Louis J. Armentaro was drafted even though he wanted to go prove himself. They told him he was underweight and would have to go in the Navy. He said he did not know how to swim and said he wanted to be on solid ground. He asked how much weight he needed to gain in three weeks. He ate all the pasta he could and made the weight. He enjoyed basic training. The huskier Southern boys would fall out on the hikes. Armentaro had gear that weighed half as much as he did. He had strong legs from walking to school during the summer and winter. He never did fall out. It was hard but he did it. He was proud of himself. After basic, he got to go home for a week and then went to California. He boarded a ship on New Year's Eve, 1943 [Annotator's Note: 31 December 1943]. There were 5,000 men on the troopship. He had dinner and felt the motion of the ship. He went topside and got sick. He became homesick and had a lost feeling. He felt lonely. They spent 30 days on the ship. He joined the 24th Infantry Division. His regiment [Annotator's Note: Armentaro was a member of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division] was the one that invaded Leyte [Annotator's Note: Battle of Leyte, 17 October to 26 December 1944, Leyte, Philippines] and they were going to be the replacements. They went to New Guinea first. He was afraid. He was not prepared. The only thing that saved him was his training as a professional killer. He hated doing it the first time and each time. He did not want to know when he got one.

Louis J. Armentaro was born a twin in September 1924 in Livingston, Montana. He has lived there his whole life. His father worked for the railroad and his mother was an Italian housewife for a family of nine. She canned vegetables from the garden. Not many people made much in the 1920s and 1930s. Growing up in Montana, there was a lot of discrimination against Italians. They lived in what was called "Poor Town" that was comprised of Italians who came because of the railroad. They took it because they were outnumbered. He took it and waited. When he got back from being a combat infantryman, he came home with a vengeance, and he never backed off ever. He went in as a 130 pound weakling and came out as a 130 pounder with an attitude and the method of how to take care of bullies. He taught that to his kids. He had extended family in Italy and some who had settled in South America. Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] and German aggression was not discussed much in his home. It should be taught more so now. His mother was Catholic and being pushed to send him to Catholic school. He did not know want to do that. She wanted them to go to public school and did not go along. She was a strict Catholic, but Armentaro was against Catholicism. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Armentaro if he remembers where he was when he heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He was hunting jackrabbits which was the meat supply of lot of people in the town. He came home and was told by his brother-in-law that afternoon. He thought they would be taken in a week. He would hear the newscasts and thought it was going to be easy. They had prepared for years. All the kids wanted to go to war. He really wanted to. His reason is harsh. When he was 16, his brother had a ruptured appendix and died. Armentaro had a tremendous hatred for religion and God. He felt that someone that young had no reason to die and wondered why God would let that happen. He accepted it to a certain extent four years later in his first night in combat in the jungles of the Philippines and he was petrified. He was not prepared for that kind of life. What saved him was his training at Camp Roberts, California [Annotator's Note: in Monterey County and San Luis Obispo County, California] as a professional killer. His first night in the foxhole on Mindanao [Annotator's Note: Mindanao, Philippines in January 1945] he had a Mexican buddy who was praying. Armentaro was afraid of the mortars. His buddy asked him why he was not praying, and he said he did not believe in God. He told him he believes his brother paid the price for his being there. When Armentaro dies, he is going to tell his brother that he knew he was there. He believes in the hereafter; he just has no faith in God. The bad people are still doing bad things. If he [Annotator's Note: God] exists, why does he let these things happen? There has not been a preacher who can answer that question for him. The only way he will find out is when he is gone. He does believe that his twin brother was there. He would not have made it alone.

Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines] was lousy to Louis J. Armentaro because it was hot. He spent a week there until he got an assignment. He was to join the 24th Division [Annotator's Note: 24th Infantry Division] which had left for Mindoro [Annotator's Note: Mindoro, Philippines]. He got on a small ship and went there. They trained there and his company, the 21st, was going to do a secret mission into Mindanao [Annotator's Note: Mindanao, Philippines]. There was not much of a fight on Mindoro. MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] wanted to starve out the troops [Annotator's Note: the Japanese troops] on Mindanao. Armentaro was in Company F [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division], and they were sent to reconnoiter the Japanese strength. A company consists of about 185 men. They went in by plane. They later found out there were about 40,000 troops against them. Those odds are tremendous. He had a buddy, and they were guarding a bridge. They knew there were loyal Filipinos there. A couple came down. His buddy said to shoot them. He said no, they were going to question them. They said they were going fishing. He knew the Japanese liked fishing. He could not shoot them. They went down the trail and his buddy asked if they had done the right thing letting them go. Armentaro said he did not think so and that they might have been Japanese infiltrators because they did not have fishing poles. Armentaro was still green [Annotator's Note: a new and inexperienced serviceman or servicewoman] and gave the odds 50-50. They all looked alike, and he had lived amongst Japanese. In the big campaign on Mindanao [Annotator's Note: Battle of Mindanao, 10 March to 15 August 1945; Mindanao, Philippines], he will never forget coming down the netting. The Naval shelling and the Air Force bombardment was a joy to watch. As he went in, his biggest fear was on the barge going in. He thought if the barge door dropped, he would go into the water and be trapped. He had a fear of water. They made it in and his first night was scary. He tried to not while think going in. He was trained to get in and get safe. As the ramp comes down, they jump to the side and not forward. When he sees them go straight in the movies, he wants to call the producers and tell them to get it right. Three things he made sure of in combat were that he had plenty of ammunition, plenty of water, and plenty of salt sacks which were important due to sweating. Some guys paid the price for drinking their water too soon. He had malaria twice [Annotator's Note: mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite]. He did not want the guys to know he was a weakling. He would not report in so he would not get razzed. That was stupid. When they got into Japan [Annotator's Note: 22 October 1945], he ended up in hospital because of it.

They [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division] went into Mindanao [Annotator's Note: Mindanao, Philippines] and were there for 63 days and nights before getting relief. Some days were easy but at night they had infiltrators. One night he was so sleepy, he slept through a night of shooting. He has nightmares about one night. They moved in and had several Filipino scouts with them. The Japanese came in that night quietly. They were aiming for the machine gun that was to his right. When they snuck up, the timing was perfect when they were throwing dynamite. The Japanese hung onto the dynamite, and it went into the foxhole where the machine gun was, missing him. He was told he must have gotten one of the Japanese, but he said not to tell him as he did not want to know about it. It bothered him even though he knew he had to do it. Armentaro really did not like the Moros [Annotator's Note: Moro or Bangsamoro people; 13 ethnolinguistic groups of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, southern Philippines]. They could not trust them. They used and enjoyed a weapon they used that was like a machete. Some wanted to get some cigarettes. They had a package they wanted to trade. Armentaro did not smoke so he bartered his for other things. The Moro opened the package, and it was a Japanese head that was still dripping blood. The men gave them some choice words and told them to get out of there. That was going too far. They had a right to revenge but that was overboard. A couple of days later, they were chasing two Japanese down to the river. One jumped in and one could not make it. That one grabbed a grenade and held it against his chest to explode it. The Moros were going to look for the one who jumped in. Armentaro thought he saw bubbles from under where the guy jumped in, but he could not stand to see him butchered in front of his eyes, and he told the Moros he must have drowned. Armentaro likes to think if the guy survived, he would like to meet him. He just could not see the savagery of him getting beheaded. Even though he went to war, he still had decency and could not be cruel like that.

