he opened up broadside in practice anchors.
The water rushing at us was
boiling, it's quite impressive.
We were on the way in and I'd say we're
probably maybe a mile,
mile and a half offshore.
I would happened to look to my right
and the next one over was blown out of the water.
That was my offset.
The next one over from them, no, it's the other way.
The furthest over was blown out of the water,
the next one was blown out of
the water and I remember thinking ''We're next'',
so I kind of scrunched my head
down and blew the one out of the water on our left.
I don't know that anyone who's ever addressed this,
but we went right on through.
Immediately, SBD, I think it was,
a dive bomber was coming
through and he got hit when I was
looking at about one o'clock up from our position.
He got hit and he had
all machine guns blazing and he came right down
across and missed the front the barrel of
my amphib by not more than 20 feet,
crashed into the water.
Nose, went down, the tail came up and he was
out that fast, within 5-10 seconds.
We continued on in and incidentally,
the way the waves are set out,
the first two waves did not carry troops.
They were rigged with 30 caliber machine gun
and 50 caliber machine gun and a 37 millimeter howitzer.
Their job was to get in there and
try to give us a little bit of protection.
I landed on Red Beach One,
28 marines on my left.
They're the ones that took Sarabachi.
We came in and when the front tracks hit the beach,
the (inaudible), I don't know if he
was nervous or what happened,
but he stopped and while we were still bouncing in
the water and we're all yelling at him to pull up.
When he hit the release and the door,
the gate dropped,
one of the buddies in my radio,
I was in a crew of four carrying this radio,
fell over backwards and went completely out of sight.
Later (inaudible) who was
my commander took his riffle butt
and was banging on that trap door,
up there where the (inaudible) and he told him,
he said, "Pull it up, pull it up."
When he lunged forward,
he threw two more of my guys on
my radio out into the ocean and they went out of sight.
So I'm saying now, then well, I'm next.
By this time he had pulled up enough
on the beach that when I stepped out,
I stepped into water halfway up to my knees.
If you think that's not fun to
fill the boot up with saltwater
and spent the next six weeks with it on (laughing).
When I started a general power to see what I could do.
The reason being,
he came down and probably at a 50, 60 degree angle.
It was very deep, where you are
touching dry ground and it slope
down it could be 12,15 feet deep down there.
Here come all three of these guys
crawling up out of that Pacific Ocean,
they weren't necessarily looking.
I stepped out into water halfway up to my knees,
ran around the left side of the Amtrak.
A shell exploded and I went sailing through the air.
When I landed face down around
my rifle straight into the sand.
I don't know how long I lay there I was really staring
and seeing around and see if I
hit or anything, and just none.
When I went to that rifle I
had a car behind because of the radio,
I had to carry a light weapon.
I looked at this thing,
so I beat on it trying to beat the sand out of
the board poffed the board back then it jam.
I ejected thee shell
took my clip out tried to look through
there and what I saw scared me to death because it was
just packed with volcanics sand.
I sat there and beat on it as much I could
forced the bolt for injecting
another shell into the chamber
and I held her along the way and
I figured I'm going to fire this and blow the barrel up.
I held it at arm, Blake and fired it,
it fired then the board start opening.
I left there and I cleaned it out pretty good
he was still dirty the bullet went out.
(inaudible) here I am on the beach.
I got a riffle of jam dragging
on the floor one time at a time.
I went around at a time.
We started up the terrace and
no red beach one where at three terraces.
When you come on the top you're looking at
probably 250- 300 feet maybe more clear spot.
Then between you and between
the pill box is in a block outer,
I figured well this is it.
The lieutenant told our group
all of this before we left shift,
he'd been try to rest little bit.
But he had been on parallel several of the other vital.
He says, whatever you do,
do not take more than two steps.
The third step, you hit the ground because he says
the Japanese is sighting on you and I remember that.
I got up and weighs a 70 pound or 75 pound on my back.
I don't run too fast and I got loose looking.
I go one and two and I sat down and I feel the bullet
(noise) actually feel the pressure
on my face, I stand close.
Now I had hit the ground and I call and
I get sad and that's the way I covered that ground.
Two steps fall and every time you
had to feel (noise) you needed to feel the pressure,
it'd be the bullet would be that close
and we lost a lot of our men.
We lost half of them in the end
tracks when we were blown up and we had
one fellow from Dallas was running along
and somebody I don't
know what even do the brain but he got hit.
He stopped bend over to pick him up and they
hit him it went through
his collarbone here and travel down,
throw down to his leg and out his knee
and he died aboard ship couple of three days later.
But that was in our episode of
trying to get up there because on charts
and we'd started they were 10 block outers
and about 50 pill boxes in that spot.
