Vernon Alexander was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1924 and lived there for the first five years of his life. His dad worked for a local dairy but quit and moved the family to Searcy, Arkansas where he opened his own dairy. His father had been in France as a World War 1 soldier when the war ended. He was serving in the trenches but had never heard a shot fired. His father's best friend was a German named Hans Shoemaker [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling]. Shoemaker had immigrated to the United States from Germany as soon as he could after the First World War. Alexander learned about the war as a child as a result. He took in all the information on the topic that Shoemaker provided. The German told the 16 or 17 year old Alexander about his aunts in Germany. Shoemaker had attempted to leave money for his aunts before he departed Germany. He left cash in their mailbox, but, upon discovery, the aunts objected violently to his attempted good deed. They feared that the German soldiers would have executed them for illegally having too much money. They received weekly rations, but it was forbidden to own large amounts of cash. It was hard for Shoemaker to believe that the two loyal German citizens would be executed for having too much cash. Shoemaker also had a brother whom he told that he would see at Christmas 1945 in Memphis for dinner. He also told him that if he saw him in a German uniform in America that he would kill him. Hans Shoemaker had very much been converted to an American. At this time, Alexander was a teenager. He had attended small schools where he skipped the second grade. His mother's sister was a teacher and saw that Alexander's progress was sufficient for him to progress from the first to the third grade. He graduated from high school before he was 17 years old. He entered college as a young freshman. Soon after college entry, a recruiting officer came by to talk to the students. He asked Alexander what he would like to do. Alexander replied that he wanted to fly. At that point, it took two years of college for an individual to be accepted into pilot training. The recruiter guaranteed that he could apply after he successfully finished his second year in college. The recruiter did not mention the ASTP, Army Specialized Training Program. Alexander was put in that program. There was no transfer out of that program. When he reported for active duty in 1943 right after his 19th birthday, he found out that he had a 96 percent obstruction in his right nostril and could not pass the physical. He was told to go home but he said he was already in the Army. After explaining how he had previously passed his physical, and that he had played basketball for the two years he was in college, he was told he could not get into Cadet [Annotator's Note: the United States Army Air Forces Aviation Cadet Training Program]. He did not send him home but, on 8 June, he was told that he had to report to active duty.

Vernon Alexander was sent to Fort Hood, Texas for his basic training. It was known as North Camp Hood at the time that Alexander was sent there. He was assigned to infantry training for support of armored vehicles. The personnel in the tracked vehicles enjoyed splashing mud on the foot soldiers. The mud would dry and cake on the troops. After 13 weeks of basic training, Alexander was sent to Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas for two semesters as an engineering student. He accumulated many college hours during that time. The men went to school five days a week and amassed many more hours than normal. He could not transfer out of his ASTP assignment even though the IQ requirement of 110 for entry into OCS was not as stringent as that of ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program] which was 115. The ASTP program was broken up in February 1944 after Alexander's second semester. He was sent to Camp Howze in Gainesville, Texas and assigned to the 103rd Infantry Division. During training there, he scored as an expert on the Army rifle assigned to him. The weapon he used was an old English designed Enfield rifle. It was a bugger. The sergeant on the line at the rifle range asked Alexander, whom he called Tennessee, what was the problem with his shooting. Alexander replied that he was not shooting like he was taught by his grandfather. The sergeant gave him a new clip for his rifle and informed the operators down range to inform him on how Alexander scored with his five rounds. There were four hits on the bullseye plus one near miss to it. The sergeant told Alexander not to let anyone tell him how to shot in the future. He was told to stay with the way he was taught as a youth. That same aiming technique followed when he started shooting machine guns. Rather than having to worry about so many clicks here or there, he would adjust his aim according to where the rounds were hitting on the target. He scored as an expert on the machine gun. He became a gunner on a water cooled .30 caliber machine gun. He had never seen the gun before training, but he went overseas as a gunner on the water cooled gun. He was in the 2nd platoon, 3rd squad. They used water cooling one time in combat. Two men carried two gallons in each hand but since ammunition was needed as a priority, they began to carry boxes of ammunition instead of water. Alexander became proficient in changing out the hot barrels after continuous firing. The machine gun he had was a bit different than the rest of them. Before being deployed, Alexander had been advised by an older soldier that his gun would get him killed because it fired too slowly. The experienced soldier told Alexander that the Japanese had a quicker firing automatic weapon even though it only fired rounds slightly larger than a .22 caliber bullet. The older soldier offered a field adjustment suggestion to Alexander that involved adding a quarter in the firing mechanism of the weapon. Pete [Annotator's Note: Norman Charles Peterson], his assistant gunner, added another quarter. Between the two of them, they installed two quarters so the addition would be twice as effective. They never fired the weapon with its adjustment until combat in St. Dié, France.

