Below is the first interview with Mr. Richard Cromer.
During this interview, I gathered background information by asking Mr. Cromer general questions. I prompt him to share as much information and experiences as he was comfortable revealing. Theses answers would be used and expanded on in the second interview.
Interview #1:
Interviewee: Richard Cromer
Interviewer: Vidya Lala
Assistant Interviewers: Amisha Lala, Nita Lala and Rohan Lala
Interview Date: Tuesday, Novemeber 22nd, 2012
Interview Place: Mechanicsburg, PA
(Vidya Lala) Richard Cromer was born on the 13th of September 1927 in Carlisle, PA. He fought in World War II in the army and was a commissioner. This interview is taken place in Mechanicsburg, PA. My name is Vidya Lala. I’m the interviewer. Also present is Amisha Lala, Rohan Lala and Nita Lala.
What is the highest rank or grade that you held?
(Richard Cromer) The highest rank, in the service?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah
(Richard Cromer) First Lieutenant
(Vidya Lala) Who was the troop or battery which you server in?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I serve in an organization called the Army’s Security Agency, and it was a unit of its own.
(Vidya Lala) Who was your commander?
(Richard Cromer) Good gracious girl! Do you realize how long ago that was? I don’t know names. He was a captain, but I don’t know his name anymore. That was a long time ago.
(Vidya Lala) Did you serve on the Battalion, Regiment or Division?
(Richard Cromer) Battalion. Regiment or Division. No, I was attached to the Fifth Air Force. But I was in the Army, not the Air Force. It was just an attached organization. And we were attached because we used their facilities. That’s all.
(Vidya Lala) What was the date of your enlistment?
(Richard Cromer) February one of 1945.
(Vidya Lala) How old were you?
(Richard Cromer) Just turned eighteen.
(Vidya Lala) How long were you… What was the length of your service?
(Richard Cromer) Well I was in for a year and a half in the Regular Army. And when I was discharged, I was a Sergeant and then I came back and I had the GI Bill, which gave me four years of college education and I joined the ROTC there and when I was finished with the ROTC I was commissioned to Second Lieutenant.
(Vidya Lala) What was the place of enlistment?
(Richard Cromer) What was the what?
(Vidya Lala) The place of enlistment.
(Richard Cromer) Initial enlistment?
(Vidya Lala) Yes.
(Richard Cromer) Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
(Vidya Lala) Did you have any previous occupation?
(Richard Cromer) Occupation?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah, like a job?
(Richard Cromer) Course. Gracious. Yes. I had a lot of jobs as a kid. Part time jobs. You know when you are growing up. And… Oh man, I had multiple jobs. You’d get something that would be run three or four months and… or during the summer months, between school. One year in college, I shoveled coal. At those days they had a lot of coal burning furnaces and this gentleman came down from the coal mines and then I went to work for him unloading coal trucks, at twenty-five cents an hour. So I don’t think that you would find too many work that many… work at that kind of wage anymore. Do you?
(Vidya Lala) No, probably not.
(Richard Cromer) No, yeah. But just a lot of part time jobs, until I got… until I graduated.
(Vidya Lala) How and why did you join the service?
(Richard Cromer) How what?
(Vidya Lala) How and why did you join the service? Were you drafted or…
(Richard Cromer) It was a combination. Yeah, I saw the draft board coming, so I enlisted. A lot of guys did that.
(Vidya Lala) At that time did you feel that the draft was necessary and fair?
(Richard Cromer) Yes. Well, who wants to be drafted? But it was during wartime and you had to do something to save your country, so… I don’t think the draft was fair, because there were a number of guys that found reasons why they didn’t pass their physicals and make it into the service. You know, but that’s any kind a of a deal you do. There is always a little side kick there someplace, right?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah. Has your opinion of the World War II draft changed since then?
(Richard Cromer) My opinion of the draft?
(Vidya Lala) Yes.
(Richard Cromer) Well to be very honest with you, I don’t think there is a draft anymore.
(Vidya Lala) Yeah I don’t think there is much.
(Richard Cromer) No, I don’t know of a draft. If there is they missed me, but I don’t. I think a draft is a necessary evil, in order to build your military strength up. And if somebody asked me, I would say that every young person, including both sexes, should serve at least two years in the service. you gain a world of experience that you just don’t have when you are not there.
(Vidya Lala) Describe the circumstances in which you first heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
(Richard Cromer) Ohh. Well. I think if was down town, Carlisle, at a little shop called Chocolate Shop World, where the kids gathered and I just happened to be there and you heard this news come across the radio and we couldn’t believe what they were saying, because Orson Welles pulled a stunt short time before that I think it was, where he said about that there was an invasion of aliens coming into this country. Well it was a stunt. But he had everybody scared to death. But that was back then and so you weren’t quite sure of what was true or what wasn’t true, ‘till you saw it on the screen. That’s a movie screen, not a tv screen. they didn’t quite have tv yet then.
(Vidya Lala) What were your initial reactions to entering military service? Like with family and friends and know that you were going to leave them, and stuff?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I don’t know. I don’t think there was any objections. Everybody was in accord that we should be doing something to help our country. Now, women worked their back ends off during that war too and war jobs that because most of the men being in the service couldn’t be done without the women, and they did. They did a lot of work there.
(Vidya Lala) Where did you train as a recruit?
(Richard Cromer) Where did I…
(Vidya Lala) train as a recruit?
(Richard Cromer) Oh. I’m a little…
(Vidya Lala) Sorry. No, Its okay.
(Richard Cromer) No, I have a hearing problem in my left ear there. I was down to Fort McClellan, Alabama, which was an infantry camp at that time. I don’t know if its still in existence or not, but that’s where I did my initial training.
(Vidya Lala) At what posts were you stationed at during the stateside service?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I went to school. After I finished my basic training, I went to school in Orange, Virginia. That place called Video Farms, which was a school for specialists and I left there and went to California as a delay and route. I’m going overseas, so we went out there and left out at Camp Stoneman, California., sailed out of there and then took one of those small banana boats over.
(Vidya Lala) What was your opinion of the weapons you saw and used in the service?
(Richard Cromer) Well, they were… If you look at today’s weapons, they were quite dated. But they at the time that’s what we had and we used them and they were affective. But any weapon that does the job its intended for is not… I’m not sure about all that. But somebody has to be out there and do the shooting and the killing if you want to win a war and our objective at that time was to win the war. There is a lot of unhappiness going on then, during that period of time.
