"Well, I was in Chicago and I was what they call chick sexing, determine the sex of a baby chicken...As soon as they're hatched, we would look at their back-end and tell between a rooster and a hen... I was going to Iowa, Nebraska, and…

"See, my father and her father were good friends. So, he told me to go to New Orleans to go see...they had five daughters! I went. They told me Motoko - that was her Japanese name - was there. I went to see her...And I liked her so we got…

"Then, after a few weeks in Japan, I asked the lieutenant if I could have a few days off to go look for my parents. He wasn’t going to give it to me, but the major sitting right by him said, ‘Give the man a ten day pass.’ So I got ten days to go…

"I was worried about my mom and dad because they were... in Japan near Hiroshima, and I was the only single one in the family, so I said, I decided to re-enlist... Then before I boarded the ship [in San Francisco], I had a telephone call from…

"It was in Genoa. We were in Genoa, Italy, and we were in a big hallway and we heard all kinds of firecrackers going off. I went outside and said, 'La guerra è finito,' the war is ended. I was happy for that. We were going to go to…

"Down in the valley they had a fort crossing from one mountain to the other. The captain called and asked for dive bombers, but three of them came and knocked a hole in the fort. Then as soon as the dive bombers left, the captain wanted, I think…

"We were way up. All we had to worry about were the shells coming. They couldn't come over the mountains, so when they hit one side, the rocks would come flying onto our side. That's the only thing we had to worry about... Staying…

"When we got [to Bruyères, France], a friend of my brother’s came up to me and said, ‘Hey, your brother [Michael] died five days ago.’ I says, 'Wow, I didn’t know. I was waiting for my sister to write to me about it.’ But she never did.…

"It was about close to October...Well it was crowded, about 5,000 soldiers. And Mickey Rooney was there. He was an entertainer...I was on the 6th level bunks. On the bottom of the ship and I was at the top and had to climb over everybody...They…

"They took me right away. I went to Camp Blanding, Florida right away...It was hot and [there were] snakes. One guy put the machine gun down and looked right straight at a seven-foot rattlesnake... We had to learn everything because…I think…