We'll have to get them,
you got to get to them first.
Not all of them were blown up.
The block outer of the big ships took
a lot of the blockers but the pill box
and we're still very much in business.
When we went to cross there it wasn't
until we where we got some vegetation.
The place was blown up it was really horrible,
play a hole to fall into so when you went down,
you'd never stand up in the same spot.
I learn how to be a snake,
I could either crawl,
my stomach was 70 or 75 pounds
on my back and keep going.
When we got about halfway across the island,
Lieutenant Hover called me.
He told me, so I want you and Mitchell.
Clyde Mitchell was from Kingman Kansas,
he said I want you and Mitchell to grab
a wire and a telephone and go back
to the beach and pick up Mageneis Wayat,
Magenis was the kid,
that got hit (inaudible) I thought over,
I always thought if I could get across here,
I might have a chance so
here I got to turn around and go back.
We struck out and
we didn't fire our rifle then mine I couldn't,
I got only had one around,
went all the way to the water's edge
and started up and down I walk up clear into
the 28th regiment territory looking for his wife.
What we had is every so many feet,
we had a tagged wire to
the line with
27 wire.
We didn't have a watch or
anything we must have been suspend a couple hour
walking around and finally I told Mitch I said
listen the lines are cut to pieces,
the amtracks they're run over there's not
a telephone line down there that's intact,
more than a 50 or a 100 feet.
We looked at long as we restore it back,
we're going to go through the same thing we did on the
first and the Japs were very good shots.
I remember Frankline really laying to us about how
the Japs can't see, the can't shoot.
They were excellent shot and it
is evidenced on a range later on.
What I didn't know is we'd gone through two minefield up
back and now I got to go back up so I went back
through and fortunately Mitchell and I got through okay.
It was dusk,
sun had already a set by the time,
I found my outfit.
Over all those cutting out in and half,
we were still in
the vegetation and the beaches, as you know,
are smooth,
long pretty that's where
they hold up I have had a garden and farm lettuce.
Mitch and I both are just wet drag
and I walked there and here's a block,
the house had been blown this mid range.
It was so dark that I couldn't see in.
But I went up alongside then
and try to look in and I couldn't see in.
I went over and there was a tunnel or
a trench that the Japanese had
dug a two tier days folks room,
and there's one over there,
plopped down in there.
Went to sleep, dreaming was home.
It was so real.
The next morning when I woke up the Jap must spent
the night in that block house
was looking at me face to face,
I couldn't see him.
He apparently cracked out he came out there screaming,
screaming (inaudible) like a woman.
He ran out and I try to run to grab my rifle for
the one shot and
a gruesome shot he was hit from all angle.
It would just not 60 seconds later on
the right side me not 25 feet they killed another Jap,
we slept among these Japs that night.
We couldn't sleep when I got there and they had pull
the boards and charge on us the
estimated that around 2,000 that night was killed.
I mean we had Japs all over the place.
I hardly ran the string
through pull clean my rifle
best I could so at
least there was more than one shot (laughing).
But that was my first day on hill and what
scared me was if was left
down here and in out of San Antonio.
When he saw me ran over to Saxon,
I told Lieutenant Morris this is how you get killed.
He said he was a marine had a radio just like
he did hit him with an explosive shell.
I just knew that they were going
to send that to my mother.
I worried about that I had at
the back of my mind the whole time I was
only my way cut the island in half.
[Virginia Roberts] Did your brother
actually get notification?
[Paul Jackson] No, she didn't get notice from me,
but she had gotten a notice for
my brother who was killed.
[Virginia Roberts] Okay.
[Speaker 1] Let him go. It's not right.
[Paul Jackson] We took off the next morning and
finished cutting the island in Iwo.
We came in across the island and we swam (noise) north.
We were on the East beach? No, It'd be the west beach.
[Speaker_2] You landed on the west beach,
went across to the east beach and then turned right,
wanted to go to the north.
[Paul Jackson] Right. We landed it'd be
the West beach. It's all in here.
(noise) Anyway, we hadn't gone too far and the Japanese,
as I said, they were really going to shot.
They would throw a barrage down or
mortars and they'd make a stager step left,
right, left and they'll be coming in.
His gun was firing and they had change their sight.
He's saying they are coming up and one shell exploded
probably 100 feet from me.
I figured, men, the next one was me,
so I turn and I ran as hard as I could.
Bush is there,
I lead and I hear more rifle loud out in front of me
to try to break my fall along those bushes.
I think the shell exploded before I hit the bottom.
But when I hit the bottom, I'll show you somewhere,
I jumped there because those needles on
that bush were like knives.
