Vernon Wold was born in January 1926 in Fargo, North Dakota. He grew up on a farm with an aunt after his parents died when he was six. He moved to Fergus Falls, Minnesota. He took an exam in April 1943 for the Army Specialized Training Program [Annotator's Note: generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers] and passed. He graduated from high school June 1943 and went to Fort Snelling [Annotator's Note: Fort Snelling, Minnesota]in July 1943 and was sworn in at age 17. He then went to the University of Kansas. Joining the military was a big adventure. When the majority of them reached 18 they could be drafted. He went to Camp Roberts, California in February 1944 for 19 weeks of infantry training. Wold was then sent to the 65th Division [Annotator's Note: 3rd Battalion, 261st Infantry Regiment, 65th Infantry Division] at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. Infantry training was fun. It was hard work. They were all typical teenagers. He was not interested in the day-by-day news of the war. He was in battalion intelligence but moved over to anti-tank guns. He learned how to use the gun and stayed at Camp Shelby until December 1944.

On 10 January 1945, Vernon Wold went by train to Camp Shanks, New York [Annotator's Note: Camp Shanks in Orangetown, New York]. He sailed from New York [Annotator's Note: 10 January 1945] and was part of the first group to go into Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France 21 January 1945]. In March 1945, he went on the line at the Saar River [Annotator's Note: Orscholz, Germany] and went into combat. He was excited because he did not know anything about it. They went on the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s]. They got some artillery fire coming in but had not had an infantry contact. In the middle of March they attacked across the river [Annotator's Note: Saar River near Menningen, Germany]. They were in Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] 3rd Army. They did not have much contact until they reached the Rhine River. His battalion [Annotator's Note: 3rd Battalion, 261st Infantry Regiment, 65th Infantry Division] was detached from the rest of the division and became the spearhead of 3rd Army. They were told to go as fast they could as far as they could. They fought all day and quit at night. They went 109 miles in nine days of fighting. They were stopped so the Russians could take Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany]. A day later the Germans counterattacked. They were going to the Merkers mines [Annotator's Note: now Merkers Adventure Mines, Thuringia, Germany] to retrieve their gold. On 7 April [Annotator's Note: 7 April 1945] was the Battle of Struth [Annotator's Note: Battle of Struth, Thuringia, Germany]. They got two German tanks right off but there were too many and the Germans pounded them. His anti-tank gun and truck were destroyed, four men were killed, and more were wounded. The battle lasted all day, but they won. They then took Regensburg [Annotator's Note: Regensburg, Germany 27 April 1945], went into Austria and took Linz [Annotator's Note: Linz, Austria 5 May 1945]. The Germans were not fighting as hard. He was listening to the radio 8 May and heard the war in Europe was over.

[Annotator's Note: Vernon Wold fought in the Battle of Struth, Thuringia, Germany on 7 April 1945.] When the German tanks turned and responded, they were hitting pretty close. Wold got bounced off the side of a schoolhouse. He had a certain amount of fear but learned to control it, and did his job. He was no longer a teenager, he had grown up. He thought the Germans were all bad guys. His battalion [Annotator's Note: 3rd Battalion, 261st Infantry Regiment, 65th Infantry Division] went to Asten [Annotator's Note: Asten, Austria]. On 7 May [Annotator's Note: 7 May 1945], the Germans started coming in to surrender because they did not want to be captured by the Russians. Several thousand surrendered. Wold's Headquarters Company went to Saint Florian, Austria [Annotator's Note: Sankt Florian, Austria] until 31 August [Annotator's Note: 31 August 1945] when the Division was deactivated. Wold went to 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division and Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau concentration camp complex near Dachau, Germany] as a guard. The camp was being used for trials [Annotator's Note: trials for war criminals who committed crimes against American citizens and military personnel, Dachau, Germany]. They were not part of the Nuremberg Trials [Annotator's Note: Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, military tribunals Nuremberg, Germany, 20 November 1945 to 1 October 1946]. They had a Polish guard battalion there that they supervised. He only got a sense of the camp when he went to where the ovens were. The German prisoners ran their own camp. No German civilians came to see the camp that he knows of. He went up to Berchtesgaden [Annotator's Note: Berchtesgaden, Germany] for Christmas 1945. He left for home in May [Annotator's Note: May 1946].

Vernon Wold came home by ship [Annotator's Note: on 1 May 1946]. He went to Fort Sheridan, Chicago [Annotator's Note: Fort Sheridan, Lake Forest, Illinois]. He had no thoughts of reenlisting. He used the G.I. Bill to go to college at the University of Minnesota. He went to pharmacy school. He enrolled in ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps]. He became a Distinguished Military Graduate in June 1950. He went to work as a pharmacist. He went in the Reserves. The Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 1950 to 1953] broke out. He decided to go back in the service where he stayed until 1 August 1975. [Annotator's Note: Wold gets up and walks out of the camera frame.] He left the service six years earlier than he had to.

Vernon Wold was infantry in World War 2 and a medic in Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 1950 to 1953]. He went to Korea in July 1952 in the 3rd Division [Annotator's Note: 3rd Infantry Division]. He had the aid station of the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry [Annotator's Note: 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division], the old Audie Murphy [Annotator's Note: US Army Major Audie Leon Murphy] battalion. He rotated back to a medical battalion and became the Operations Officer. It was a different war, and it became a battle of outposts. In Korea, they had armored vests that they did not have in World War 2. Overall his impression was that the war stopped the Communists. Initially Korean War veterans were forgotten about. They got recognition about 15 years after the war was over. Outpost Harry [Annotator's Note: remote Korean War hilltop outpost] would give him 100 casualties a night. He became a little harder. You either do your job or get out. There was no reception when he came home from the Korean War. Coming back after World War 2, he was a civilian and had pals that had served together. Coming back from Korea, he was just going back to work at Saint Louis Medical Depot, Saint Louis [Annotator's Note: Saint Louis, Missouri]. He was just another officer. He was a Medical Logistician and got an advanced degree in computer science and management information systems. He spent six years in the Surgeon General's office [Annotator's Note: Washington, D.C.] and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. He served in France and on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. On Okinawa, they were supporting what was happening in Vietnam and Thailand. [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975. Interviewer asks him what he thought of that war.] He has no comment. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Wold if he has an opinion on the Yom Kippur War, also called 1973 Arab-Israeli War, 6 to 25 October 1973.] There was a whole difference in reasoning. World War 2 had to be fought and won. For Vietnam, there were a lot of arguments.

Vernon Wold's most memorable experience of World War 2 was feeling the 57 [Annotator's Note: M1 57mm anti-tank gun] fire at German tanks and getting fired back at. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Wold him why he chose to serve in the war.] He was a teenager bored with his life at home. Everybody was involved. There were very few who dodged service. The war got Wold to college and changed his way of living. His service means he was part of the effort to win. He would rather have been there than not. He is proud of it. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Wold what he thinks the war means to America today.] That is difficult to answer. The 1960s and 1970s were good years for the country. In World War 2 the country was on the top and on the right side. There was one large goal, and everybody worked toward it. These days, people are out for themselves. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Wold if he thinks it is important for there to be The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.] There has to be a means for remembering. They should be remembered not as an occurrence but about what was accomplished and what can be. The war should be taught to future generations, but it should be about showing what a country can do. He thinks we will never have that kind of war again. He does not think anybody who has been in combat likes war. The problem is that you have to win. If you lose you are done.