Vernon Alexander got into trouble prior to getting into combat. He had been practicing field stripping his machine gun at night and had gotten proficient at it. He and Pete [Annotator's Note: Norman Charles Peterson was his assistant gunner on the M1917 .30 caliber water cooled machine gun] would work as a team and removed elements of the weapon and lay them in an order on a blanket so that fast reassembly of the weapon just required the inverse order being used. The gun crew had a new lieutenant as a commanding officer for their squad. The troops were not familiar with this new officer. Likewise, the officer did not know the men. The officer demanded a competition in the heavy weapons 2nd platoon for the four machine gun crews. He wanted the crew members to disassemble and reassemble their gun and prepare it for firing. Alexander and Pete were quick and won hands down. The new officer disqualified them after he saw that their bolt would shake. The officer tightened the bolt and it locked the gun preventing it from firing. Alexander knew it would not fire after the tightening. After being in combat in the Battle of the Bulge, another incident happened. A battalion of the 45th Infantry [Annotator's Note: 45th Infantry Division] had been cut off. Alexander and his outfit attempted to relieve them but failed to breakthrough. The new officer placed his men in their combat positions but then left them. Later, a section sergeant told Alexander to gather the men and prepare to withdraw from their position. That was accomplished. The sergeant, Sam Russell, asked where the lieutenant was. The men had not seen him after they had been placed in position. Sergeant Russell decided that they needed to see the captain. Their new lieutenant had appeared in the rear and reported that his men had deserted him. In actuality, the men had been given orders to stay in their positions and had not moved despite all other units around them pulling back. The captain said that the lieutenant had requested court martial for Alexander for three separate incidents. He knew better than to listen to the new officer and told Alexander as much. The first request for court martial was a result of the lieutenant feeling that Alexander made a fool of him during the contest to field strip and reassemble their machine gun, the second time dealt with a rescue of a wounded man and the third request for court martial came when the lieutenant appeared before the captain that morning and said that his men had deserted him. At that point, the captain called battalion headquarters for MPs [Annotator's Note: military police] to place the lieutenant under arrest. He left the captain under house arrest. The captain felt that Alexander could have typed the house arrest letter for him. Early on in his military career, Alexander had been identified as a typist. That was a skill most others did not have. When he asked for the proper format for the letter he was to type, he was referred to a file cabinet in order see the style required for the letter. Being a typist cut way back on his daily drill assignments. Alexander stayed in the officer and grew to know Captain Emerson quite well. On one occasion, the battalion commander, a colonel, took Alexander and his machine gun squad to the edge of a tree line to fire on Germans holding up their advance. The crews had to crawl with their heavy guns and tripods. The colonel knew that the Germans would flee to other positions when the Americans made their next advance. There was some concern by the colonel about Alexander's estimate of the distance to the enemy positions. He felt Alexander would be shooting under the targets. Alexander reassured the commander that he and Pete would simply unlock the traversing and elevating mechanism and freehand aim at the fleeing Germans in order to catch them in his sights. When Alexander cut loose with his gun, it performed with accuracy. In the next similar situation, the colonel called for that kid with the crazy sounding machine gun. The two quarters in the recoil frame of the gun really made it sound different. It picked it up, and did everything it was supposed to do. It did burn up barrels real fast. The weapon performed best with short bursts rather than long bursts. Alexander could change a barrel in less than a minute. He carried two extra barrels on his belt with him when he went into a fight. He never lost a barrel with his shade tree design on the carrying means for the extra barrels. Alexander and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Alexander was a member of Company H, 2nd Battalion, 411th Infantry Regiment, 103rd Infantry Division] were called into the Battle of the Bulge. That battle started on the 16th [Annotator's Note: 16 December 1944] and Alexander and his outfit were in combat the next day. The men rode all night one night to get to the action. Previously, Alexander had thought that it was two days for them to travel to the scene of the battle.

