[Annotator's Note: This clip begins with a conversation in progress.] Lloyd Dendy was born in July 1922 in Homer, Louisiana. He had three brothers and one sister. His father worked in the oil fields, so they moved a lot. He went to seven grade schools and three high schools. At that time, if a man had a job, he had to walk to it. Horses and mules were used in the oil fields. He graduated high school in Jefferson, Texas then went to Kilgore Junior College. He needed more money so he dropped out to work. When the war broke out [Annotator's Note: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], Dendy had gone to New Iberia on an errand and heard the news on the car radio. He knew where Pearl Harbor was and had a good picture of what happened. He finished his job then went to work in Magnolia, Arkansas. On a day off, he went to Shreveport, Louisiana and tried to enlist but he was turned down because of his poor eyesight. He continued to go back and try again. About the middle of the year [Annotator's Note: 1942], he was accepted and sent to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: Louisiana]. He had worked with a guy who was in the Marine Corps. His brother and he both enlisted at the same time in 1942. He went to San Diego, California for boot camp.

Lloyd Dendy and his brother went to Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego, California by train. When they arrived in San Diego they had no idea what was going on. Dendy was in good physical condition, so he had a jump on most people. They trained on the M1 rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] and he shot sharp shooter, just below expert. He also trained on just about every weapon made. After boot camp, he was assigned to the 12th Defense Battalion. Defense Battalion is a misnomer. The 1st Defense Battalion was at Midway Island [Annotator's Note: Midway Atoll, unincorporated United States territory]. The 3rd Defense Battalion was at Wake Island [Annotator's Note: United States possession] and was overrun. Defense Battalions consisted of antiaircraft groups with 90mm [Annotator's Note: 90mm heavy antiaircraft gun], 40mm [Annotator's Note: Bofors 40mm antiaircraft autocannon], 20mm [Annotator's Note: Oerlikon 20mm automatic antiaircraft cannon], .50 caliber guns [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun]; a couple of platoons of tanks; 155 howitzer [Annotator's Note: M1 155mm towed howitzer]; and a couple of heavy antiaircraft guns. He was part of the heavy antiaircraft guns. The 90mm had a range of about 6 miles. It was dual purpose, surface and antiaircraft. At the time, the Japanese owned the skies, so it was a good weapon to have. Dendy went from San Diego to Niland, California to the desert and trained on the 90mm. They cross trained into night and infantry operations and defense generally. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him to describe the operation of the 90mm gun.] There was a gunner who ran the shells in and fired it. A man on the elevation. A man on the training wheel. This was about the time that radar came out and it was not very good. A man cut fuses. Five people handled ammunition, one kicking away the hot shells. There were about a dozen men on each gun. Dendy was a gun captain and responsible for the gun's elevation. He would use hand wheels to elevate and turn the gun. As radar got better, they could go automatic. Everything was focused on infinity. They did manage to knock down a few planes.

Lloyd Dendy went from San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] to Oahu, Hawaii to the old Camp Catlin which was an old Marine Corps Raider base. They trained practically 24 hours a day for two or three months. They ran all kinds of tactics and slept in the rain. It's always raining there. They had daylight liberty on Sundays. They had 25 mile marches and ran three miles with gas masks on which is not easy. They slept in pup tents. Mongoose were all over the place. If one got into your tent you did not touch it. They trained in unarmed combat there. They were taught to use anything as a weapon, including your bare hands. The training was very realistic. One of the instructors would start his lecture by kicking the feet out from under one of the Marines. He would put his foot on him and then lecture. [Annotator's Note: Dendy describes it graphically.] The instructor would finish by saying, "if that so-and-so gets up after that, you better run." [Annotator's Note: Dendy laughs.] You could pretty well defend yourself against anything. Dendy got into Honolulu twice on liberty with just about enough time to turn around and come back. He got to see Waikiki Beach and was not impressed. He left Oahu around 1943 for Townsville, Australia. They stopped in Nouméa, New Caledonia. On the way into Townsville, they went over the Great Barrier Reef which was truly a sight to remember. There was a strike going on and the captain had to dock his own ship. He took out some wharf doing so. They got off the ship and set up camp at Armstrong's Paddock. They were in a convoy and were escorted when they came in. They resumed training and did a lot of their ship loading themselves. The Australians would not handle ammunition. They were able to have what they called "dungaree liberty." There was so little liberty time, that they were free to go in their fatigues. There was a little bakery that made sourdough bread. You could buy a steak dinner and chips [Annotator's Note: French Fries] for 32 cents. The main dish in the mess halls was mutton stew so they ate out a lot. Dendy was earning 50 dollars per month, plus five dollars overseas pay. Most of them did not have too much use for the money. He was a PFC [Annotator's Note: Private First Class].

