Why I Enlisted

Why I Enlisted

I’m not quite sure if I went because of King and Country or because my buddies were going. I’m really not clear on that, but we were a British colony and my, my grandparents thought the Monarchy was just it. They really thought, you know they, certain days of the year was kept for the, like the 24th of May they, they kept that, they kept that alive forever. But in my inner parts I, I’m not quite sure if I went because of that or it’s because my buddies were going, you know. You’ll have to pick in between there.

I think coming from a small community with about fifty families, landing down in a city like London, I think it made a man of me, I really do, sir. I think it made a man of me. I remember the first year, 1942, while in London, there was times you’d feel you, you want to be alone and I was alone in this movie theatre and Bing Crosby singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”, I
could cry now, sir, thinking about that. I was homesick, and I come from the smallest community in Newfoundland, one of the biggest cities in the world, and I was the loneliest boy in the world, so, it doesn’t always work out that way, does it.

Would You Enlist Again?

I don’t know if I can answer that honestly or not, but I, I expect I would have to, I think I would have to if, if the time arose and conditions were the same, I hope it never happens to anybody else again but, I think I would have to go.