When I was a boy living in Vancouver

[oldcorpgunny]

To be factual, I am an old man. I'm not sure when it happened, but it did and now I find myself ruminating. about the way things were. My dad served in the U.S.Army, as a tank crewman in Patton's 2nd Army. He landed at Normandy and fought his way across Europe until the germans gave up. He ended up in Germany at the war's end. So he comes home and my mom (a Welsh war bride) met him at the train station. They had me and another child and I grew up listening to my dad and his friends and how they had done this and that during the war. It was all very exciting to a young boy. Each of my dad's friends had brought home an assortment of war souvenirs. Mostly uniforms or parts thereof, helmets and a wide assortment of guns. Now after several years, my dad and his friends moved on to other subjects and I had to ask to hear the war stories. One day, my dad's friend Art asked me if I wanted a German Lugar. Of course I said yes! Eventually, pop's friends found a repository for their old war trophies in me. By age 12 I was the proud owner of several Lugars, a couple of P-38's, an HSc Mauser, a couple of Radoms and many 1911a1's that were "lost in combat." Now my dad was not an idiot and had taken all the magazines and put them in a sack. I also had a bunch of Nazi armbands and a few helmets. By the time I was 18 I had traded all of that stuff for Chevy engine parts! During those early years, GI Joe's had a huge G.P. Tent over off Vancouver avenue in Portland. It smelled of cosmoline, gun oil and all things military. It was filled from one end to the other with every imaginable thing that the military had during WWII. I remember the barrels of rifles. Mauser K-98's and British .303 "Jungle Carbines" in particular. They were $10.00 each. Bayonets were $1.00 extra. dad was a member of the NRA and got their monthly magazine "The American Rifleman." On the back page they would always have guns for sale. .30 Cal M-1 Carbines were $20.00 each as were their 1911a1's. Everything was sold as NRA condition "good." Pop bought two carbines and two pistols. When they arrived through the mail, they were all brand new. There was even an ad for a 20MM antitank gun for $100. It was functional since you could by shells for $1.00 each. America was so different then. Portland was different. I don't remember any street violence and the "homeless" were arrested for being vagrants. So now I'm an old man with lots of memories about the communities that I lived in and the sound reasoning that was used by our civic leaders to govern them. It is a bygone era, but a wonderful time to grow up.

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[fstdraw]

You're preaching to the choir my friend. All the dads in our neighborhood were War Veterans. My dad Navy, Across the street was a Navy fighter pilot, 2 doors down a Marine and an Army guy next door. Most had built a house on the GI bill and were proud of being educated, home owners, father's, husbands and good neighbors. None thought of themselves as war hero's, members the Greatest Generation or being any better than any other man. However, ALL thought of themselves as Americans and that made them the proudest and the best the World had to offer. Meeting a challenge and succeeding was a way of life to that generation. As kids we heard the war stories from Iwo Jima, Saipan, Tinian, D-Day, North Africa and many other well known battles. We saw (and have) momentos from that time period. Bullets, guns, medals, pieces of Zero's, knives etc. But the one thing I take from all the hours of stories, lectures and experiences is nobody should ever go through that again (my father's wish). Let's hope cooler heads prevail in this current climate.

It was a very good time to grow up, we had good examples to follow.

 

[mrblond]

your lucky, my granddad was in the army during the invasion and my great uncle was in the 101st and jumped pre D day and was at Bastogne.
when id ask granddad about the war, he would get quiet, glance a way, shake his had and just say " no " My uncle would only tell me it was " cold " in Bastogne

 

[cigars]

My dad was in the Army Signal Corps in WW2. His unit was building weather stations and communications towers in preparation for the invasion of Japan. I used to listen in awe as a kid when he would talk about his experiences and the Burma road.

 

[salmon creek gary]

My dad was also a WWII veteran. Army Air Corps. He often said he hated his time in the army, so if there were any good war stories to be told, I never heard them. No souvenir firearms, either.

He did tell me about doing a lot of KP as a buck Private, and - after he made PFC - the shock of discovering that PFCs did KP, too. He said he lived for the day he'd finally make Corporal and get off the KP roster, but by then, Corporals were also making that roster. He claimed that when he finally made Sergeant he held his breath, just knowing that every other Sergeant in the army would blame HIM if the army then began putting Sergeants on the the KP roster.

I also heard a few tales about being a radio mechanic, but only after I was about 11-12 years old and showing an interest in amateur radio. The talk then was all about about electronic fundamentals and radio operating. Surprising me, he did have some souvenirs from the army. They included vacuum tubes, resistors, capacitors, crystal assemblies, two Japanese field telephones, a 1933 Radio Amateurs Handbook, and one U.S. military telegraph key. Fact is, Dad must've been dragging a huge duffel bag as he mustered out in 1945. Along with the those souvenirs came a woeful story about how airsick he got during B-17 flights for testing newly installed or repaired radio equipment. In fact, I heard about that often enough that I never wondered why Dad always preferred rail travel to air travel.

