Ed Weber was born in March 1924 in Saint Louis, Missouri. He had one older brother. He moved to Dallas, Texas when he was three. His father was a salesman and had been a doughboy in World War 1 but Weber did not know that until he got back [Annotator's Note: from his service in World War 2]. His father went to Saint Nazaire, France and drove an ambulance. He never got into any shooting. His grandparents on his father's side were born in Germany. His grandparents on his mother's side were born in Norway. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Weber what it was like to grow up during The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States.] He was five years old when it hit. Up until then, they were fine. They moved to a nice, middle class area in Dallas, and he started grade school. Times were hard. His cousin and her mother moved in with them. He did not know why then. That lasted a couple of years. He was not directly affected and had plenty to eat and things to wear. Men came to the door looking for food and his mother would make them sandwiches. He just thought that was life. It was great growing up in the 1920s and 1930s. The ice man would come in and you would leave the door open for him. The milkman would walk into the kitchen as well. They used horse drawn wagons. They had friends but were not particularly close with their neighbors. They moved about five times until his father had a home built. Today that house would be well over a million dollars due to the location. Weber was not close to his brother in the beginning. He was on the high school basketball and baseball teams and was well-known. Weber was just his little brother. After the war, they were inseparable. When Weber came home from the war, he had been in the Marines and gone for three years. Weber was a senior in high school when the war began. He registered for the draft. His brother was already at Texas A&M [Annotator's Note: Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas] in the School of Veterinary Medicine and did not have to go in. His brother got Weber's high school diploma for him since Weber had already left for the service.

Ed Weber went into the service on 5 December 1942 and went to the San Diego Marine Corps base [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California] on 7 December [Annotator's Note: 7 December 1942], one year to the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He got home from the war in November 1945. He was going to go to A&M [Annotator's Note: Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas] but it was an all-male, military school at the time, and he had had enough of that. SMU [Annotator's Note: Southern Methodist University in University Park, Texas] was more interesting to him. He was not in touch with his brother except through writing to his mother. Weber was a member of the 52-20 Club [Annotator's Note: a government-funded program that paid unemployed veterans 20 dollars per week for 52 weeks]. He and his friends partied every night. His brother came home after discharge wearing his sailor suit. Weber did not want to get in the Navy because of that sailor suit. [Annotator's Note: Weber laughs.] His brother had his leg hurt but was all right. They talked about where they had been. He had been a corpsman in Norman, Oklahoma pretty much the whole war. He was able to go home on the weekends. After that, they became inseparable. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Weber what he was doing when he learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He was playing basketball in his backyard that Sunday. His mother had the radio on, and they stayed by the radio. He knew he was 17 and thought he was a dead duck. He finished school. People today have heard about World War 2 and know no more about it than a dog does. When Weber sees a flag burned, it tears his heart out. He has lost patience with the latest generation. If it was cloudy, they would protest that there is no sun today.

Ed Weber saw a movie with John Payne [Annotator's Note: John Howard Payne, American actor] and Maureen O'Sullivan [Annotator's Note: Irish-American actress] called "The Shores of Tripoli" [Annotator's Note: "To the Shores of Tripoli", American film, 1942]. He liked the dress blue uniforms. [Annotator's Note: Weber gets up and points out photographs on his wall.] He had not thought about them too much. He did not want to get in the Navy. He thought about the Army, but he could not see himself as a "dog face" [Annotator's Note: a nickname for an Army infantryman] soldier. He thought about the Air Corps, but he did not have enough confidence that he could fly in a plane. He was a senior in high school [Annotator's Note: when the war started]. There were two graduating classes in those days, in January and in June. He was in the January class of 1942. He had three good friends. One went into the Air Force, the others and Weber decided to go into the Marine Corps after Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal Campaign, 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943; Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands] and the Marines were the darlings of the Pacific War. He was told it was dangerous. At that age, you do not think you are going to get killed. He had heard about 7 December 1941 [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] on the radio with his mother. At first, they said the United States had retaliated. Fast forward a year and he went to Dallas [Annotator's Note: Dallas, Texas]. The guys he was going in with never showed. He enlisted and they gave him breakfast. They got on a train in first-class sleepers all the way to San Diego [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California]. The sergeants who met them there were not nice. They got into the base. He went back a couple of years ago. The airport in San Diego adjoins the base now. He could only recognize the parade ground where he was later discharged. He was in Platoon 1155.

