Robert Swift was born in August 1925. He grew up on a farm without electricity. Everything was horse drawn. The farm was in Fountain City [Annotator's Note: Fountain City, Indiana] near the Ohio border. Swift was a farm boy and had to milk two or three cows every morning before he walked to school. They did not have a school bus. Swift was in school the day he learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Everyone was called into the auditorium and they were told of the attack. The news of the attack did not mean much to Swift at the time. When Swift turned 18 he was drafted.

Robert Swift was drafted. He received his draft notice before he turned 18. He was a medic in the 71st Division [Annotator's Note: 71st Infantry Division]. At the time, the 71st Division was new and set to be an all horse and mule division because it was thought at the time that the Army would have to fight the Germans up through the Alps. While Swift was in basic training the division did a trial run in Colorado using mules. It did not work out well and there were a number of serious injuries that resulted from the exercise. After that, the 71st Division was moved to Georgia where it was formed as a standard division. Swift took his basic training in Abilene, Texas sometime in 1944. After he completed basic training Swift was trained in first aid. This training was also done in Abilene. After training in Abilene, Swift and the 71st Division were sent to Fort Benning, Georgia. Swift was assigned to a company within the division's medical battalion [Annotator's Note: 371st Medical Battalion, 71st Infantry Division]. The whole battalion was made up of medics and their job was to take the wounded combat troops from the line medics and get them to a field hospital. There was a lot involved in doing this and there were times when problems arose. Swift's commanding officer was an OBGYN [Annotator's Note: a doctor of Obstetrics and Gynecology] and was a very good belly surgeon. There were times when wounded men could not be gotten back to the field hospital so Swift's commanding officer would perform surgery on them where ever they were. When the doctor got tired Swift would help him by stitching up the wounded after surgery.

Robert Swift and his outfit [Annotator's Note: the 371st Medical Battalion, 71st Infantry Division] shipped out of New York and went to Southern England. They remained there for a night then crossed the canal [Annotator's Note: the English Channel] and went ashore in Le Havre. They arrived there just as the Battle of the Bulge was staring. After the start of the Battle of the Bulge, Swift's unit was transferred to the 3rd Division [Annotator's Note: 3rd Army] under Patton. Swift was in combat within weeks of his arrival in Europe. When they landed, they had to get all of their gear together then marched about 50 miles south and went into battle. If a line medic [Annotator's Note: a medic attached to a front line combat unit] had a problem then Swift or one of his fellow medics would have to fill in for him. Swift spent time at the front as a line medic on multiple occasions. Not all companies would move medics from the rear to the front line units. Swift's job was to get wounded soldiers to the field hospital. When a soldier was wounded the line medics got to them first then turned them over to Swift's group. Swift's group was tasked with stabilizing the wounded then getting them to the field hospital for treatment.

Robert Swift is a big fan of the Indianapolis 500 which relates to his time in the military. Every year at the 500 there were three to five heart attacks, about half of them fatal. The guy who ran the field hospital at the 500 was Swift's friend. Swift and his friend set up a hospital quality ER [Annotator's Note: emergency room] at the race track using donated equipment and since that time there has not been a fatal heart attack during the race.

Robert Swift was captured toward the end of the war. They had been advancing rapidly through Germany and were trying to keep pace with the assault units and got lost. They ended up way behind the German lines. The Germans who captured them did not want them so the closest place they could dump them off was at the Dachau concentration camp. Swift and his fellow captives were locked in a barracks building in the camp. One of Swift's friends who was captured with him was a German born Jew who had immigrated to the United States when he was a child. He feared what the Germans would do to him. Swift offered to exchange dog tags with his friend which they did but the Germans paid no attention. About three days after they were liberated they switched their dog tags back.

Robert Swift witnessed the atrocities at the Gunskirchen death camp. There were two different kinds of camps. In the concentration camps the inmates were fed and cared for because they were used as labor. Toward the end of the war death camps were set up where inmates were sent to starve to death. Gunskirchen was one of the largest of these camps. Swift was one of the first ones in the camp. There were bodies stacked up. Swift met one man who was within three days of dying. A lot of the former inmates have attended the 71st Infantry Division reunions. Swift had not seen anything like that at Dachau [Annotator's Note: see segment titled Three Days in Dachau]. Swift lost his sense of smell for about three years after entering Gunskirchen. When they first entered the camp they gave the inmates their K and C rations but the prisoners were dying as a result of them. After that they gave them only soup. They also started IVs on them. Swift's group did this for a few weeks before being relieved so they could continue their advance. They moved into Austria. While there they ate a lot of horse meat. A lot of people ate horse meat over in Europe.

Robert Swift did not meet any of the Russians at the end of the war although they did pass through his area. After the war ended the soldiers were allowed to take time off to go sightseeing in areas that were not too far away from where they were based. Swift got to see Hitler's [Annotator's Note: German Dictator Adolf Hitler] home. Swift liberated a few things while he was overseas. He brought home a flag and a photograph of Hitler that he took from a burgermeister's [Annotator's Note: a town official] home in Austria. German ammunition boxes were very good. They could be used over and over again. Swift would liberate things then would ship them home from the field hospital. He shipped home several ammunition boxes, one of which he donated to the Patton Museum [Annotator's Note: General George Patton Museum at Fort Knox, Kentucky]. To Swift, liberating the camp [Annotator's Note: see segment titled Gunskirchen Death Camp] was just something they had to do. It is sometimes hard to talk about but it is important to do so. Swift did not start talking about the war until many years after it ended.

When Robert Swift had gone into the war he was a farm boy. While he was overseas his brother-in-law talked his father into helping him to start up a dairy farm in the South so when Swift returned from the war he had no place to go. Swift decided to stay in Richmond [Annotator's Note: Richmond, Indiana] where he used his G.I. Bill benefits to go to IU college [Annotator's Note: Indiana University East]. The G.I. bill was very helpful. During the summer Swift worked at Reid Hospital. He lived in the hospital in a room on the third floor for three summers while working there. He had learned to operate a lot of medical equipment while he was assigned to the field hospital. For two years, Swift was the person who took all of the x-rays at the hospital on the weekends using a portable x-ray machine. He also had to do catheters on both men and women. Patients at the hospital thought Swift was a doctor. Swift also had to start IVs. Veins sometimes collapse but there is a vein on the top of the foot that can be used for an IV. It is not a good first choice but if it is a life or death situation it can be used. A lot of the IVs Swift started were in that vein on the foot. Adjusting back to civilian life was not difficult for Swift although there were things he would not talk about. Museum's like The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] are important as a method of teaching future generations. There are things happening today that are not being handled properly. Swift did not see many psychological casualties on the battlefield hen he was in the service.