Merrill J. Clark grew up in Chicago, Illinois. His father was employed during the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] and it had very little effect on his family. He received his draft notice before he graduated. The induction center was Camp Grant, Illinois [Annotator's Note: in Rockford, Illinois]. He went to Fort Smith, Arkansas for basic training. He had training in armored infantry. He ended up in the mountains and was part of the ski troops. He went from desert training to mountain training. He ended up in Camp Hale, Colorado [Annotator's Note: in Eagle County, Colorado] in the middle of a snowstorm. The training was rigorous. They spent time out at night. They spent three weeks out in the mountains. The cold weather and the altitude were problems. They did not have showers, hot food, or barracks. He was there for seven months. He was immediately assigned to Company K in the 85th Regiment [Annotator's Note: Company K, 3rd Battalion, 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division]. The original personnel were avid skiers and mountaineers.

Merrill J. Clark [Annotator's Note: with Company K, 3rd Battalion, 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division] was moved from Camp Hale, Colorado [Annotator's Note: in Eagle County, Colorado] to Camp Swift, Texas in May 1944. The 10th Mountain Division in Colorado had different organizations from the typical divisions. They had eight men in their rifle squads and did not have heavy weapons. They had rifles and light machine guns. The Army was concerned about their firepower. They added men to their rifle squads and were given 30mm machine guns [Annotator's Note: Browning M1917 .30 caliber water-cooled heavy machine gun] along with 81mm mortar [Annotator's Note: M1 81mm mortar]. The division was in training for four years before being committed to combat in Italy. The 85th and 86th Regiments [Annotator's Note: 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division] went on the same troopship. They landed in Naples [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy].

Merrill J. Clark's company [Annotator's Note: Company K, 3rd Battalion, 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division] moved to a small mountain village [Annotator's Note: in Italy] to get some training in the terrain of the area. Then they moved to the front lines. They were on constant alert. They were in a stationary position. Many of them did not go out on patrols. Clark did not go on patrols. He was a messenger for a rifle platoon. Some of the villages they fortified were just farmhouses in the mountains. He stayed in a house with a family in a village. The villagers were quite poor. The men shared their food with the villagers. They saw them as liberators. The Germans were not kind to the Italian population. One man in the platoon spoke Italian and the villagers seemed to really like that. A typical day consisted of waiting around for orders. Clark served his time manning the machine guns for two hours in the middle of the night. It was hard to stay awake. There were British hand grenades there because the British had occupied the area before them. In the basement of the house, there were potatoes and chestnuts. Instead of eating c-rations [Annotator's Note: prepared and canned wet combat food], they roasted the potatoes and chestnuts.

Merrill J. Clark's first operation [Annotator's Note: with Company K, 3rd Battalion, 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division] was at Mount Belvedere [Annotator's Note: Monte Belvedere in Bologna, Italy]. It was a major attack to break a stalemate. The Germans were occupying the high ground. They controlled a major highway in the mountainous terrain. Three attempts had failed to capture Mount Belvedere. There was a south-facing cliff on the other side of Mount Belvedere and the Germans thought it was impenetrable. The men of the 86th [Annotator's Note: 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division] put fixed ropes on the cliff in the cover of darkness and made it up the cliff. They defeated the Germans at the top. This was their first real moment of combat. Clark's unit was going up Mount Belvedere in single file. Artillery shells were going over their heads. His column made it up to the summit and then everything became disorganized. Their wounded were coming back down the mountain. After they got reorganized, they moved to a knoll and had to dig in. Mortar rounds were exploding near them. A body came sliding down the shale near Clark and he knew it was real. By dawn, there were P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] firing machine guns in the valley. Shortly after sunrise, they had to move from Belvedere to another mountain. That mountain had seen many casualties during the night. Clark went into a German dugout. It was well constructed. There were bunks inside. They did not see another serious attack beyond that point.

Merrill J. Clark dug a small hole to take cover in [Annotator's Note: he was on Mount Belvedere in Italy with Company K, 3rd Battalion, 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division]. His assignment was to stick to the lieutenant and be his shadow. On one of the mountains, there were many dead and wounded. They moved up the mountain through the carnage to the summit. It was frightening to see what had gone on when the artillery shells had gone over his head. He was scared when he saw the dead and wounded. In Camp Hale [Annotator's Note: Camp Hale, Colorado], they had mules to carry their equipment. They did not bring any mules with them from the United States. They used mules from Italy. The mules were carrying the casualties down the side of the mountains. A mule was eating the brains of a dead soldier. In that situation, he lost track of time. After several days, they moved back to the village from the combat zone. They stayed there waiting for replacements and they did not do much. They spent the time sitting around. Then they were moved back to a rest area. They got showers and clean clothes. The whole battalion moved back there for recuperation. Many of them went to an Italian opera while they were there. It was an inactive period because the Germans were not in an attack mode. There was preparation for a spring offensive that was the next big push.

