Vernon Tweedt was born in July 1921 in Estherville, Iowa. He grew up there on a farm. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks the interviewee what it was like growing up there during the Great Depression. Tweedt laughs.] Tweedt has been listening to what is going on today [Annotator's Note: United States recession of 2008] and he is very concerned that the bailout business is digging an economic hole for America. What took place during the Great Depression of the 1930s is simply this, making do with what is. Recognizing that finances are limited, and you do what you can. Americans in the Depression had real determination. Tweedt was a teenager and saw how his parents really watched what they did with what they had. Because his parents were determined to do the best they could in a situation, they were able to see amusing things in all of life. He admires them for that. His wife has told him it was true of her parents too. He feels his life was enriched by this experience in this very crucial time. He is very distressed about what is going on today.

They [Annotator's Note: Vernon Tweedt's family] had a Philco radio. When he heard the news [Annotator's Note: of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] and President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] say "the day will go down in infamy" [Annotator's Note: Day of Infamy Speech; President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a Joint Session of the United States Congress on 8 December 1941], he will never forget it. His mother had died two years earlier. His father and two younger sisters were there. He told his father he ought to enlist. His father asked him to wait for the draft. Tweedt did not understand that. When he got to Europe, he realized it. His dad was in World War 1 as a combat engineer. Often times, they were given assignments in no man's land [Annotator's Note: an area of unoccuppied ground between the static positions of oppossing forces]. Tweedt was drafted in the spring of 1942. The things that Tweedt experienced in Italy, France, and Germany made him face the facts of life. Tweedt realized afterwards that it was wise advice. He went to the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas induction center. He returned home mid-June [Annotator's Note: 1942]. On 23 June, he took a train to Camp Robinson, Arkansas [Annotator's Note: North Little Rock, Arkansas] for basic training. His father and two sisters visited him for a weekend there. His sergeant told him his I.Q. [Annotator's Note: intelligence quotient] and conduct earned him the right to go to Fort Benning, Georgia to commissioned officer training. He decided not to go that route. He then went to Camp Edwards, Massachusetts [Annotator's Note: in Cape Cod, Massachusetts]. They were trained for amphibious landings. They lived in pyramidal tents. They later moved into barracks. The humidity was high, and it would be in the low 20s [Annotator's Note: temperature in degrees Fahrenheit] and even sometimes zero. Guard duty in that kind of climate is no picnic. They were training before being shipped out to North Africa.

Vernon Tweedt got his artillery training at Camp Edwards [Annotator's Note: in Cape Cod, Massachusetts]. There were four howitzers [Annotator's Note: M101 105mm howitzer] in a Battery: A, B, C, and D. There were three batteries in the 141st. He was in the 131st Battalion [Annotator's Note: Battery A, 131st Field Artillery Battalion, 36th Infantry Division]. They did a lot of firing with the 105mm together with amphibious training. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks the interviewee why he decided to not go to officer candidate school.] He had become acquainted with some of the non-commissioned officers. He realized that Camp Robinson [Annotator's Note: in North Little Rock, Arkansas] along with all of the other camps, was under real pressure to get them trained and shipped out. He joined the 36th Division [Annotator's Note: 36th Infantry Division] at Camp Edwards in early September [Annotator's Note: September 1942]. He had a furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] home between camps and then again before shipping overseas. He did not have the peace of mind to be trained as a commissioned officer. He sees it better today than he did in those days. What he saw of second lieutenants made him just not want to be a part of it. He absolutely felt that he made the correct decision. Towards the end of the war, he was the leader of one gun crew. He gave an order for fire direction and the fellows asked if it was a command or request. He said it was a request and they said they would do it. He does not know how it would have gone if he had said it was a command. When you stand for 420 days where you are under the threat of enemy fire, you really get together. His serving as a non-commissioned officer, he was able to minister to the men he worked with. He feels this was God’s way of molding him as a person.