Vernon Alexander had never been on a big boat before his overseas deployment. The troops were stacked five deep in the holds below. Since Alexander was the company barber, he was allowed to frequently go above to the open deck. He spent more time on the open deck than others were allowed to do as a result. He left Camp Shanks [Annotator's Note: Camp Shanks, New York] and headed out to sea to meet the rest of the convoy. The troopship had been a former casino operating off Rio de Janerio. Before being stripped down to serve as a troopship, it was quite a luxury vessel. The temperature changed after the ship left Camp Shanks and headed to Florida. From there, the ship headed across to the Straits of Gibraltar. They spotted North Africa off their beam. They spotted the Rock of Gibraltar and ran close to it. The towns in North Africa at that point were easily seen.

Vernon Alexander only received one fresh water shower during his deployment voyage to Europe. Salt water showers were more readily available, but the fresh water showers were only situated in the officers' quarters. Alexander, along with just a few other lucky men, was selected by a generous officer to afford himself the luxury of a fresh water shower. He was told by the officer to wrap up his barber tools and put them away and meet the officer back on deck for a fresh water shower [Annotator's Note: Alexander was the company barber and took frequent opportunities to be outside and above the crowded lower decks]. There were five men selected from his platoon to have the fresh water shower. [Annotator's Note: Alexander is noticeably moved by the memory of the experience.] The next time he took a shower was after the Battle of the Bulge. The shower occurred near Sarreguemines [Annotator's Note: Sarreguemines, France]. The troops went into the showers two by two or six by six by truckloads. All their personal items were left in the houses and they stripped down to shower. They were told to strip shirt, pants and shoes off and throw them into different respective rooms. They entered the showers and were told to leave the knobs alone or they might not receive a properly regulated water temperature in their shower. After the water came on, the speaker system told the men to wash their hair first and let the soap and clean water run down their bodies. Soon a voice said that only five minutes were left and they should start drying off. Some men were trying to scrub up another time and were caught before the soap had completely run off. No matter where they were in the process, after five minutes the water was shut down. The men dried off. Clothes were thrown at them hurriedly. When Alexander removed his civilian shorts and tee shirt prior to the shower, the clothes literally fell off him in pieces. The men were dressed and reloaded on their trucks and taken back to the positions they held before being driven to the cleanup area. The men smelled a lot better than they did before they left.

Vernon Alexander and his unit [Annotator's Note: Company H, 2nd Battalion, 411th Infantry Regiment, 103rd Infantry Division] set up the machine gun in the small town of Woelfling [Annotator's Note: the spelling of this town and its location could not be specifically determined by the annotator, however, it is thought to be Woelfling-lès-Sarreguemines based on Alexander's later description]. The gun position had a good field of fire ahead of them. The house that was used for the position was inhabited by a man named Nicholas who had been previously wounded by a hand grenade burst while serving with the Free French in North Africa. He was a young man but moved very slowly. He had a young daughter about five or six years old. She had never tasted chocolate. Alexander and Pete [Annotator's Note: Norman Charles Peterson was Alexander's assistant gunner] thought they would provide the family a Christmas they would never forget. The mother in the family was named Lucy and she would receive gifts also. The two Americans scrounged around different locations and came up with a ham, flour, a doll and other gifts. The Americans went behind enemy lines in their zeal to find a Christmas tree. The GIs decorated the trees with colored paper cut in strips. The doll was wrapped up in gift paper. Lucy found the gifts of food the next morning and she was thrilled. Nicholas found the pipe and tobacco along with cigars that the American troops had wrapped for him. The Frenchman was pleased. [Annotator's Note: The events obviously satisfied Alexander.] The outfit never returned to that location after the Christmas surprise gifts. Pete would eventually marry a German girl and find his way back to the location after the war. The laws were changed and Pete was allowed to marry the German girl he had met. [Annotator's Note: At the end of the war and immediately afterward, there were restrictions against fraternization between American servicemen and German women.] Pete and his wife had several children. The surname of the French family helped at Christmas could not be remembered, but the daughter did complete school and have a successful career. Pete saw her several times during subsequent trips to Europe. The grown girl spoke excellent English and was a teacher in a Paris all girls' school. Her name was Nicole and she taught English in the school.

