Oral History Interview with Carlos J. Chavez

Interview

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BANDA: Today is Thursday, September 22nd, 2016. This is an interview with Carlos J. Chavez, who served with the 83rd Infantry Division during World War II, and this interview is being conducted at his home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My name is George F. Banda, and this interview is being recorded for the Wisconsin Veteran's Museum Oral History Project.

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BANDA: Carlos, tell me where and when you were born?

CHAVEZ: 1923, in Tacquaziclu[??], Michoacán.

BANDA: And, uh, when did you come up here? Were you--you were a little baby, and--and when--

CHAVEZ: Yeah, I was, I was three years old, and my dad sent for us, because he 00:01:00was working over here, so he sent for my family. I don't remember what the year of it was.

BANDA: Mkay, so you, you got here, and you grew up in Milwaukee?

CHAVEZ: I grew up in Milwaukee. I went to school at, uh, St. Augustine. I graduated there in '39. And I went to Boys Tech. And I only stayed three years because every year they wanted--I wanted to be in machine shop, but... the ones that was good, the ones they... I couldn't get it. So, they gave me, uh--wood shop. And the next year electric shop, and the third year, auto shop. I couldn't learn nothing there, so I quit and went to work.

BANDA: Okay.

CHAVEZ: I worked at Trostel.

BANDA: And Trostel's a tannery.

CHAVEZ: Yeah. Trostel was a tannery. And it was a good job.

BANDA: So, where did you live in Milwaukee at that time?

CHAVEZ: Well, right--on North Street. In Bay View. 2400 block. Oh, but then we went to uh... my dad, uh--somebody went and bought the house, so we had to go to Third Ward, Italian community there. My mother cried like a baby.[chuckles] Because over here, you know, you've got green grass, parks, and everything. Third Ward, all cement. No trees, nothing.

BANDA: [chuckles]

CHAVEZ: [chuckles] But after about a month or so, my mother got used to talking to the Italian people, you know. And then she was happy, 'cause she had a lot of neighbors. Well, we all lived within a block or two of each other. All my buddies. So that was good.

BANDA: So, then you were still working at Trostel when the war started?

CHAVEZ: Uh, yeah. I was still working at Trostel. Then I got married, I was nineteen, and... That was in March. And then I got drafted.

BANDA: How did you meet your wife, and what was her name?

CHAVEZ: Oh, oh--a buddy--Lena Mae. But they all called her 'Babe.' Uh, a couple buddies a' mine knew her, so they introduced her to me, and we got, you know, pretty well acquainted and that. But my dad never wanted me to marry--[chuckles] that girl, he wanted me to marry, a... Mexican girl. I knew a couple of 'em, but it never happened, never materialized. So, when I [laughs] brought my wife to 00:04:00meet my parents, my dad says, "You know he's a poor boy, he's a poor boy." [chuckles] And uh, my wife says, "I don't care, I love him." You know, stuff like that. But after that, we got married there, at the court at that time. And then I got drafted and I went to the service. And uh, to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

BANDA: What year was that, do you remember?

CHAVEZ: That was in '43. And, the first day I got there, they told me I need a haircut. At that time I had uh, like I was a [chuckle] but ah--they never used nothing else but a shaver--a razor. One, two, three, and that was it. The next day, my parents came to see me with my wife. They couldn't believe that I was 00:05:00bald! [laughs] Couldn't believe it. Well, well after that we went training, you know, Fort Leonard Wood.

BANDA: How was the training there at Fort Leonard Wood?

CHAVEZ: It was good.

BANDA: What kind was it? Just--

CHAVEZ: Just marching, and training, and shootin', you know.

BANDA: Right.

CHAVEZ: Rifle shoot--that where I got that carib--carbine. I got excellent on that. That's why I got that medal there.

BANDA: Right.

CHAVEZ: And then we went on maneuvers down in Kentucky. And uh... after that, then we got orders. The privates and PFC's [Private First Class] got orders to go overseas. So, from there, all of us went to New Jersey. And that's when my 00:06:00mother and dad, and my wife came to see me, see me off. So... we went on a boat, it took about two weeks to go on a boat. And we landed in, ah god, I can't think of the name of that place. Anyway, overseas. And there they split us up. Some went to different divisions. I happened to be in the 83rd Division, that's an Ohio division--

BANDA: Okay.

