Alex Carter Sr. was born in December 1920 in Mississippi. He had three brothers and six sisters. He was the oldest child. His father worked for the highway department and his mother stayed at home. There were no jobs and no money [Annotator's Note: during the Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s]. They had to live off the land. His father had 120 acres of farmland. Carter took a bus to school. He spent most of his time outdoors. When he was 17 years old, he went to CCC Camp [Annotator's Note: Civilian Conservation Corps]. He learned how to build a road through solid rock. He had to have his parents' permission to go. He received five dollars a month and his mother got 25 dollars a month. He did not finish high school. He made it through the tenth grade. Most of his schooling came through the Navy. He signed up for the Navy in February 1942 in New Orleans [Annotator’s Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] and went to Norfolk, Virginia for basic training.

Alex Carter Sr. went to boot camp in Norfolk, Virginia. He wanted to go to Vicksburg, Mississippi for welding school, but he went to St. Louis, Missouri for electrical school. He spent three months there. He came out as a petty officer. He boarded a new ship in New Jersey. [Annotator’s Note: Carter talks about hitchhiking.] They went on a shakedown cruise [Annotator's Note: a cruise to evaluate the performance of a naval vessel and its crew]. He had to go to the hospital because his shoulder kept getting out of place. He then left out of Boston [Annotator’s Note: Boston, Massachusetts]. He was on escort duty and supply duty in the Mediterranean Sea. As they went through, they were on submarine duty. They had to open up the supply line for North Africa. They had 300 men on the destroyer. Everybody knew everything. The biggest battle he was in was at Anzio off of Sicily [Annotator’s Note: the Battle of Anzio, 22 January to 5 June 1944; Anzio, Italy]. They had to escort eight specially trained men onto the beach. Carter was on the bow of the ship testing the depth of the water. In Sicily, Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] got in trouble. They would get a newspaper telling them what was happening on other ships and onshore.

Alex Carter Sr. went to Southern France. They used 50-cycle electricity. Carter met a girl that spoke perfect English. Her father was an electrical engineer. He helped them. His ship had seven Battle Stars [Annotator's Note: a device worn on a campaign ribbon to indicate the number of campaigns a ship or individual took part in]. After France, they were sent to Cuba for more training, then they went through the Panama Canal [Annotator's Note: Manmade canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in between North and South America] to San Diego [Annotator’s Note: San Diego, California]. From then on, they were on escort duty against the Japanese. They were part of the troop transports. He enjoyed the Mediterranean more. They lost a lot of ships in the Pacific. Carter was in the Navy for four years. He did not want to stay in longer. The Navy sent him to school to make movies. He went into construction as an electrician once he was out of the Navy when he was 26 years old. He worked until he was 68 years old. His final rank was first class electrician. Carter was on deck when they were bombarding the islands. The Navy is number one. He joined the Navy because he would have a clean bed to sleep in and he did not want to sleep in a foxhole somewhere. The war made a lot of men out of a bunch of kids. He would not change anything if he could do it again. He did not want to talk about his experience, but then it got to be that everyone knew what they did.