Vernon Alexander went through the Vosges Mountains experiencing the snow and cold. He was freezing to death. Alexander entered combat on 16 November [Annotator's Note: 16 November 1944], two years and two days after his enlistment. The fighting was near St. Dié. The troops took over abandoned German gun positions during the night. They were instructed where to set up their machine guns. They were told to dig in deep, but the rocky terrain and the trees made digging difficult. The noise the men created trying to cut through tree roots with hand axes and then cursing the difficulty carried to the German lines. This made them obvious targets for the enemy who were listening to the frustrated men. The next morning the Germans started a rolling barrage against their former positions manned by the Americans. The lieutenant, who did not like Alexander, went to another machine gun position in a different squad to show them how to shoot. The lieutenant insisted that he would show the men how to fire their gun. Instead, the lieutenant's hand froze on the trigger of the gun and continuously fired the gun until the barrel burned up. Since a belt of ammunition had a tracer every fifth round, the tracers made a direct path back to the machine gun position for the Germans to observe. The enemy dropped a mortar shell on top of the machine gun position and wiped it out. Another American company advanced into a ditch without opposition. When they left the ditch, the GIs were caught in a crossfire. The second in command for the battalion [Annotator's Note: Alexander was a member of Company H, 2nd Battalion, 411th Infantry Regiment, 103rd Infantry Division] had drawn up the battle plan. When there was a lull in the fighting, Alexander returned to the rear for more ammunition canisters. After picking them up, he headed back to the front. He observed a group of officers huddled together including the regimental commander, Colonel Donovan P. Ewell. Ewell had lost his son in air combat during July, prior to the arrival in Marseilles in October [Annotator's Note: October 1944]. The first night in Marseilles, some of the men in the division heard Axis Sally [Annotator's Note: Axis Sally was a female broadcaster for the Germans who spoke over the radio to the English speaking Allied soldiers oftentimes belittling, threatening, or intimidating them] ridiculing Colonel Ewell over the loss of his son. She also threatened the men of the 103rd Infantry Division who had just arrived. Major Caspar was the executive officer of the battalion. Colonel Ewell was a former cavalry officer. He dressed accordingly down to carrying a sizeable riding crop. During the discussion by the officers that Alexander witnessed, he watched as Ewell whipped his riding crop against his boots. The Colonel asked Major Caspar if he could take the objective. Caspar replied in the affirmative and was ordered to get his plan together and report to the Colonel's tent in 30 minutes. At that point, Ewell informed the former battalion commander that he was to go to the Colonel's tent immediately. There was a change in battalion command just that quick.

Vernon Alexander and the 103rd Infantry Division [Annotator's Note: Alexander was a member of Company H, 2nd Battalion, 411th Infantry Regiment, 103rd Infantry Division] received a new commanding general after the Battle of the Bulge. General Haffner [Annotator's Note: General Charles C. Haffner, Jr.], a Chicago banker who had been in command as a result of his National Guard experience, was replaced by General Anthony C. McAuliffe in January 1945. McAuliffe was famed as the "nuts" general in Bastone. He was a soldier's officer. After the war ended, many of the troops in the Division wore scarves around their neck. They were picked up in Paris by MPs [Annotator's Note: military police] for not being in uniform. McAuliffe informed the MPs that the men of the Cactus Division [Annotator's Note: the 103rd Infantry Division was called the Cactus Division and wore patches on their uniforms depicting a cactus], unlike other troops, were not out of uniform if they wore scarves. When the General took over in January, he pulled the men back off the lines. It made no sense to them. They were pulled from combat and told to stand a dress review for the new commander. The men were ordered to wash their field jackets to get them as clean as possible. They were to march through the parade ground and stand by their machine guns with the breeches open. This made no sense to Alexander. The division band was playing while the generals reviewed the men. Alexander noted that one soldier several men down from him in line was asked if his jacket was wet. The man agreed that it was. The General turned to his adjutant and told him to get a truck and pick up the man and any other men with wet jackets. He then wanted to know what units each of those men were in. The General reached Alexander and commended him on how his machine gun looked. McAuliffe asked Alexander if his jacket was wet. Alexander replied that his jacket had been washed but dried by a fire overnight. Alexander could see McAuliffe saying "nuts." The General was quite a guy.