CHAVEZ: So that's in Normandy, about--I joined them at about, they were about twenty miles in from Normandy. And that's where I started to battle. At that time, you're, you were uh, fighting in--They called them hedgerows. Where the farmers you know, had big hedges for their farms. And uh, the enemy, all the 00:07:00Germans, had machine guns. They used a sight. And when I went in, I was supposed to, well I was supposed to run and go along the hedges to steal the sight, but when I got to the opening, there was a soldier that was already dead. So he got shot. So, I cried like a baby. But then I got up, and I did what I had to do, you know. But after that, then I was okay. I knew what was goin' on. We had mortar shells comin' in on us, you know, at that time, all that time.

BANDA: Sure.

CHAVEZ: But we got through to, we got through the hedgerows, and I don't know, we--we were stationed at a certain place, a certain village. And they were supposed to--they were waiting for us. The skies are clear, so we get our bombers in there. At that time we had to put panels in front of our lines. So, 00:08:00the bombers couldn't, you know, wouldn't drop the bombs in the wrong place.

BANDA: Right, right.

CHAVEZ: But later on, I heard they had wiped out one of our battalions. They forgot to put the panels out.

BANDA: Right.

CHAVEZ: And after that, well...

BANDA: Was that still around Normandy? When you were going--

CHAVEZ: Yes, yeah, right around Normandy. Yeah, yeah.

CHAVEZ: Around Loire, the Loire Valley. And uh, the skies cleared, and the day we took off, there was eighteen-hundred bombers flew over. They bombed, and our paratroopers they dropped behind the lines, you know. And we took off on Patton, on the tanks, passed St. Ballieux[??], the Loire Valley. That's all I remember. We captured about three-thousand Germans there [truck passes by]. We bypassed 00:09:00Paris. Patton wanted to go--well, we wanted to leave it for the French Resistance forces. They wanted to go in.

BANDA: Okay.

CHAVEZ: Oh, and some of our forces too, but not us. Patton wanted to take off, so we took off! And about fifty miles away, we had to stop. Because Patton--they didn't have enough gas [laughs] to go! We had to wait for our supplies to come up.

BANDA: Oh, really?

CHAVEZ: Yeah.

BANDA: Oh man.

CHAVEZ: Yeah, so after that, I forget what it was, you know. From then on, my memory's dim.

BANDA: Okay, okay. Did you make friends when you were in the military? Well, first of all, did you meet anybody here that you knew when you were in Fort Leonard Wood, at all? [dog whines]

CHAVEZ: Yes, there was a couple of Italian fellas that I knew.

BANDA: Okay.

CHAVEZ: That came, you know--but after that, after the war, they went. Because 00:10:00you know, when you got there, after that--I learned this after that. That every Wisconsin man that went there, they sent them to different outfits, because they didn't want Wisconsin--you know, once, you know, shoot them up and get killed. And that, that'd be too much for Wisconsin, or any other state.

BANDA: Sure.

CHAVEZ: So, they all split us up.

BANDA: Right. Okay.

CHAVEZ: So--

BANDA: Did you try to make any friends when you were in, in Europe? You know, like, with Normandy and that--

CHAVEZ: Yeah, yeah, sure, like Joe Kirby there.

BANDA: Right

CHAVEZ: Yeah. But when you're in a war, you know, you don't want to make too many friends. Because they get killed, you miss them, you know, stuff like that. So I did--I didn't make too many friends except this one Kirby here. We got pretty close.

BANDA: Did he ever get you in any trouble?

CHAVEZ: No!

BANDA: Kirby?

CHAVEZ: Well [chuckles] I wouldn't say that. After that we made sergeants, he 00:11:00had the First platoon, I had the Second platoon. And uh, wow [chuckles]. We, uh, captured some motorcycles, from the Germans. And, he was in another town, I was in another town. Split up the platoons, you know. And he'd call me, or I'd call him, "Hey we got some eggs over here, cookin'." So, we got on [chuckles], we got on motorcycles and went to the next town and meantime [chuckles] the Germans were shelling us.

BANDA: Oh, really?

CHAVEZ: Yeah. Aw, young kids you...or else I'd call him, he'd call me. Finally, that had to stop because we had to move on. Aw, crazy.

BANDA: I remember you mentioned earlier about uh... You were--your outfit took 00:12:00off without you guys?

CHAVEZ: Oh yeah--

BANDA: You were in town or something? Something happened there?