Lloyd Dendy stayed in Australia about two months [Annotator's Note: April to June 1943]. He did a lot of night training. There were two red lights in the harbor. One night, he and a buddy decided to skip the training and go into town. They picked the wrong light and walked all night. Nobody missed them. They served warm beer in Australia, which he found very strange. The people were very nice and friendly, but there was not a lot of time to mingle. They loaded up in LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] and occupied Woodlark Island [Annotator's Note: Papua, New Guinea]. There was also a regiment of the Army there. They got a lot of attention from the Japanese. It was hot and had a lot of mosquitos. Dendy got malaria for the first time. There was a beautiful beach. It was about 3,000 feet to the reef. They could see the Milky Way [Annotator's Note: Galaxy] at night. The moon looked like he could touch it. One of the most romantic places he had ever seen and there wasn't a girl within 10,000 miles. [Annotator's Note: Dendy laughs.] A beautiful place to swim. The situation was not good for eating. They would dynamite fish in the lagoon. There were mushrooms there that would glow at night. Air raids were almost nightly. There was also Bedcheck Charlie [Annotator's Note: nickname given to aircraft that performed solitary, nocturnal operations]. The Japanese did not have good control over where they were at that time. Once the 90mm gun [Annotator's Note: 90mm heavy antiaircraft gun] went off with the big ball of flame, it gave them a target. They would open up when they were pretty sure they could hit them. They had several strafings but did not have many casualties. They had foxholes dug outside for cover. It was mostly high altitude bombers at night. The Australian Coastwatchers [Annotator's Note: an early warning network of Allied military intelligence operatives] would generally let them know how many planes [Annotator's Note: Japanese] were coming and what time they left. They were some of the bravest people he ever heard of. They would be on independent islands keeping track of Japanese movements.

Lloyd Dendy thinks that they shot several [Annotator's Note: Japanese] aircraft down while on Woodlark Island. There were yellow-crested cockatoos on the island. They would make a big racket. Once in a while, someone would get tired of them and just start shooting at them. Swimming and fishing were excellent. They would patrol one side of the island and the Army the other. They would look for bananas and papayas more than for a Japanese presence. No Japanese ever showed up. They had no land action. He was there about three or four months and then went to Oro Bay, New Guinea to prepare for New Britain [Annotator's Note: New Britain campaign, New Britain, New Guinea, 15 December 1943 to 21 August 1945]. An Army group had been issued .45 automatics [Annotator's Note: M1911 .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol]. Dendy and the men acquired many of them. At Oro Bay, they ran into their first real native population. The bay has one of the highest tides in the world. They were leaving the troop ship for landing barges. One man lost his footing and fell between the barge and the ship. He was smart enough to get his gear off and get underneath before getting crushed between them. Oro Bay had black sand beaches. There were a lot of rivers and creeks inland that were ideal for washing and bathing. The female natives wore grass skirts and went topless. The men wore loincloths. They were real grass skirts and they lived in grass huts. They chewed betel nut and their teeth were black. Dendy had the worst fright of his life there. He was leading a patrol when a native stepped out from behind a tree, threw his hand up to salute, and grinned. His teeth were black and his hair was in a big afro [Annotator's Note: thick hairstyle of very tight curls] cured with red clay. This was all during training for Cape Gloucester [Annotator's Note: Battle of Cape Gloucester, New Britain, New Guinea, 26 December 1943 to 16 January 1944].

Lloyd Dendy was in the advance party [Annotator's Note: of the 12th Defense Battalion] on the first day at Cape Gloucester [Annotator's Note: Battle of Cape Gloucester, New Britain, New Guinea, 26 December 1943 to 16 January 1944]. He had come in on landing craft. They stripped down to field packs before going into New Britain. The Navy was still bombarding. The troop ships were five or six miles from the beach. The Navy was behind them firing over their heads. Aircraft were working over the beaches. This was Christmas Day. In between announcements, they would play Christmas carols. They needed cheering up. It was eighty degrees, raining, 12,000 miles from home and Christmas. There were very few casualties and they landed in the thickest jungle Dendy had ever seen. You could not see ten feet. There were lost people everywhere. There were very few places vehicles could get off the beach. The next morning the Japanese counter-attacked. Dendy was under fire on the beach end, holding it. They were doing alright until a Jap opened up with an aa gun [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft] firing explosive bullets. Dendy set up the 90mm [Annotator's Note: 90mm heavy antiaircraft gun] on the beach and had air attacks that first night. There was a Japanese field artillery position a short way away that had been overrun. They had little silk bags of gunpowder with Japanese writing on them and they made excellent souvenirs. They poured the gunpowder out. Around dark, they got word that Japanese planes were coming in. "Lights out" was ordered. Someone thumped a cigarette right into that pile of powder and gave the Japanese a target. They worked them over pretty good. You can hear a dive bomber and you will remember it. When you hear it pull out of the dive, you try to crawl under your helmet because you know a bomb is on the way.