(Vidya Lala) What were your opinions of the equipment, clothing and rations you were issued?
(Richard Cromer) What could you do about it? That’s all we got. And the clothing was warm, the food was alright—most of the time it was powdered food. And you learned to eat powdered milk and powdered eggs and powdered potatoes and you know all those kinds of things. But at least it’s something to eat, so that was the main part. I have no objections to it. I mean the only objections… if you didn’t like it you didn’t eat it; if you didn’t eat it you didn’t last longer, right?
(Vidya Lala) Yup. What did you think of the quality of leadership while you were in the service?
(Richard Cromer) Well anybody could be questioned as to their abilities. Harry Truman didn’t like General McCarthy. I had to stop and think a minute there. He didn’t like General McCarthy; he was a damn good general. But the same way with General Patent in Africa with the third army. But those guy had a job to do and they did it. So you got to do it, you know?
(Vidya Lala) What did you think of the discipline at the time?
(Richard Cromer) Well as I said at the beginning, I think that everybody should have some military time, because of discipline. I think if we had more discipline today we wouldn’t have all the problems we got. But that’s my personal feelings, so. We had a couple of, during basic training, we had a couple of patoon sergeants that were tougher than nails. But they had a job to do and that was to get us tough too. So that’s part of the training.
(Vidya Lala) What forms of off duty recreation were common? Like what did you do in your leisure time?
(Richard Cromer) I don’t know… in basic training there wasn’t much ‘cause you were gone all the time. In training, unfortunately I learned to smoke in the Army, because you would have break time and of course the break time was let’s grab a smoke. You know everybody smoked, so you smoked too. It was a… it was a bad habit to get into but at the time it was something that was… it was accepted and we didn’t realize what the dangers of it was then. And… But we had a PX and you could go there and buy things, various things when you had a couple hours off. When I went to school in Virginia, I was close enough that I could hitchhike home over the weekend and then I would get a weekend pass. And those days it was safe to go out on the road and hitchhike, you know. I wouldn’t want to try it today. No way! But then you could come home and there would always be something going one—chase the girls around or whatever you know.
(Vidya Lala) How adequate was the medical care?
(Richard Cromer) How?
(Vidya Lala) How adequate was the medical care?
(Richard Cromer) Adequate! Well, I guess it was alright. I didn’t… It certainly wasn’t like it is today. Those days when a guy go wounded out on the field, you know it could take days before he could get back. Today well they fly in with those choppers, pick a guy up and get him back to a major hospital within a couple hours, which is saving these guys now. I don’t… I don’t know. I didn’t make gripe with the medical deal.
(Vidya Lala) Was drinking a problem in your unit? Was drinking a problem in your unit?
(Richard Cromer) No. Not then.
(Vidya Lala) How about drug use?
(Richard Cromer) We didn’t even hear of drugs. I mean it might have been around, but we didn’t—I didn’t… The only one that I ever heard of one time was, there was a band and they had a drummer called Gene Krupa. I don’t know if you had ever heard of him or not. But boy he could play drums like you couldn’t believe. And he played with Harry James and some of those big bands in the days and they joked about he must have been smoking marijuana ‘cause nobody could beat a drum like he did. But I didn’t know. I never saw him smoke marijuana. I wouldn’t have even known what I looked like if I did see him smoking it so. I can’t even recall ever hearing of drugs in those days. Not today you know you could walk down the street and somebody taps you on the elbow now. Am I right?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah
(Richard Cromer) Just don’t get involved with them.
(Vidya Lala) Yeah. What military slang words or phrases were popular during your military service?
(Richard Cromer) “Kilroy was here.” Did you ever hear of that one?
(Vidya Lala) Yep.
(Richard Cromer) Okay. “Kilroy was here.” Well, ‘course there was always the “draft dodgers”—they called them. Right? The guys who skipped out of the area. I don’t know what else.
(Vidya Lala) Did you know any instance of ethnic or racial discrimination?
(Richard Cromer) Well now you are leading me into a bad question. In those days, we had segregation of black and white troops. And the black troops were basically into transportation. In the states I didn’t run into it, but when I was overseas we hit a couple of places where there were transportation course guys and they were all black. But, I don’t know, maybe I looked at it differently but I didn’t see or think of any kind of problems. I understand there were a lot of problems with segregation. I didn’t personally see it, so I can’t… I can’t talk about something I didn’t see., right?
(Vidya Lala) Yup. How was the morale of your unit?
(Richard Cromer) Good!
(Vidya Lala) It was.
(Richard Cromer) Oh go ahead. Finish the question.
(Vidya Lala) Oh it’s okay. I was going to say like from getting mails from home and…
(Richard Cromer) Oh well mail call was always a challenge: you wanted to see who got the most letters and made sure you got one. And every now and then a box would come in with some goodies in it and you better well share those because if you didn’t you lost the box! But I remember my mom sent me a box. And I say that getting soap was a difficult program. And bless her heart, she sent me a big box of ivory flakes. Well there was nowhere where I could use ivory flakes, right. So we need bar soap but she didn’t realize that so we passed that out to the hospital court. They liked ivory… ivory snow I guess it was called. I don’t know, flakes or something. But anyway it was a powdered type of thing and we needed bar soap. But the one good soap at the time was Hershey’s Chocolate soap. I don’t know if you ever knew that they made soap or not.
(Vidya Lala) No. I didn’t.
(Richard Cromer) Well they had some kind of a byproduct from the cacao. And they made big… well they were bars about yay big like that that I’m sure the government must have paid for them somehow, I don’t know, maybe Hershey donated them, I don’t know. But we went overseas we, well we got.. we each got a big bar of that chocolate soap or Cocoa soap. That’s what they called it, Cocoa soap. And… But anything you got from home was always welcome.
(Vidya Lala) What affect did combat have on the morale?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I don’t know. I wasn’t in combat. I mean everyone despised the fact you know you’d get your head blown off. But nobody liked it but again it was something that had to be done
(Vidya Lala) What factors helped improve the morale?
(Richard Cromer) Well, more mail, right? And every now and then they brought in entertainers from the states and they’d put on a show for you—like Bob Hope. Those kind of things, you know. They were pretty good. But that was basically about it.
(Vidya Lala) How and to what extent were religious convictions expressed in your unit?
(Richard Cromer) Religious?
