WEBVTT

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well , I got so tired of playing goat

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carrying wire for Death Mountains .

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When somebody said there's a new

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superman outfit being organized called

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paratroops And they make $50 extra

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months just for jumping out of

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airplanes . And so I said , you know ,

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25 cents an hour in this business .

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That sounds good to me . So I went down

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to company headquarters , signed up the

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paratroops and uh , I was immediately

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taken , uh sent to fort benning Georgia .

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I saw this bullet for $50 more a month .

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But they're born . That's what

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interested me . If I'm gonna be uniform ,

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I'm gonna have some more money . So I

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signed up a form within , after I

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finished my training in the field there ,

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I received my orders to report for

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bedding . So after after x

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number of weeks of training and

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marching and shooting and jumping . We

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had for France

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the time . 2200 hours june 5th

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1944 The Place

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England C- 47s and their new invasion

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battle paint stand waiting .

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We go to the airport on the night of

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June 5 , 1944 and there

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are thousands of planes now loaded with

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paratroopers , british and american ,

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Canadian . We're loaded

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with all sorts of gear . I think we

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figured we had counting the weight of

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the parachute about £100 . It was

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difficult to get in the aircraft had to

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have help to get into the aircraft .

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How were nerves , excited ,

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frightened knowing now we're going to

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France , spearhead the invasion of

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europe for those

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kinds of situations . Physical

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relations tend to have effect on an

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individual . And so number of numbers

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of us had to be let down

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leave the plane and look for the

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tree . But when we got into

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the airplane , we were scared and

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thought , what the heck did I get

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myself into ? But going through the

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German lines , the beach , they started

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with anti aircraft guns , Jesus . Then

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the airplane went down from 100 to 300

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ft to avoid a flack exploding

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higher . And the sky is full of

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flat and full of uh shell or

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billets coming up . You know that then

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one of them when a tracer , you know ,

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there's about 20 more in between . I've

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seen them go through my shoe , but it's

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all fast and then you're heading for

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the ground and you're not in the air

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very long if you ever go to a fireworks

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display and at the end they have a lot

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left over and they throw it all up one

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time and then bang , let's what it

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looked like when you went out the door

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and your feet was in there and you had

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bullets going well , they were going

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through your chute and you're lucky if

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you want to hit , we lost a lot of men .

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It was like the fourth of july planes

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were coming in , you'd hear one crash

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and then everything would light up . Uh

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it was and there was a lot of machine

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gun fire going up toward the planes

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because they were coming in at low

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levels as they jumped out , they'd

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aimed towards the door by which we were

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exiting the plane And uh my plane

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dropped us at 300 ft , shoot . By the

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time it fully opens , you're about 100

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ft from the ground . So you're coming

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in hard uh it's a hard landing ,

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but we were accustomed to it jumps at

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night is the fact that you get

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separated immediately dependent on

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wind . How fast the plane is going

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determines how far it is between each

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person that jumps out . Usually you

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hit the ground , you're all by yourself ,

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other people all around you , but you

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don't see them yet . We finally got

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down to the bridges and we held them

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and then a few more people come in and

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you heard about lost patrols and all .

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Well , they didn't know we had taken

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our objective for four days because we

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were cut off . We just held waited till

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the lighter troops and the other troops

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caught up with . Then we assembled

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back with our headquarters again . Then

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we marched on the town of Karen Town .

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We took Karen Teen