[Annotator’s Note: The sound is muffled.] Rockie Blunt’s father told him to join the Army. He attended Fort McClellan, Alabama for 17 weeks of basic training. He stayed at the camp to teach the next group of troops. He was selected to go to OCS [Annotator's Note: officer candidate school], but on the train ride there, he was told to get off because there were more candidates than the school needed. He was transferred to Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. He was shipped overseas in September 1944 and landed in Scotland. He was taken to Hanover, England to continue to train and instruct other troops. He was then sent to France in November 1944, landing at Omaha Beach [Annotator’s Note: Normandy, France; one of the landing sites of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944]]. He saw that tanks were still in the water and boxes and boxes of supplies were stacked up on the beach. He was assigned to an anti-tank company and was trained to find and remove mines and booby traps. On his journey into France, he did not get any happy welcome. His feet began to swell and the leader yelled at him, calling him a “sissy,” and the French locals threw rotten apples at him and the rest of his unit as they came through the small towns. His unit reached the outskirts of Geilenkirchen [Annotator’s Note: Geilenkirchen, Germany] and battled through and took the city. Blunt’s unit reached the Ruhr River, but then received orders to load up in trucks and head to Belgium to assist in the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. He recalled the weather being very cold. His unit set up in Marche, Belgium and entered combat instantly. He saw so many hungry Belgian children, and the Germans used their tanks to destroy all their farmland, killing their orchards, vegetables, and cows. The weather was freezing and their clothings insufficient. They took clothing and equipment from the dead because they needed to survive. He said did not go to sleep at night, but went unconscious.

Rockie Blunt served with the 333rd Infantry Regiment, 84th Infantry Division in World War 2. After their support in the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], his unit headed to Linnich, Germany and went across northern Germany near sugar beet fields. He crossed the Rhine River on a pontoon bridge and then headed to the Elbe River to meet the Russians. His captain asked Blunt to find a woman in town to wash his clothes, which Blunt did. Blunt was court martialed by a lieutenant for fraternizing, and even though his captain defended him, Blunt was sentenced to six months of hard labor and confinement. His sentence was lowered to three months of hard labor. He found a starving German man and asked him to do his KP [Annotator’s Note: kitchen patrol] duty for food. After the war was over, he was sent to Heidelberg [Annotator’s Note: Heidelberg, Germany] and played in a band. He also helped track down minor war criminals and turned them over to the authorities. Blunt was part of the liberation of a small labor camp and Neuengamme concentration camp [Annotator’s Note: Hamburg, Germany]. Blunt was horrified by the sights of the camps and the reality of what was going on in those camps. His unit summoned every medical personnel to come to the camp and help them. The medical professionals told them not to feed the freed prisoners because it could kill them. Blunt was hardened by his experience in war and does not believe in religion.

[Annotator’s Note: The sound is muffled.] Rockie Blunt served with the 333rd Infantry Regiment, 84th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. He handed a soldier a piece a chocolate that the man was killed that same evening. One time they were marching in the middle of the night in the Netherlands, and he saw a man sleeping. He nudged him to wake him up, but he did not move. Blunt realized that he was dead. Another time while marching in the night, he had his hand on a man in front of him to keep himself steady. All of a sudden the man yelled, “Oh my God, I’m dead,” and fell to the ground. A sniper had hit him. As they committed to combat, more and more G.I.s [Annotator's Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier] were killed. Men were dying every day. Blunt was told not to bond with other G.I.s because they would probably just die. He made a friend with one man during his service. Blunt did not understand why they were fighting in this war until he liberated a concentration camp. The Army told him absolutely nothing, but Blunt and the rest of the G.I.s grew up very fast when they saw the victims of the Holocaust [Annotator's Note: also called the Shoah; the genocide of European Jews during World War 2]. Blunt believes his experience in war did not change him for the better and he is embarrassed of what he did. After the war, he worked by himself as a police reporter. He does not like working with others and he blames this on his war experience.

[Annotator’s Note: The sound is muffled.] Rockie Blunt served with the 333rd Infantry Regiment, 84th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. He disagrees with many things about the HBO series “Band of Brothers”. They were not under constant barrage of artillery fire, and there were days that went by where absolutely nothing happened. [Annotator’s Note: Video goes black at 0:47:52.00.000.] Down time was a time to build up fear, which was not good. It was also a time to read mail and receive care packages. During combat, Blunt constantly thought about how to survive. Blunt forgave the German people when the war came to an end and holds no animosity towards them. He believes that the vast majority of German people were not Nazis. He thought the German soldier was a superior force and had better equipment than the Americans. He was most afraid when he was sent to a field hospital for his frozen feet and then had to return to the front lines. He had become afraid of losing his life. He went from being in a warm place with hot food and someone taking care of him back to a cold, wet foxhole on the front line against the enemy.

Rockie Blunt served with the 333rd Infantry Regiment, 84th Infantry Division. [Annotator’s Note: The remaining video is shots of interviewee’s memorabilia in his home.]