(Vidya Lala) Yes. Were there any religious…
(Richard Cromer) Well, I don’t know. I don’t… I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t recall seeing any kind of problems with it. I mean you either… you went to chapel or you didn’t went to chapel. It was really that simple. And when we got into Japan in the occupation, there was a Nisei woman that worked there, got a job on the base and her husband—she was an American—I said Nisei but she was basically American—and her husband was a minister, came over from Japan, right before Pearl Harbor. And I don’t remember now… No he met her in America, yeah. But when he went back to Japan, they threw him in prison because he had married an American and they had some pretty rough times during that war, even though they were native Japanese. And a couple of us guys from the base, learned about this little church here in the town and we went down with basketballs and baseballs and we made ice cream one time—they never had ice cream. So it was a neat affair and the kids loved it. I mean, boy you talk about the kids, they would pile in there by the hundreds! And no animosity. The only place you’d run into trouble would be if you went into some of the little country towns, if you were walking around. And the old Japanese weren’t happy with us, but I always had a comeback ‘You started it; we finished it!’ What else could you say, right?
(Vidya Lala) Did you observe any newspaper or radio war correspondence?
(Richard Cromer) Did I do who?
(Vidya Lala) Did you get any information from newspapers and radios?
(Richard Cromer) Well there as it a newspaper. I think it was called Army Times. But every now and then that thing would come out; it wasn’t something every week you had, you know. But I dealt with radio, quite a bit. So when I had off, the last thing I wanted to do was turn on a radio and listen to it, right.
(Vidya Lala) I understand. So you were not in combat?
(Richard Cromer) No.
(Vidya Lala) Okay. Did you go overseas?
(Richard Cromer) Yes!
(Vidya Lala) What were your feelings towards going overseas?
(Richard Cromer) It was an experience. I don’t know that I had any kinda problem with it. It was just happen to be that that was part of the deal. That’s what I trained for and the job I trained for required that I’d go overseas. And we were replacing some of the guys that had been in heavy combat and wanted to get home, so our job was to replace them. Let them come home and we filled in for them.
(Vidya Lala) Where did you go overseas? Like, which countries?
(Richard Cromer) Japan. I stopped on Guam, I stopped on Saipan. We stopped briefly in Honolulu. And just like that the name left me. It’ll come back! But when we came home, we had about fifteen hundred Hawaiian troops on and I’ll never forget we…The skipper of the boat told us we were stopping in Honolulu for one day and then unload these troops. And for some strange reason, the boat broke down for about seven days. So we had seven wonderful days going through Honolulu. Now this was after the war there, you know; they had started to clean up the island. But it was a nice little break. And some of that water down through that way gets little rough too, so you enjoy the calmness, by not having the boat rocking all over the place, right? You ever been on a big boat?
(Vidya Lala) I don’t think so.
(Richard Cromer) Oh okay. They can rock funny sometimes. They go forward and they go sideways.
(Vidya Lala) Did you assist in the establishment of civil affairs government in liberating friendly countries?
(Richard Cromer) No. That was on the other side, where that developed more. I did travel through, we called it Hiroshima, today these people call it Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, where the atomic bomb fell. And that was a horrendous mess there, but that thing saved one heck of a lot of lives.
(Vidya Lala) What were your reactions to V-J Day—Victory over Japan?
(Richard Cromer) Wonderful. Happy. Right? Sure. That meant we wouldn’t have any five or six years to serve like some of those poor guys did, yeah.
(Vidya Lala) How was the morale and discipline of your unit after the End of Hostilities?
(Richard Cromer) Well, that’s hard to answer because I was just going through basic training at that point then, so I didn’t have any… I mean everybody had a job at that point of making it through basic training. So, hard question to answer though.
(Vidya Lala) Agreed. Do you remember any of the awards and decorations you received? It’s alright if you don’t.
(Richard Cromer) Good conduct medal, the Occupation of Japan…there was another one and I can’t think of what that was. I will have to get my discharge papers out and look at that thing—I think that will say it.
(Vidya Lala) Alright. Do you think that the awards and decorations were distributed fairly?
(Richard Cromer) I think so. I mean it was pretty… what I saw was pretty packed. I mean if you were in a certain theater, well that’s where you were and then you got a ribbon or a medal for that. You know if you climb Mount Fuji, you got a ribbon for that I guess, I don’t know. No, I think it was all pretty fair. Some guys wear, you know you see these guys with about four hundred ribbons on there and you wonder how they can participate in all those things, but they were, I would guess, they were all fair.
(Vidya Lala) Alright. Describe your welcome home to the United States.
(Richard Cromer) Oh my gracious! There was fifty thousand people out there greeting us! No, by that time, you know things were pretty settled down. And I don’t know it was not like V-J Day, when you know everybody just literally tore New York City apart. When I came home it wasn’t like that at all. I was just happy to be home in one piece and get started with my life again and you know.
(Vidya Lala) How long did you remain in the service after the End of Hostilities?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I was in the Reserves for eleven years afterwards and I got discharged with a term they used at the time ‘I was in grade to long.’ And they had an expression called ‘at the convenience to the government’ they discharge you. So if you were not in a active Reserve unit, why they discharged you.
(Vidya Lala) Do you remember the date and place of your discharge?
(Richard Cromer) Sure. Yeah, I goy discharged in Camp Stoneman, California. And it was—I think it was—July the 30th, of 1947. Yeah. That’s where I got discharged from the service—my official discharge wasn’t until a couple days later. We had a thirty day grace period there of being discharged out of the service.
(Vidya Lala) What did you do after you were discharged?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I went downtown and grabbed a great big steak and milkshake—that’s not what you want to hear, is it? Well, I came back home and a group of us guys, that all went into the service together decided that we were going to go back to school. And a local Pasteur in our Carlisle, grabbed a bunch of eight of us and we went to Gettysburg and he personally saw to it that we were all admitted. And today we might have a little problem with doing that. But regardless of grades or background, we were all admitted there and we got a—I got a four year education because of my time in the service.
(Vidya Lala) Describe the ease, or difficulty, which you readapted to civilization.
(Richard Cromer) I didn’t have any difficulties. I thought it was pretty neat. No, I mean you didn’t have somebody yelling at you all the time—do this, do that—but that didn’t bother me. No.
(Vidya Lala) Before the war, did you graduate from high school?
(Richard Cromer) Yes.
(Vidya Lala) When?
(Richard Cromer) When?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah.
(Richard Cromer) 1945.
