Arthur George Green was born in Rock Port, Missouri in April 1926. His family moved to Wilsey, Kansas when he was about three years old. Green grew up working on the family farm, and did so until he was 15 years old. He attended one year of high school at Council Grove [Annotator’s Note: Council Grove, Kansas]. He was able to solve problems in algebra, but not in the way that the teacher wanted him to. Green quit high school and throughout his life, people offered to help him pay for an education, which he declined. He joined the Army when he was 18 years old. He could have stayed out of the Army as he was working as a farmer, but instead opted to enlist. The following week he got a letter summoning him to Fort Leavenworth [Annotator’s Note: in Leavenworth Country, Kansas] for a physical. He then did basic training at Camp Roberts in California. The training was interesting, Green was trained by Sergeant Sutton [Annotator’s Note: phonetic spelling], a Navy veteran from Kansas. Sutton had retired, but the Army needed more people to train the troops so he was brought out of retirement. Green often volunteered for training exercises, to the point that Sergeant Sutton told Green that he needed different volunteers. During one excursion away from the base, Green was rewarded and allowed transportation back to base, not needing to hike the 15 miles back. As soon as they finished basic training, they were given a brief leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to visit friends or family. Green stayed with his girlfriend and her family in Cedar Point [Annotator’s Note: Cedar Point, Kansas]. He reported back to Camp Beale, California. That is when President Roosevelt died [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, died 12 April 1945]. When Green departed via ship, it was his first time ever being on a boat and he was extremely sea sick. The Army had yet to assign him to a unit. He was being sent as a replacement. Green passed through Guadalcanal [Annotator’s Note: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands] and then landed in Mindanao [Annotator’s Note: Mindanao, Philippines]. He got off a landing craft and walked through water onto the island. When they arrived, they were told to get rid of their gas masks as they were not needed.

The Army assigned Arthur George Green to the 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. Green was taught how to dig a foxhole. Near their position was a minefield and the soldiers were warned to stay far away from it. Three soldiers went into it and were killed by bouncing betties [Annotator's Note: German S-mine, Schrapnellmine, Springmine or Splittermine]. From then on, Green listened to every word of warning offered. He was assigned to a .30 caliber machine gun [Annotator’s Note: Browning M1917 .30 caliber water cooled heavy machine gun] group as the ammo carrier. During one outing, the rifle company needed a volunteer to go on a scouting mission. Green volunteered, but was refused. Instead, a new soldier who had not even been there a week was picked to go. They came back without the new soldier, not even realizing his absence. The Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] took him prisoner, and when he was returned, the Army inquired if he attempted to desert. While Green is not sure what happened, he wrote an article and told the Army that the soldier was not a deserter, but was a new recruit and as a result was scared and got left behind. They moved out from that area to an even bigger one. Everyone had their foxholes dug and were playing cards or visiting with their friends. A Japanese sniper in a coconut tree fired upon them, forcing them to take cover in their foxholes. One man had been shot, with the bullet passing through his cheek, hitting his teeth, before exiting out of the other cheek. If the shot had been any higher or further back, the man would have been killed instantly, but he survived. When they moved out again, they were instructed to take as much ammunition as they could, as they would not be getting any for days. The night before they moved out, the Red Cross came to them and offered them beer, but not water. Due to this, Green still refuses to donate to the Red Cross. The troops were out of water by the time that they began moving. As they advanced, they encountered a pile of dead Japs, and more Japanese soldiers in their foxholes. It rained every day so the soldiers had to gather rainwater and add chlorine tablets to it to purify it. The Japanese fired on them, killing one of their medics. Green carried the ammo and once he finished that task, he also had to set up traps for the Japanese soldiers. At night, soldiers stood watch for two hours and took four hours of rest. One night, Green spotted an enemy outside of his foxhole and fired on him, but could not find a body. The next morning, they engaged the Japanese soldiers. Green did not see any soldiers, but was hit by a piece of shrapnel. He was told to put in for a Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: the Purple Heart Medal is an award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy], but he declined, as the wound was superficial and would heal. Later, he got a carbuncle [Annotator’s Note: cluster of boils] on his shoulder which affected his ability to carry equipment. Green’s captain sent him to the hospital to get medical attention. They then told him to put in for a Purple Heart again, which he declined yet again. [Annotator’s Note: Green shows the interviewer a photo of his .30 caliber machine gun group.]

Arthur George Green’s unit [Annotator’s Note: the 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division] was taken out of the hills [Annotator’s Note: at this time, Green was in Mindanao, the Philippines] and put on bridge guard. The bridge spanned a small river, which Green thought of more as a creek. While guarding that bridge, the war ended [Annotator’s Note: the Japanese surrender was announced 15 August 1945, the official surrender documents signed 2 September 1945]. They were then moved to a beach. The closest town was Mindanao, but there was nothing there after the Japanese took it during the war. Green recalls a 40 acre field of white crossed adorning graves going in every direction, and wondered if the parents of those dead soldiers ever learned what happened to their children. He spent every day swimming, and gave his breakfast scraps to Filipino children who came to their camp asking for food. Eventually Green got so tired of wasting his days at the beach that he asked his captain to transfer him to the engineers. He learned about the explosives they were using for three weeks until his company moved out to Japan for occupation duty. He spent time at two different islands in Japan, Kyushu and Shikoku. All they did was check on schools and do guard patrol. Green’s sergeant talked with the school teachers and made sure they were not talking to the children about the war. The Japanese people seemed happy to see Green and the other American soldiers. Nobody wanted World War 2 to continue. The soldiers were often invited to the civilians’ houses. Green had to go via train to deliver equipment to another group of soldiers once, and a young Japanese man offered him some dried fish which Green declined. Along the edges of towns closer to the water, houses were built several feet off the ground, and underneath them wild hogs often thrived. In the mountains on a bivouac [Annotator’s Note: temporary camping without tents] Green saw extremely tall grass and wondered why the Japanese did not raise cattle here when they were currently importing beef from the United States. Some of their vehicles ran on firewood. Green went on R& [Annotator’s Note: rest and relaxation] to a town and saw older model Fords which ran on electricity.

Arthur George Green spent about a year on occupation duty in Japan [Annotator’s Note: stationed in Kyushu and Shikoku]. He got into the military on 14 November 1944 and got out on 15 November 1946. Green took a troop ship back, but on their first try a typhoon forced them to turn around. On their second attempt, the storm turned around and gave them extremely rough weather to travel in. When he returned to Washington, the military was trying to convince everyone to reenlist for Korea [Annotator’s Note: the Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. Some did sign up to go to Korea, but many just wanted to go home now that World War 2 was over. Green’s father was living in a boarding house with several other people in Wichita [Annotator’s Note: Wichita, Kansas]. Green contacted an older employer for living quarters, who allowed him to stay with them. Once he got his mustering out pay [Annotator’s Note: money given to servicemen to help restart their lives after military service], he bought an old vehicle. In Cedar Point [Annotator’s Note: Cedar Point, Kansas] his old boss offered him his old job, which Green accepted. He also refused to use his G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] to go to business school. He was close to reenlisting for the Korean War, but getting his old job back stopped him. War is hell. Green slept in foxholes for three months. When the war ended, they at least had Army cots to sleep on. Green thinks that people do not really understand World War 2 today. The United States did not really gain anything from the war, and instead people lost their lives for pretty much nothing.