Vernon Alexander fought in the Muehlhausen combat. The fighting was hot and difficult. Climbach was another instance of a Middle Ages walled city where the Americans took a beating. The Germans heavily occupied those cities. The Americans had to stay down and shoot only when they saw something to shoot at. A gunnery sergeant told Alexander before overseas deployment to make sure he shot only when he had something to shoot at and then make sure he hit it. The house to house fighting was heavy. Alexander was in the 411th Regiment, 2nd Battalion, and Company H [Annotator's Note: Company H, 2nd Battalion, 411th Infantry Regiment, 103rd Infantry Division], which was the heavy weapons company. There were three regiments to the division, and three companies to each regiment plus motor pool and headquarters company to create a self-contained unit. It was the typical triangular structure for a division. His heavy weapons company had 80mm mortars and .30 caliber water cooled machine guns. The water cooled machine gun was heavy. Alexander carried the 52 pound tripod and Pete [Annotator's Note: Norman Charles Peterson was Alexander's assistant gunner] carried the 42 pound receiver. When Alexander flipped the tripod and laid it down, Pete would put the gun on it and lay against the two front legs to keep the gun from jumping when it was fired. An old high school buddy who served in Korea said that the gun Alexander used was out of date. When Alexander went to Washington on an Honor Flight [Annotator's Note: Honor Flights are organized to provide veterans an opportunity to visit remote memorials or museums], he saw a light machine gun in service today that is apparently a marriage of the light air cooled .30 caliber machine gun and the BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle].

Vernon Alexander reached the Siegfried Line in Germany and found it to be sturdier than the Maginot Line. Entering the Rhine Valley, he observed both fortifications. A solid round that hit directly on a Maginot Line emplacement would demolish it. A mortar round hitting the Siegfried Line would not disturb it. When the Americans hit the line, they could pick out the enemy obstacles facing them. When Pete [Annotator's Note: Norman Charles Peterson was Alexander's assistant gunner] and he went to rescue a wounded man, they were told while going uphill that if they heard something rolling down toward them, to hit the dirt. The object rolling downhill could have been a rock but potentially a grenade. After picking up the wounded soldier, they were told to avoid dropping him because he could be heavily injured. Alexander gives credit to Hitler for doing some things well. The Autobahn is an example. Hitler's intent was to use the roadway for facilitating his blitzkrieg. General, and later President, Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: Dwight D. Eisenhower] got the idea for the interstate highways in the United States from the effectiveness of the Autobahn in supporting the blitzkrieg. Alexander and the 103rd Infantry Division proceeded to Austria and the town of Landsburg. They were told that there was a prison camp there, but there were actually six camps in that location. When the Americans pulled up to the first camp, they were in jeeps with antiaircraft guns mounted on them. [Annotator's Note: At this point, Alexander is emotionally overwhelmed before he can proceed.] It is not easy to talk about the Landsburg camp. The memory of the bodies stacked and lined up against the fence is what comes to mind immediately. The gate was broken into and the camp entered with no opposition. The prisoners said they had not had any food for three days and the German guards had not been seen for two days. If the inmates got too weak to work, they were lined up against the fence. The American troops were told not to give anything to the prisoners because they could not physically handle it. Any man disobeying that order would be court martialed. As the Americans walked along, they would hear a whimpering sound like a kitten. The medics would check for which bag of bones made the sound. The stack of bodies looked like a lumber warehouse with wood stacked all together. [Annotator's Note: Alexander once again is emotionally stressed and stops his discussion.] The inmates slept in bunks. Being too weak to go to the latrine, the prisoners would relieve themselves while in the bunk. The discharged waste would fall on those below. Alexander could never talk of this after the war. It was only much later when he was asked by a church group to discuss his war experiences that he realized how deep the pain was from those horrible memories of the camp at Landsburg. Seeing the camp made Alexander realize that no one should be treated as the camp prisoners were. [Annotator's Note: There is again an emotional stop in the discussion.] Not all Germans were bad. It was hard for Alexander to believe that the local leadership and population did not know what was happening in the adjacent camps considering the terrible smell that came from there. They had to know what was happening there.

