Paul Lawrence was born Rochelle, Illinois but lived in Ionia, Michigan. He moved to Grand Rapids [Annotator's Note: Grand Rapids, Michigan] and graduated high school there. The Great Depression had a big impact on his life. He was one of six children. There was a period in 1932 when his father did not have work. They all thought they were going to college but that became a struggle. A friend of his had it worse than Lawrence did. People came by regularly to beg for food. His mother would feed them but have them do work in exchange. His father always did well in life and became the Chief of Staff of the Governor of Michigan. He lost his government job when Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] became President. Lawrence's family was not down and out but faced the uncertainty. He worked summers and he worked while in junior college. The war started in his junior year at Albion College [Annotator's Note: in Albion, Michigan] when Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] happened. Lawrence applied for his senior year at Harvard Business School [Annotator's Note: Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts]. He went there in May 1942. He was signed up for the Navy then too on his 21st birthday. He was told he was an ensign in the Navy then. He did not get paid, nor did they pay for his school. He was allowed to stay for his last year of college in exchange for signing up into the Supply Corps.

In May 1943, Paul Lawrence had technically been the Navy for one year. While at school, he waited tables. Lawrence was sent to the Naval Air Station in Grosse Ile, Michigan [Annotator's Note: Naval Air Station Grosse Ile]. He wanted to get into Navy Air, but he did not have good enough eyesight. The men he lived with were mostly the trainers who would take him up on flights. He informally learned to fly that way. He then went to supply school at Wellesley College [Annotator's Note: in Wellesley, Massachusetts], an all-girls college. After four months, he got overseas orders. He went on a converted cargo ship with hot-air balloon escort. It was a slow trip. They had ten to one cabin. The non-coms [Annotator's Note: non-commissioned officers] were living in the hold with bunks stacked 15 high. Lawrence had to stand guard duty at the ladder going down there. They ate two meals a day. They went to Australia and then Milne Bay, New Guinea.

Paul Lawrence did not know how many people were on the base where he was stationed [Annotator's Note: at Milne Bay, New Guinea]. MacArthur's [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] headquarters was there. He was at the Navy Supply Depot. It had a been a coconut plantation. Lawrence was put in charge of a lot of warehouses where they stored cargo. He had about 100 people working for him. He was just thrown into it and his training did not have much to do with the job. He kept the records and supervised the work. He lived in a tent and dealt with the weather, lots of rain or lots of sun and heat. It was pretty boring. It was extremely muddy at first. It was kind of a Wild West atmosphere [Annotator's Note: slang for an unruly environment] and a loose attitude towards ownership of property at first. There was a Warrant Officer in charge of radio equipment who had been in the Navy since before the war. The Warrant Officer came into Lawrence's tent and said he needed some help with some equipment. He had found a 55 gallon drum of grade A alcohol. Lawrence said to get it under lock and key and went back to bed. The next morning he was called to the base commander's office. He had a Commander sent from 7th Fleet to investigate pilfering at the base. The drum of alcohol had been tapped and was only half full when it was turned in. Lawrence had to turn the Warrant Officer in, however he had already been caught with the alcohol. Lawrence thought it was tough to go from no rules to suddenly having rules to follow. The officer was court-martialed and sent to Federal prison. That is Lawrence's least pleasant memory of the war.

