Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
In a world where storytelling has been our link to the past since the days of cave drawings, there exists a timeless tradition. It's the art of passing down knowledge, and for Military Veterans, it's a crucial piece of their legacy. Join us on the Veterans Archives Podcast, where we dive deep into the heartwarming and awe-inspiring stories of those who served, no matter when or where.
Here, Veterans get the chance to be the authors of their own narratives. Through guided interviews in a relaxed and safe environment, they paint their experiences with their own words and unique voices. The result? A memory card in a presentation box, a precious gift they can share however they please.
But that's not all. These stories find a secure home in our archive, a treasure chest of experiences for future generations to explore. The best part? It's all a gift to the Veteran – our way of saying thank you for their service.
Tune in to the Veterans Archives Podcast, where history, heroism, and heartwarming tales come to life.
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Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
From WWII Tales to Vietnam Trials: Robert Magdowski's Journey
Have you ever wondered how family heritage can shape one's destiny? In our latest episode, we're joined by Robert Magdowski, a former United States Navy Seabee, who takes us on a heartfelt journey through his family's rich military history. From gripping tales of World War I and II to the Korean War, Robert recounts the stories of his father and uncles, whose bravery in epic battles like Dieppe and the Battle of Britain left an indelible mark on his upbringing. Experience the influential power of growing up surrounded by veterans, and how their wartime experiences inspired Robert to embark on his own path of service.
Follow Robert's unexpected journey into the Navy during the Vietnam War, where he and his friend Eric Felt took the plunge into military life. Robert shares vivid memories of attending carpenter school, working on critical infrastructure projects under enemy fire, and the camaraderie that developed amidst the chaos. From runway resurfacing at Khe Sanh to the poignant moments of friendship and loss, Robert's tales provide a raw and compelling insight into the life of a Seabee during one of America's most tumultuous wars. Discover what it's like to endure harsh conditions, form resilient bonds, and navigate the perilous landscapes of Vietnam.
As the episode winds down, Robert reflects on the enduring connections forged through military service, sharing anecdotes from family gatherings and reunions with fellow veterans. Listen to the joy and nostalgia of reconnecting with old friends and relatives, and the importance of maintaining those bonds. Whether it's a lively family party or a touching reunion in Louisville, Robert's stories underscore the timeless values of hard work, kindness, and respect. This episode is a tribute to the enduring spirit of camaraderie and the life lessons learned from a legacy of service.
Good morning.
Speaker 2:Good morning to you too.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you. Today is Wednesday, september 18th, 2024. And we are talking with Robert McDowski, who served in the United States Navy, and I would be remiss if I didn't say he served as a CB, because I think that's very important, yeah, so, robert, we're going to start out really simple. I'm just going to ask you when and where were you born?
Speaker 2:I was born in Tampa, Florida, 1944. My dad was stationed in the military down there.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you come from a military family. Yes, sir, all right, tell me a little bit about your dad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody in my family was in the military during World War II and my grandpa was in World War I. All my aunts and uncles on the Canadian side were in the military. They were at the Battle of Dieppe. You ever hear of Dieppe Gardens in Canada?
Speaker 1:I have not.
Speaker 2:Where the Essex Scottish went in and got wiped out. That's where my mom and dad grew up with them kids, because that unit came from Windsor, that unit came from Windsor. So everybody that I grew up with had an uncle that was one was a Spitfire pilot the Battle of Britain, you know. He got killed. He got what happened with his plane. He was landing in, another plane ran into him and killed him. Okay, and then let's see, and my uncle Armand, he was in the Merchant Marine.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh you know, he was at the Second Battle, or he joined when he was 17, and he went to England, you know, and he was there for the second Blitz and all that. He went all over the world. My Uncle, dave, was a paratrooper during the Korean War.
Speaker 1:Okay, korean War. Do you know what unit he was with as a paratrooper? Do you remember?
Speaker 2:He was with the Canadian.
Speaker 1:He was with the.
Speaker 2:Vanduus Okay, he was with the Vanduus. Okay, he was with the Vanduus. And then my aunt was in the military.
Speaker 1:I might say and so you literally came from a military family.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and my dad's side my Uncle John. He was with the 11th Air Force in Alaska during the Second World War. And then my Uncle Eddie. He was at Moffett Field in Florida where Doodle was training. Yeah, the bomb, you know Tokyo, he was there.
Speaker 1:Sounds like your family came from Canada originally. Is that true?
