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Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
No, I never came in contact with any professional soldiers. There were all about
like me-just volunteers. When the Vietnam War was going on, I was chairman
of the Draft Board here from 1960 to 1970, and it was even tough to get people
drafted. There wasn't no joining up.
Did the American Army try to do anything to get ya'll out when you were a
prisoner? Were there any rescue efforts?
No, that's way deep in Germany. They couldn't get in there. What did they call
it? We had something called Camp Lucky Strike-Recovered Allied Military
Personnel Camp, or RAMP CAMP. They had about forty-something thousand
there! But you talk about chaos and utter confusion with all those POWs-aw,
man. But at least we got fed three times a day. Some old boy from Ft. Worth
that was with me almost died with a ruptured appendix. His name was Byron
Scott Garrett. One day he just disappeared, and about three months later, he
showed up and had a hell of a scar. He said they just cut it opened and laid it
back, and poured it full of iodine. That first meal we had at the RAMP CAMP,
they had given us orders that we should only eat a couple of bites because we'd
been POWs, and so Garrett went ahead of me. They had German POWs dishing
out the food, so this young German put a little bit of mashed potatoes on Garrett's
tray, and Garrett said, "More!" This German said, "Nein," and I thought, "Oh,
hell." Sure enough, Garrett said a second time he wanted more and the German
said, "Nein," and he reached over there and grabbed that guy by the head and put
him face down in that big old container of mashed potatoes. We like to have
never got old Garret to stop. I thought that German POW was going to die-boy!
I saw Garrett again in San Antonio back in the summer of '45, and I thought I
might run across him again sometime, but I never have. But he was a good
person to stay away from. {Laughter}
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