Marine Corps boot camp was not bad for Ed Weber. They needed bodies then, so it was not that bad. Today, boot camp is 12 weeks long but during the war it was seven weeks. When they broke boot camp, they got what was called "scatter papers" [Annotator's Note: assignments to different units]. There was no ceremony in dress blues like now. 99.9 percent were all riflemen. At the end, it was him and about eight others whose names had not been called. He thought he had not made it. While in boot camp, it was close-order drill, bayonet drill, and three weeks at the rifle range at Camp Matthews [Annotator's Note: Camp Calvin B. Matthews or Marine Corps Rifle Range Camp Matthews, now part of the University of California, San Diego, San Diego, California]. They shot at targets at 100 yards, 300 yards, and 500 yards. He qualified as sharpshooter which increased his pay. Those that did not qualify were culled out. He felt sorry for them. They never saw them again but he does not know what happened to them. It was very cold in San Diego. When the papers were not given to them, they were taken to Santa Ana [Annotator's Note: Santa Ana, California] to El Toro Marine Base [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in El Toro, California]. They went to another base and then to the blimps. They were assigned to guard the blimp base. It was a good deal. It was a Naval Air Station, and the Navy ate like the Trumps [Annotator's Note: the family of Donald John Trump, 45th President of the United States] do, like royalty. They had duty in four hour stretches and then were off for 24 hours liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He went to Hollywood in Los Angeles [Annotator's Note: Hollywood, Los Angeles, California] on a short train ride. He got his picture taken in Hollywood in his dress blues. He wanted to spend the war there. The girls loved the Marines. He had an M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] on guard duty. He did jeep patrols. He would check the bulletin board every day to see what shift he was on. They would get off duty and wake up friends on purpose to aggravate them. On the bulletin board one day, he did not have an assignment. He had been put on the bottom as the orderly to the captain of the base. Captain Colter [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] was full-blown Navy. Weber had a desk right outside his office with another guy to alternate with. His job was to just sit there until needed. He would do things like his daughter shopping. She was spoiled. Mrs. Colter might want to go someplace. He will never forget the day after six months of that. He and seven others were transferred to 4th Marine Division [Annotator's Note: Company A, 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division]. Fun was over. The division was being formed at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California]. They first got a furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. [Annotator's Note: Weber takes some photographs out of a desk drawer.] He went to Dallas [Annotator's Note: Dallas, Texas] for ten days.

Ed Weber was on furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] in Dallas [Annotator's Note: Dallas, Texas]. He was at a club and got a call over the loudspeaker to come to the phone. It was a girl. In those days, when you came home for any reason, your picture was put in the paper. Some girls saw it and saw he was home on furlough at his parent's house. She was probably 12 years old. He was walking back to his table and was intercepted by the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. They had briefly met previously. They started dating and corresponded all through the war. He thought he was going to marry her. [Annotator's Note: Weber shows pictures of her to the interviewer.] The last time he talked to her was two hours before the interview. When he got home, they talked about getting married. He had no money and did not want to get married and wanted to go to school. He sent a lot of his money home during the war. He did not have a job and she had guys after her. She married one of them and moved to Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois]. Later in their lives, they reestablished contact. She was married to a famous boxer named Buddy Garcia [Annotator's Note: Robert "Buddy" Garcia; Army veteran and American professional boxer]. Weber used to have lunch with both of them. Buddy died and Weber and she are seeing each other again. It is not a romance, but they are good company with each other.

Ed Weber reported to Oceanside [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California]. They [Annotator's Note: Weber and the rest of Company A, 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division] were in the Marshall Islands [Annotator's Note: the Marshall Islands Campaign was comprised of the battle of Kwajalein Atoll and the battle of Eniwetok Atoll; 31 January to 22 February 1944], Saipan [Annotator's Note: Battle of Saipan, 15 June to 9 July 1944; Saipan, Mariana Islands], Tinian [Annotator's Note: Battle of Tinian, 24 July to 1 August 1944; Tinian, Mariana Islands], and Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Battle of Iwo Jima, 19 February to 26 March 1945; Iwo Jima, Japan] campaigns. He left out of San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] on a straight shot to the Marshalls [Annotator's Note: 13 January 1944]. This was the only invasion with no staging area. Once you see those islands, one is like the other. The pretty islands were in Hawaii. Weber was "scared shitless" going there for the first time. On their third or fourth day out, general quarters [Annotator's Note: call to battle stations] was played. His men were below the waterline listening to sports on the radio. The hatches were battened [Annotator's Note: locked and sealed to prevent water entry] so they could not get out. They would be sacrificed if a torpedo hit. All the engines are shut down and you just waited. A minute seemed like an hour. The "All Clear" was sounded and they went on. Weber was hurt the first day while unloading supplies. There was no dock and there was coral everywhere. He slipped and cut his right leg open. He stayed one night on the beach, was taken to a hospital ship, and that was the end of his combat in World War 2.

