Carl Nygren was born in March 1927 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It was a colony town. They had a radio. There were many ethnic churches. Many people spoke broken English and they could not sign their names. They lived in poverty during the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s]. People had to use coal to heat their houses. Nygren’s father was a politician. His father had been elected constable and then alderman. They used to have criminal arraignments in their living room. His father had an office where he held court. His mother was a stay-at-home wife. He did not know he was poor until he was in college. They had money coming in and they had food. His parents separated when he was 15 years old. His mother moved to Washington, D.C. in 1942. Nygren became a messenger boy in Washington, D.C. He was at the Slovak Grade School [Annotator’s Note: now The Czech and Slovak School of Sokol Washington] bowling Alley. He was on a bowling team. People were bowling and someone ran in and said the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. A couple of years earlier, his father was listening to Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] on the radio and told Nygren that he would be in this war before it was over. His father had fought in the trenches in France and Belgium during World War One [Annotator's Note: World War 1, global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918]. He had been in some serious combat. Nygren found his diary and there were vivid descriptions of the combat. His father never talked about his experience. His father would say they had no business getting involved in the war. Nygren was the oldest child. He had to run the house when his mother moved to Washington, D.C. He had to do the cooking and make sure the kids got to school. He had three younger siblings. He had two brothers and a sister. The next June, they moved to Washington, D.C. with their mother.

Carl Nygren remembers Washington, D.C. was a segregated town. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] was president and his wife, Eleanor, wanted to bring change to the city. The men were going into the service. The women were working for the government. African Americans were moving north. Nygren had a job as a messenger boy. He went to high school. His mother got him a job as a file clerk with her at the surgeon general. He moved to Washington, D.C. in his junior year. He had to work hard to catch up to the other students. The men who were in the surgeon general’s office were handicapped, and there were men in the service on duty there. Most of the people who worked there were women. He also worked in a grocery store. He thought he should go into the Army, so that he would have a future. He studied military German while he was in school. He was very interested in linguistics.

Carl Nygren was drafted before he graduated high school. He had to take an exam for basic English and arithmetic. He had to go to Fort Meade, Maryland. He was in the Army. They were put in a sleeping car attached to a train. They went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for field artillery training. For the most part, it was flat country with some hills. He made it into the mule pack in the Army. His job was to take care of the mules. The mules were used to carry small artillery pieces into the mountains. Nygren had to explain that he did not know mules. He asked for a job with a telescope. He was put in a flash and sound unit. They had to put microphones on the ground. They could locate enemy artillery 20 to 30 miles away. They had to know the weather and math in order to do this. Nygren was put into the sound unit. He went home on furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and then was transferred to another unit in Oklahoma. He was assigned to the 618th Sound and Flash Field Artillery Observation Battalion. He was 17 years old. When they arrived at the camp, they were not assigned ordinary barracks. They were assigned quarters in the African-American troops' part of the camp. It was a long, single-floor house. It had one pot-belly stove in the middle of the room. There were no toilets in the building. They had to go to a different building to use the toilet and shower. Being the only white troops in that part of the camp, they had to walk through open fields to get to the facilities that white troops were allowed to use.

Carl Nygren was stationed in Oklahoma for training. They had to become map readers. They would be dropped in the woods and then have to cross country back to camp. They would camp out overnight. They were training for combat. They laid out wires and put together artillery pieces. They had to concentrate on the sound patterns that were coming in. During one of the maneuvers, they got caught in a snowstorm. Nygren’s shoes froze to his feet. He had frozen toes. When he got back to camp he took a shower and almost passed out from the discomfort. He arrived in Oklahoma around Christmas time. They got on a troop train, but it sat there for hours. They had to get off the train because their equipment was attached to the wrong train. They had to go to lectures because they did not have their equipment. He was promoted to technician fifth grade. They would have lectures on what was happening during World War Two in combat. Some of the men were open socialists. Nygren had an uncle who was involved with Polish politics. The man in charge of their presentation was a communist who got his information from the Soviet Union. They finally got new equipment. They started training for the invasion of Japan. They were used to identify enemy weapons. They were told the casualty rate would be 96 percent for the invasion of Japan.

