“Well, you live in the barracks. A lot of people. And basic training means you learn all army. You have the drilling — everything. You dress for army dress and what you would be doing in the army. And it’s just a lot of stuff you’re not used to. But…

“We heard small arm fire over the hill and then a little bit later the tanks came across. This was the 29th of April and this was Patton and he came in and he was about the second tank. Fortunately, they came in and broke the gates down and put the…

“We were grounded flyers and we had our wings, but we came up with, somebody in the camp came up with a symbol for us which was our wings with a chain and a ball attached to it. So we used our dog tag chains and the cans of food we got from red…

“We left off there at Stalag III. This was about the 7th or the 8th of June. We went down the 30th of May. This is the 7th or 8th of June and we were standing there by the loading platform and this real mean looking German guard came out hands on…

“So everybody got out and then I got out. This was my first parachute jump. I went out through the navigator’s hatch below and I said ‘Lord, help me get through this.’ I knew I only had two things. One was to get killed or do it. There was no…

"They moved to New York from Columbus, Georgia, during the Civil War, or as they call it here, the War of Northern Aggression. They came to New York in 1865. My great-grandfather had been captured by the Yankees and removed from the scene. My…