After cutting himself badly on coral in the Marshall Islands, Ed Weber was put on a hospital ship [Annotator's Note: 31 January 1943 at Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands]. He woke up after four or five days in a hospital in Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. He was there for about eight weeks. He was sent to a transient center on Oahu [Annotator's Note: Oahu, Hawaii]. He was walking well enough to go back to his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company A, 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division] which was on Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Mariana Islands]. They never knew where they were going until they were on the way. At the center, which was a huge tent city within walking distance of Pearl Harbor, he was waiting for transportation to Maui [Annotator's Note: Maui, Hawaii]. The 5th Division [Annotator's Note: 5th Marine Division] was forming up with what was left of the 4th Division [Annotator's Note: 4th Marine Division]. Weber was in A Company, 23rd [Annotator's Note: Company A, 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division]. They were playing Blackjack [Annotator's Note: playing card game] and it was raining. Laddie J. Burian [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to verify identity] was a First Sergeant, Regular Marine Corps. First Sergeants run the war. He asked if anyone could type. Weber took typing in high school. Weber was losing so he volunteered. Weber typed up a whole bunch of muster lists for First Sergeant Burian and was sent back to his area. He never said thank you. Two days later, they were to go to Pearl to go to Maui [Annotator's Note: Maui, Hawaii]. Weber's name was called and told to go to Fleet Headquarters at Pearl Harbor. He was transferred to the Service Company at the transient center. He was sad because he wanted to get back to his friends. He became Burian's company clerk. He had mixed emotions. He spent many months typing into 1945.

When Ed Weber first got overseas, the war was not going well. In August 1942 when the Marines took Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal Campaign, 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943; Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands], the United States was losing the war. The Marines almost did not take it because the Fleet left them with no supplies or ammunition. The 1st Division [Annotator's Note: 1st Marine Division] won the war on Guadalcanal. If not, the Japanese would have taken Australia and New Zealand. The big break came at Midway [Annotator's Note: Battle of Midway, 4 to 7 June 1942; Midway Atoll]. They knew then that they would eventually win the war. Weber was at the transient center in Hawaii when the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945] were dropped. He was best friends with John Skoco [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] from Portland, Oregon who was in charge of the boiler in galley number five. Weber was going to get breakfast with him. Skoco told him a single bomb had wiped out a whole city in Japan called Hiroshima. Weber said one bomb could not do that. He said he hoped there was more than one. He thought surely, they would give up. Iwo [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan] had fallen. Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] had fallen and was going to be the staging area [Annotator's Note: for the invasion of Japan]. They were readying to close his base because the war was too far away. They figured they would lose a million men [Annotator's Note: if an invasion of the Japanese mainland had to be undertaken]. The whole fleet was in Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] getting ready. After they dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, they were encouraged, but they were not going to give up. Skoco and he were watching "Beau Geste" [Annotator's Note: American film, 1939] with Gary Cooper [Annotator's Note: born Frank James Cooper, American actor] and gravel was thrown at the Quonset hut [Annotator's Note: prefabricated metal building]. He told his friend he thought the war was over. The lights came on and they were told Japan had surrendered. They went outside to a landing tower and the entire fleet was shooting off pistols and rockets for three hours [Annotator's Note: Weber shows a picture of that to the interviewer]. You cannot believe the emotions he had. He went home in November [Annotator's Note: November 1945].

