This is from a conversation my cousin Genet had with our Grandpa Varden, summer of 2014.
There is quite a lot to it, so it will be in installments. This is the second part. You can start at the beginning here.
{But you didn't got to college for two years after you graduated? Because you were drafted?}
Well, I had two years in the service, and got back in time to start my freshman year.
{So you knew that you were going to be drafted as soon as you were done with high school?}
It was mandatory. You just knew that as soon as you graduated you were going to be in, unless you were 4-F.
I had a friend, one of my best friends in high school Robert Burkholder. His brother was killed in France in the war. And they had some kind of a policy that if a sibling was killed they were deferred for a year. So he was able to go right to college. But the rest of us int he class all the boys were drafted within that summer.
{So where did you go right away?}
Camp Barclay, TX
That was basic training. We called that the asshole of the United States. You walked in mud up to your ankles and then dust blew in your face. It was basic training and there were quite a few of us that were COs. We were in noncombatant service. We all were put in the medical corps. There were quite a few Seventh Day Adventists. There was one other Mennonite in the group that I got to be friends with. And there were a few other denominations in the group.
In the European tier, if you were Red Cross, both sides respected that you didn't shoot the medics.
But the Japanese didn't abide by that. The Red Cross was just a sign to shoot at. They decided all medics should take rifle training. Well, we noncombatants refused to take rifle training. So we spent six weeks doing KP and were kind of ostracized. When we were marching around camp they had their rifles, we didn't. So we were the blankety-blank COs and so forth.
So there were six weeks of that which were just a waste of time. Since I had taken typing in high school they sent me to clerk's school. So that was another four months I didn't have to go overseas. But when that was over then they... right at that time was when they invaded Okinawa. The casualties were so severe they had to ship replacements in.
{So how did you feel when you found out you had to go over there?}
Scared spitless.
{What were your responsibilities?}
Since we were noncombatants we were assigned to a first aid station. I was assigned to the 96th Division. On Okinawa there was the 7th Calvary Division and the 96th Division and another. There were 3 army divisions and 2 Marine divisions.
When we first got there our job was just to go pick up wounded and bring them back. You needed no training for that.
I kinda got immune to it. We would frequently wait until dusk. If the army advance had a retreat, they had wounded that they would leave behind. At dusk we would go out and pick up these wounded and bring them back. You were kind of concerned, if you didn't get back before it was dark you would be worried that your own soldiers would think that you were an enemy coming.
After a while I finally go to work in the aide station mostly. And that was safer.
{When you were over there, were you afraid for your life most of the time? Did you ever feel comfortable?}
Almost continually. The Okinawas had - it's kind of hard to describe - they had burial sites built into a hill. They had kind of a cement top on them and they had, the coffins (what amounted to kind of a coffin) were inside of these. And we'd often empty these out and use them for aide stations. They were fairly safe. If we didn't have any of those, then we dug a hole to sleep in. Actually, you were not only afraid for your -
At one time there were two Marine divisions to our right. Our two divisions were ahead of the Marines. The Navy shot flares at night to light up the area in front of the Marines and these shells landed in our area, and they killed a couple of soldiers int he company right beside us. They'd call in and try to convince them to stop sending those flares up, but friendly fire
You'd duck down in your foxhole pretty deep when you heard those shells coming in. So you'd worry about friendly fire and you'd worry about the enemy. But, I was fortunate int he fact that I wasn't there when they invaded Okinawa. We were replacements. The 96th Division had 100% casualties.
Most of those were before I joined them. The divisions that were there all had severe number of casualties.
{Were you there your entire two years or did you move around?}
We were replacements. The island was about half won when I ended up there. Of course, after that battle was over they just turned Okinawa into a staging area to invade Japan. After the battle was over they built airfields and got ready to invade.
I was in Okinawa when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, which ended the war. The 96th Division would have been involved in invading Japan. I would imagine that not many people that invaded Japan, at least for the first wave or two or three, would have made it.
{After the war ended, was that when you got to go home?}
We spent a little time in Okinawa. That was one of the things I was very concerned about after we dropped the bomb and we knew the war was over. Would I get back in time to start college in the fall? Luckily I did get back in time for that.
Actually, the one thing that still kind of bothers me to this day was that I had a very good friend on Okinawa. He was a Quaker boy, about the same deal I was I k ind of felt maybe we should have gone to CPS camp, but because of public pressure he ended up in the service like I did, as a noncombatant. I got sick. a very bad case of tonsillitis, and they shipped me off to a hospital. It was just a matter of "You're sick, go pack your stuff and go to the hospital." I was never able to keep in touch, I never came back to that division. I ended up coming back and lost track of not only him but some of the other fellows. I wish I could have kept track of him.
{Did you have any communication with your family?}
We wrote letters. Got mail. I never did tell mom where I was. But one of my letters had the return address of 343 Regimental Division, and she happened to read in the paper that that was on Okinawa. I never did tell her what was going on.
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