WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.525
At State everybody took

2
00:00:04.525 --> 00:00:09.524
ROTC mandatory the first two years

3
00:00:09.524 --> 00:00:13.384
and then you had no further obligation.

4
00:00:13.384 --> 00:00:20.258
But those who finished two years, who wanted it, could take the third and fourth year.

5
00:00:20.258 --> 00:00:26.264
You couldn't do it just because you wanted to;

6
00:00:26.264 --> 00:00:31.656
you had to want to do it and then you had to be selected.

7
00:00:31.656 --> 00:00:40.997
It was no doubt that they were likely to pick the president of the student body

8
00:00:40.997 --> 00:00:47.563
as one of the ones to do the third and fourth year of ROTC.

9
00:00:47.563 --> 00:00:53.791
Of course you know a lot of people.

10
00:00:53.791 --> 00:01:04.864
So that happened and as soon as I graduated I became entitled to

11
00:01:04.864 --> 00:01:08.842
a reserve officer as a lieutenant in the infantry.

12
00:01:08.842 --> 00:01:16.070
So that set me up when they bombed Pearl Harbor

13
00:01:16.070 --> 00:01:24.634
that I was immediately called and in a week or two I was at Fort McClellan, Alabama.

14
00:01:24.634 --> 00:01:40.942
So it was a period of four years until my division that I served in [went] overseas,

15
00:01:40.942 --> 00:01:44.145
in the last year of the war.

16
00:01:44.145 --> 00:01:49.357
I trained troops at Fort McClellan, Alabama for three years

17
00:01:49.357 --> 00:01:57.990
and there they recognized my interest. So I went in as a lieutenant

18
00:01:57.990 --> 00:02:03.001
and was to be second in command.

19
00:02:03.001 --> 00:02:11.011
The number two in the battalion, which at that time was four companies,

20
00:02:11.011 --> 00:02:15.087
got in an automobile wreck

21
00:02:15.087 --> 00:02:21.673
and the fellow that was supposed to be my captain

22
00:02:21.673 --> 00:02:24.519
was told to take his place,

23
00:02:24.519 --> 00:02:27.721
so before I ever saw any troops-they had to come there-

24
00:02:27.721 --> 00:02:33.524
I was a commander of a company! [Laughs]