Speaker 2:Well, my your dad your mom was there.
Speaker 1:Sounds like your family came from Canada originally. Is that true?
Speaker 2:Well, my your dad, your mom, Well, my grandpa, my dad, he was a bootlegger and they had a cottage on the other side of the river and that's where they used to bring the booze across during the Depression. They all stayed over there all summer that was about the time the bridge was built. They all married Canadian women, right, right, but yeah, essex, scottish. You know, they went to school. They knew them all and they got wiped out at Essex, scottish. When they landed at Dieppe.
Speaker 2:It was a big battle. They all got captured or killed, right, and we'd sit around. You know when it was a big battle, they all got captured or killed, right, and we'd sit around it. You know when I was a kid and they'd all be talking about it. You know the battle, you know they knew everybody. As I was growing up, there was all these World War II veterans around, you know. They were always talking about the war and stuff. And then when I was about 17, a guy, I was a scuba diver, I was doing. You know, I was just a kid, but this guy come along named Louie Caladino and he was a carpenter.
Speaker 2:He hired me and he was a veteran of the Korean War and you know this guy had and he was was an emergency man for 10, 15 years.
Speaker 2:He had all kinds of stories so he used to tell them all to me. Now he won the Silver Star and all that. He was up for the Distinguished Service Medal but the guy that was with the officer got killed so he didn't get that but I got pictures of him. He was a good guy. He was at Heartbreak Ridge. He said I wasn't the first guy up there. He said I was the first one up there that was alive. He said everybody else got killed. He said they got to the top. There was only like 30 of them left. He said that was a takeoff from that movie, pork Chop Hill. He said that's just the way they fought it. They came up. He said the lights come on and all that. So I was with him and he knew all kind of veterans, you know, and I was working.
Speaker 2:I met guys that were at Tarawa. He had all kind of buddies but they were all military and when I was working I worked heavy construction, you know concrete form work. These guys were all you know, all you know tough, you know. You know they all had wars. I worked with one guy that was in the same platoon as Audie Murphy. Oh, he said he knew. He said that movie was just like the way he did it. He said he wasn't a hero. He said but that Audie Murphy was. I met a guy named Ardo. That was with Carlson's Raiders, he was at Guadalcanal and all that. I met so many guys over my lifetime that were in big battles. Right, that's how? Yeah, I was always, since all my relatives had been in the military. It just you know, that's all they did all talk about stuff.
Speaker 1:This is fascinating because I didn't grow up in a military family and I didn't grow up around a lot of military people. My stepfather served in Korea, but that was the extent of the stories that I heard. So I just wanted to ask you did you find yourself sort of looking up to these people because of what they had done and who they had served with?
Speaker 2:Look, when I grew up, we lived in an apartment that my grandpa owned, and all us cousins and all the brothers we all lived in the same apartment building and the toys we had back then we played with were them toy soldiers too, and I got a big collection of them upstairs in this place here. I got a warehouse over in Westland that's just loaded with them. That was just a hobby though.
Speaker 1:You talked about diving. You talked about working heavy construction with these guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I worked with Louie we were building just modernization jobs, you know, additions and stuff and he was a character, that guy He'd been all over the world several times. He's the one that kind of raised me. You know, working with all them guys and hearing stories, you know you just wanted to do something. What happened? How I joined the Navy? I was an apprentice carpenter. I quit that with that. Louis went and got an apprenticeship and all that. I was in the carpenter school in 1967 when my buddy, this Eric Felt guy he was a carpenter too and I knew him. We grew up together and they came to the school looking for bodies to join the military the Seabees. Now, around what year was this? This was June of 1967. They came to the school looking for bodies to join the military. Okay, the Seabees.
Speaker 1:Yeah, around. What year was this?
Speaker 2:This was June of 1967. I said, no, I ain't going to join. So he joined, I called, I went home and I called the draft board and he said man, you're on the list, you're going next month.
Speaker 1:So you might as well join, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I said well, hell month, so you might as well join, right. Yeah, I said, well, hell, and it was same thing, it was only two years. Yeah, oh, and they it was a what they call the ipo program, since you had experience. They made me a corporal to go in. I got e4 going in with no boot camp and they brought in about 40,000. They brought in 40, 50,000 guys to join the Seabees, you know, to go to Vietnam. Yeah, so we joined that. We went to Davisville, rhode Island, for indoctrination into the military and you know, spent time there, came out of that, shipped me right away to Port Huaneme, california, where the big CB base was, and put me with MCB4. A mob We'll call it a mob. It stands for Mobile Construction Battalion. So I joined them and when they came back from Vietnam they rebuilt the outfit. Then we went right over. I didn't have guys, right. Then we went right over. I didn't have no boot camp at all, I just went right over.