Lloyd Dendy and another man were on the side of a bomb crater and got blown out of their foxhole. They both vibrated for days and had concussions. There were not a lot of casualties on New Britain. The Army started building an airstrip. Dendy and his outfit [Annotator's Note: 12th Defense Battalion] moved up above the airfield. They had two people killed by lightning in the first few days. One night, the tent he was in was struck. It killed two outright, two had to go to the hospital, and two of them, including Dendy, just woke up in the rain and did not know what happened. It did not seem right to have men die that way. Typhus fever was bad there. They had casualties from that. They had to wear leggings again to try and avoid fleas. Almost every night, bombers came in as well as small planes that would keep them up at night. They did shoot some down there. They never saw one on the ground after hitting it. It took about three weeks to finish the airstrip. While they were building it, a plane was coming in crippled and the plane landed on the wrong end and went into the jungle, killing everyone aboard. There was a volcano near them. Below the crest, there was a spring with cold, clear water. It was weird to see that coming out of a volcano. They did not do much patrolling because the Japanese took off for Rabaul [Annotator's Note: New Britain, Papua, New Guinea]. New Britain is a big island. They did go everywhere armed. They were still the 12th Defense Battalion but mostly just the antiaircraft group.

Lloyd Dendy went to the Russell Islands [Annotator's Note: Solomon Islands]. Pavuvu and Mbanika were coconut plantations. Dendy was on Mbanika. They got ten days off with nothing to do but rest. There were no towns or civilian populations. There was not enough room for the whole 1st Marine Division to train at the same time. He wrote home often. The only way to get mail, was to send mail. It was generally his mother and an aunt. The aunt would make prune cakes and they were delicious. He wrote his brother who was all over the Pacific too. He was with the 8th Defense Battalion at first and went into the Philippines. They put up signs that said, "With the help of God, and a few Marines, MacArthur took the Philippines." MacArthur [Annotator's Note: US Army General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] kicked them [Annotator's Note: 8th Defense Battalion] out of the Philippines. He had no sense of humor. There was great swimming there with deep channels and clear water. There was an outbreak of staph [Annotator's Note: infection caused by bacteria] there. Where ever you had a hair growing there would be a pustule. The really hairy men were miserable. They would paint themselves with purple dye [Annotator's Note: Gentian Violet; antiseptic dye] every morning. It was a real sight. The uniform of the day was generally a pair of shorts. In the tropics, you stay wet most of the time and you catch everything that comes along. There were palm rats that were the size of a possum and they would jump out of the trees onto the tents. There was very little to do. The Bob Hope [Annotator's Note: born Leslie Townes Hope, American comedian, actor, singer, author; named "Honorary Veteran", 1997] show came through, but Dendy was on a run to Guadalcanal for supplies. They loaded up 25 cases of beer by mistake. On the way back, there was an incident on the LCT [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Tank] that cost them 13 cases of beer to the Navy. There was a can for just about everybody. There was no Japanese air activity. They had to break in the replacements. The replacements had new uniforms and clear complexions. The others had been taking Atabrine [Annotator's Note: an anti-malarial medication] for so long, their skin was a brownish-yellow.

