(patriotic music) - I was born in Northfield, Minnesota, then I moved to Dennison, Minnesota, and we lived in Hatton, North Dakota.

Then my mother died, then I moved to a farm in Kenyon, Minnesota, and that's where I went to school at a one room school in country school in around Kenyon.

Graduated from high school, joined the Marine Corps.

I was a tank driver.

I drove amphibian tanks.

We were mostly stationed in the South Pacific there or in the Pacific Theater.

That's where, you know, I went to bootcamp, three months at Tank Training school at Jack's Farm, Down in San Diego.

And then we went overseas and we were there until November, 1945.

We usually went ahead of the infantry and on the islands of Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima .

We went in with the different divisions.

I was at the second division on Saipan.

I was the fourth division on Tinian, and I was the fifth division on Iwo Jima.

Well, the first thing we did was with our tank, we got our tank shot out from under us.

The first thing on Saipan that is, we'd been on beach about oh two or three minutes and I heard abandoned tank.

I couldn't believe it, but we got hit that time.

Then we, then we got hit on Tinian we got hit on Iwo Jima.

The guy got, he didn't get killed, in the one on Saipan where CP operator got killed on Tinian, the guy got his, he got shot, his ammunition pack got hit.

Let's see on Iwo the loader, got hit and he wouldn't, he refused to be evacuated, so he got the Bronze star.

The most memorable day would be when they raised the flag on Iwo Jima.

I wasn't, I was a half a mile from Mount Suribachi and I did not actually see them raise the flag but there was so much gunfire and so much action.

I turned around and I saw the flag up on the Mount Suribachi and there it was.

So that is the most memorable day, I think.

Yeah, sure, I was changed.

I was a dumb kid at 18.

Didn't take long.

About six weeks boot camp.

That changed you.

Yeah.

But after the war, I married my wife, who was high school sweetheart.

She was, let's see, we've been married 74 and a half years.

Come again June 27th.

It'll be 74 and a half.

We had six children.

It's been a great life.

We just had a great life.

I had a little contracting company for 10, 12 years.

And then I went to work at Cenex in the construction division.

And when I retired, we built a home on Beaver Dam Lake and we lived there in the summer and I built a couple more homes in the summer there.

And then we, in the winter, we had a home in Green Valley, Arizona.

So we lived there in winter.

We did that for 25 years.

- [Interviewer] Nice.

- Yeah.

- [Interviewer] It's a good life.

- Yeah.

Oh, just a great life.

I can't complain.

Freedom is not free.

That's very, you know, that's kind of no cliche, but it's so true.

- [Interviewer] But it's true.

- Yeah.

It's not free.

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