Speaker 1:So you never went to boot camp. That's really interesting to me. You're the first person I've ever talked to that did not go to boot camp.
Speaker 2:We went right over.
Speaker 1:You feel like you missed out on anything by any chance. No, not really.
Speaker 2:You know, when we were in Port Huaneme, of course we went down to Oceanside and do the rifle practice and all that, but there was no marching and no KP or none of that with us. They just wanted guys to work. You know how they checked you They'd grab your arm. You're warm, we need you.
Speaker 1:This was kind of at the height of the war, right? No, that wasn't the height of the war.
Speaker 2:So then we went over in February I went in February of 68, yeah, 68 went over there, and then 68. Yeah, 68. Okay, yeah, I went over there. And then we went right up to Khe Sanh, which is up north on the DMZ, which is the furthest combat base. The only one further was Khantyam, which was a little further up than us and uh, we went up there. I was only there about a week. We went up there to resurface the runway because we'd pull up the mats and then they would take all the mud out during the monsoons, you know. And uh, then they regrade him, you know, yeah, we lost. One guy named Hubbard got killed and the guy that slept above me, some young kid, yeah, he got wounded, he mortar attack and his mom wrote back yes, he led her to the officer.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:This kid was so, so, so you know 17. Of course I didn't tell you I was 22 when I went in the military, Right, I was 22. I was as old as the guy in charge. You know I was old compared to everybody else. Yeah, it was a lot of young kids, wasn't it? Oh yeah, this kid that got hurt was young. He got wounded. I never got hurt. He was packing his peacoat and I told him I said listen, buddy, where we're going, you ain't going to need that peacoat. You leave that back here with whatever gear you're leaving here. So, yeah, well, nice enough, enough young kid. He slept above me in my rack.
Speaker 1:Poor Wainimi. So you took ships over or did you fly?
Speaker 2:No, we flew. Okay, we flew. No, we flew over big cargo planes. I saw Nancy Sinatra. We landed in Oakland Uh-huh, oakland, california. When we were going over, we had our rifles with us. I couldn't believe that we all carried our rifles. When we left, we were in Oakland With a rifle. Yeah, the plane probably had 300, 400 guys on it, yeah, like that. And saw Nancy Sinatra. Guys had her sign their shot cards and stuff. She's real small.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, she sang the boots song right, yeah, these boots for walking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we landed at Hawaii first. We landed at Wake Island, which is only three feet above sea level. Small island, right, yeah, we landed at Wake Island. That was the hottest place, boy. It was that hot.
Speaker 1:Really yeah, man, it was just like steaming.
Speaker 2:The Philippines Clark Air Force Base. We landed and flew on to Da Nang. Yeah, flew on to Da Nang.
Speaker 1:So tell me, what do you remember about first landing in Vietnam?
Speaker 2:We landed at night, they opened up the big cargo doors, because that's the kind of planes we were in. They flew open the doors and then all this hot air rushed in and it looked like it was daylight outside, because there were so many flares going off. All you could see was flares. It was like daylight. And a guy came up in a Jeep with a 50 on it and just says get out, get out, get out. So we all, you know, we jump out and they put you in what they call cattle cars. You know, yeah, got in and drove us over to Camp Hoover's where we were stationed, where we were, and they said, well, get out, get out, you know. And then the first thing you do, you're in the line.
Speaker 2:Of course, all the bullshit. They take all your money away from you, all your greenbacks, all your money, and then they give you occupation money in exchange. And then they said, well, they got a big box of ammo and I said, well, how much can I take? He said as much as you can carry. I said, well, how much can I take? He said as much as you can carry. I said, okay, you grab a bunch of ammo and you just shove it in your pocket or whatever, I can't remember too much. And then he said well, go outside and sleep and we'll count noses in the morning straighten everything out and then did you get much sleep that first night there?
Speaker 2:I don't know it wasn't like it was a, you know, a front line place, you know, right? Yeah, I don't really remember. Just you know everything's new. All these guys are young guys. I was older than most of them. I'd been around. You know a little bit, you know I could drink and I'd have been partying for years, you know, but I had to you know.
