High Morale

We had what we called ‘spikers' in the camp, these are fellows that were nicotined so badly , I mean they would drive them crazy; they would give their food away for a, for a cigarette. A spiker was a guy that would walk around following anyone that had a cigarette and picking up the butts. This day, we had a little parade square and everybody out there walking and there was two naval officers walking one day and they, one was smoking a cigarette and our friend, big guy about 6'3, 6'4, was following them; big strides. And they, the officer stopped at the end and they were going to separate and when your smoking it to get a double puff then you'd drop it and just as he dropped the cigarette, this big fella come in, puts, sticks his foot in on top of his and looked him straight in the eye and says "sir, your stepping on my tobacco" reached down grabbed this tobacco and.. Alright, these things amused us, we thought, we thought they were funny then I don't know if they are now.

Interviewer: Kept you going

Yeah, that's right.