Vernon Tweedt shipped out of New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] to go overseas. They did not know where they were headed. There was all kinds of scuttlebutt [Annotator's Note: a period slang term for a rumor]. After they got to Oran [Annotator's Note: Oran, Algeria], Africa, they were trucked out to a mountainside and told to get what sleep they could. At three o'clock the next morning, they were awakened by a braying donkey. They took further amphibious training there. They had scuttlebutt left and right but never once was Italy mentioned. They left Oran by boat. The scuttlebutt was that they were invading Italy. They ended up at Salerno [Annotator's Note: Salerno, Italy]. As they moved into the invasion operation, they had ducks [Annotator's Note: DUKW, six-wheel-drive amphibious truck] that housed the 105mm [Annotator's Note: 105mm M101A1 howitzer], 40 rounds of ammunition, and a crew of 16. As they dismounted from the LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank], one guy came off with the duck faster than he should have. It went down. They moved into the shoreline. He saw some direct hits on ducks ahead of them. One must have had the ammunition hit. He saw bodies flying in the air. His sergeant told Tweedt he had been watching him and did not understand how he was so calm. Tweedt told him that when he knew he was headed for war, he committed himself to the Lord [Annotator’s Note: Christian name for Jesus Christ]. If it was his time, he was ready to go. Sure, he was scared, but he had a peace. He thinks he looked at it more objectively than a lot of the guys.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Vernon Tweedt how difficult the landing at Salerno, Italy in Operation Avalanche, 9 September 1943, was.] He was concentrating on his situation and not aware of the whole situation. He heard a lot of reports that night. There were four or five in his battery who lost their lives. They also learned that the landing had been costly for the 36th Division [Annotator's Note: 36th Infantry Division]. The scuttlebutt [Annotator's Note: a period slang term for a rumor] was that one of their division was an informer. These reports really scared Tweedt. If he had been offered the opportunity to get back on one of the ducks [Annotator's Note: DUKW, six-wheel-drive amphibious truck], he would have gone back to Oran [Annotator's Note: Oran, Algeria], even though he knew his life was in God's hand. His faith is absolutely what got him through. Shortly after moving out from Salerno, they had to cross the Rapido River. He has learned since, that the northern bank's terrain was wide open and in view of the German emplacements. It was almost sure death to cross it. The 36th Division really suffered crossing the river. He does not know what the strategy of the 5th Army was, but they took a beating. When they got to the foothills of Monte Cassino [Annotator's Note: Cassino, Italy], he remembers there was real tension there. They received conflicting reports that they [Annotator's Note: the Germans] were in the Cassino [Annotator's Note: in the abbey on top of Monte Cassino] or not. Tweedt can still hear the shout from all of the troops when the first flight of the B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] and B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] came over. The decision had been made to bomb it. He was not very happy about the bombing of a monastery, but war is war. Sherman [Annotator's Note: General of the Army William Tecumseh Sherman, American Union Army] said it right in the Civil War [Annotator's Note: American Civil War, 1861-1865], "war is hell" pure and simple.

[Annotator's Note: Vernon Tweedt was at the Battle of Monte Cassino, Italy and was present when the Allies bombed the abbey on the morning of 15 February 1944.] It was a pretty high elevation and he did not know the construction of the cassino [Annotator's Note: the abbey, or monastery]. He could not see what the bombs were doing but there was fire and volumes of smoke. He learned later that the bombing did not open up things for the troops assigned to take it over. They had a real mess. One of the things, Tweedt observed during the war was how thoroughly the Nazis had built their defenses. What he was experiencing below the Cassino was pinpoint target information that the Germans had. You did not dare move below or you soon heard the whine of the 88 [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. They had it plotted. The necessity of doing this, was number one. After it was taken over, many lives were taken to achieve that, the Liri Valley opened up almost to Rome [Annotator's Note: Rome, Italy]. Another invasion took place at Anzio [Annotator's Note: Anzio, Italy]. After they had liberated the Cassino and moved into the Liri Valley, they were taken back from the front lines. Their vehicles and equipment were painted over Army green. All of the identification and the star on the door was painted over. They were shipped to Anzio and landed. He remembers looking behind him to a stack of 105mm [Annotator's Note: 105mm M101A1 howitzer] casings that was large. They fired so many rounds repeatedly that a crew member had to swab the barrel of the gun after each firing. It was so hot you could not touch it. A similar thing occurred further south. During the night, while Tweedt was sleeping, they moved in a Long Tom [Annotator's Note: 155 mm M1 howitzer] right next to his battery. He bounced off the ground the first time it fired.

