Some correspondence about interviewing old vets

interviewing old vets have been a blessing  Posted: Nov 12, 2016 1:25 PM

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to me. One of my favorites is of a WW2 vet, who the new movie HACKSAW RIDGE could be about. Pfc. Finney, now living in a VA Nursing home, was a medic in Okinawa also. (This is where my Father was a platoon Sgt in the Marines but would never talk about it.) Anyway, PFC Finney has the Bronze Star and Purple Heart, but unlike the medic in the movie, he carried a gun. He told me he would use it to protects his brothers in arms, but was too busy patching them up. He was shot by a sniper crawling from foxhole to foxhole, and wonders how any medic could get out of combat without getting injured. Another fav. WW2 story is from Sgt. Tom in nearbye Gray Court. He is a delightful 97 y.o. who is probably the last survivor of the HOGAN'S HEROS. This comedy series was based on lots of truth. Sgt. Tom was a hero there saving another crewmember when their B24 was downed. He put the parachute on him and pushed him out the plane, telling him to pull the rip cord when he couldn't hear the engine anymore. As soon as they hit the ground, he climbed a tree, as the wounded crew was bleeding badly. The Nazi captors took them to Stalag 17, and the injured crew ended up in the same baracks after a month in hospital. Sgt. Tom became known as Pappy because he was all of 22 years old. Sgt. Shultz and most of guards were not fit for combat, and were POWs fairly well until the Gestapo came around to inspect. Anyway, Pappy ended up being a leader in that barracks, and the tunnel digger wrote a book about it called THE FLAMEKEEPERS. As the war winded down, the guards marched the POWs 280 miles so they could be captured by American forces instead of Russians. When they arrived, the guards smartly handed their guns over to the Pows and became the pows, therefore being treated much better than most Germans. Sgt Tom became a very successful man in Gray Court, and the man whose life he saved stopped by to visit him every time he traveled to Florida, giving Sgt. Tom much gratitude for enabling him to have a great life! Now, with over 50 interviews, I will be publishing a doc called IN THEIR OWN WORDS, THE WISDOM OF ELDER VETERANs hopefully before Christmas.