Speaker 1:So how long were you in this processing area?
Speaker 2:Just a few hours, it wasn't long.
Speaker 1:Where'd you go from there?
Speaker 2:Well, we stayed right at that camp. Most of my tour of duty was at this Camp Hoover, which was by Hill 327, the big PX right outside of Da Nang. Then you just go out and you know they'll sign you jobs. You know, build chow halls, bunkers, revetments. I went up to K-San, worked on that runway. That was at the time of Hill 861 and 881 was taken. There was a big battle up there. They lost. There was 1,500 guys killed at K-Sign total for the siege.
Speaker 2:I just came back from a reunion with them and a great, great bunch of guys I went over to when I was up at Khe Sanh. We were working that night and I thought that was stupid, but you know, because they'd tear it up because the planes were landing. Oh yeah, I got it my nose. As we were landing at Khe Sanh it was cut off at the top of the runway. We're going at a real steep angle and I says to the guy of course it was an old C-130, all full of bullet holes, man all shot up. I said how come we're coming in so steep? He said well, they're shooting at us. That's is, we fly in. So we fly in. And all they did was they come in, they taxi around and everybody's jumping out of the airplane. They're like on the back thing and we're running and jumping in slip trenches Because they're afraid they're going to get shelled right away. Then your guys are running out, that are leaving, getting on the airplane, bumping into everybody and all that crap. Chaos, right.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. How long were you there working on that?
Speaker 2:I was only there. I was only at KSI for about a week, okay, but these other guys that was in my, my platoon, some of them there, were there a long time, months. They were there months building the revetments for the airplanes and bunkers for the Air Force pilots and stuff. Big bunkers, big bunkers. They were there. And we went over to Special Forces Camp at Long Bay which was just, it was an old French outpost and it was all shot up. Man, which was just an old French outpost and it was all shot up man, it was just blowed to hell. We went over there and visited with them guys and they got overrun. There was a big battle there. Them guys got overrun.
Speaker 2:There'd been several stories written about that place and it was a mountain art village. There were mountain arts up there. They weren't really village. There were mountain arts up there. They weren't really Vietnamese, they were mountain arts. They were the hungs, you know the mungs or whatever you call them, but these mountain arts were real stacking. They carried big knives on their backs. There was an experience there. Let's see, yeah, the runway that night there was a guy named guy wrote a lot, bunch of books. Uh, stuby, he wrote a bunch of books about Khe Sanh. You know if you ever get the chance to read one. You know he come by and he was. He was the, the chaplain. He's 83 now and yeah, he come by and was helping us. You know the kind of guy he was so where'd you go from Quezon?
Speaker 2:Well, from Quezon, go back to your main base. I went to Hill 55. I was there quite a while. We were building stuff, building Quonset huts and stuff. That's where that sniper was they talk about. They made movies about her too, sniper, at the bottom of the hill, it was a big hill. It was an old French place that the French had controlled. You could look all over.
Speaker 1:So for people who don't know, the French were there before.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, A lot of French. French had big bunkers. You couldn't even go each out without your rifle. When you're over there on these outposts and stuff, they won't feed you unless you got your rifle. Yeah, because you might get attacked any time.
Speaker 2:Went to Liberty Bridge, worked on Liberty Bridge for a long time and we had a bridge across the Song Thuban River that was up from Hill 55 further north. We were surrounded all the time. We were with the Marines, slept in a big bunker and then the guys who were there before me built. We had a guy fall off the bridge named Gots. He fell and his whole body hit the water, except his head hit one of them. Pontoon boats killed this guy, oh geez. And I had just taken some movies of me and him shaving out a water buffalo. A couple days before that, and, yeah, guts, I don't know 20, 30 years later, I finally called his mom, told her what happened. I had movies and I had some movies made, the last pictures ever taken of him. I had them sent to her Guts. Then we on hill 55 the one went down hill 55, the one went down by. First tanks Marines had a tank off it. You know, we stayed with them. We built them a.
Speaker 1:You know, we were building quonset huts chow halls, right, whatever places to sleep, places to eat, places to work, all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, built a lot of two-hole and one-hole shitters in my time, yeah.
Speaker 1:You got to have them right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got to have them. See this all. They would transfer guys all over. You know they needed four guys here, five guys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you didn't always travel with all your people, right? No, no, it was just whatever they needed.