What Vernon Tweedt saw of the Italian people was that they were willing to be helpful if necessary, but they pretty much did their own thing. He did not see any Italian military, nor did he see any German prisoners. He did not really have any expectations of them before the war. Towards the end of the war, he was told his division [Annotator's Note: 36th Infantry Division] was the unit that captured von Rundstedt [Annotator's Note: German Army Field Marshal Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt]. He was told that he when he was being questioned, Rundstedt was haughty even after capture. That did not surprise Tweedt. He thinks von Rundstedt was another General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.]. They can say all they want to about General Patton. Tweedt visited with guys who took shots at his Piper Cub [Annotator's Note: Piper J-3 Cub light observation aircraft] from the American Army. To Tweedt that is unforgivable. He had the highest respect for Patton as a general. He was probably short-tempered but that made him top-notch. Tweedt thought of Rundstedt along the same lines. The landings at Normandy [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] have overshadowed what the Army did in Italy. Tweedt is sick and tired of the idea that the war was won by the invasion of Normandy. It was just part of it. He regrets that the guys who fought against Rommel [Annotator's Note: German Army Field Marshal Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel] in Africa, the publicity and exposure and reporting of these poor guys is not very good. Tweedt sees those guys [Annotator's Note: the soldiers who invaded Normandy] as having built on what was done in Italy. It is a matter of teamwork. That is what Tweedt got out of Ken Burns [Annotator's Note: Kenneth Lauren Burns, American filmmaker known for his style of documentary films] and his documentary on World War II [Annotator's Note: "The War"; seven-part American documentary miniseries about World War 2, 2007]. He thinks he was fortunate fighting the Germans and not the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese]. He feels there are parallels in fighting the Japs that the early settlers of the United States experienced fighting the Indians [Annotator's Note: Native-America]. Tweedt did not get much news of what was happening in the Pacific. He had friends there. He is very thankful he was not.

Vernon Tweedt was sent back to Naples [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy, after Rome, Italy was liberated June 1944]. They were trained on the procedures of approaching the shoreline and what the naval ships can do [Annotator's Note: in preparation for Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France, 15 August 1944]. Tweedt thinks the LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] was quite an invention. He shipped over to France by LST. There was not much opposition to the landing. After they landed, they moved so fast up the Rhone Valley [Annotator's Note: Rhone River Valley, France] that they did not have a kitchen with them for a month. They traveled 400 miles to the area of Grenoble [Annotator's Note: Grenoble, France], bypassing a number of Panzer divisions [Annotator's Note: German armored or tank divisions]. He never thought he would eat so many raw eggs. He did not mingle much with the French people. His attitudes were colored by the reports he had received over the years. He still has mixed feelings. "Why did France fall?" It seemed like they just faded away and Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] was able to take over. As he was moving up the Rhone valley, he was dealing with farmers. They were out along the road with baskets of eggs. If you have only C-rations [Annotator's Note: prepared and canned wet combat food] day in and day out, raw egg tasted very good. They had enough rations; this was just a plus. The people he encountered were grateful the Americans were there. There was a change as they got closer to the German border.

Vernon Tweedt and his unit [Annotator's Note: Battery A, 131st Field Artillery Battalion, 36th Infantry Division] were getting close to the Fatherland [Annotator's Note: Germany during the period of dictator Adolf Hitler's control] and the opposition increased. They met stiff resistance in eastern France. He could have easily passed for Japanese because he was so yellow with jaundice [Annotator's Note: medical condition with yellowing of the skin]. He was hospitalized in Southampton, England. While there, eight of his buddies died. Previous to this he was at the Colmar Pocket [Annotator's Note: Colmar Pocket, area in Alsace, France]. They were on the edge of Vosges forest [Annotator's Note: Vosges Mountains, France]. He was a forward observer for the artillery. He and another soldier carried the radio to a house near the edge of the forest on top of a hill. They could see the whole valley below. The Germans had moved a 20mm ack-ack gun [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery] there. During the night, there was some activity. There was a door open, the moonlight was bright, and there were Germans walking around. One of them walked towards the forest followed by a second. Tweedt pulled his .45 [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol]. When they came back, he shot them both. The ack-ack gun then opened fire, hitting hay in the house. It started a fire. They did not know where their lieutenant was. They took the radio and ran to the forest. Tweedt was told later that the lieutenant had skipped out and headed back to headquarters to apply for a Silver Star [Annotator's Note: the Silver Star Medal is the third-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy]. That incident confirmed his decision about officer training. [Annotator's Note: Tweedt had been offered officer training after basic training but turned it down.] He feels this was a factor, as well as other stress in his hepatitis [Annotator's Note: inflammatory condition of the liver]. His sergeant made him go to the hospital. He did not want to be labeled a goldbricker [Annotator's Note: a term for doing less work than one is able to, while maintaining the appearance of working].