Paul Lawrence was sent to the Admiralty Islands. All the roads were made of ground coral that was full of salt. Every vehicle's brakes would be shot, and the floorboards would start to fall out [Annotator's Note: due to the corrosion caused by the salt]. He learned how to brake without brakes. They had an open-air theater with coconut log seats. It was usually raining at the movies so they sat with their ponchos on. They got acquainted with the locals. There were some beautiful little islands. Lawrence was invited to a little church with Melanesians [Annotator's Note: indigenous people of Melanesia, subregion of Oceana, Pacific Ocean]. As soon as VJ [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945], they were counting their 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 see when they could go home. They knew very little about the progress of the war. They heard about Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] but no details. When FDR [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] died, that was news. His family were Republicans but by 1944 Lawrence voted for Roosevelt. He is proud of that. Lawrence wrote his family that he was moved by his death. His family never acknowledged his letter. He just killed time until he could get back. He had the points but not the transportation to return. An Esso [Annotator's Note: oil company] tanker was going out to New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York], so he got aboard. It was a pleasant but long trip home, about six weeks. He played cards and ate three meals a day with the ship's officers. Lawrence was sent to the Great Lakes training center [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes, North Chicago, Illinois] and had a week's leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He was sent to Farragut, Idaho [Annotator's Note: Farragut Naval Training Station, Bayview, Idaho] in the winter of 1945. He stayed there for four or five months. Lawrence was in charge of processing the personal effects of deceased Naval personnel. They cleaned it up, packaged it and sent it to the families. It was a strange job, and they did not want to send along anything distressing. He got out in June 1946. He returned to business school [Annotator's Note: he received his PhD in 1950]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks about the personal effects work.] They would use their judgement when finding anything that might be distressing to a family to receive. It was a strange assembly line of personal effects. It was done properly and thoughtfully. Like all Navy bases, there was an officer's club. They are considered private clubs and not private property. In Idaho, they had slot machines [Annotator's Note: gambling devices] as well. They had built up a big kitty of cash [Annotator's Note: slang for large amount of cash] that belonged to the officers stationed there. They did not know what to do with it. They set the slot machines to pay out more than goes in. It was another strange end of the war situation.

When Paul Lawrence arrived in New Guinea, the fighting had gone further up the coast. They did see some Bettys [Annotator's Note: Mistubishi G4M medium bomber, known as the Betty] fly by, but they never dropped bombs on them. They never were fired on. Lawrence feels the war helped him grow up. He was suddenly an officer at 21 and it was a bit of a shock. He had responsibilities and was on his own. He had to cope. It sped up the process. He did not have any hardships or have any reason to be frightened. He got R&R [Annotator's Note: rest and recuperation] in Australia. He looks back on things that might have been hazardous, like flying in simple planes that landed at small airports in the jungle. It seemed to him that the war was necessary and just. He knew he would be in service someplace doing something. Everybody, including the people back home, was in it. It was nothing like the Vietnam War [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] or the Iraq War [Annotator's Note: Iraq War, 2003 to 2011]. For a great many of the people in it, they were subject to all kinds of hazards and did not make it. When he was crossing the Pacific, there were hazards from submarines. One night, he could see and hear a naval battle going on over the horizon. The captain of their troop ship changed course in the opposite direction. That was the closest he got to warfare. There is no question that the war changed the world. They did not really understand at the time, the kinds of governments that Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler], Tojo [Annotator's Note: Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo], and Mussolini [Annotator's Note: Italian fascist dictator Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini; also know as il Duce] had created, and the evil involved in it. Lawrence was aware of what was happening in Europe before he left. He then got isolated from it by being on duty in the Pacific.

Paul Lawrence was at the Harvard [Annotator's Note: Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts] commencement speech [Annotator's Note: on 5 June 1947] by General Marshall [Annotator's Note: US Chief of Staff and General of the Army George C. Marshall] that started the Marshall Plan [Annotator's Note: European Recovery Program]. He is proud of having been there. He can only imagine what it would have been like to have been a Marine in the Pacific. He has learned about it through history books and movies like everyone else. The people that see the worst side of the war, regardless of side, it tends to brutalize them. It is hard for those people to get over that. It is a cost that has to be accepted. People must never give up seeking arrangements and ways to handle conflicts without war. It does not suit our nature. We are peaceful beings by nature. The people doing the killing have a hard time getting over it. They did not talk about post traumatic stress [Annotator's Note: post traumatic stress disorder; also referred to as PTSD] back then, but it was all over the place. People came back in bad mental condition. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if Lawrence thinks The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana is important.] Lawrence thinks the Museum is wonderful. The records of the memories are great to have. He has been a professor since then. He ran a class annually on leadership and management and showed "Twelve O'clock High" [Annotator's Note: 1949 American war film based on the book with the same name by Beirne Lay and Sy Bartlett]. There was a point though when the students who came in had no personal connection to the movie. The war is understood in a completely different way than Lawrence's generation. They had to teach it entirely differently. The Museum's work will keep those memories alive. It is so easy to forget the lessons.