Lloyd Dendy met people from different parts of the country. They had different accents and different ways of doing things. A guy named Castille [Annotator's Note: no given name provided] from Kansas and he got along. They did not keep in touch after the war. From the Russell Islands [Annotator's Note: Solomon Islands], Dendy went to Peleliu [Annotator's Note: Peleliu, Palau]. It was the first time he saw rockets [Annotator’s Note: naval rockets fired from landing craft] being used. He went in the day after the landing on an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] with the weapons. It is a small island with no place to hide. The Japanese were dug into caves and had weapons all over, especially knee mortars [Annotator's Note: Type 89 Grenade Discharger]. The Marine Corps had more casualties from knee mortars than anything else. They had to defend pretty vigorously. The beaches were not secure when Dendy came in. They mostly came under ground fire. The Japanese air force had been obliterated by this time. He does not recall firing on an air mission the entire time, but did fire some ground missions. One day, three mortar shells came in but did not hit anyone. Later that day, one round came in and hit seven people. All wounded. They would always return fire. Peleliu was almost all coral rock with caves all over the place which contained water. On this island, there were 13,000 Japanese and 3,000 Marine casualties. There were bodies literally all over the place. You became accustomed to it. He does not think that is a good thing really. There were blue bottle and green bottle flies there. You had to eat in the dark to not have your food covered by these flies. They were coming from the bodies that were scattered everywhere. There were also a lot of coconut crabs which are 12 to 14 inches long with one enormous claw. Dendy was afraid of them. One of his biggest thrills was when he heard a noise on watch. He got his rifle and knife ready. In the moonlight he saw a coconut crab and thought it was a Jap sneaking up on him, which they did. He did not sleep that night on watch. A lot of people do not believe him.

Lloyd Dendy was the company bootlegger on Peleliu [Annotator's Note: Peleliu, Palau]. They made a still out of aluminum airplane tubing and set it up in a cave. The alcohol must have been 180 proof and had to be cut 50-50 with water. The officers overlooked it as long as they got their fair share. They called it "jungle juice." He thinks it is why he no longer drinks. They used anything that would ferment, but mostly fruit. The Marine Corps had some of the greatest thieves in the world. They could get anything. One boy's specialty was making candy. Just get him the sugar and flavoring. He would pour it onto corrugated tin to cool and then chop it up for candy. They had a jumping rope contest there too. Once things settled down, they had movies. They had to put out two or three layers of guards to stop anyone from getting through, particularly into hand grenade range. There were still incidents with Japanese detached from their units and trying not to starve to death. One Japanese soldier tried to get something out of the mess hall. When he was challenged, he killed himself by holding a hand grenade to his stomach. They would not give up. They would kill themselves after trying to kill you first. They left that Japanese lying there in the entrance with his stomach blown out. Everybody just walked right by him and went in to eat. That is the way you became. Japanese ammunition had been gathered up and placed in a big dump. It caught on fire one day and Dendy was maybe 400 or 500 yards from it. Explosions were going off and he took off. He thought he was pretty fast, but an officer went by him. You could tell he was an officer because he had lieutenant bars on his skivvies. Most of them were in shorts or skivvies. The sand flies were really bad there and nearly ate them to death. It was a spectacular sight – tremendous explosions. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him about Henry Ford.] The Marines generally stole their tents from the Army Air Forces, the rich people. Henry went to the front of his tent and stretched. Someone shot him in the belly. They made a sweep but never found the sniper. Henry lived. He remembers it because his name was unusual.

Lloyd Dendy was in the hospital with malaria and did not return to Peleliu [Annotator's Note: Peleliu, Palau]. He had flare-ups of his malaria. The rules said you had to have a fever of 102 [Annotator's Note: degrees] before you would go to the hospital. You would have fever and chills. If you had 104 fever you were pretty sick. If your temperature got in the range of 110, you were in a bare tent on a bare cot. If you did not have a chill, you were burning up. You were given enormous doses of Atabrine [Annotator's Note: an anti-malarial medication] to knock the fever down. You had to be clear of fever for several days before being released from the hospital. Dendy was in for two weeks. There was a mental tent for patients having problems. One man was standing in line at the mess hall, threw his gear down, jumped in the ocean, and announced he was going home. They picked him up and had to restrain him. Most of the time they ate pretty good at the hospitals. From there, Dendy caught a boat to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. The Golden Gate Bridge was a beautiful sight. He got on a train to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. The first thing they did was take away their weapons and ammunition. He was processed out and put on a train under escort. He was dropped off in Dallas [Annotator's Note: Dallas, Texas], given leave papers, a bottle of Atabrine, and told to report to Key West, Florida. He and his brother were both home at the same time. It was the first time he had seen him in three years. They had to watch their language as they had not been around civilized people. It was quite an adjustment, even to be on a 30 day leave. He went into East Texas to see more family. Gasoline and sugar were being rationed. A friend gave him a 50 pound bag of brown, unrefined sugar. He gave it out to his family. He got his allotment for gasoline and his relatives gave him more tickets for gas than he could use. He had two or three lady friends before going in the service, but they all got married while he was overseas. His father had a big garden, raised chickens and cows so the food shortages did not bother them.