Oh, that hurt.
I'm laying there with my rifle on my stomach,
I'm laying on it.
Once again, I was numb,
failing to see if I
was bleeding or anything doesn't happen.
(noise) I got the rifle out eventually.
I reset and I pushed
this bush and there is these two Jets.
It was close from here, they were here for me,
looking at me, two of them.
I fired the first one,
I hit him (laughing) and I fired an 18-year-old boy.
I hit him and my rifle jammed so I beat that thing.
The other one didn't move either.
That shell apparently had killed them both.
When I hit, it went over me and got him.
Now, that wakes you up.
I said, oh boy, that was close.
I went ahead and put one to
the other one in case he came too.
That was a story of excitements going North.
We got long site of the first airfield.
Jaffa very much alive on the North end.
He had that island barked off where they knew
exactly what to set their settings on their sites.
We got up probably,
I don't know, it's hard to say,
maybe three-quarters of a mile on up there.
Here comes the shells come again,
boom, boom, boom.
I thought that's wrong and I turned and ran
to the left carrying his radio on my back.
I can't jump in on my back.
That's always on my face, face forward.
I looked up and on my right was
a Marine in my outfit, wire man.
He was running for the seal holes,
same as I was.
Whereas we ran,
he was about a step ahead of me.
He jump feet first and I jumped headfirst behind him.
That shell exploded again and he dumped all of that.
I came to this wall of volcanic sand only.
What I came to, I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't see, this dust was so bad in here.
I'm shaking around and feeling it
again to see if I've still got my legs.
I looked up and he was sitting there like
this with one arm behind him.
I reached up and grabbed him by jugging.
I said, "Are you okay?"
He had slipped and his neck was broken.
His arm was held together with just that much flesh,
the rest of it was behind him.
What had happened, he had
his helmet snapped. He's trapped.
Until this day, I don't understand why.
He said, "It's hard to run."
I wanted to run with my holder on my head.
But when that shell exploded,
I would estimate 40 meters of that window or
maybe that chair when he hit and exploded.
In a concussion, snapped his neck.
I didn't find any other blood coming from anywhere,
but this was over. But he was dead.
I laid there, I can't tell you how long I laid
there until I got a way I could get up.
We continued on up there and when I sent my radio up,
I heard a TEDx.
We worked on code in Cedar idea.
It took four hours to carry him.
We had a trans receiver.
I carried a battery pack which was heavy, it was bad.
It was huge, very heavy.
Anyway, the antenna (noise) and we had
a generator, four of us.
I set it up, loaded up the antenna.
I was getting ready to load it up while three
dialed divisions above my frequency was the actual,
sent him away right where I am.
They send an emergency.
I had a button to crank the antenna.
I loaded the antenna and I got stopped.
I sat there and he started
sending it again and I hit the key.
I didn't do this about
the third time and you
could hear those shells coming out.
I call a Lieutenant over, Lieutenant Moore.
I said, "Pogey." He didn't
like me calling him Lieutenant.
But as I said, a Gaster.
The reason that I gave him the Pogey name,
you know what Pogey bait is? (crosstalk)
[Speaker_2] I know.
[Paul Jackson] Pogey bait is candy.
Every time I'd had some candy,
he came over and said, "Can I have some of that?"
I called out and Pogey stuck.
I called him, I said, "Pogey,
I want to show you something."
Then I said, "We got a jap three dollar division
of my frequency,
and every time I load up,
they'd hit us." I said, "Watch."
I cracked it up.
Craig set the generator.
I said, "Ready?" I hit the key.
(noise) That fast,
and it came all around,
and instead of Moore turning his body away as I see,
he said, "Shut it down,
don't ever turn it on again.
Don't use it, we're through." I said, "Okay."
We use that radio to tune it until
he arose and then we'd listen to her.
I never transmitted only here.
Later I think I
saw that range finder and our radio was as weak.
Went on up or no one was on air.
Just a little side story.
But anyway, that left me without my radio.
I got the job of going up to the front line
and carrying batteries replacements
for the radio men on the front line.
Dog, easy and fox,
the 2nd Battalion, 27 Marine.
The batteries are pretty heavy so I
carried just for one at
a time and needed to have somebody else go
with me and they carry one for the others.
I did that for a day or two.
"Lieutenant Moore, I asked Michal later."
I said, "Did he have a death wish for us?
He's always volunteering and ask for something.
Our post this night.
If you remember the rocks on
the West side close to the beach,
we were probably 150 feet in down
the foxhole and they set
up a 50 caliber machine gun to my right,
about 40 feet away.
I didn't know they'd set one
up right directly behind us.