(Vidya Lala) Alright. Did you go to college or a trade school before the war?
(Richard Cromer) Yeah, I put one semester in. And that’s where I started with this ROTC Program. And when I turned eighteen, I knew that the greeting wasn’t far behind, so they let us finish—all of us that started—they let us finish that semester and then we got our greetings. So, at that point, why I enlisted, and they gave us the option of sailing the draft or being enlisting, so I did.
(Vidya Lala) What was the name of your college?
(Richard Cromer) Gettysburg College.
(Vidya Lala) Oh. Okay. What degree were you pursuing?
(Richard Cromer) Bachelor of Arts.
(Vidya Lala) Okay. So you went to a college under the G--
(Richard Cromer) GI Bill.
(Vidya Lala) What was the name of that school?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I just gave that to you, Gettysburg College.
(Vidya Lala) Gettysburg? Which—okay, so you did it under ROTC… Was there a degree attached to that?
(Richard Cromer) To the ROTC?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah, like for the college. Was there a degree? Did you also pursue art, or…
(Richard Cromer) Bachelor of Arts—from the college, not from the ROTC. Is that what you are asking me?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah.
(Richard Cromer) From the college. Yeah. Now my major was Political Science and Economics. And for some strange reason, I ended up with a minor in Mathematics and English Literature. So, I don’t know why, but I did.
(Vidya Lala) What does the GI Bill mean to you?
(Richard Cromer) Well, it meant an education, for me. Paid my way through school and bought my books and gave me some spending money to pay for my room and board. At that time—I don’t know if you have looked at colleges recently, but I understand they are a little expensive. My tuition was eight hundred dollars. Plus books and board, you know, but eight hundred dollars is what we—is what it cost.
(Vidya Lala) Wow! Did you join the National Guard or Organized Reserves after the war?
(Richard Cromer) Yes. I joined the Reserves, not the Guard.
(Vidya Lala) For how long did you belong to the Reserves?
(Richard Cromer) Eleven years. Oh wait a minute now, let’s see. Yeah, eleven years. I got… it was 1958, when they discharged me. And that was a messed up affair. My job transferred me to Texas and, with my MOS [Military Occupational Specialty] background, I couldn’t get a unit of what my specialty was and all I could get into down there was field artillery and I elected not to do that, so they elected not to keep me.
(Vidya Lala) What was the—Identify your Reserve Unit.
(Richard Cromer) I don’t know if we had a name. It was just the Army Reserves. And at one time it was called an Army Security Unit because at that time the War College—the Army War College in Carlisle—had a school there of the Army Security Agency, so it just fit. And we were just a Reserve Unit. There must have been a unit name to it. I don’t know. I never… All I did was go to meetings and being that I was an officer I had to give lectures, so that was it.
(Vidya Lala) Okay. What—With whom do you feel most comfortable discussing your wartime experiences?
(Richard Cromer) Well, my fellow veterans, yeah.
(Vidya Lala) Do you still keep in touch with friends from the war?
(Richard Cromer) Not from my unit I don’t. No. There aren’t any of them around through here. Most of those guys were in California from what I can gather. But there was one guy, that was in that unit with me, he was from Mechanicsburg. But every now and then I’d call him, but that was it. But it’s not like some of these—some of these guys who were in the navy, they have ship reunions every year, where these guys all get together and have a great big party. We don’t. We didn’t do that. You’re quite.
(Vidya Lala) World War II was a significant national experience. What, if anything, did it teach you about America?
(Richard Cromer) About who?
(Vidya Lala) World War II was a very national experience. Did it teach you anything about America?
(Richard Cromer) Oh, About America. Yeah. It taught me that we have the best country in the world, that’s what and all due respect to where you came from—I’m not saying anything derogatory about that—but I’m a firm American. And I think we’ve got the best country in the world. We’ve got some lousy…okay I better not say that. I get carried away once I’m…
(Vidya Lala) Have you read any literature on World War II?
(Richard Cromer) Read any literature? Sure.
(Vidya Lala) Do you agree with the messages they portray?
(Richard Cromer) Well, some of them are a little, a little flamboyant I guess. I mean it all depends on who the author was. If he was—If he got carried away a little bit, he would make things sound pretty good. It’s like any kind of a book. You know there’s fiction and you can build up most any kind of a story, if you want to, right? I like to stick with the facts of this, about the war, and of course I’m an admirer of the Civil War. I had a great, great grandfather that fought in the Civil War. He was a Maryland Calvary—Al Fredrick Marilyn. And I just happen to have his discharge papers from the service. He was a Confederate prisoner and I have his saber that he used in the army. So, I’ve got some military background. I have been doing some research; I found out that I have a great, great uncle who fought in the Revolutionary War, too. So, things go back or go forward, whichever way you want to word them work at it, you know. Then I had a grandfather that, he went out west. I don’t know if you ever read about the Oklahoma Land Rush, when the country, the United States, gave out land out west. Well, my granddad went out there and he homesteaded right next to an Indian Reservation. There’s the map he used when he went out there. And he was there fourteen years. And then came back east and luckily he met my grandmother and they got married. I’m a prodigy of that marriage, you know. That doesn’t have anything to do with the war but, you know that’s all part of our heritage, I guess, right?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah. What were your expectations at the end of the war—as for world stability?
(Richard Cromer) Well we had all hoped there would be stability with it, but that must be the war to end wars. And well, as we all know that didn’t happen either. And I just don’t think—we’ve had war ever since time began. Look at the Bible. They were fighting all the time. Samson took on the big Giant. And, you know, one way or another, there was fighting, no matter where and I just don’t think—I hate to say it this way—I just don’t think we’ll ever stop fighting, because you and I get together and we disagree with something, well then, it may escalate into a fight. And if we got people following us, well then we got more people involved and I just… I really hate—I got some great grandkids coming along and I hate to see them caught up in all this mess but I don’t know what else is going to happen. I really don’t. This thing over in Iran is horrible. They are trying to stop that bomb program there and they don’t seem to be… there I go again. Sorry about that.
(Vidya Lala) Its alright. Do you have any other… Anything else to say about your experiences?
(Richard Cromer) I’m just lucky that I made it through and I’m thankful to God that I made it through yeah. And I really… I don’t look at my service time as an infringement on my life, I just I think it was just a part of a phase of growing up and I was thankful for it.
(Vidya Lala) Thank you so much for your time.
(Richard Cromer) You mean that’s it!
