Harold S. Madsen, Pleasant Grove, Utah: an interview by Benjamin Bahlmann, September 6, 2002: Saving the Legacy tape nos. 530-532

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HAROLD . MAD E P MB R 6, 2002 then we had a little_[ unclear]_. At least it didn train the first tim . But I wa u ed to writing long letters. On the way over across the sea ... BB: You continued to write even through the campaign? HSM: Yes, and we had a loot bag, it was a gas mask. We weren't looting, really but everybody called it that. Everybody threw their gas masks away and we'd have a shaving kit, a diary, a little notebook for writing, so forth. So I had a notebook for writing and a pen. So we got to this sheep pen and when I was on there, I wrote fifteen to twenty to twenty-five, thirty page letters onboard ship. In fact, the censor came down and said, "Who's Madsen down here? I just wanted to see somebody who'd write twenty and thirty page letters. I've never seen anything like it." So in the sheep pen you didn't write thirty­five page letters. You're lucky to write two or three paragraphs because your hands were almost frozen. At least you had, it was dry, you got some letters, you got some better chow, you didn't have to eat C- or K-rations and you weren't in danger of dying, just freezing to death and so on. Part of the great challenge overseas was the discomfort. It'd be at night, we'd taken a house and you'd hear, clamber, wham, clang, clang, then a cursing and the guy would stop in the middle of the room because he hadn't made it. Then I used to get under the table. The big strong guys and the non-coms would get the couches and sleep there and I'd get under the table because then the guys that were rushing for the door with their dysentery wouldn't topple on me. But I would always get under the table so I'd be under the table from guys rushing. BB: Did you ever get sick? 58