Carl Light was born in a small town in southern Missouri and was inducted at Fort Leonard Wood [Annotator's Note: Fort Leonard Wood in Pulaski County, Missouri]. He was born in April 1925 in Birch Tree [Annotator's Note: Birch Tree, Missouri]. He grew up and went to high school there. He had five sisters and two brothers. He was the oldest son. His father worked in timber and they always got by and ate [Annotator's Note: during The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Light if he recalls where he was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He does not recall where he was, but he was afraid the war would be over before he could get in it. He is proud of his service. He was drafted on 10 March [Annotator's Note: 10 March 1943] and it was cold and miserable. He went to Jefferson Barracks [Annotator's Note: Jefferson Barracks Military Post, Lemay, Missouri] in 1943 then got on a train south to Camp Polk, Louisiana [Annotator's Note: in Vernon Parish, Louisiana]. The base was new then. He took basic training there in a tank unit. It was great. He was 18 and everything was great. Light was trained to drive a tank. He was at Polk a short time. He was selected for the Army Specialized Training Program [Annotator's Note: generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers] and went to Jonesboro Teacher's College [Annotator's Note: unable to identify]. He was there for an orientation and then was sent to Princeton University [Annotator's Note: in Princeton, New Jersey]. He was in engineering and it was kind of difficult. He was doing fine and then the invasion was planned [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Men were needed more than engineers, so he was sent to the 10th Armored Division in Georgia. He was assigned to Company C, 37th Armored Infantry Battalion [Annotator's Note: actually Company C, 61st Armored Infantry Battalion, 10th Armored Division]. He was given an M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] and made a Rifleman. Riflemen were the low men on the totem pole. It was not that bad. The people he served with were nice people. A few could not read or write. That was not too unusual at that time.

Carl Light had not done much traveling before he went into the service. He adapted to military life really well and enjoyed it. The 10th Armored [Annotator's Note: 10th Armored Division] was slated to go over in the invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Their commanding General [Annotator's Note: Major General Paul W. Newgarden] went to Washington, D.C. and was killed on the way back when his plane was hit by lightning [Annotator's Note: on 16 July 1944]. Getting a new commander set them back a little bit. They got all of their vaccinations and were qualifying on different weapons before going overseas. Light qualified on the M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] and just about everything they had. He got a furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] in New Jersey at Christmas for a few days. Being away from home was not that difficult. His unit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 61st Armored Infantry Battalion, 10th Armored Division] moved to Camp Shanks, New York [Annotator's Note: on 1 September 1944] to go to Europe. That Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] would never have made the trip to the Pacific. They went in a convoy [Annotator's Note: on 13 September 1944]. It was a boring trip. Light had no duties on ship, and he did get seasick. The Atlantic [Annotator's Note: Atlantic Ocean] is rough. One of the Liberty ships broke in two. They landed in England but stayed on the ship. The invasion was going better than planned so they went right to the coast. They crossed the Channel [Annotator's Note: the English Channel] to France [Annotator's Note: Cherbourg, France on 23 September 1944]. There were no facilities to land at, so they climbed down cargo nets with everything they owned on their backs. They went into rafts that were tied together. There was nothing for them to do because they needed tanks and tracked vehicles which they did not have. They were put to clearing mines. The coast is so muddy in France. The white sand in the movies is not France. He got along well with his Lieutenant who made him his jeep driver.

Carl Light and his unit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 61st Armored Infantry Battalion, 10th Armored Division] started moving across France [Annotator's Note: on 25 October 1944] and took a few towns. They went to the Metz [Annotator's Note: Metz, France] area where the concrete forts were. Metz fell. They were in the 3rd Army there. Light remembers the first time he was shot at. It is hard to explain. You think the other guy might get hit, but not you. The fight at Metz was a pretty good fight. It was dirty stuff. Light was still driving a jeep then. He really messed up and was made a sergeant. [Annotator's Note: Light laughs at this.] They talked about the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] and knew the Germans would be coming through their area when the weather got right. He thinks they moved to Luxembourg [Annotator's Note: to Luxembourg, Luxembourg on 17 December 1944] and he was told to take his squad and furnish security for two intelligence people. The men were scared. They were Jewish guys who were a nervous bunch who wore no insignia. They were there to interview the German prisoners. Light never had hatred for the Germans. After the war, he was assigned to a place with SS soldiers [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization]. They would sit up until two or three o'clock in the morning talking. They were smarter than the average German soldier. By the time Light got into combat, the Germans had been beaten down and did not have the meanness that they had early in the war. They took a lot of prisoners. At the Battle of the Bulge, once the intelligence men got what they were after they left. Light went back to his outfit. Light was like every G.I. [Annotator's Note: government issue; also, a slang term for an American soldier] and thought Americans were big, strong, and could do anything. Even in the Battle of the Bulge.