Speaker 2:Whatever, they needed five carpenters over here, or builders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know yeah. Well, what's one thing that like when you think about your time in Vietnam, what's one thing that stands out to you while you were there?
Speaker 2:That first day there, when we landed, man, when we landed, that's the first thing I thought, man, all that hot air came in, do you?
Speaker 1:think what the hell am I doing here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, boy, what I get myself into now. We're in trouble now.
Speaker 1:I think I've asked myself that question a few times in my military career. How long were you actually in Vietnam?
Speaker 2:Well, what happened was? I got there and our tour of duty for the Seabees was eight months. I stayed eight months but I would have had to come back to the States to stay with a unit. Then they were coming back, right. So I said, hell, I might as well just stay here because I'm getting combat pay. Yeah, I was only making $65 a month. So then I got one of the first guys to get an R&R to Australia, so I stayed for that reason. Okay, went to Australia. I was one of the first guys in there before all them guys ruined it.
Speaker 2:You got to see it before it got wrecked yeah before it got wrecked, went to Hong Kong twice, so I stayed 16 months. So you did back-to-back tours yeah so I stayed, and when I got off the airplane it was so close to my date, but as I got off the airplane, they discharged me that day. Wow, okay, they gave me, I took my leave, some leave, and then they well, yeah, then they had to hang around, you know, to do all the paperwork, but I was discharged.
Speaker 1:Well, let me ask you a question, though I don't want to forget this. You were gone for 16 months. What was it like when you came back? Because you remember going there. You remember that first day. What was it like when you came back? Because you remember going there. You remember that first day. What was it like when you?
Speaker 2:got back. It was like I was leaving home. When I come back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got used to it right.
Speaker 2:I was so used to being there, you know, yeah, being around and all that Did it feel foreign to be home almost yeah. Yeah, my mom and dad were my aunt, were waiting for me at the airport when I came back home, they had to sign up and walk them home. All my buddies come by, yeah.
Speaker 1:Old buddies. So you got home, they processed you out pretty quick, which is interesting because I've interviewed a couple of World War II vets and the same thing kind of happened to them when they got back, because they were in kind of the tail end. They got home and they were discharged immediately. In fact my stepdad from the Korean War was discharged right after he got home. So it was kind of a common thing back then, I guess.
Speaker 2:Well, I only joined for two years and I come back and they weren't going to keep me, they weren't going to extend me or nothing. I'd done my time. I did the two tours. I just did it for the money and to go places. It wasn't like we were in a front line outfit. We only had nine, ten guys get killed. We had three guys drown as we were going to Vietnam. Three guys drowned, oh yeah, when we landed, as we were going to Vietnam on the airplane, we had three guys killed by IED. You know it blew up and killed these three First class and the chief, I think they were and they were killed. They were on the advance party and they were killed. They were on the advance party and they got killed. And then we had guys drowned.
Speaker 2:We were down at Red Beach, which was close to China Beach, If you see that movie. But China Beach wasn't like that. I've been down there. Red Beach was next to that. So, yeah, they told them don't go in the water, Bad under. They went in and that was it. One guy come out, the other threw four, one in one only come out. We were putting a helicopter pad down there. That's why I was down there we were putting a helicopter pad in.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's the interesting thing about military guys. Right is, when you tell them not to do something, that's immediately what they want to do, right? Don't go there. That's where you go. Don't do that. That's what you do, for that's where you go. Don't do that. That's what you do for all the discipline that we have being in the military. There's certain things that I find interesting. So the other thing that's interesting is that you, um, when you think about the vietnam war, we lost a lot of people there, um, and to be able to make the statement, we only lost nine or ten people, um, which isn't a small number really, but when you look at the whole thing, it was a small number.
Speaker 2:We had a lot of guys get hurt in my outfit. There were a lot of guys walking around broken arms, legs, you know all messed up.
Speaker 1:So you get home, you get your discharge paperwork.
Speaker 2:I went back to carpenter school Okay, went back, just, you know, because I was getting money. I went to a carpenter school Okay, went back, just because I was getting money. I said I'll just go here, continue out. And I stayed in heavy construction, concrete work, where you make forms, and I'd go up high. I worked at Zug Island. Familiar with Zug Island, I am not. Where's that? That one isn't that. That's where they make steel. Oh, steel mill. I worked on all of them in there for years, nine years, ten years, on and off going to redo stuff. That kind of a job you meet better, not everybody's stabbing everybody back because it's all hard work and nobody wants them jobs, right. So I stayed just with them guys and, you know, just worked hard and it was dangerous. I was used to that kind of stuff. We had a lot of guys. I've been on jobs. Three or four guys get killed at a time, guys fall, a lot of accidents.