CHAVEZ: Yeah, it was--I think that was the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. When we got through that and then we had a little bivouac. You know, every time, after a campaign, you settled someplace, and you would stay there two or three days, you'd get replacements and training. So, when we got to this town here, my second in command, staff sergeant, he said, "Let's go to town." You know, so I said, "No." I kept saying, "No, no, no, no, no," [laughs] and he kept pestering me, until finally I said, "Okay." We were gone only about an hour or two, we come back, the outfit had already pulled out. Yeah, they pulled out. Took us two days to get up to 'em. At that time they were at uh, Battle of the Bulge, when 00:13:00we got there. So we had to go up and see the colonel. But you know, we told him what happened, and that you know... So he, he got me down. He took one stripe away from me. He made me staff sergeant, and my staff sergeant, made him private.

BANDA: [chuckles] He really got punished.

CHAVEZ: He really got punished. Well, he's the one that told him, y'know, "My fault," you know, this 'n that. So... after that we fought at, uh, Battle of the Bulge, there.

BANDA: How was that? How was the Battle of the Bulge?

CHAVEZ: Cold. That's when I lost one of my men.

BANDA: The wintertime--[inaudible]

CHAVEZ: [Inaudible]

CHAVEZ: Little freckle-faced kid, must've been about 18 years old, little chubby guy. For some reason, you know, he slept outside. And the next day, we found him 00:14:00frozen. He died. Boy, that was rough.

BANDA: Yeah, yeah.

CHAVEZ: And at that time there was a lot of clouds. And they were waiting for 'em to clear up so we could get our fighters in there, bombers, and that--our fighter planes in there, ya know. Finally, after a couple a' weeks of sleeping next to tanks on the ground, four or five of us together, blankets over us. But after a couple a' days, the sky cleared up, and our fighters come in. So, then we took off. They bombed, you know, they had our artillery there, they bombed the German lines and that, so we had a breakthrough there. So, we kept going. 00:15:00But the next... I lost that one.

BANDA: Now, did you have warm clothing, and did they--

CHAVEZ: Oh yeah.

BANDA: --supply you enough?

CHAVEZ: Oh yeah.

BANDA: --wool clothes, wool pants...

CHAVEZ: Oh yes, the socks--they give us socks every day. Every day. But when it was warmer, but back in France and that, when going through there, we had, uh, after an engagement, we had to go to the rear. And they had, our engineers had set up uh, like uh, for taking the showers, you know.

BANDA: Sure.

CHAVEZ: So that's--we took showers, changed clothes and that. But that was actually only once, when it was warm.

BANDA: Well once winter came, and then it gets so cold that--

CHAVEZ: Yeah, yeah.

BANDA: You got no way to clean up.

CHAVEZ: Yeah. Well, that's what happened there.

BANDA: Where you went--were you near Bastogne, in that area? 'Cause that's the--

CHAVEZ: No.

BANDA: --biggest battle I remember back in...

CHAVEZ: No. See we changed different armies, all depends on where we were. I was in the Third Army one time, Ninth Army, First Army. Like, I think I was in Ninth Army up at uh, Battle of the Bulge. Yeah.

BANDA: How long did that last? It seems like it--the Battle of the Bulge seems to have lasted--

CHAVEZ: Quite, quite a while. Yeah, quite a while.

BANDA: It's cold and it's winter, and it's--and you know you're trying to sleep, and you know, what do you eat?

CHAVEZ: Oh, we had K-rations.

BANDA: Right.

CHAVEZ: When the kitchen could get up, it was, then we had a hot, hot meal. But down in France there... You go through the chow line, at the end of the chow line, they had cartons of cigarettes galore, you know. Cartons, take what you want. Well, I didn't smoke much then anyway, but take two or three cartons, and 00:17:00we'd give them to the farmers. They'd give us some eggs, or chicken, or something like that.

BANDA: [laughs]

CHAVEZ: [chuckles] That's the way you'd get--that's down there, France.

CHAVEZ: But there, when we were fighting the Germ--in the Hürtgen Forest. They had a lot of kids we captured. I guess we got--go--running out of [phone rings] out of men, you know [dog barks].

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CHAVEZ: Pneumonia. I caught pneumonia, and I was in the hospital, in Belgium, for about two weeks. But then we were on a bivouac there. So--

BANDA: Was there a hospital there, they put you in a hospital is that for pneumonia, or?

CHAVEZ: Well, it was a house, ya know.

BANDA: Right.

CHAVEZ: It wasn't a hospital. At that time.

BANDA: Right.

CHAVEZ: You know, just... a big building. After that then, got back in my 00:18:00outfit. We were in Bavaria at that time. And uh, we were, oh my platoon was billeted where Hitler used to have his hideout, hideaway, up Bavaria. That was nice up there.