(Vidya Lala) Yup.
(Richard Cromer) Oh, I thought you were going to ask me something hard here.
Interviewee: Richard Cromer
Interviewer: Vidya Lala
Assistant Interviewers: Amisha Lala, Nita Lala and Rohan Lala
Interview Date: Tuesday, Novemeber 22nd, 2012
Interview Place: Mechanicsburg, PA
(Vidya Lala) Richard Cromer was born on the 13th of September 1927 in Carlisle, PA. He fought in World War II in the army and was a commissioner. This interview is taken place in Mechanicsburg, PA. My name is Vidya Lala. I’m the interviewer. Also present is Amisha Lala, Rohan Lala and Nita Lala.
What is the highest rank or grade that you held?
(Richard Cromer) The highest rank, in the service?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah
(Richard Cromer) First Lieutenant
(Vidya Lala) Who was the troop or battery which you server in?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I serve in an organization called the Army’s Security Agency, and it was a unit of its own.
(Vidya Lala) Who was your commander?
(Richard Cromer) Good gracious girl! Do you realize how long ago that was? I don’t know names. He was a captain, but I don’t know his name anymore. That was a long time ago.
(Vidya Lala) Did you serve on the Battalion, Regiment or Division?
(Richard Cromer) Battalion. Regiment or Division. No, I was attached to the Fifth Air Force. But I was in the Army, not the Air Force. It was just an attached organization. And we were attached because we used their facilities. That’s all.
(Vidya Lala) What was the date of your enlistment?
(Richard Cromer) February one of 1945.
(Vidya Lala) How old were you?
(Richard Cromer) Just turned eighteen.
(Vidya Lala) How long were you… What was the length of your service?
(Richard Cromer) Well I was in for a year and a half in the Regular Army. And when I was discharged, I was a Sergeant and then I came back and I had the GI Bill, which gave me four years of college education and I joined the ROTC there and when I was finished with the ROTC I was commissioned to Second Lieutenant.
(Vidya Lala) What was the place of enlistment?
(Richard Cromer) What was the what?
(Vidya Lala) The place of enlistment.
(Richard Cromer) Initial enlistment?
(Vidya Lala) Yes.
(Richard Cromer) Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
(Vidya Lala) Did you have any previous occupation?
(Richard Cromer) Occupation?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah, like a job?
(Richard Cromer) Course. Gracious. Yes. I had a lot of jobs as a kid. Part time jobs. You know when you are growing up. And… Oh man, I had multiple jobs. You’d get something that would be run three or four months and… or during the summer months, between school. One year in college, I shoveled coal. At those days they had a lot of coal burning furnaces and this gentleman came down from the coal mines and then I went to work for him unloading coal trucks, at twenty-five cents an hour. So I don’t think that you would find too many work that many… work at that kind of wage anymore. Do you?
(Vidya Lala) No, probably not.
(Richard Cromer) No, yeah. But just a lot of part time jobs, until I got… until I graduated.
(Vidya Lala) How and why did you join the service?
(Richard Cromer) How what?
(Vidya Lala) How and why did you join the service? Were you drafted or…
(Richard Cromer) It was a combination. Yeah, I saw the draft board coming, so I enlisted. A lot of guys did that.
(Vidya Lala) At that time did you feel that the draft was necessary and fair?
(Richard Cromer) Yes. Well, who wants to be drafted? But it was during wartime and you had to do something to save your country, so… I don’t think the draft was fair, because there were a number of guys that found reasons why they didn’t pass their physicals and make it into the service. You know, but that’s any kind a of a deal you do. There is always a little side kick there someplace, right?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah. Has your opinion of the World War II draft changed since then?
(Richard Cromer) My opinion of the draft?
(Vidya Lala) Yes.
(Richard Cromer) Well to be very honest with you, I don’t think there is a draft anymore.
(Vidya Lala) Yeah I don’t think there is much.
(Richard Cromer) No, I don’t know of a draft. If there is they missed me, but I don’t. I think a draft is a necessary evil, in order to build your military strength up. And if somebody asked me, I would say that every young person, including both sexes, should serve at least two years in the service. you gain a world of experience that you just don’t have when you are not there.
(Vidya Lala) Describe the circumstances in which you first heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
(Richard Cromer) Ohh. Well. I think if was down town, Carlisle, at a little shop called Chocolate Shop World, where the kids gathered and I just happened to be there and you heard this news come across the radio and we couldn’t believe what they were saying, because Orson Welles pulled a stunt short time before that I think it was, where he said about that there was an invasion of aliens coming into this country. Well it was a stunt. But he had everybody scared to death. But that was back then and so you weren’t quite sure of what was true or what wasn’t true, ‘till you saw it on the screen. That’s a movie screen, not a tv screen. they didn’t quite have tv yet then.
(Vidya Lala) What were your initial reactions to entering military service? Like with family and friends and know that you were going to leave them, and stuff?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I don’t know. I don’t think there was any objections. Everybody was in accord that we should be doing something to help our country. Now, women worked their back ends off during that war too and war jobs that because most of the men being in the service couldn’t be done without the women, and they did. They did a lot of work there.
(Vidya Lala) Where did you train as a recruit?
(Richard Cromer) Where did I…
(Vidya Lala) train as a recruit?
(Richard Cromer) Oh. I’m a little…
(Vidya Lala) Sorry. No, Its okay.
(Richard Cromer) No, I have a hearing problem in my left ear there. I was down to Fort McClellan, Alabama, which was an infantry camp at that time. I don’t know if its still in existence or not, but that’s where I did my initial training.
(Vidya Lala) At what posts were you stationed at during the stateside service?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I went to school. After I finished my basic training, I went to school in Orange, Virginia. That place called Video Farms, which was a school for specialists and I left there and went to California as a delay and route. I’m going overseas, so we went out there and left out at Camp Stoneman, California., sailed out of there and then took one of those small banana boats over.
(Vidya Lala) What was your opinion of the weapons you saw and used in the service?
(Richard Cromer) Well, they were… If you look at today’s weapons, they were quite dated. But they at the time that’s what we had and we used them and they were affective. But any weapon that does the job its intended for is not… I’m not sure about all that. But somebody has to be out there and do the shooting and the killing if you want to win a war and our objective at that time was to win the war. There is a lot of unhappiness going on then, during that period of time.
(Vidya Lala) What were your opinions of the equipment, clothing and rations you were issued?