Louis J. Armentaro thinks that maybe he could have gotten someone killed, but he had to have his sense of decency. Otherwise when he came home, he would commit suicide. He has nightmares all the time. They used to be tremendous. He told his wife that when he has them, wake him up quickly, but do not face him. He knew he would take a swing at her. They do not go away. In his nightmares, his gun will not go off. He would mutter. She would wake him. They were about events that did happen. He still has stupid ones yet, but they are events of his life. He has not had a full night's sleep for years. It happens every night. He gets up and drinks ice water. If he has a free night, he is lucky. The first few years they were really bad. Nobody ever asked him what it was like. He had an older brother that went in two years before he did. He had it made in an engineer battalion. His second brother went in a year before he did and was a gunner in a tank. He was mocking Armentaro saying that the infantry guys could not take it. He called his brother a chicken for coming in with four inches of armor and all Armentaro had was his uniform for armor. Then World War 3 started between them. His younger brother went around the end of the war and was a clerk in the Aleutians [Annotator's Note: Aleutian Islands, Alaska]. Another brother went in 1948 for a year. Armentaro was the only one in rough combat. He is bitter towards his parents for babying the oldest and the youngest brothers. Armentaro clammed up. He had wanted to tell them what it was really like, but nobody seemed to care. He only started to open up when he got married. He always felt the middle one was taken for granted.

When Louis J. Armentaro got back home, he was successful as a machinist. He started two businesses. He also started a five piece Western band. He still plays his steel guitar. He worked in the railroad and then worked for a newspaper for 30 years. After that, he spent ten years as substitute schoolteacher. He never quit. When he got married, they had a boy and a girl. He has four generations living in his town of Livingston [Annotator's Note: Livingston, Montana]. He taught himself his different trades. The more successful he got, the more his family seemed to resent it because he was not the first child. It hurt to say, but in 1940 when his twin brother died, he got one of the most hurtful messages ever. Something had happened and his parents said that it was too bad it was not him who died instead of his twin. When he got in the Army, he wondered if they cared if he got killed. He resents his old man [Annotator's Note: slang for his father]. Armentaro was petrified of being killed and rotting in the jungle, so he thought that he was going to make it back and come home with a vengeance. It will never change. None of his other brothers went through that, but he wound up being the successful one. Two days before his mother died, Armentaro went to visit her. His mother told his wife that she was sorry for the way she had been treated by her. Her wife accepted the apology. Armentaro accepted it with a tinge of hurt. His brothers had never done anything for his mother. Not all Italians are that way, but a lot of them are hypocrites.

Before the war ended, Louis J. Armentaro's division [Annotator's Note: Armentaro was a member of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division] was assigned to be on the invasion of Japan. He knew they were going to be wiped out. They were then assigned to be the occupation division. A few weeks after the armistice was signed [Annotator's Note: Surrender ceremony; 2 September 1945 aboard USS Missouri (BB-63); Tokyo Bay, Japan], he was sent on a secret mission to Kure Naval Base in Japan [Annotator's Note: in Kure, Hiroshima, Japan]. It was nice to see that the harbor was torn up after what they had done to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He went into Hiroshima. They were only told that it was dangerous due to snipers. There was nothing said about radiation. He spent two hours there. He has not shown any after effects. Hiroshima was devastated and flat [Annotator's Note: from the nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945]. He saw trains over on their sides. He never saw a drop of water. He hated to see it. In later years, he found out how many got killed. On his mission to deliver supplies, they got to a rail station and were locked up in a box car to guard the train. They were told the train was going to go slowly for eight hours to the military base. They were starting at midnight. It took eight hours to go 23 miles. They told him they were going to be in a tunnel [Annotator's Note: Seikan Tunnel; links Honshu, Japan to Hokkaido, Japan] for the eight hours. The tunnel was underneath the ocean. He could not sleep due to worry. He does not like to go into elevators due to that. He was guarding cases upon cases of bottled Coca-Cola. He had a few. It was in winter, and they were cold. That was as good as gold. He then went to Okayama, Japan to a big Japanese Army base from that fall until about May [Annotator's Note: May 1946]. He then went to another base in Kumamoto, Japan. He thinks that is the sister city of Helena, Montana. He spent ten months in Japan and enjoyed it. He made a lot of friends with the Japanese people. A lot of them were American kids. In early summer of 1941, Japan was trying to get the nationals in the United States to return. A lot of the kids had to go with their folks but did not want to. They got hired by the Army to work in the PXs [Annotator's Note: post exchanges]. They said they were not Japanese and were Americans. Within less than six months, all the Japanese native kids were Americanized. Theaters were showing American movies in Japan. He and some buddies watched some of them.

