Pride in Sacrifice

Interviewer: I'm just wondering, four and a half years of your life set aside. Not just you but your whole generation, when you think back on the sacrifice of yours and some who never came back, what your generation did, would you do it again?
I don't know. I can't answer that with a yes or no, Rick because even when I knew that I was doing it, it was just the teenage challenge. Same as kids today with the teenage challenge. You thought it was cool to break a little simple law, by saying you were eighteen instead of fifteen. If I had of said 15, I wouldn't have been in the navy and we knew that. But after things went on, I wasn't, I didn't feel bad about it. You know, if you steal an apple sometimes, sometimes you feel bad about it. But with doing what I did, no, I was kind of glad that I advanced my age and gained that experience, of a young boy in a man's uniform, you know. So, and today I'm more proud today, than I was back then.
Interviewer: Speak to me about that pride. That was my next question. Speak to me about it.
Well, you're rubbing elbows alongside of a guy that . . . You're given . . . seeing what people recognize in him or . . . and you take that recognition and put it on your own lapel. Not that I was looking for glory or anything like that but, it made me feel good, to know that people thought the same about me, as they did with my friend here, and he was proper age. No, I never felt any sorrows over doing what I did. Actually, I was glad to gain the experience that I had. The only thing is, thing is so proud, it was such a great experience, where death was involved of many of, many of your friends and other friends of other people. It was kind of a disheartening and sadness was there with you, when you see a ship going down. But we got to live with that and there was a war on and that's what happens, when there's a war on. Is that you see those things happen and there's nothing that you can do about it, but carry on and make your own contribution.