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 EN P MB R6 2002 I remember coming back to New York City after the war and th r had b nan accident. People flocking over there and I was just walking along there avoiding. I thought, isn't that interesting. They had not had satiated blood and all that sort of thing and they're actually attracted to it; I was almost repelled by it. So there were differences. But you initially asked what differences did you see? Just great differences in personalities. BB: Did that surprise you? Being a young man like that, was there a lesson you could take from that, you think? HSM: It seemed to me that the conflict of the war gave us such a unique experience that without even consciously thinking about it, we were just drawn together. That was my experience, we were drawn together. I didn't ever hear any music over there, didn't ever hear anybody singing. In the movies we'd heard these soldiers singing. Didn't ever hear them singing. I remember these young recruits, I remember them coming around. There were large numbers of them now coming so that the others could go home. They were so jealous that they hadn't got to fight. They were asking these questions, "Oh, Madsen. What did you do?" "Machine gun." "Oh, machine gun. Oh, man ... " They were asking me these questions Then they would say, "How long were you in combat." And I never stopped to think about it. I said, "Oh, it was a long time, a very long time." "Tell me, how long? How many months?" I thought, okay ... right away I was thinking eight or ten months. It was a long time. They'd say, "When did you get here?" I'd say "I got here in January." This is May. It ended in early May, May the 6th, something like that. I kept counting it over again "February, March, April" and it just blew me away. I thought I was losing my mind. I couldn't believe it because it seemed like a year. 64