Merrill J. Clark made a slit trench and put half a tent over the top of it [Annotator's Note: in Italy with Company K, 3rd Battalion, 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division]. He was comfortable sleeping in it. They were not told they were getting ready for a big attack. President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] died on 12 April [Annotator's Note: 1945] and they had just received word about it. On the morning of 14 April [Annotator's Note: 1945], they moved out to begin their attack. It was a big affair. His company lost 15 men that morning. These men had trained for four years and in an instant they were dead. The men were replaced by men who were not trained for mountains at all. The skilled men were replaced by ordinary people. They were trying to conquer the summit of Hill 913. It was not a mountain. Company K was going over the top in the face of enemy fire. They had to keep moving. Clark, the lieutenant, and Captain Cooper [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] were on a dirt road near the summit of the hill. Captain Cooper needed his radio up where they were. Clark was sent to go get the radioman. He ran down the hill to the radiomen and told them Captain Cooper needed them. Clark and a radioman ran back up the hill. They made it through the enemy fire. The captain got on the radio and told headquarters they were pinned down. The battalion commander told him to get over the hill. They had to move to the summit and engage the enemy. The other men started coming up the hill to make the advance. One shell landed close enough to cause damage. Clark felt the concussion and he had sharp pains from his waist down.

Personnel were crying out for medics. One or two medics arrived, and Merrill J. Clark [Annotator's Note: with Company K, 3rd Battalion, 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division] heard them say someone was dead and another's leg had been severely wounded by shrapnel. Clark was hit by shrapnel as well. The wounded were ambulatory. Clark had been hit below the waist. He was told to wait there for someone to come get him off the hill. The war had ended for the moment for him on 14 April [Annotator's Note: 1945] in Italy. He took his sulfa tablets Annotator's Note: group of synthetic drugs used to treat bacterial infections] and drank water to prevent infection. He lay there waiting for about two hours. Then the medics came back and loaded him up on a stretcher and took him down the hill. He went to many hospitals and had many surgeries. He returned to the United States and had to go to the hospital for more recuperation and more surgeries. He was discharged 15 October 1945 from a military hospital.

The Germans were formidable because of their early conquests like the blitzkrieg [Annotator's Note: method of warfare of using short, fast, powerful attacks to dislocate defenders and then encircle and annihilate them]. They were a powerful war machine with frightful weapons of destruction. In 1943, Merrill J. Clark [Annotator's Note: with Company K, 3rd Battalion, 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division] saw newsreels with the Germans marching with such precision that they looked like robots or supermen. Soldiers are trained to kill. Reality hit him at some point in combat. He did not fire his weapon. He carried an M1 carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine]. He does not know what he would have done if he would have come face to face with a German. Shooting at targets was one thing, but he is not sure he could have shot a human being and is glad he did not have to face that decision. When was at Mount Belvedere [Annotator's Note: Monte Belvedere in Bologna, Italy] they had to cease fire because they were killing their own soldiers. The 87th Division [Annotator's Note: 87th Infantry Division] was made up of all volunteers. They landed on Kiska [Annotator's Note: in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska] and suffered 17 deaths because of friendly fire. Clark's division went up Mount Belvedere [Annotator's Note: in Italy] with unloaded rifles so they would not shoot each other. The Italians became their allies instead of their enemies. The Italian Alpine [Annotator's Note: Alpini, Italian Army mountain infantry] troops acted as transport for the Americans.

Merrill J. Clark [Annotator's Note: with Company K, 3rd Battalion, 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division] thought the winter weather had passed when they were in the mountains [Annotator's Note: in Italy]. They did not have their mountain equipment. They had standard military equipment. In training, they had good sleeping bags but when they went overseas, they were issued two blankets. Clark did not suffer because of the weather. He lived a sheltered life before the war, and the war did not change him drastically. He tried to use the GI 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 go to school. He did not have academic ambitions. He does not know what he would have done after high school if he had not been in the service. The war caused the greatest unification of the country in his lifetime. The war thrust the United States into a position of leadership. The United States became the world leader at the time. Military force is not the answer to world peace. The force of arms conquered Nazi Germany, but now the military has too much power and control. Dwight Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] warned about the military complex [Annotator's Note: military-industrial complex – an expression that describes the relationship between a country's military and defense industry as a vested interested that influences public policy].

Merrill J. Clark thinks it is important from an educational standpoint that the museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] exists. He does not think history books are enough. There are first-hand accounts that will show what the war meant from both the military and home front. If there is no education about the war then mistakes can repeat themselves. Mount Belvedere [Annotator’s Note: Monte Belvedere in Bologna, Italy] was a strong point in the German line. Part of the 10th Mountain Division was selected to make the assault. They were trained in mountain climbing. Two companies were selected to attack the ridge. The mountains were heavily fortified by the Germans at their summits. Clark was in Company K in the 85th Regiment [Annotator's Note: Company K, 3rd Battalion, 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division]. They started the assault on 20 April 1945. They went up in single file lines with unloaded weapons so they would not shoot their own men. There was artillery fire hitting the other mountain slope. Casualties started coming back down the mountain. The troops were getting disorganized. A lieutenant started to reorganize them and got them to a road. The road was covered in mines [Annotator's Note: stationary explosive device triggered by physical contact]. Fortunately, they all made it off the road. Clark felt an explosion nearby and felt the concussion in his whole body. At daybreak, they saw P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] machine-gunning in the valley below them. When they climbed the other mountain they saw many dead bodies.