After leaving the Pacific, Lloyd Dendy was sent to the Key West Naval Operating Base [Annotator's Note: Naval Base Key West, Florida]. It was a submarine training base. There must have been 20,000 sailors there. Marines and sailors do not get along. Dendy says, "sailors are fine people as long as they are 20 miles offshore." [Annotator's Note: Dendy laughs.] They had a lot of fist fights there. He found Key West enjoyable. He could type so he wound up as an assistant in an office. He was a corporal and assigned to the recreation department. They had a 36 foot Chris-Craft boat. They would take it out fishing three times a week. They would go out with 12 men, 12 cases of beer, shoeboxes of sandwiches and they would fish all afternoon. They would sometimes catch 700 to 800 pounds of fish. They would bring them back to the brig where the prisoners would clean them. They would then distribute them to the mess halls and the mess sergeants loved them. They had a slots room attached to the beer hall. Under the rules, they had to spend the profits or turn it over to the Navy. They made sure they spent it. They could outfit teams of any sport you could mention. It was a real change for Dendy. There 60 Marines there and every one of them had some tropical disease, bad wounds, mental problems or any combination.

Lloyd Dendy had been on a ship coming home when the war in Europe ended [Annotator's Note: 8 May 1945] and President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] died [Annotator's Note: 12 April 1945]. In Key West, he knew they would be in the United States about six months and then go back overseas. The next big landing was going to be the Japanese mainland and most of the men knew they were going to be in that. They spent a lot of time in recreation at Key West. Dendy had the worst attack of malaria there that he ever had. He woke up about four o'clock in the morning and made his way to sick bay. He had a 106 degree fever. He went into a coma and three days later woke up blind. His sight came back slowly. He and another man who had malaria would donate blood to the mental patients. They were using high-fever therapy [Annotator's Note: now called Pyrotherapy] at that time for mental problems. They would inject those men with malaria. He does not know what the cure rate was. Dendy weighed 127 pounds when discharged from the hospital. The other man and Dendy were assigned to the captain of the hospital as orderlies. The orderlies would alert the wards to inspections. The doctors would go over to Cuba, come back with cases of rum, and give some to the captain. Dendy would then pass it around to the others. Dendy had the run of the place. Good food, excellent doctors, excellent care. He got kicked out because they thought a hurricane was coming and needed the space for evacuees.

After he returned to duty, Lloyd Dendy had a case come up where a member had a death in the family. The Red Cross is the notifying agency. They called him and told him of this. They said they would pick him up for transportation. The kid had allotment papers made out. The Red Cross was going to advance him the money and he would pay them back through allotments. Captain McMasters threw a fit and was going to go down and wipe out the Red Cross. It was not right to charge him. Dendy put him in touch with Navy Relief [Annotator's Note: Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society] and within a couple of hours he was on his way by plane. That soured them on the Red Cross. Dendy had a girlfriend in Key West [Annotator's Note: Key West, Florida] who was the secretary of the commanding officer. Dendy knew more about what was going on at the base than he did. Dendy made friends with the instructors for the submarines. He was invited aboard and go on a run, but he declined. He was discharged in November 1945. Before he left Key West, he was in one the biggest battles of his life. It was with the French Navy. He was at a beer hall with maybe ten Marines at a table. At closing time, the National Anthem [Annotator's Note: The Star Spangled Banner] was played and they stood and saluted. After that, the La Marseille, the French National Anthem played. They did not know what it was and continued talking. The French took umbrage. There were about 50 of them and they all went outside. The Shore Patrol [Annotator's Note: US Navy] took off their jackets and joined in because nobody liked the French. They fought all the way back to the barracks before more Shore Patrol broke it up and sent them home. It was something to remember. Another night, a sailor had gotten into it with four or five people. A bus driver took out four or five sawed-off broomsticks and handed them out to help the sailor. He liked that time in Key West, but he never returned.

