Published: November 11, 2008 10:22 pm         

Oral Histories honor veterans

TERRE HAUTE — Their jokes fill the blanks between lines of black on white, where history book dates mark the life and times of war.

A cadre of students, veterans, parents and staff watched interviews on a big screen Tuesday afternoon as Indiana State University presented a Veterans’ Oral Histories program in Cunningham Memorial Library in honor of those who served.

Walter Sommers, a U.S. Army veteran of World War II, was one of two interviews shown.

Sommers, a German Jew whose family fled the Nazi regime after his father’s month in a concentration camp, explained that he was initially rebuffed by recruiters after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

“They told me to go back and join the German army,” he said, noting that having just come to America in 1939 he had not yet become a citizen. “I said, ‘no thanks and I don’t think they’d have me anyway’.”

But Sommers did not give up and recruiters eventually explained that while volunteering for the Army is a privilege reserved for citizens, it was within their power to draft him.

“I said that’s fine. When do I report?” the now-87-year-old recalled on video.

Sommers did have his high-school diploma, earned at night in New York while working days for $12 a week, so he did have more options than some and he ultimately chose field artillery, the choice of his grandfather and uncles before him.

Offered a spot in Officer Candidate School, he was rejected for commission because of his immigrant status, but became a corporal and trained in both infantry and artillery before heading off to Guam where he and others “saw dead American soldiers” for the first time.

Sommers described the rations, the howitzers and the “brilliant” strategy of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in whose “Island Hopping Campaign” he participated through the Philippines and eventually Okinawa.

“Fifty thousand Americans died in Okinawa,” he said, but noted that it was the first battle where the Japanese surrendered.

And there he met enslaved Koreans the Japanese had used for labor, and whom he was charged to protect, meaning he had to learn to distinguish the two Asian nationalities from each other.

And while President Harry Truman pondered the ethics of what others debate today, for the young soldier on the ground, the bombing of Hiroshima was the right thing to do.

“I wouldn’t be sitting here today if they hadn’t dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima,” he said, explaining his chances of surviving more incidents such as the dive-bombing of his ship.

But neither he nor his teammates could fathom what an atomic bomb would bring, he said. They’d only been told it was about 100 times more powerful than a normal bomb.

Sommers mustered out before Christmas of 1945, rejecting an offer of commission as a lieutenant, his having become an American citizen in California in 1943.

The late Chuck Miles, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, wasn’t sent to Guam, but for a black serviceman in the 1950s, Little Rock, Ark., had its moments.

“It was enlightening,” the Terre Haute native explained on video, explaining that he was told after basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas to “look for signs.”

Signs meant the placards which read “Whites Only” or “Coloreds Section” displayed in restaurants, restrooms and other public places throughout many parts of the country at that time.

“It was my initiation to the South,” he said, noting how demeaning it was and describing the junky stools and “butcher’s block” on which blacks had to eat while their white counterparts sat at tables.

But in New Orleans, where Creoles range from dark to light, the servicemen could get away with some jokes, as those with lighter skin tone brought back the “better popcorn” from whites-only sections and would “wave at us” from the front seats of buses.

“People get hung up on all the wrong things,” he said, recalling how “stupid” the racism was at the time.

Juanita Caruthers, a senior history and political science student, demonstrated the interview process for the audience as Douglas Herrmann and Jessica Saunders told their own stories for the group.

Herrmann, a professor emeritus of psychology, served in the U.S. Marine Corps during Vietnam before returning to a public less than receptive to the war.

“The lowest moment was coming back,” he said, recalling the hostility of anti-war protesters and noting that it took several years for him to deal with that.

Saunders, a veteran of the Navy and Army National Guard, is a senior psychology major and director of the ISU Vet-to-Vet program.

A veteran of the war in Iraq, Saunders said her best memories from overseas revolve around passing out candy to children and helping rebuild villages.

But she cried as she remembered the long tour of duty and missing her children, and Herrmann’s emotion was clear when he recalled learning the hard way that “not everybody is entitled to peace.”

Caruthers said she conducted her first interview in 2005, talking to World War II veteran John Laska about his experiences liberating a concentration camp run by the Nazis.

“At first I was nervous,” she said, noting that the interview was done right after an incident of vandalism at the CANDLES Museum. “But it was a really interesting experience.”

Caruthers’ grandfather served in London in the U.S. Air Force, and the senior said she plans to take a year off after graduation before heading back to graduate school and working toward a doctorate in political science.

Christopher Olsen, chairman of the ISU Department of History and director of Research Center for Local History and Culture, said the Oral Histories collection contains about 60 interviews on a wide array of topics, of which six to eight are veterans. The project has been under way for about four years, he said, adding that the videos are available to the public for viewing.



Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.