[Annotator's Note: Vernon Tweedt was hospitalized in Southampton, England for hepatitis, an inflammatory condition of the liver.] He was in the hospital for a month. There was scuttlebutt [Annotator's Note: period slang term for a rumor] that he would not go back to his old unit [Annotator's Note: Battery A, 131st Field Artillery Battalion, 36th Infantry Division]. He prayed to get back to his guys who were his pals and he did. They were spread out along the western front at the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. They were the south flank, not far from Switzerland. While he was gone, his unit had encountered a company of SS troops [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] coming towards the battery. They fixed bayonets and readied for hand-to-hand combat. They had two half-tracks on both flanks with four, .50 caliber machine guns [Annotator's Note: M16 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage, or M16 half-track; self-propelled antiaircraft weapon; equipped with four .50 caliber Browning M2 machine guns]. They killed the SS troops. When he was in the hospital, he could hear buzz bombs [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug] fly over and explode in London [Annotator's Note: London, England]. They finally crossed the Maginot Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by France in the 1930s]. All along the autobahn [Annotator's Note: federal highway system of Germany] to Stuttgart [Annotator's Note: Stuttgart, Germany], planes were parked. [Annotator's Note: Tweedt talks about serving a church near where he is currently and about seeing a tall chimney burning excess fuel. It reminded Tweedt of driving towards Stuttgart. It was a haunting feeling.]

Vernon Tweedt was crossing southern Germany. The mountain streams were almost clogged with rainbow trout because Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] prohibited fishing. Their kitchen crew served a feast to Battery A [Annotator's Note: Battery A, 131st Field Artillery Battalion, 36th Infantry Division]. The Germans [Annotator's Note: German civilians] were mad that they did that, they could not do that. He did not have too much of a relationship with the German civilians. In Ottobeuren [Annotator's Note: Ottobeuren, Germany], they were taken off the front line for a rest period. Sunday afternoon, Tweedt decided to stroll through the town. He started hearing organ music and walked towards it. He came to a beautiful church [Annotator's Note: Ottobeuren Abbey] and went inside. There was a young teenager playing the organ. Tweedt knew the history of the hymn being played. The writer of it had been a pastor during the Black Plague [Annotator's Note: Black Death; global epidemic of bubonic plague, infectious disease caused by bacterium, in Europe and Asia, mid-1300s]. [Annotator's Note: He sings the song.] Tweedt shouted for joy. He told all the guys back at the camp about it.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Vernon Tweedt to tell him about when he got to the Dachau concentration camp in Dachau, Germany on 30 April 1945.] It was graphic, walking into that courtyard with bodies stacked like cord wood. They were Jews. He took several pictures. He never showed them to his wife. One day their oldest daughter got into where they were and took them to her mother. He feels that a lot of veterans have been hesitant to share what they experienced. He asked a B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] tail gunner who flew over Okinawa, Japan, who told him he had the same feeling. He has things he has never shared with his wife. When he saw the bodies, he asked himself if it was possible for people to stoop to that kind of thing. It was hard to imagine, and he thinks that is why people deny there was a Holocaust. Tweedt has seen it. He was just outside of Salzburg, Austria when the war ended. When he first heard that Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] was gone, and Germany had surrendered, and he bawled like a baby. The older he has gotten, the more he has appreciated what the poor people went through. He is very grateful to the American people, Congress, President, and leaders in this country who were enough involved with the effort of World War 2 to make it possible for him to get his college and seminary training on the G.I. Bill. He took full advantage. He was eligible for 36 months of education. He does not understand the people who did not use it. He feels that was a lack of appreciation for what an education can mean for a person. Tweedt is the first in his family to get graduate education because of it.