(Richard Cromer) What could you do about it? That’s all we got. And the clothing was warm, the food was alright—most of the time it was powdered food. And you learned to eat powdered milk and powdered eggs and powdered potatoes and you know all those kinds of things. But at least it’s something to eat, so that was the main part. I have no objections to it. I mean the only objections… if you didn’t like it you didn’t eat it; if you didn’t eat it you didn’t last longer, right?
(Vidya Lala) Yup. What did you think of the quality of leadership while you were in the service?
(Richard Cromer) Well anybody could be questioned as to their abilities. Harry Truman didn’t like General McCarthy. I had to stop and think a minute there. He didn’t like General McCarthy; he was a damn good general. But the same way with General Patent in Africa with the third army. But those guy had a job to do and they did it. So you got to do it, you know?
(Vidya Lala) What did you think of the discipline at the time?
(Richard Cromer) Well as I said at the beginning, I think that everybody should have some military time, because of discipline. I think if we had more discipline today we wouldn’t have all the problems we got. But that’s my personal feelings, so. We had a couple of, during basic training, we had a couple of patoon sergeants that were tougher than nails. But they had a job to do and that was to get us tough too. So that’s part of the training.
(Vidya Lala) What forms of off duty recreation were common? Like what did you do in your leisure time?
(Richard Cromer) I don’t know… in basic training there wasn’t much ‘cause you were gone all the time. In training, unfortunately I learned to smoke in the Army, because you would have break time and of course the break time was let’s grab a smoke. You know everybody smoked, so you smoked too. It was a… it was a bad habit to get into but at the time it was something that was… it was accepted and we didn’t realize what the dangers of it was then. And… But we had a PX and you could go there and buy things, various things when you had a couple hours off. When I went to school in Virginia, I was close enough that I could hitchhike home over the weekend and then I would get a weekend pass. And those days it was safe to go out on the road and hitchhike, you know. I wouldn’t want to try it today. No way! But then you could come home and there would always be something going one—chase the girls around or whatever you know.
(Vidya Lala) How adequate was the medical care?
(Richard Cromer) How?
(Vidya Lala) How adequate was the medical care?
(Richard Cromer) Adequate! Well, I guess it was alright. I didn’t… It certainly wasn’t like it is today. Those days when a guy go wounded out on the field, you know it could take days before he could get back. Today well they fly in with those choppers, pick a guy up and get him back to a major hospital within a couple hours, which is saving these guys now. I don’t… I don’t know. I didn’t make gripe with the medical deal.
(Vidya Lala) Was drinking a problem in your unit? Was drinking a problem in your unit?
(Richard Cromer) No. Not then.
(Vidya Lala) How about drug use?
(Richard Cromer) We didn’t even hear of drugs. I mean it might have been around, but we didn’t—I didn’t… The only one that I ever heard of one time was, there was a band and they had a drummer called Gene Krupa. I don’t know if you had ever heard of him or not. But boy he could play drums like you couldn’t believe. And he played with Harry James and some of those big bands in the days and they joked about he must have been smoking marijuana ‘cause nobody could beat a drum like he did. But I didn’t know. I never saw him smoke marijuana. I wouldn’t have even known what I looked like if I did see him smoking it so. I can’t even recall ever hearing of drugs in those days. Not today you know you could walk down the street and somebody taps you on the elbow now. Am I right?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah
(Richard Cromer) Just don’t get involved with them.
(Vidya Lala) Yeah. What military slang words or phrases were popular during your military service?
(Richard Cromer) “Kilroy was here.” Did you ever hear of that one?
(Vidya Lala) Yep.
(Richard Cromer) Okay. “Kilroy was here.” Well, ‘course there was always the “draft dodgers”—they called them. Right? The guys who skipped out of the area. I don’t know what else.
(Vidya Lala) Did you know any instance of ethnic or racial discrimination?
(Richard Cromer) Well now you are leading me into a bad question. In those days, we had segregation of black and white troops. And the black troops were basically into transportation. In the states I didn’t run into it, but when I was overseas we hit a couple of places where there were transportation course guys and they were all black. But, I don’t know, maybe I looked at it differently but I didn’t see or think of any kind of problems. I understand there were a lot of problems with segregation. I didn’t personally see it, so I can’t… I can’t talk about something I didn’t see., right?
(Vidya Lala) Yup. How was the morale of your unit?
(Richard Cromer) Good!
(Vidya Lala) It was.
(Richard Cromer) Oh go ahead. Finish the question.
(Vidya Lala) Oh it’s okay. I was going to say like from getting mails from home and…
(Richard Cromer) Oh well mail call was always a challenge: you wanted to see who got the most letters and made sure you got one. And every now and then a box would come in with some goodies in it and you better well share those because if you didn’t you lost the box! But I remember my mom sent me a box. And I say that getting soap was a difficult program. And bless her heart, she sent me a big box of ivory flakes. Well there was nowhere where I could use ivory flakes, right. So we need bar soap but she didn’t realize that so we passed that out to the hospital court. They liked ivory… ivory snow I guess it was called. I don’t know, flakes or something. But anyway it was a powdered type of thing and we needed bar soap. But the one good soap at the time was Hershey’s Chocolate soap. I don’t know if you ever knew that they made soap or not.
(Vidya Lala) No. I didn’t.
(Richard Cromer) Well they had some kind of a byproduct from the cacao. And they made big… well they were bars about yay big like that that I’m sure the government must have paid for them somehow, I don’t know, maybe Hershey donated them, I don’t know. But we went overseas we, well we got.. we each got a big bar of that chocolate soap or Cocoa soap. That’s what they called it, Cocoa soap. And… But anything you got from home was always welcome.
(Vidya Lala) What affect did combat have on the morale?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I don’t know. I wasn’t in combat. I mean everyone despised the fact you know you’d get your head blown off. But nobody liked it but again it was something that had to be done
(Vidya Lala) What factors helped improve the morale?
(Richard Cromer) Well, more mail, right? And every now and then they brought in entertainers from the states and they’d put on a show for you—like Bob Hope. Those kind of things, you know. They were pretty good. But that was basically about it.
(Vidya Lala) How and to what extent were religious convictions expressed in your unit?
(Richard Cromer) Religious?
