This photograph shows half tracks with attached utility trailers in a field at Camp Barkeley. These were used for training and passed on from division to division.
This photograph shows me sitting on the steps of the barracks in July 1944. I have a M1 rifle.
This photograph shows five soldiers of my squad with a 60 mm mortar, a bazooka and a water cooled Browning 30 cal. machine gun. We're cleaning weapons for inspection. These five men appear in a number of photographs throughout the album. Otto, on the left, was later Sergeant and as noted in another photograph is the "old man" at 23. His later pictures in Germany appear on pages 024, 025, 026 and 029. Colunga, on the far right, was the driver, and appears in the next photo shaving. Three members of the squad missing in this picture are Sergeant Kulak, Al Molan and myself.
This photograph is the first in the album of Phil Colunga. He was the half track driver for the rifle squad. I was the assistant drive. He was Hispanic, and probably the only non-white soldier in the company of 255 men. He was from Los Angles.
I am returning from training maneuvers at Camp Bowie. I don't know where I got the camouflage uniform, but I've always liked this picture.
This photograph shows me in a foxhole at Camp Bowie. There's a picture of Phil Colunga in the same hole on page 12. It was very hot. This was part of a maneuver that tested us before we went to Europe. It was early September 1944, and we were shipped out later that month. It was a little crazy, becasue all we had to do was drive 25 miles from Camp Barkley to Camp Bowie, and dig some fox holes. We thought maybe we'd be shipped to the Pacific from here, because it was so hot and we thought that's why we were sent there.
This photograph shows me at my family's home in Hillman City, Seattle. I have private insignia and had been in the army for 11 months. I'm 19 years old.