Editor's Note: When he was 16 years old, Eugene and other members of his Hitler Youth group were taken to a training camp where they were run through military drills and ultimately asked to commit to joining the SS (Schutzstaffel) a major…

"I started out in the services—not in the retail side of the house. I was in the services department. I first of all started in plans and headquarters. Later on I got into the field in services. So I had two careers at first. I spent a…

"It was a jubilant time. I think a friend and I, we even went up to the West End with all the crowds, you know. Of course the thing that’s so, left me with deep impressions, were all the foreign troops in London, in England, during the…

"He was called up in June of 1942. He, you know, it was late in the war really. But of course he was an older man. He was 40, or 39 and six months, when he was called up. So you know, they called up the young men at the beginning of the war.…

"Finally we went out to the aviation field, where a Civil Aeronautics unit for the teaching of colored pilots is in full swing. They have advanced training here, and some of the students went up and did acrobatic flying for us. These boys are…

"Our young men and our young women are fighting not only for their existence, their homes, and their families. They also are fighting for a country and a world where men and women of all races, colors, and creeds can live, and work, and speak,…

"Guadalcanal looks very different from when the Marines landed. By holding on through the desperate first months, till we could get supplies and the Army came in and relieved them, they assured us of ultimate domination in the Pacific. Today…

"...I can only say that the men are doing their part extremely well in adjusting to a climate which is traditionally in November somewhat rainy, and so has given them plenty of rain and mud to cope with under conditions which require a saving of…

"We finally made it to San Francisco. They pulled us into the harbor...For over two years I’d seen nothing but Marine green in the Pacific. The most beautiful colors I’d ever seen in my life. We went under the Golden Gate. It was hanging with…

"You couldn’t stop for anything. You had to keep moving. And I know that some of those men that, maybe we could’ve helped, but we couldn’t. We were so thin that night because the losses had been so great. Sometime during the night I began to…