Speaker 1:The interesting thing about construction work is that it can be as dangerous as being in a combat zone.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you're not getting shot at. It was, it was.
Speaker 1:But there's an enemy there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got it. Yeah, it was a very dangerous job?
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you learn things from your two years in the Seabees that helped you as a construction worker?
Speaker 2:Be careful yeah.
Speaker 1:I can only imagine.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I liked that adrenaline with this construction work. You know it was adrenaline. Yeah, all them jobs. We'd go up high, you know, 600, 800 feet. Yeah, you know. I don't like getting on a stepstool, so just thinking about being that high up is terrifying.
Speaker 1:So when I came in today, I met your wife, so can you tell me a little bit about how you guys met?
Speaker 2:Her daughter is married to my son. I met her 14 years ago.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. So how many children do you have? Three, three kids. Okay, all right. So how many children do you have? Three, three kids. Okay, all right. So were you married before then?
Speaker 2:No, Before I went into the military no.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:My life's been very hectic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how did you end up in Michigan? Because you started out in Florida. Oh, Florida.
Speaker 2:My dad, I told you my grandpa, they came back here, okay.
Speaker 1:After he was discharged. Right in this area here, detroit, detroit, okay.
Speaker 2:Detroit. My grandpa. They lived in, they all lived in Detroit. He owned a barn and all that down there Horseshoe barn. They had departments on top. They were all friendly. My child life was good. All my relatives treated me good.
Speaker 1:It sounds like you were around your extended family quite a bit.
Speaker 2:Well at that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah. Did you stay in touch after you went in the military? Did you stay in touch with your family?
Speaker 2:Oh, we had parties. We usually got a picture here. They're still all. They have a party once a year or two. Sometimes we used to have parties here when I was in better shape Big family party, 60, 80 people. We got pictures, They'd all come over.
Speaker 1:Those are the best. I think those are the best times. Yeah, well, tell me a little bit. So you had mentioned that you had gone to this reunion just recently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, k-san Veterans. Yeah, tell me a little bit about that. Oh man, that was one of the best parties ever I know. They treated these guys so good.
Speaker 1:They had food.
Speaker 2:They had food, beer, liquor all day long for them, yeah, and it took them on tours, went on tours all over Louisville, louisville, yeah, yeah, we went to see where they made the baseball bats. I met a guy that was there that I went to school with, bob it was Bob Campbell was his name, and he had gotten wounded. I met him in the rear when I was back in the Denang and he got shot in the stomach. He had a bullet wound. He's probably dead now. And then, nice guy, nice guy, my sister knew him better than me. We went to school with him. And then I met a guy it was. I went to school with him, I was in class with him, a guy named Hirschman. He was in the CB's too. I met him over there and my next door neighbor. He was over. He was a Marine. His brother got killed by a booby trap over there. Yeah, somebody else set it off and he got killed. Jerry Riles was this guy's name. But then I got Well.
Speaker 1:do you stay in touch with any of the people you served with? Do you still talk to them?
Speaker 2:I talked to a guy named Bob. Bob Schmidt was up there at K-Sound for a long time. I talked to him on the phone. I go visit him a couple. I'd visit him a couple times. He lives in Hibbing, minnesota. And then Jarvis, another guy I talked to him. He was my. He was the guy I was in his squad. I talked to him quite a bit. He was supposed to go with me to this reunion but I knew he wouldn't go. He'd make up an excuse, he don't want to go, he's afraid to travel and all that. He was a nice guy. Uh-huh, nice guy. Schmidt was a nice guy.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, Robert, it sounds like you lived a pretty interesting life. You've done a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:I could go on and on.
Speaker 1:I think we can kind of wrap up our conversation. If you think of some things, though, you call me. People will listen to this conversation in the future. What would you like people to take away from this conversation and from your life? What message would you like to leave? Take away from this conversation and from your life, what? What message would you like to leave people?
Speaker 2:just work hard. I made a lot of money working hard. Yeah, I mean, just leave a good life. Don't, don't mess over nobody, you know. Don't, don't try to be an asshole, yeah, you don't. Don't beat up on people. Treat people like you want to be treated. I would say, and uh,