Louis J. Armentaro did not participate in the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953], but his division [Annotator's Note: the 24th Infantry Division] did and was slaughtered. He has resentment against Korea and China that will not go away. He was to go to a rest area in Shanghai, China in May 1946. The trip was cancelled due to the Communist Chinese making their moves on the Nationalists [Annotator's Note: the Kuomintang, or Nationals Party of the National Government of the Republic of China]. A week later, they got sent to a camp in Nara, Japan at a park like Yellowstone [Annotator's Note: Yellowstone National Park]. That was a nice place. They had good music and he got interested in music then. A lot of the kids were American kids and he made strong friendships. When he got to Japan, an officer found out he was a movie projectionist and offered him that job instead of training. Within a few weeks, they built a warehouse into a theater. Some American intelligence came to him with some films. He was asked if he was familiar with the equipment they needed to use. He was. They had Japanese projectors and asked if he could get them running. His condition was that if the tubes and lamps were okay, he could get them running in two or three days. They told him he was cocky, and he said yes, he was. He checked them out and got them running. He got to live the life of a king after that. It felt great to come back to the United States. He got to spend one afternoon in Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan]. He looked for two things, Coca-Cola and ice cream. He wrote to his folks and said he was moving around. He wanted to surprise them. He spent ten days on the boat and then docked on the West Coast. He has a picture of him and a buddy on the top deck of the Saint Clare [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. He was hoping for a cold Coca-Cola, but he was greeted with a pint of fresh milk which he hated. He boarded a bus after a few days.

When Louis J. Armentaro went in, there was another kid from Livingston [Annotator's Note: Livingston, Montana] that he did not know. They went to Camp Roberts, California [Annotator's Note: in Monterey County and San Luis Obispo County, California]. When he came home, there was another guy from Springdale [Annotator's Note: Springdale, Montana]. One time in the Philippines, the three of them were there in three different companies in the same barrage of artillery and mortars. The barrage hit in the center. One friend from Livingston, had a dud drop right next to him. One guy got hit by shrapnel and was only in combat a few hours before going home. Coming home, they were on a bus together. After 63 days on the front lines, guys started expending their ammunition. Their replacements started moving up. One kid hollered up and asked how it was up there. A grizzled soldier told him to take care of himself. As they moved along, the grizzled soldier let out a yell and realized the kid was his kid brother and they did not recognize each other. He went back up and they visited. Those are Robert Ripley [Annotator's Note: LeRoy Robert Ripley; American cartoonist and entrepreneur] kinds of stories. Armentaro's most memorable experience of the war is getting home. He had a lot of good buddies that he missed. Going into the war was his first experience away from home. He enjoyed every bit of it, despite having scary days. The war gave him guts and courage. He was going to do things his way. He is a different person, and it has served him well for 94 years. The war is something he never wants forgotten. The schools are not teaching it, and neither are the liberal colleges. When he was a substitute teacher, he was called a lot for history. He wanted the kids to know what the war was like. He was blunt. He hates the "Rambo-type" movies. He told them to forget that because that is not real. One day he was looking at a history textbook that had a picture of a traitor that was sending information to Japan from Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. He resents the education system because they only teach stupid liberalism. The war should be taught because it was the only time that the United States of America pulled together as one group and nation. During the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953] it was not great, during the Vietnam War [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] the country was torn apart, and during the Civil War [Annotator's Note: American Civil War, 1861-1865] it was too. World War 2 was the only war where the people cared about each other and about the war effort. It should be taught because it teaches about life and death. The country was great, and he is going to do his darnedest to make it great again before he goes.