Carl Nygren was delighted that the bombs were dropped on Japan [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. It was about the casualty rates on both sides. The Japanese were trained to fight on the beaches. Even after the bombs some officials did not want to surrender. He heard the atomic bombs were dropped by the Army, then the war was over. His mother lived in Washington, D.C. He would go to the airport and bum a ride to Washington for furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He had to take a detour to Birmingham [Annotator’s Note: Birmingham, Alabama], and he got an education on segregation while on the train. He got a ride on a B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] back to Oklahoma. It was extremely hot in the plane. When he returned to Tulsa, Oklahoma he heard the war was over. When he got back to camp, his unit was going to be absolved. They were shipped back to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Nygren stayed in the sound unit and became a teacher. He taught mines, booby traps, hand grenades, and sex hygiene. He was 18 or 19 years old lecturing large groups of men. He was put in charge of the recruits in their barracks. When he was stationed in eastern Oklahoma, there were Indian [Annotator’s Note: Native American] populations. [Annotator’s Note: Nygren discusses sex and sexually transmitted diseases.]

Carl Nygren went to training school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. [Annotator’s Note: Nygren talks about going out with a friend]. They had to crawl under machine gunfire. They had to experience this before going into combat. Some people were terrified and would freeze in place. Nygren did not see anyone get killed. When they were on a maneuver practicing to attack pillboxes [Annotator’s Note: a type of blockhouse, or concrete dug-in guard-post, normally equipped with loopholes through which defenders can fire weapons. It is in effect a trench firing step, hardened to protect against small-arms fire and grenades, and raised to improve the field of fire], they were using live ammunition. Nygren gave lectures for four or five months. He was discharged in April 1946. After the war ended, they had to have a certain number of 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 get discharged. Nygren had very few points because he had not been overseas. He was discharged after 22 months. He went back to Fort Meade, Maryland to be discharged. He did not want to re-enlist. He did not have a rank. He needed to go get a job. He returned to Washington, D.C. to live with his mother. He got a job for the Veteran’s Administration as a searcher, who found files that someone else lost. Veterans had to file claims for benefits. The bureaucrats would lose the files and the veterans would go months without money. Then he attended a Polish college in western Pennsylvania. He was in class with refugees from Russia.

Carl Nygren remembers December 1944 in Tulsa [Annotator’s Note: Tulsa, Oklahoma]. He went to the USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations]. He was asked if he wanted to go to a Christmas party. He went to a very nice home. They had a bunkhouse for the men in their garage. They had dinner and opened gifts. The lady of the home told him he was welcome to come any weekend. Nygren became her driver for social events. The parties would have generals and colonels present. He would let the people tell him their problems. Later, he became a successful lawyer. Those people were very good to the G.I.s [Annotator's Note: government issue; also, a slang term for an American soldier].

Carl Nygren had to go on a 25-mile march with a full pack. He saw some people pass out afterward. After 20 miles, the singing became crude. People were drawing on their last energy. When they finally made it back to their barracks, they were exhausted. Nygren discovered there was a cracking point for people. They had to raid a competing camp. He had to cross fields, and he was shot during the exercise. He decided to serve because everyone was serving. His friends were going. He had no future. He thought he would learn something. He wanted to get away from home. He did not have any thoughts about getting killed. He was serving his country. He did not think about the consequences. He grew up in the Army. He had to learn to take orders from people he did not respect. He went through law school. During the first few months, an uncle paid for his tuition. Then he went to school using 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]. He had four calendar years to use the G.I. Bill. He went to the University of Chicago [Annotator’s Note: Chicago, Illinois] and got a degree. The museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] was a tremendous experience. If people do not study history, they might repeat it.