Anyway, the first night,
Mitchell stood watch until 12:00,
and 12 o'clock,
he woke me up and I didn't want to get up.
He said, get up, Jackson.
I said, look at this, there's nothing going to happen.
He looked down and he just says,
holy smoke, what is that?
I look down to the rocks and it
was champs running all aboard.
They had come in in wooden row boats.
I grab the radio and I call my regimental headquarters,
which was Bludgeon 1 at that point.
I said, Bludgeon 1, we have enemy and
it's shackled so and so,
I request flare, I require a border immediately.
When the flare popped up and
later because you're on
parachutes and parachutes is floating down,
they shoot that flare out
and they kept flares
up over on board they thought we needed.
Guys on my ride opened up
and I'm talking to
them just trying to guide and get them up,
up, down, left, right.
All of this trying to direct them in there.
The machine gun behind me opened up and
almost killed Mitchell and me both.
We dropped down and those bullets
were coming over our head.
If you stuck your hand up there,
it would have taken your arm right off.
I didn't know they were back there.
We had to lay there.
We couldn't even get up until a question.
That scared me. But they
estimated we had 300 Japs were killed on it.
They got probably in within 100 feet of
me and he made it came in on a wooden boat, the rows.
Anyway, that was the last of the big experience there.
I spent, in that same foxhole, three days.
A had a Jap who has
fell with his arm hanging over a clap in that hole.
I took it on and put it
back until before we moved on out.
We got up a little further into
the rocky terrain up there.
The first night I was there,
I dug in and I heard this noise,
boy it sounded like a whole troop digging.
I'm sitting there, I can't sleep.
I got my little 30 caliber carbine,
it's a good weapon but not for an army.
It was close, as close as from here to that wall
from what it turned out to be
was these little crabs, remember them?
(crosstalk) (noise).
You take hundreds of them and they sound like
Japs digging, coming that way.
Anyway, we moved on up on top of that ridge.
This sergeant, I'm having trouble with his name,
came to me and he says,
"Mitchell, you or Jackson is
got to go up to Easy Company.
You want a desertment to who?"
Or neither one of us had a calling
for when we were rich.
He picked up all those little blocks
as he started or I guess it is
(inaudible) he says,
"This is head is this is tail." I say okay.
He flips it up and came up and I won
whole bezel grandma cartridge
is his conscious belt and he
started putting fill a minor,
you know that it was empty loaded media.
He's good. At least I don't care.
You said they found radio.
So at that point,
Hara little buckskin marine short
again the way up there and he was short.
Taken me up.
You tell me when they hit
the deck where their pill boxes where it is?
Yeah, absolutely very much alive.
They bypass the whole probably the objection.
We had to go alongside of me here to get us there.
When I got up there,
he introduced me to
this John Solomon. I showed you in here.
He was the guy going to be with all the time.
Almost killed me dozens of times.
I don't want you to use it name, erase that name.
But anyway, we took off and it was really exciting.
After, I can't tell you where,
but they came in with a bunch of replacements.
Major call me over and
he introduced me to this young kid.
He said he's going to be your body guard.
I think you need a body guard
because you don't have time to
go kill Japs and the target radio was no risk.
I didn't think it was a very good idea.
But anyway, he left me with him.
I asked him about it. He had had
one liberty in San Diego.
Rashtriya completed boot camp
and they put it on board ship,
probably. Felt like cry.
Say I sat down and I told him,
I said read, I want you to pay attention.
Number one, don't get within 15 feet of me.
All right, 20 feet, 30 feet butter.
I said two is a crowd.
She has to learn how to shoot.
If there's somebody out there and I
stood there and they can shoot it at first.
I says no, don't take more than two steps.
Hit the ground. Ever stand up.
When you went down, he spake for granted,
left bank anywhere over it or Navajo or
don't stand up where you went
down there just sitting there waiting for you.
I said he read it. Yeah. You know,
I could tell he was just panicking.
Well, until the machine guns opened up and I dive
into this hole and let it in.
He couldn't have been ten seconds.
He landed in the middle of
my bag and I thought he broke my back.
Oh, I didn't have I just had my pack this time.
I didn't have a big radio.
He ran right and small and
my back and I could feel the vertebrates go.
I rollover had her
get my breath again and I told him I said
got to tell us you never get within 15 feet of me.
Saying that you do that.
You got that? Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
So I explain to over to the other side of that hole,
got my feet ready and I jumped up
and boom boom and another one.
The machine gun opened up over my head and he stood up.
Very spot. Right here,
right under his helmet.
I called back and grab him. I'm shaking.
I told you don't stand out,
but I told you is just blown all the pieces.
So I left him there.
He rewarded with me.