(Vidya Lala) Yes. Were there any religious…
(Richard Cromer) Well, I don’t know. I don’t… I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t recall seeing any kind of problems with it. I mean you either… you went to chapel or you didn’t went to chapel. It was really that simple. And when we got into Japan in the occupation, there was a Nisei woman that worked there, got a job on the base and her husband—she was an American—I said Nisei but she was basically American—and her husband was a minister, came over from Japan, right before Pearl Harbor. And I don’t remember now… No he met her in America, yeah. But when he went back to Japan, they threw him in prison because he had married an American and they had some pretty rough times during that war, even though they were native Japanese. And a couple of us guys from the base, learned about this little church here in the town and we went down with basketballs and baseballs and we made ice cream one time—they never had ice cream. So it was a neat affair and the kids loved it. I mean, boy you talk about the kids, they would pile in there by the hundreds! And no animosity. The only place you’d run into trouble would be if you went into some of the little country towns, if you were walking around. And the old Japanese weren’t happy with us, but I always had a comeback ‘You started it; we finished it!’ What else could you say, right?
(Vidya Lala) Did you observe any newspaper or radio war correspondence?
(Richard Cromer) Did I do who?
(Vidya Lala) Did you get any information from newspapers and radios?
(Richard Cromer) Well there as it a newspaper. I think it was called Army Times. But every now and then that thing would come out; it wasn’t something every week you had, you know. But I dealt with radio, quite a bit. So when I had off, the last thing I wanted to do was turn on a radio and listen to it, right.
(Vidya Lala) I understand. So you were not in combat?
(Richard Cromer) No.
(Vidya Lala) Okay. Did you go overseas?
(Richard Cromer) Yes!
(Vidya Lala) What were your feelings towards going overseas?
(Richard Cromer) It was an experience. I don’t know that I had any kinda problem with it. It was just happen to be that that was part of the deal. That’s what I trained for and the job I trained for required that I’d go overseas. And we were replacing some of the guys that had been in heavy combat and wanted to get home, so our job was to replace them. Let them come home and we filled in for them.
(Vidya Lala) Where did you go overseas? Like, which countries?
(Richard Cromer) Japan. I stopped on Guam, I stopped on Saipan. We stopped briefly in Honolulu. And just like that the name left me. It’ll come back! But when we came home, we had about fifteen hundred Hawaiian troops on and I’ll never forget we…The skipper of the boat told us we were stopping in Honolulu for one day and then unload these troops. And for some strange reason, the boat broke down for about seven days. So we had seven wonderful days going through Honolulu. Now this was after the war there, you know; they had started to clean up the island. But it was a nice little break. And some of that water down through that way gets little rough too, so you enjoy the calmness, by not having the boat rocking all over the place, right? You ever been on a big boat?
(Vidya Lala) I don’t think so.
(Richard Cromer) Oh okay. They can rock funny sometimes. They go forward and they go sideways.
(Vidya Lala) Did you assist in the establishment of civil affairs government in liberating friendly countries?
(Richard Cromer) No. That was on the other side, where that developed more. I did travel through, we called it Hiroshima, today these people call it Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, where the atomic bomb fell. And that was a horrendous mess there, but that thing saved one heck of a lot of lives.
(Vidya Lala) What were your reactions to V-J Day—Victory over Japan?
(Richard Cromer) Wonderful. Happy. Right? Sure. That meant we wouldn’t have any five or six years to serve like some of those poor guys did, yeah.
(Vidya Lala) How was the morale and discipline of your unit after the End of Hostilities?
(Richard Cromer) Well, that’s hard to answer because I was just going through basic training at that point then, so I didn’t have any… I mean everybody had a job at that point of making it through basic training. So, hard question to answer though.
(Vidya Lala) Agreed. Do you remember any of the awards and decorations you received? It’s alright if you don’t.
(Richard Cromer) Good conduct medal, the Occupation of Japan…there was another one and I can’t think of what that was. I will have to get my discharge papers out and look at that thing—I think that will say it.
(Vidya Lala) Alright. Do you think that the awards and decorations were distributed fairly?
(Richard Cromer) I think so. I mean it was pretty… what I saw was pretty packed. I mean if you were in a certain theater, well that’s where you were and then you got a ribbon or a medal for that. You know if you climb Mount Fuji, you got a ribbon for that I guess, I don’t know. No, I think it was all pretty fair. Some guys wear, you know you see these guys with about four hundred ribbons on there and you wonder how they can participate in all those things, but they were, I would guess, they were all fair.
(Vidya Lala) Alright. Describe your welcome home to the United States.
(Richard Cromer) Oh my gracious! There was fifty thousand people out there greeting us! No, by that time, you know things were pretty settled down. And I don’t know it was not like V-J Day, when you know everybody just literally tore New York City apart. When I came home it wasn’t like that at all. I was just happy to be home in one piece and get started with my life again and you know.
(Vidya Lala) How long did you remain in the service after the End of Hostilities?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I was in the Reserves for eleven years afterwards and I got discharged with a term they used at the time ‘I was in grade to long.’ And they had an expression called ‘at the convenience to the government’ they discharge you. So if you were not in a active Reserve unit, why they discharged you.
(Vidya Lala) Do you remember the date and place of your discharge?
(Richard Cromer) Sure. Yeah, I goy discharged in Camp Stoneman, California. And it was—I think it was—July the 30th, of 1947. Yeah. That’s where I got discharged from the service—my official discharge wasn’t until a couple days later. We had a thirty day grace period there of being discharged out of the service.
(Vidya Lala) What did you do after you were discharged?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I went downtown and grabbed a great big steak and milkshake—that’s not what you want to hear, is it? Well, I came back home and a group of us guys, that all went into the service together decided that we were going to go back to school. And a local Pasteur in our Carlisle, grabbed a bunch of eight of us and we went to Gettysburg and he personally saw to it that we were all admitted. And today we might have a little problem with doing that. But regardless of grades or background, we were all admitted there and we got a—I got a four year education because of my time in the service.
(Vidya Lala) Describe the ease, or difficulty, which you readapted to civilization.
(Richard Cromer) I didn’t have any difficulties. I thought it was pretty neat. No, I mean you didn’t have somebody yelling at you all the time—do this, do that—but that didn’t bother me. No.
(Vidya Lala) Before the war, did you graduate from high school?
(Richard Cromer) Yes.
(Vidya Lala) When?
(Richard Cromer) When?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah.
(Richard Cromer) 1945.
(Vidya Lala) Alright. Did you go to college or a trade school before the war?