BANDA: Yeah.

CHAVEZ: We had a restful--[chuckles]. At that time, we went to see Bob Hope. He came to see us, over there--so we went to see Bob Hope, at that time. The war was still on. So we went to see him, in the big hall.

BANDA: Yeah, he was quite amazing.

CHAVEZ: Oh, god, yeah.

BANDA: He went everywhere, where you wouldn't think he would go--

CHAVEZ: Yeah, he was.

BANDA: He went because he was just somebody who cared about the troops, quite a bit.

CHAVEZ: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

BANDA: So, you got a chance to see him, and that's pretty good! That you got a chance to see him.

CHAVEZ: Yeah! Yeah.

BANDA: And that was where, in Bavaria?

CHAVEZ: In Bavaria, yeah, Bavaria.

BANDA: How long did you stay there? Just a few weeks?

CHAVEZ: Ahh, not too long. Well by that time the war was almost over. At that time, ya know.

BANDA: How did you get your orders to go from one place to another? Like you were in Normandy, then you went to the Argonne, and then--

CHAVEZ: So, division headquarters, would come down to company headquarters. At one time I was a runner, between--before I made sergeant, that you know, I was a runner between the platoon and company headquarters. Any message that they wanted to, y'know, I'd bring it down, or take it over there. Like that.

BANDA: Did they give you a Jeep? Or just run?

CHAVEZ: [chuckles] We walked.

BANDA: When you say "run," you [chuckles] mean--

CHAVEZ: You walked. Yeah.

BANDA: Okay. So, you pick up some paperwork, and they give you an envelope or--

CHAVEZ: Yeah, yeah, whatever it was, you know, and I'd take it down to the platoon.

BANDA: Then, from there, they'd get the orders there.

CHAVEZ: Yeah, we'd get the orders there.

BANDA: And then they'd give you [Chavez sighs] the rest of the information, and say, "Okay we're moving out--"

CHAVEZ: Yeah.

BANDA: --and we're going this--where--this--that's pretty--and uh, [inaudible].

CHAVEZ: What else, now.

BANDA: Well, you had a lot of battles, I know that, and uh, I'm--

CHAVEZ: Yeah.

BANDA: Mostly fighting--

CHAVEZ: Well, before that... Got to remember...

BANDA: It's okay.

CHAVEZ: I know we met the Russians across the Elbe River.

BANDA: That was toward the end of the war there?

CHAVEZ: Yeah, towards the end of the war, yeah. They wanted us to take Berlin. But then, headquarters came down with the orders, "Let the Russians take it." We were happy about that. [chuckles] Very happy!

BANDA: [laughs] Right--that's a lot more fighting, you know, once you take it over, a city like that.

CHAVEZ: Yeah. Well after that I guess the war was over then. Then we started--in Bavaria we started training. We got replacements, we started training, to go to South Pacific. So, while we were training, we heard the--the war was over, Japan, you know. So, [chuckles] so all the guys got their guns and started firing.

BANDA: Really! [chuckles]

CHAVEZ: Scared the heck out of the poor people over there.

BANDA: Oh yeah, I bet.

CHAVEZ: But y'know, up in the air, you know--

BANDA: Yeah, up in the air.

CHAVEZ: They were happy it was all over.

BANDA: Oh yeah.

CHAVEZ: Well then one day the--the company commander came over, "Carl, you've got a furlough coming." He says, "You want to go to England? France?" Well, I was already over there, so I says, "How about ah, Switzerland?"

BANDA: Ooh!

CHAVEZ: So, I says, "Okay." So, I went to Switzerland.

BANDA: Oh, you did!

CHAVEZ: Yeah, for about a week. Beautiful country. Sides of the roads? Forget it. Not a speck of dirt or nothing.

BANDA: Really?

CHAVEZ: Yeah. There were rocks, black and white, they painted them you know, where the trains went by. So it was beautiful. And I got a chance to go up to 00:23:00sleep on beds, you wouldn't believe. They were like feather beds. [Banda chuckles] And I got a chance to go up to the mountains, up... I don't know what they called it, Jungfrau [summit]. In other words, there's uh, there's cars that took us all the way up into the mountains. And there was a big hotel up there. With uh, big windows. You could see down below the valley, and all the mountains there, with snow and that--caps. So, I was there for about a week. When I come back, to the company, the captain told me, "You've got emergency furlough." That my oldest daughter almost died. She had a ruptured appendix. She's about a year and a half old, somethin' like that. So, at that time, they're supposed to fly me to the States. But instead they're shipping all the planes over to South 00:24:00Pacific, to bring our wounded boys home, you know. So, they flew me to Paris, and then from there, I got on a boat to come home. And they made me an MP, Military Police. [laughs]

BANDA: Really!