Lloyd Dendy returned to his family in Anse La Butte [Annotator's Note: Anse La Butte, Louisiana]. There is a salt mine there. There is an oil field there as well. He went out and got a job and stayed busy. There was a working oil rig running. He was hired to work derricks and did just about everything else on that rig. The superintendent came out and fired everybody but Dendy and that made him feel good. He was offered to run the rig, but he declined. He went to work on a drilling rig, six days a week and made excellent pay. He got married and this woman was created especially for him to spend the rest of his life with. They are in their 58th year. [Annotator's Note: Dendy gets emotional.] Her parents lived next door to him. She was going to nursing school in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] and they had a long distance relationship. After she finished school, they got married and bought a house in Lafayette [Annotator's Note: Lafayette, Louisiana]. She loved her work at the Old Charity Hospital [Annotator's Note: Lafayette Charity Hospital]. When the moon was full, sometimes they would have 18 to 20 babies in one night. The nurses delivered them then. It would have been a shame to deny her work.

Lloyd Dendy and his brother enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserves. When the Korean War broke out they were called back to active duty. His brother went into artillery and Dendy went to the infantry as an NCO [Annotator's Note: non-commissioned officer]. It was hard to believe. He landed in Tucson [Annotator's Note: Tucson, Arizona]. Dendy was assigned to the 1st Marine Division again, Company G, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines. There, he was sleeping in a tent on the ground. He was a corporal and was made squad leader and then platoon guide. They would stay on the line as much as six weeks at a time. He had a sleeping bag and tarp. They dug in almost every night. Off the line, they were generally an outpost, but had hot food and could get haircuts. Currency was American cigarettes. He could get a haircut for a pack of cigarettes, about 3,600 won, or one American dollar. A roll of bills as big as your fist was one dollar. They had very little civilian contact. They overran a little village one afternoon. An old man came out to talk to them. They noticed the women were running around catching little dogs. The old man said they were preparing to fix them a meal. Dendy says they were hungry, but they were not that hungry. They came under artillery fire leaving there, but they did not lose a man. He was in Korea about a year. President Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] extended all enlistments by one year. That was most of his time. One afternoon, he led a squad and stepped onto a highway. He had never seen anything like the amount of bodies and burned out trucks. He got to the other side and saw that everyone else had stopped. It was unbelievable. Dendy went back and talked to his men and got them across the highway. They occupied the hills and they could look down on the highway. They could see tanks with bulldozer fronts clearing the road. Dendy does not think he would have been able to sleep again in his life if he had had to do that. Later, they heard that the Chinese had ambushed an American convoy. When they came down to loot the convoy, American planes strafed and dropped napalm. There were 1,600 bodies in just a mile. The weather was cold, and everybody was preserved as they died. Dendy took two squads on a blocking expedition. Their position was an old Chinese hospital site. There were graves all over the place. They started receiving artillery fire. It set the woods on fire, so they were able to heat their rations that night. They had no casualties. As a last resort, they dug up the bodies to use the holes as foxholes. The next morning, they reburied them. He managed to correspond frequently with his new wife.

Lloyd Dendy met the toughest guy ever in Korea. He had been hit in the cheek by shrapnel and lost a lot of his teeth. He was chewing tobacco and complained about the blood diluting the taste. Dendy got a leadership position when the platoon sergeant caught a bullet in his calf. A couple of days later, the platoon leader was hit in the ankle, and turned the platoon over to him. Dendy was a corporal leading a platoon. They took the hill. They had 17 light casualties that day. They dug in and he kept the platoon until the sergeant came back. They got a new platoon leader who was not one of the best. On one of the first patrols he led them way past their stopping point. They came under heavy fire. One guy took a bullet through his upper arm. Dendy does not see how he could recover the use of his arm, and they were not supposed to be where they were. It was the first time they withdrew under rocket fire. They were on the line six weeks at a time and ate C rations. They heated the cans in the fire. Dendy left Pusan [Annotator's Note: Pusan, Korea] and went back to Japan. He went to a hospital ship with stomach trouble. The ship was going back to Japan. He went to Camp Otsu outside of Kyoto. It had not been damaged during World War 2 and was beautiful. The transportation system there was better than what we have in United States now. He then went to Yokohama and caught a ship back to the United States. He had a pair of dice and everybody shot craps as long as there was daylight. He was in charge of the few Marines on the ship. He kind of forgot to report them in so they had no duties on the way home. His wife met him in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. That made his world. He went on leave and then went to Corpus Christi, Texas. They enjoyed it. They had a beachfront place with a fishing pier. His wife would fish all day long. He had given thought to becoming a career Marine. It took him two wars to make buck sergeant so he did not think a career would be good. He feels he did the right thing by his country and did his duty the best he could. He loves this country, but he liked it better back when it was a democracy. When he was growing up, it was the land of opportunity. It is still the best in the world. We have the right to vote. He cannot understand people not voting at all. The politicians know they only have to influence just a few people.