Every morning, Carl Light and his unit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 61st Armored Infantry Battalion, 10th Armored Division] would attack some town [Annotator's Note: during the Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. If they took the town, they would find somewhere to sleep that night. If they did not, they were on a hillside and it was cold. The ground was frozen. Everybody had a piece of TNT [Annotator's Note: flammable toxic compound; high explosive] tied to their knife and had a fuse stuck in their hair to blast a hole in the ground so they could dig. There was a lot of snow. Both of the Germans and Americans would turn their searchlights on the clouds to get a reflection. Everything would be as bright as day in a sort of weird light. They were not prepared for winter at all. They got some new boots during the 15 days they were there. They had two pairs of wool socks. They changed their socks at night. A lot of guys would not do it due to the cold and would develop trench foot [Annotator's Note: immersion foot syndrome]. There were a lot of guys wandering around away from their outfits. Light's tanks and heavy artillery was outside of Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium]. Stragglers would come in. They would feed them, give them a rifle, and make a squad until the next time they could cut out. Light was with a lot of guys he knew from back in the United States. You do not cut out on people you know. They had been in Luxembourg when the Battle started. They were responsible for the area from Luxembourg City [Annotator's Note: Luxembourg, Luxembourg] to Bastogne. The city had a lot of nice wine cellars. The officers frequented those. Light was within a half a mile of Bastogne but did not go in. The Germans did not give much of a fight there. The Germans would not take their tanks off the roads. Light had a half-track [Annotator's Note: M3 half-track; a vehicle with front wheels and rear tracks] knocked out by a German tank while he was in it. The men were going over the side. One guy was killed. When you lost somebody, you hated to lose them. They were nice people but that is the way it goes. You have to keep going. He did not get any Christmas presents in 1944. The Germans must have gotten them. They pulled out on Christmas Day [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1945]. He thinks they went from the 3rd Army to the 7th [Annotator's Note: 7th Army] and to Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany] in the Bavarian Alps. After the Bulge, they did more training. They did not relax. They accepted it. After the war was over, they were told they were going to the Pacific. A lot of them felt bad about that. They went up in Austria [Annotator's Note: Innsbruck, Austria] and were going to northern Italy when the war ended [Annotator's Note: on 7 May 1945]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Light if he recalls the fighting in the Saar-Moselle Triangle, also called Orscholz Switch, between the Saar and Moselle Rivers. A part of the Siegfried Line of German defenses, but he does not.]

Carl Light and his unit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 61st Armored Infantry Battalion, 10th Armored Division] captured Trier [Annotator's Note: Trier, Germany on 27 February 1945], but he does not recall much about the town. He was in a half-track [Annotator's Note: M3 half-track; a vehicle with front wheels and rear tracks]. They would go through a town and he could look into the apartment buildings where G.I.s [Annotator's Note: he means former German soldiers] were watching them. Some of them had missing limbs and it was eerie. Light feels that they could have easily been shot by them, but nothing ever happened. He had very little contact with German civilians. He felt for them. In the latter part of the war, there was a policy that if there was not a white flag out, their building would be knocked down. The old people could not help it and they had their homes knocked down. It was cold and they had no food. It was not a big deal when the war ended, because every day there was a new rumor. One day, an Army truck passed and tossed them some wine, telling them the war was over. It was true. After the Germans surrendered, they were made palace guards. One of Strauss's [Annotator's Note: Richard Georg Strauss; German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist] grandsons played the piano at the officer's club. The Germans had not harmed him because of his name. Light and his crew had to pick him up because he had a curfew. They would get ice cream. The German post office was gone, transportation was gone, and they had nothing. Light was lucky in that his tank battalion was not around the big cities. Light was infantry. A tank is no good by itself. At night, infantry has to be around the tank and that was his job. They were put into different outfits to train [Annotator's Note: for the invasion of Japan]. In one of them, Light's gunner was a professional ball player in the minor leagues. He was really bitter and everyone once in a while he would say bad things about the Captain over the radio.

Carl Light returned home after the first of the new year [Annotator's Note: in 1946]. As an 18 year old, Light did not know a lot of things. Later he learned about the atoms, but he does not recall what he thought at the time [Annotator's Note: of the nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945]. Personally he would have had a vendetta against the Japanese. The people of Europe were just like him, but the Orientals [Annotator's Note: generally means "eastern"; traditional, now unfavorable, designation for anything from Asia] were different. He does not think that way anymore, but he did at the time. Most Americans trace back to Europe. After the war, Light would take his squad [Annotator's Note: Light was a member of Company C, 61st Armored Infantry Battalion, 10th Armored Division] on a hike in the mornings or do calisthenics. He came back on a boat over Christmas [Annotator's Note: December 1945] and New Year's [Annotator's Note: January 1946]. He returned from Marseilles [Annotator's Note: Marseilles, France] through the Caribbean [Annotator's Note: Caribbean Sea] which was nicer than the North Atlantic. Light was put on a train at Newport News [Annotator's Note: Newport News, Virginia] for Jefferson Barracks [Annotator's Note: Jefferson Barracks Military Post, Lemay, Missouri]. He was there for two days and was discharged in early January [Annotator's Note: 16 January 1946] as a sergeant.

Carl Light did not take advantage of the G.I. Bill. He had a good time and enjoyed life. He did think about staying in the Army. It was a good deal. He had no trouble with PTSD [Annotator's Note: post traumatic stress disorder]. Every once in a while, his wife would say he would have something happen at night. He got fired a few times, so he thinks maybe he had problems transitioning back. His most memorable experience of the war was one day when he was in a convoy. They went over a dry creek and up a hill. At the top, there were dead Germans stacked on one side of the street and dead Americans stacked on the other side. That bothered him. 50 years later, Joe McCarthy from Saint Louis [Annotator's Note: Saint Louis, Missouri] asked him if he remembered. McCarthy had remembered it too. The bodies were in all kinds of positions because people freeze that way. Light does not know why he fought in World War 2. If he had a chance at a deferment, he would not have taken it. The VA [Annotator's Note: United States Department of Veterans Affairs] is pretty good to him. People respect him. He does not know what the war means to America today. He does not feel there is the respect for the flag or the service that he had when he was younger. Light thinks The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] and teaching the history of the war is important. When he was discharged, he was not discharged from his unit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 61st Armored Infantry Battalion, 10th Armored Division] as it had been broken up. He went back to some reunions. There were very few veterans at the last one he attend though. He kept in touch with some of the men he served with for some time but has lost track of them.