Then there was one sort-of war story he told about shipping out. Literally. He and more buddies than the merchant vessel could reasonably hold managed to survive a long voyage (he claimed it seemed like around the world) before arriving at Guam. Dad and most of his buddies were seasick almost all the way. Once at Guam, the shipmaster wasted no time setting his crew to hosing off the decks . . . directly onto all those soldiers still on the dock below the ship's rail. In later life, Dad wasn't much for ocean cruises, either.

There were a few more little stories, very few more, and all in that same vein; army life sucks. Needless to say, Dad had some quiet, sort of disapproving words for me when I decided to enlist in the early 1960s. Oh, he understood that the draft was still in effect and no one was hiring young guys unless they had their service obligation out of the way, but his disappointment still showed. Not sure I realized at the time that he was disappointed because all his years of badmouthing military life just hadn't sunk in. It wasn't until I was well into my second hitch - and safely back from Vietnam - that I understood how he felt. I also understood for the first time, those feelings that prompted him to keep, for all of his life, a large, framed picture of a B-17 bomber in flight.

Bottom line, as much as I appreciate the electronics parts and instruction that he passed along to me, I still can't help but wish he had mustered out of the army with two duffel bags, the second one holding a couple souvenir guns for me to play with.

 

[oldcorpgunny]

your lucky, my granddad was in the army during the invasion and my great uncle was in the 101st and jumped pre D day and was at Bastogne.
when id ask granddad about the war, he would get quiet, glance a way, shake his had and just say " no " My uncle would only tell me it was " cold " in Bastogne

I understand. There were subjects that neither dad or his friends cared to talk about.

 

[oldcorpgunny]

My dad was also a WWII veteran. Army Air Corps. He often said he hated his time in the army, so if there were any good war stories to be told, I never heard them. No souvenir firearms, either.

He did tell me about doing a lot of KP as a buck Private, and - after he made PFC - the shock of discovering that PFCs did KP, too. He said he lived for the day he'd finally make Corporal and get off the KP roster, but by then, Corporals were also making that roster. He claimed that when he finally made Sergeant he held his breath, just knowing that every other Sergeant in the army would blame HIM if the army then began putting Sergeants on the the KP roster.

I also heard a few tales about being a radio mechanic, but only after I was about 11-12 years old and showing an interest in amateur radio. The talk then was all about about electronic fundamentals and radio operating. Surprising me, he did have some souvenirs from the army. They included vacuum tubes, resistors, capacitors, crystal assemblies, two Japanese field telephones, a 1933 Radio Amateurs Handbook, and one U.S. military telegraph key. Fact is, Dad must've been dragging a huge duffel bag as he mustered out in 1945. Along with the those souvenirs came a woeful story about how airsick he got during B-17 flights for testing newly installed or repaired radio equipment. In fact, I heard about that often enough that I never wondered why Dad always preferred rail travel to air travel.

Then there was one sort-of war story he told about shipping out. Literally. He and more buddies than the merchant vessel could reasonably hold managed to survive a long voyage (he claimed it seemed like around the world) before arriving at Guam. Dad and most of his buddies were seasick almost all the way. Once at Guam, the shipmaster wasted no time setting his crew to hosing off the decks . . . directly onto all those soldiers still on the dock below the ship's rail. In later life, Dad wasn't much for ocean cruises, either.

There were a few more little stories, very few more, and all in that same vein; army life sucks. Needless to say, Dad had some quiet, sort of disapproving words for me when I decided to enlist in the early 1960s. Oh, he understood that the draft was still in effect and no one was hiring young guys unless they had their service obligation out of the way, but his disappointment still showed. Not sure I realized at the time that he was disappointed because all his years of badmouthing military life just hadn't sunk in. It wasn't until I was well into my second hitch - and safely back from Vietnam - that I understood how he felt. I also understood for the first time, those feelings that prompted him to keep, for all of his life, a large, framed picture of a B-17 bomber in flight.

Bottom line, as much as I appreciate the electronics parts and instruction that he passed along to me, I still can't help but wish he had mustered out of the army with two duffel bags, the second one holding a couple souvenir guns for me to play with.

I enlisted in the Marines while I was still in high school. I think that I was influenced by the stories that I had heard about WWII. Pop told me that I was nuts to join the Marines considering that the war in Vietnam was really ramping up. Years later, we both laughed at ourselves.

 

[jackrv]

I grew up in Multnomah county just outside the city limits of Portland.

My dad served on a DE in the Pacific an Uncle fought up the islands with the Marines, another uncle was with Patton in Europe from D-Day on.

Jack