Alton Bourg was born in November 1926 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was one of nine children. His father was a woodworker and when the war came, he worked seven days a week for Andrew Higgins [Annotator's Note: Andrew Jackson Higgins; founder of Higgins Industries in New Orleans, Louisiana]. Bourg sat on the front porch with Higgins. That was a big thing. They made old time ice cream once. Bourg's father did woodwork on the boats. Bourg worked in his brother's grocery store while going to school. Around noon one Sunday, Bourg was flagging a ride to go into Harahan [Annotator's Note: Harahan, Louisiana]. A guy picked him up and he heard about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] on the car radio. He knew what it meant. In the grocery, people would come in and have cocktails at night. Bourg would listen to their conversations, so he was aware of what was going on. He never dreamed he would be in the Army because he did not dream it would last that long. He had lived in Harahan since 1927. When somebody left, everybody would go down to the train station to see them off. He finished high school in 1943. He went to Tulane [Annotator's Note: Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana] part-time with his wife. He had kissed her in the first grade and knew her all of his life. He delivered groceries to her family. He was drafted on 5 February 1945 and was discharged on 31 October 1946.

Alton Bourg entered service in the Army at Fort Meade, Maryland [Annotator's Note: Fort George Meade, Maryland] and was waiting to go to Japan. A colonel kept asking for volunteers who could type, and Bourg would do it. The colonel opened up a discharge center preparing for the end of the war. That was the best thing that ever happened to him in his life. He was in charge of that and he discharged people 24 hours a day, 2,000 to 2,200 people per day. Bourg had to interview a lot of people. They did not have tape recorders then, but he wishes he would have had one. The men were coming in from everywhere. They made lists of everyone getting out. He would put men from Louisiana at the top of the list. He had trained in Texas and he had pneumonia. His mother and future wife came to see him in the hospital. All of Bourg's brothers went into the service. One was on a Red Cross ship in the Pacific. Another was on Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines] and the islands. Everybody was willing to serve and wanted to help in those days. He lived in Barracks 267 at Fort Meade. He was a sergeant and had his own room at the front with the other sergeants. His company was a Headquarters Company and was not going anywhere. They had poker and dice games. He would go into Baltimore [Annotator's Note: Baltimore, Maryland] and Washington D.C. If he got a day off, he would go into New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] to see the big bands play. If you were in uniform, you could flag a ride because everybody would pick you up. One time he was picked up by Benny Goodman [Annotator's Note: Benjamin David Goodman; American jazz bandleader]. He got to stay in the hotel with him. They went to a theater where a colored [Annotator's Note: African-American] band was playing. Bourg was in heaven.

Alton Bourg was stationed with men who were mostly from Pennsylvania and were professionals in their civilian lives. They knew they were not going anywhere [Annotator's Note: other than their assignment at Fort George Meade, Maryland]. Bourg was only there due to a Colonel who had brought him. It was near the end of the war. Bourg was there for 20 months. The food was so good it was unbelievable. All the people getting discharged were getting the best meals of their lives. Most of the cooks were from Louisiana and made big pans of cornbread and birthday cakes. Nobody wanted to go to town to eat. All of Bourg's brothers came home safely from their service. Bourg would return home on furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He attended basic training at Camp Wolters, Texas in the summer and it was hot. He did not like it. He trained on all types of weapons. He got hurt and was put on a machine gun on maneuvers that continually fired over the heads of the troops being trained. He will never forget that. Those men were scared to death.

Alton Bourg does not remember where he heard about the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] being dropped on Japan. He was settled where he was because the war was coming to an end. The bombs ended everything. It was a terrible thing but was needed. He was discharged in October 1946. His job never stopped. Fort Meade, Maryland was a big discharge center. He had accumulated enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to separate and he did not stay in. He came home on furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] with a man being discharged. When they got to Union Station in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana], the man met his little girl for the first time. Bourg watched them and that has never left his mind. It was a good scene. Bourg had a little trouble readjusting to civilian life. He worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad for 42 years. They were very good to him. He was in politics for 12 years and they let him do that. A few years before he retired, there was a meeting in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. He was asked to speak. He threw away his prepared speech and just told them he was a "Coon-Ass Cajun" [Annotator's Note: the Cajuns are an ethnic group mainly living in Louisiana and Texas]. He was married in 1948. His wife had a strict father and Bourg had to tow the line. He had the best mother-in-law. One of the biggest things in Harahan [Annotator's Note: Harahan, Louisiana] was that Hank Lauricella [Annotator's Note: Francis Edward Lauricella] became an All-American football player at Tennessee [Annotator's Note: University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee]. Because of that, Bourg helped form the Harahan Sportsmen's Association [Annotator's Note: 1958]. He came up with an idea to have bicycle races. He thinks the discipline he learned in the service, helped with his careers. He created different procedures that the railroads used. They talked about that in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California].