War Memories

That second jump. The first jump you are ignorant, you don't know what's gonna happen. The second jump, you know now, you're gonna fall so far before the chute opens and all this. And oh my God, I think I fell 2000 feet before that chute opened. But it opened, that's the main thing. But I never jumped without a thought that it was gonna be my last one. I never got used to it, you know, I made 13 jumps, but I never became really accustomed to it.

And there's one other person I'd like to know. We met the Russians at the Wismar up in the Baltic. We were stationed there, and we had billets. And one morning a British sergeant and I were walking down the street, and this lady come running out and she got a hold of me by the sleeve and pulling at me, and I said, "There's something wrong, she wants something." "No, no" he said, "the heck with them, lets go." I said, "No, no, I'm going in." So I went in with her, he came too because he was scared to stay alone I think. And uh, her daughter was on the bed having a baby. So he said, "Oh my God lets get out of here." I said, "No, no, heat some water." He said, "What for? " I said, "I don't know but they always heat water." So as luck would have it, I went over and it was a very easy birth and in no time the baby arrived, and you know, I had never seen anything like this before. And I presented it to the grandmother and then she pointed at the cord. So I just reached down, hauled out my commando knife, cut the cord, she tied it off, and it was a male and he would be 60 years of age or so now. I'd love to see him.