"In WWII, my father’s two brothers, Henry and John B, also served in the Army. My mother’s three brothers served in the Army, Navy, and the Marines. They were Perry Hugh, Elmer, and Emmet Joe who was in Iwo Jima."

"I want you boys, all of you, to remember that back at home we are thinking about you. I know you wish you could get out of the hospital as soon as possible, and come back to the United States just as fast as we can lick the Nazis. I have…

"I came home after all the reunions. I opened the door to my real world and I saw a tremendous mountain. I had no money. My education and my life had been put on a shelf. I had to reclaim all of that. And when I looked at that mountain, it’d be…

"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…

"You go in by waves and you land. Bear in mind, this is the first landing with your friends. Ten of us were from Georgia, okay? One did not hardly make it out of the water. When the ramp came down on the landing craft and the machine guns opened…

"Your primary rifle was what we called an M-1. And you had to qualify with all of these, and the M-1 was a real major factor. You had to qualify 500 yards, 300 yards, 200 yards. Prone position, kneeling position, and standing. And the last day…

"When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the world stood still for a moment. What are we going to do? And I thought, well, everybody is supposed to be doing something. So I decided I'm going to analyze the major armed forces. Army, Navy, Air…

"I get my orders to report to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, to be with the Marine Corps. They don’t have their own medical personnel. So us as Navy corpsmen are stationed with the Marines and take care of them... I wound up with the…

“This medal was authorized by President Obama in 2012. And they had a big deal where it was presented by some general in Washington, and I think Obama was supposed to be present, but something else came up and he didn't make it, but anyway, it…

“We found that most of the palm trees had been cut off where the Navy had, with their big guns, had just blown everything on the island down. And I didn't see any live Japanese except, we saw a few dead ones. You could, every now and then, you…