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Show OLIVE O'MARA 22 2 2 OLI: I took as many as I could. You didn t have to worry ab ut t sts. ou t k t maybe, but it was not like you paid for it. Anyway another year went by, that y ar at least, around Christmas, 1943, I said, I'm bored to death here teaching by thi tim in this little town. And you could see that the people in the service got free medical care uniforms, and good food. Here we were doing without everything. So I said spurred on by all the patriotism in our family, "I'm the only one single enough who can go. ' I felt not only did I want to go, but I felt obligated to go. I didn't go out of obligation, but it was definitely a strong motivation. I remember our principal saying, "I'd give anything if I could go fight for our country." That was the feeling about it. And here I was with that opportunity. So over Christmas vacation, holiday, I went to enroll in the service. I assumed I would be an officer, okay, because I felt important in that little town (laughs). So when I went to the recruiting office to sign up, whoever I was with, we were acting silly. We were just acting like high school kids. Now Pittsburgh was only fifty miles away, but in those days, that was a reasonable long ride. And we were acting silly, and I remember after I had signed up, the reason I remember it so keenly is that the man looked sad, the man who recruited us. "You're officer material, but you know, I think you'd be happier as an enlisted person." I don't know whether he thought I was one of two things: either emotionally immature, which I was, or whether he thought I was one of those party people, which I was not. And I remember he looked kind of sad, like, it's a shame. But he said, "I think you'd have a better time." Well, I felt like I was wavering there; I felt like saying, "No, I'm not going in without being an officer." Or, go back to Scottdale where I had told everybody I was going in to enlist? Or should I just go ahead? Well, I made a decision. Well, okay, I don't care what you do. I came here to join the war effort anyway, 24 |