CHAVEZ: [laughs] Yeah, I had to take care of the guys, you know, be sure nothing goes wrong in that, you know.

BANDA: Right.

CHAVEZ: So all the way, I forget where I landed anyway. I think I landed--oh, the plane! In the center of the plane, it was one of those big planes, nothing inside, nothing--but buckets in the middle. So, they used to get air pockets, and planes go up like this here, guys had to throw up! So, that's why they had the buckets in the center.

BANDA: Oh, really? Sure.

CHAVEZ: But I never had to, no. But after that, I landed. I don't know if it was New York or someplace. I forget. Yeah, I think I was uh--New Jersey someplace. Anyway, I came home, it was daughter's birthday, fifth of October, fifth of October. A couple a' days before I got discharged. On the fifth of October, I came to Milwaukee, was her birthday, five years old. So, I bought her that dress over there that she's wearing.

BANDA: Oh! Cute.

CHAVEZ: Then when I got home--

BANDA: Mmhm.

CHAVEZ: My brother Tony was shipping out, so I had to take him to the station to 00:26:00see him off. [chuckles]

BANDA: Was he in the Army too, or?

CHAVEZ: Yeah.

BANDA: Okay.

CHAVEZ: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was in the--ah, most of my brothers, except Paulie. He was in Korea. He's the one that seen any action... there. So, that's about it.

BANDA: Well, what about uh, your daughter, that had the appendix ruptured. How--

CHAVEZ: Oh, oh [inaudible]. She had about a hundred-and-ten [degrees Fahrenheit] fever.

BANDA: Oh, my goodness.

CHAVEZ: And they [inaudible], you know--Huh? Oh, and uh... She had bad, she had a bad time, she had epilepsy.

BANDA: Sure.

CHAVEZ: She used to have a lot of... Oh, she was sick for quite a while.

BANDA: Now you get back to... Milwaukee.

CHAVEZ: Yeah.

BANDA: And you go back to work.

CHAVEZ: What?

BANDA: Right away?

CHAVEZ: No, not right away, about two or three weeks. I was anxious. I went back to the--they took me in.

BANDA: Okay.

CHAVEZ: You know, and then from there--

BANDA: I'm sure everybody was pretty happy to see you come back.

CHAVEZ: [chuckles] Oh yeah.

BANDA: After I'm sure they were hearing on the radio--

CHAVEZ: Yeah, my dad and ma--

BANDA: --what was going on over there.

CHAVEZ: --and my brother Tony came back, and my brother Rooney went. And he come back, and my brother Paulie went. Little Louie, he's the one that should a' went [chuckles]. But if the war was still on, he probably, probably would a' went too.

BANDA: So, you had quite a few brothers [dog barks] go into the service.

CHAVEZ: Yeah. [dog barks]

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Unknown: [Inaudible]

CHAVEZ: Oh, yeah.

BANDA: Did you bring back any souvenirs from...?

CHAVEZ: At that time you could send souvenirs home, during the war. I got, well, 00:28:00a [Walther] P38... A little .25 [caliber weapon] I took off a woman... She was a soldier, too.

BANDA: Really!

CHAVEZ: Yeah.

CHAVEZ: Well, a lot of them like that--Germans--their wives or girlfriends, whatever they were, you know--

BANDA: Were these like --

CHAVEZ: --captured, captured a lot of them.

BANDA: Well, you captured them, and then you--

CHAVEZ: Yeah. Yeah.

BANDA: Something about a flag that you brought. A Nazi flag?

CHAVEZ: Yeah. I sent some Nazi flags home, and at that time ah, we were living with mother, and then we got a trailer, down on the lake. And my wife, uh, out of them Nazi flags, she made curtains, for the windows! [chuckles] So, it looked good at the time, you know.

BANDA: Right.

CHAVEZ: [chuckles]

BANDA: That's pretty funny.

CHAVEZ: Yeah.

BANDA: So, you went back to work and everything kinda... went back to normal again?

CHAVEZ: Ah, settled down, yeah.

BANDA: You know, working and settle down--

CHAVEZ: Yeah.

BANDA: Raised your family.

CHAVEZ: Yeah.

BANDA: Your brothers all came back?

CHAVEZ: Yeah, they all came back.

BANDA: And you mentioned you knew a David Valdez?

