I don't know why
I didn't keep it or at least let someone in the family finish
the payments. It was a very good Pontiac and I didn't owe more
than a couple hundred dollars on it. In the service you soon
got the feeling that your chances of living through the war
were pretty slim.
Chapter 5 In Training
I entered the service on April 15, 1942. We left early in the morning
from the railroad depot in Canandaigua for Rochester where we went
through the induction center on State Street. From there we left for
Ft. Niagara near Buffalo. It was still cold weather and they drilled
us on the parade grounds in heavy army overcoats. One day I had a
terrible headache and every step I took marching made it hurt more.
They asked for volunteers to take a test for the Air Corps so I
volunteered just to got out of marching. I had such a headache that I
didn't think I did very well on the test. If I hadn't had that
headache my war years would have been entirely different.
The first three or four days I wondered what I had gotten myself into
and would have given anything to have been able to have gotten out.
That soon passed and the rest of the time I wouldn't have missed the
experience for anything. We were only at Ft. Niagara for about a week
before being sent by train to Fort Bragg in North Carolina. This is
where we were to take a 13 week training in field artillery. We
trained for the 105 gun which was medium size, the shell being about
five inches in diameter and about eighteen inches long.
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