Ed Weber used the 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 attend SMU [Annotator's Note: Southern Methodist University in University Park, Texas] and got a degree in business. He partied for nine months first. He thinks he is the sole survivor of the group he went through boot camp with. They had parties every night. They had a joke: "You never ask a returning veteran what branch he served in. If he was a Marine, you would already know. Otherwise, you would just embarrass him." The war was over. It is a different generation today. In those days everybody's, including civilians', purpose was to win the war. People would take you in. They would not let you spend money or worry about getting home. Cars would pick you up. There is no such thing as a good war, but the country got together then. Weber did not want to stay because there was no future, and he had enough military. He loved the Marine Corps but had enough. He went into the insurance business at a small California company. After a year, he quit, though they tried to talk him into staying. He got a job at a large company. He stayed there for ten years in the claims department as a supervisor. He wanted to be more than that. He got a phone call from Chicago and was asked to come there. They came down to talk to him instead. This was the Zurich Insurance Company [Annotator's Note: Zurich Insurance Group Limited, Zürich, Switzerland] which is probably the largest in the world. They do business in 159 countries. The possibilities were endless. They came to close to doubling his salary. It was a disaster. He had never seen something so poor. He worked every weekend and from nine to nine. They brought in Ed Geisler [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to verify identity] from California and Weber nursed him along. It took Weber a little over two years to get it straightened out. Weber got the Dallas [Annotator's Note: Dallas, Texas] branch. He was a corporal when he left the Marine Corps. He retired from civilian work a little over 30 years ago [Annotator's Note: from the time of this interview]. He started with his company around 1960. He worked in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] as a regional manager. He hated to leave Dallas and his friends. He traveled all over for them. There were four regional managers who covered the whole United States. He hated Chicago. A Branch Manager's job opened up in Dallas. He did it but was not happy. The country was then split into four zones. He moved to Jackson for five years and had a ball. The zone concept did not prove to be fruitful, and they were closed. He had to go back to Chicago. He did not enjoy leaving his family. He wanted to be president of the company. He was 60 years old. He did not get to be president. His best friend did get it. He told his friend he did not want to be the number two man and wanted to go back home and be a good family man. Houston [Annotator's Note: Houston, Texas] came open and Weber took the job. He stayed there until he retired. He got an awful lot of money.

Ed Weber is proud to have been in the Marine Corps. He loves his country and the Marine Corps. It upsets him greatly to see "morons" demonstrating against the president. Whether you like him or not, he deserves respect. One day in the middle of the war, at the transient center, they were called out. They filled the whole parade ground. There was a Seabee [Annotator's Note: members of US naval construction battalions] camp, and they heard a lot of commotion from up there. A convertible came by and pulled up close to him. In the backseat was Franklin Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States], Douglas MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area], and Admiral Nimitz [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Sr., Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet]. Roosevelt spoke for about 30 seconds. MacArthur had to leave the Philippines per instructions of the president and left Wainwright [Annotator's Note: US Army General Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, IV] in charge. MacArthur was not well-loved by the Marine Corps because he was a narcissist who was vain and conceited. They knew at the time that Wainwright was left to surrender, go on the Bataan Death March [Annotator's Note: the forced march of 60,000 to 80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war carried out by the Imperial Japanese Army in April 1942], and suffer at the hands of the Japanese while MacArthur got to go to Australia. Wainwright was named to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor [Annotator's Note: the Medal of Honor is the highest award a United States service member can receive who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor] and MacArthur vetoed it because he had surrendered too easily. After the war ended, then MacArthur approved of it. The Marines knew that, and it did not sit well with them. The reason they were in Pearl Harbor that day is because there was a disagreement between MacArthur and Nimitz about how to win the war. MacArthur had promised to free the Philippines. That is the only reason the United States went back. Nimitz wanted to bypass them. That was wasted money and lives. It delayed the war. The Marines had a saying that "With the help of God and a few Marines, MacArthur returned to the Philippines." Weber does not think Americans know about the war other than that there was one. On FOX News [Annotator's Note: American broadcast news organization], they have a "Man in the Street". They asked Ivy League [Annotator's Note: American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the United States] students questions. They asked a student from either Dartmouth [Annotator's Note: Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire] or Yale [Annotator's Note: Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut] why the Fourth of July [Annotator's Note: Independence Day in the United States] was celebrated. The student replied it was because there was no school. That is not isolated. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer notes that The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana tries to educate the younger generations with actual history with stories like Weber's.] Weber feels there should be something. He learned about World War 1 in school. It hurts him that it is forgotten and seems as if it was all for nothing. Weber would tell a ten-year-old watching this to love your flag and love your country. We have lost our way and it is up to the young people to pledge allegiance to the flag and do not burn it. Do not repeat history. Things that happened in Nazi Germany are happening today in the Middle East and Turkey. Number one is to love your country.