CHAVEZ: Oh yeah.

BANDA: From the neighborhood, I guess?

CHAVEZ: Yeah, well, I think I was already in the service, when he went by mother to say goodbye, you know, 'cause he was leaving for the Air Corps. Joined the Air Corps. And he told my mother, he says, "Don't worry about Carlo," he says. "He'll be home, but I won't." And never came back.

BANDA: Right.

CHAVEZ: He was a tail gunner, in the air. And I guess his plane went down in the Mediterranean. They never could find that plane.

BANDA: I think they made a, uh, David Valdez Post. American Legion Post in Milwaukee.

CHAVEZ: Yeah. Yeah, his dad was kind of a big shot, at that time. Yeah. Yeah, we used to hang around together, when we was kids.

BANDA: Didn't he go to Boys Tech?

CHAVEZ: Yeah. Yeah, he was on the basketball team. At that time, I was too small for basketball. I went out for swimming.

BANDA: [Laughs]

CHAVEZ: But uh, yeah he was a good basketball player. So, after that, things settled down, to normal.

BANDA: To normal, right, and then, well then Korea started up, in the, in the fifties, and then you said, uh--well your brother.

CHAVEZ: Well, my brother was there, in Korea.

BANDA: And luckily, he made it back.

CHAVEZ: Oh yeah, he, uh, I think he hated it. Cause that what I learnt from one of my brothers, that when he come back, and docked, wherever it was, New York or 00:31:00something. He rolled his Army stuff over the side.

BANDA: Really!

CHAVEZ: Yeah.

BANDA: I'll have to talk to him. [chuckles]

CHAVEZ: --duffle bag.

BANDA: Yeah, he was--

CHAVEZ: I don't know if he'll tell you about it, but--'cause he, he hated the war.

BANDA: Didn't want nothing to do with it.

CHAVEZ: He hated the war.

BANDA: Yeah, I know. Absolutely. So, things settled down, and you went back to work at Trostel, and--

CHAVEZ: Back to work.

BANDA: And raised a family.

CHAVEZ: Yeah.

BANDA: How long have you lived here, in this house?

CHAVEZ: No, uh... We lived uh, in the Third Ward for a while. Then we had a friend of ours, had a house on 8th and Burleigh, that we rented for a while. 00:32:00Then from there, we went, went to Buffamen [??] and Auer. There was a duplex there. So, we went uh, we rented a place there. Nice woman there, she--well she told us that if we come in--at that time you had coal stoves then, coal furnaces. She says, "I'll turn it into gas." So she did that for us. And later on, years after that--remember them riots they used to have? At that time? Well, fighters that used to come by our house with the Army's guns and everything and they're looking for people, I guess. So, we were decided to get out of that area. So, I sold the house, at that time. Yeah, I sold the house, and then we 00:33:00come looking in Bay View here. Where I used to leave, ya know, and uh, we came to the house here, we checked it out, but compared to my duplex over there, it was kinda small. So, my wife says, ya know, "Well, maybe not." But she liked it, ya know. So, on the way home, "Carlo, go back, hurry up! Put a bid on it." [chuckles] "What the heck we want a big house for, there's only two of us." [chuckles] So I come back right away. At that time, there was another couple that came, that they almost got it. But I put five hundred dollars down. Yeah. So, we were happy about that.

BANDA: Absolutely.

CHAVEZ: So, we've been here ever since. Maybe thirty, thirty-five years.

BANDA: That's a long time.

CHAVEZ: [coughs] Yeah.

BANDA: A long time. So, you know, when you think back about your service, you 00:34:00know, does anything stick out that you always will remember about being uh, in the service? [Chavez coughs] The people you met, or the places you went to?

CHAVEZ: I tried to forget all that.

BANDA: Sure. Absolutely.

CHAVEZ: I tried to forget that. Well, the only nice place I took pictures is Switzerland.

BANDA: Yeah, you said you really liked what you--

CHAVEZ: Yeah. That and up Bavaria, when I went to see Bob Hope.

BANDA: The good memories, the good memories, that you have, those are the ones that you want to remember.

CHAVEZ: [coughs] Outside of that. [chuckles]

BANDA: Yeah, would soon forget, soon forget it.

CHAVEZ: Yeah.

BANDA: Well, okay, Carlos. Thank you for--very much for the interview, I appreciate it.

CHAVEZ: Well, it wasn't much, but it's all I can remember, you know.

BANDA: No, it's--believe me, it's quite a bit.

[End of OH2096.Chavez_file4]