A guy approached Vernon Tweedt's wife at a reunion and told her he wanted to share something about Tweedt. Their Battery [Annotator's Note: Battery A, 131st Field Artillery Battalion, 36th Infantry Division] was being shelled by the Germans. He volunteered to help out. Tweedt told him to stay in the foxhole. He said he did not think he was ready to go [Annotator's Note: to die], Tweedt was. Tweedt took over the gun. Tweedt was just led by love, love the Lord had given him for his guys in his gun crew. It was an opportunity to show this love. Tweedt does not remember the event. He does remember a very graphic experience that happened at Grenoble [Annotator's Note: Grenoble, France]. The 105mm howitzers [Annotator's Note: 105mm M101A1 howitzer] were not made to fire direct. They had not dug any foxholes as they had just gotten there. An order came down to prepare for direct fire. A tank had broken through the infantry. Tweedt had visions that if they had to fire direct in that terrain, that gun would go straight up. Fortunately, a tank destroyer knocked out the tank. They suddenly heard the swoosh of a big shell. It was a 16 inch shell of a railroad gun [Annotator's Note: Krupp K5 heavy railway gun] the Germans had brought in. Tweedt was lying beside the big wheel of his gun, below the gun trails, when the explosion took place. He heard a sharp click above his head. A piece of shrapnel had hit the gun and missed his head. He was not scared at the time, but he shook afterwards. He has to say that after seeing Ken Burns' [Annotator's Note: Kenneth Lauren Burns, American filmmaker known for his style of documentary films] series [Annotator's Note: "The War"; seven-part American documentary miniseries about World War 2, 2007], he realized that he must have been in situations that his mind has removed. He was closer to death than he knew.

Vernon Tweedt does not recall where he was when a trainload of people came through the town. They were packed like sardines in box cars. He has always been interested in the Jew. He had a friend in headquarters who could speak German. Tweedt engaged one of the men in regard to his relationship to God. He got nowhere but he did learn that they had been several days on the train without stops for relieving themselves. They were desperately hungry. Tweedt's mistake was to not realize how much of a shock food could be to the system. He gave this man a spoon and a can of food. The man immediately devoured it and dropped over dead. [Annotator's Note: Offscreen, Tweedt's wife mentions that he was part of the Lost Battalion, 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry, 36th Infantry Division, surrounded by German forces 24 October 1944.] They were cut off for about five days in the Vosges mountains [Annotator's Note: Vosges mountains, France]. They learned they needed to dig foxholes for protection. Planes were skimming the treetops to drop food and ammunition. This was P-38s [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] and P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft]. They got relief. The Japanese-American 442nd [Annotator's Note: 442nd Regimental Combat Team] was preparing to break through. Tweedt was surprised to see the men were Japanese when they got to them. He did not know about them, but they were okay. That unit really suffered. He questions the assignments that were given them. He admires that as a military man, Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] knew that if you had a situation you had to hit it 100 percent. Lives are at stake.

Before Vernon Tweedt was discharged in Germany, his then-girlfriend had written him. A pastor had offered her a job opportunity in Longview, Washington. The day he left to go to Le Havre, France, the entire cadre of guards were drunk. The mood at that time was pretty low. His girlfriend took the job in September [Annotator's Note: September 1945]. Tweedt had begun his voyage home on 28 August. He got home and moped around. His father told him his problem was that his heart was out in Washington state. He went to where she was. He got a job as a checkout clerk at a grocery. One night a week he could see his girlfriend. They were engaged in December and the day after Christmas they went back to Iowa. He was still restless. He entered Oxford College in Minneapolis [Annotator's Note: Minneapolis, Minnesota]. In early January [Annotator's Note: January 1946] as a pre-sem [Annotator's Note: pre-seminary; a seminary is a school of theology] student on the G.I. Bill. He took as much as he could every semester. Their first daughter was born after they were married in June 1946. He had a history major and a minor in Greek. He signed up for a course in philosophy. The professor criticized religion for about 30 minutes. A girl asked to speak and told him she believed in God and Jesus Christ. [Annotator's Note: Tweedt then recites the Apostles' Creed, or Apostolic Creed; statement of Christian belief.] You could hear a pin drop. The professor dismissed the class. Tweedt knew then what he wanted to do. He felt the call to the ministry even before he was a soldier, and that clinched it. He felt no conflict between being a soldier and a minister, not when you walk into Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau concentration camp complex near Dachau, Germany]. What he has read about Adolf Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] since then, we had a responsibility as Americans. He has often asked himself about the pacifists. What do you do in the face of that kind of life for people? One of the principal parts of the calling to be a minister is to help people realize that when God says he has loved with an everlasting love, that is a message that people need. There are people who have taken their own life in desperation over the current recession [Annotator’s Note: United States recession of 2008]. The bail-out business amounts to digging a hole. It was absolutely necessary for the United States to become involved in World War 2. Many people do not realize how close Hitler was to perfecting the atomic bomb. He would not have been satisfied until he had the whole world.