Vernon Alexander was a history major in college. He ran into a situation about 30 miles outside of Innsbruck, Austria in a little town called Mieders. Company headquarters was in one location remote from battalion headquarters [Annotator's Note: Alexaner was a member of a machine gun section in Company H, 2nd Battalion, 411th Infantry Regiment, 103rd Infantry Division]. Telephone connections would be working fine between them, but at night the wire would be cut and had to be repaired. A few nights later, the same loss of communications would occur. During this time, Alexander came in contact with a child named Wolfgang. He was playing in the area and was a fine kid. Alexander and some MPs [Annotator's Note: military police] decided to interrogate a mechanic at a nearby garage as to whether he knew anything about what was happening to the communication lines. The mechanic denied any knowledge. At that point, the Americans examined the mechanic's wire cutters and noticed the indication of copper residue on them. This was sure indication that someone was using the cutters to cut and disrupt the American copper communication lines. Alexander asked the mechanic who was using his tools. When the mechanic began to tremble and shake, the MPs leaned heavily on him. The frightened man finally replied that Wolfgang had used the tools. Wolfgang was picked up by the MPs after Alexander showed them where the youth lived. After Wolfgang was finally released, he ignored Alexander completely because he knew that the American had pointed him out. When Wolfgang finally talked to Alexander, he said that if the authorities had provided him guns and ammunition, he would have resisted the American forces. The 12 year old Wolfgang had drawn up a battle plan. Alexander noticed that the other youth in the town treated Wolfgang with respect. It was apparent that Wolfgang was the leader of the local Youth Movement. The youth had been brainwashed by the Nazis. They were the dangerous ones. Hitler had offered them hope. With the high unemployment in the country, Austria was taken over in a bloodless coup. The people felt they were doing the right thing because they had been brainwashed.

Vernon Alexander's 103rd Infantry Division had met the 5th Army at the Brenner Pass and was in Austria on V-E Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day when the Axis formally surrendered on 8 May 1945]. It was a relief that he had lived through the war. He remembered the Austrian Alps being particularly beautiful at the time. He returned in 1995 for an extensive tour of Europe. The trip was very successful for Alexander and his wife. They were surprised that they had to pay the same price for a glass of water as they would have to pay for a glass of beer, if they were drinkers. The trip stop in England was quite a change for them. It was at Falmouth, England. That was the location of Camp Chesterfield where Alexander received the word of V-J Day. [Annotator's Note: Victory over Japan Day when Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945]. Alexander slept through all the big celebrations and did not know what was going on until the next day. He was five points away from discharge when the war ended. Alexander would go on to be discharged on 23 February 1946 after three years and three months of service. He started teaching school in August of that year and retired 38 years later. He had no desire to stay in the Army. He was ready to get out although he did enlist in the Reserves for another three years. He used the GI Bill to achieve his master's degree and one year of additional work toward his doctorate degree. He completed his college work at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. At that point, he was teaching school full time and going to college in the summer. With his first child on the way, he decided he did not need the doctorate. It was only an ego trip even though it would have been nice to have it. He was where he wanted to be as principal of an elementary school after being principal of junior high. Alexander felt that he could make a difference in a child's life. He could not ask for anything more.

Vernon Alexander feels The National WWII Museum is important. He has made four trips to the Museum and brought his family along with him. The Museum is a great thing that needs to be shown. There are multiple educators in his family. He has revealed to his family that the German 88mm seen at the Museum was the most dreaded weapon the GIs faced. Alexander likes the Museum changes and growth. He anticipates the PT Boat launch and wishes he could hear the engines start up. He wanted to be a pilot but two years of college was needed. That was the driving force in his college entry. After enrollment at the local college, he began flying. His brother is a retired commercial pilot. He recollects first hearing a Ford trimotor airplane which was on its maiden trip. In years since, he's heard the engines which were easily recognizable by their sound. He also loves jazz music and likes to attend New Orleans Preservation Hall. The National WWII Museum means a lot to Alexander. Field trips to The Museum for American or World History classes are beneficial. The weapons used can be seen but the feel of the extreme cold of the winter of 1944 and 1945 cannot be explained, only remembered. It was a miserable winter. Wet from snow and crossing the Vosges mountains had to be experienced to understand. A company medic [Annotator's Note: Company H, 2nd Battalion, 411th Infantry Regiment, 103rd Infantry Division] at that time came by and told him and Pete [Annotator's Note: Norman Charles Peterson was Alexander's assistant gunner] to take their boots off. When he checked their feet, he told them to go to the hospital. Alexander said they had to stay because the company could not sacrifice a gun. The medic told them to stay, but the next time he came by he needed to see that the men had dry feet or they would loss both feet. The men had no dry socks and longed for them. Alexander felt that there were no atheists in foxholes. A lifetime can be short. The sight of the first dead soldier affected him greatly. He knew he was really in combat when that occurred. Musing on his subsequent education, Alexander felt he had made the right decision in becoming an educator. His dad was a 100 percent disabled World War 1 veteran. Alexander is not a hawk, but he hates what is going on in Asia and Europe. The guys there are not being supported. That is unlike his wartime experience where the troops knew they had the full support of the country. We should give them everything we can. One bullet or piece of shrapnel could end their life.