(Richard Cromer) Yeah, I put one semester in. And that’s where I started with this ROTC Program. And when I turned eighteen, I knew that the greeting wasn’t far behind, so they let us finish—all of us that started—they let us finish that semester and then we got our greetings. So, at that point, why I enlisted, and they gave us the option of sailing the draft or being enlisting, so I did.
(Vidya Lala) What was the name of your college?
(Richard Cromer) Gettysburg College.
(Vidya Lala) Oh. Okay. What degree were you pursuing?
(Richard Cromer) Bachelor of Arts.
(Vidya Lala) Okay. So you went to a college under the G--
(Richard Cromer) GI Bill.
(Vidya Lala) What was the name of that school?
(Richard Cromer) Well, I just gave that to you, Gettysburg College.
(Vidya Lala) Gettysburg? Which—okay, so you did it under ROTC… Was there a degree attached to that?
(Richard Cromer) To the ROTC?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah, like for the college. Was there a degree? Did you also pursue art, or…
(Richard Cromer) Bachelor of Arts—from the college, not from the ROTC. Is that what you are asking me?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah.
(Richard Cromer) From the college. Yeah. Now my major was Political Science and Economics. And for some strange reason, I ended up with a minor in Mathematics and English Literature. So, I don’t know why, but I did.
(Vidya Lala) What does the GI Bill mean to you?
(Richard Cromer) Well, it meant an education, for me. Paid my way through school and bought my books and gave me some spending money to pay for my room and board. At that time—I don’t know if you have looked at colleges recently, but I understand they are a little expensive. My tuition was eight hundred dollars. Plus books and board, you know, but eight hundred dollars is what we—is what it cost.
(Vidya Lala) Wow! Did you join the National Guard or Organized Reserves after the war?
(Richard Cromer) Yes. I joined the Reserves, not the Guard.
(Vidya Lala) For how long did you belong to the Reserves?
(Richard Cromer) Eleven years. Oh wait a minute now, let’s see. Yeah, eleven years. I got… it was 1958, when they discharged me. And that was a messed up affair. My job transferred me to Texas and, with my MOS [Military Occupational Specialty] background, I couldn’t get a unit of what my specialty was and all I could get into down there was field artillery and I elected not to do that, so they elected not to keep me.
(Vidya Lala) What was the—Identify your Reserve Unit.
(Richard Cromer) I don’t know if we had a name. It was just the Army Reserves. And at one time it was called an Army Security Unit because at that time the War College—the Army War College in Carlisle—had a school there of the Army Security Agency, so it just fit. And we were just a Reserve Unit. There must have been a unit name to it. I don’t know. I never… All I did was go to meetings and being that I was an officer I had to give lectures, so that was it.
(Vidya Lala) Okay. What—With whom do you feel most comfortable discussing your wartime experiences?
(Richard Cromer) Well, my fellow veterans, yeah.
(Vidya Lala) Do you still keep in touch with friends from the war?
(Richard Cromer) Not from my unit I don’t. No. There aren’t any of them around through here. Most of those guys were in California from what I can gather. But there was one guy, that was in that unit with me, he was from Mechanicsburg. But every now and then I’d call him, but that was it. But it’s not like some of these—some of these guys who were in the navy, they have ship reunions every year, where these guys all get together and have a great big party. We don’t. We didn’t do that. You’re quite.
(Vidya Lala) World War II was a significant national experience. What, if anything, did it teach you about America?
(Richard Cromer) About who?
(Vidya Lala) World War II was a very national experience. Did it teach you anything about America?
(Richard Cromer) Oh, About America. Yeah. It taught me that we have the best country in the world, that’s what and all due respect to where you came from—I’m not saying anything derogatory about that—but I’m a firm American. And I think we’ve got the best country in the world. We’ve got some lousy…okay I better not say that. I get carried away once I’m…
(Vidya Lala) Have you read any literature on World War II?
(Richard Cromer) Read any literature? Sure.
(Vidya Lala) Do you agree with the messages they portray?
(Richard Cromer) Well, some of them are a little, a little flamboyant I guess. I mean it all depends on who the author was. If he was—If he got carried away a little bit, he would make things sound pretty good. It’s like any kind of a book. You know there’s fiction and you can build up most any kind of a story, if you want to, right? I like to stick with the facts of this, about the war, and of course I’m an admirer of the Civil War. I had a great, great grandfather that fought in the Civil War. He was a Maryland Calvary—Al Fredrick Marilyn. And I just happen to have his discharge papers from the service. He was a Confederate prisoner and I have his saber that he used in the army. So, I’ve got some military background. I have been doing some research; I found out that I have a great, great uncle who fought in the Revolutionary War, too. So, things go back or go forward, whichever way you want to word them work at it, you know. Then I had a grandfather that, he went out west. I don’t know if you ever read about the Oklahoma Land Rush, when the country, the United States, gave out land out west. Well, my granddad went out there and he homesteaded right next to an Indian Reservation. There’s the map he used when he went out there. And he was there fourteen years. And then came back east and luckily he met my grandmother and they got married. I’m a prodigy of that marriage, you know. That doesn’t have anything to do with the war but, you know that’s all part of our heritage, I guess, right?
(Vidya Lala) Yeah. What were your expectations at the end of the war—as for world stability?
(Richard Cromer) Well we had all hoped there would be stability with it, but that must be the war to end wars. And well, as we all know that didn’t happen either. And I just don’t think—we’ve had war ever since time began. Look at the Bible. They were fighting all the time. Samson took on the big Giant. And, you know, one way or another, there was fighting, no matter where and I just don’t think—I hate to say it this way—I just don’t think we’ll ever stop fighting, because you and I get together and we disagree with something, well then, it may escalate into a fight. And if we got people following us, well then we got more people involved and I just… I really hate—I got some great grandkids coming along and I hate to see them caught up in all this mess but I don’t know what else is going to happen. I really don’t. This thing over in Iran is horrible. They are trying to stop that bomb program there and they don’t seem to be… there I go again. Sorry about that.
(Vidya Lala) Its alright. Do you have any other… Anything else to say about your experiences?
(Richard Cromer) I’m just lucky that I made it through and I’m thankful to God that I made it through yeah. And I really… I don’t look at my service time as an infringement on my life, I just I think it was just a part of a phase of growing up and I was thankful for it.
(Vidya Lala) Thank you so much for your time.
(Richard Cromer) You mean that’s it!
(Vidya Lala) Yup.
(Richard Cromer) Oh, I thought you were going to ask me something hard here.