Todd P. Smith, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, August 5, 2004: Saving the Legacy tape no. 695

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TODDP. MITH 5 2004 o in fact I was a reporter. We didn't go out and hunt for anybody. W didn t run fr m anybody either. I carried that M-1 and the portable typewriter. We used to do a lot of walking in this country. In Europe, we almost didn t walk at all. We rode a truck. We appreciated that. We were in the Third Army with General Patton. He was the guy who wanted to get out in front of everybody and usually did. We were right with them. As they used to say, we were in front of the artillery and behind the riflemen on the point so we had a lot of shells going overhead. So we were kind of in the middle of the advance without actually being a rifleman right out front. Our boss was a staff sergeant from service company and he said to me one day, "Do you want to get promoted?" I said, "Yes, what's the deal?'' He said, "Well, I can make you a staff sergeant." I said, "That would be pretty good." But he said, "I'd have to take it away from one of the riflemen up front." I said, "No, I don't want the promotion." So I just stayed where I was. I got to the point where I thought maybe this was a lucky break. I might survive this. We did survive it for the most part. Many of our boys didn't but many did. So, "What did you do in the war, Daddy?" I dug a lot of holes all over Europe. We were always happy about getting down into a hole, especially if there was a lot of racket up top. I went to the beach after we had landed. I had a terrible pain in the stomach right here. I thought, "I don't know whether I'm going to make this war or not." They took me back to the beach in a little old jeep without any lights on it at all in the dark. I saw these guys in the medical evacuation tents with all sorts of problems. I looked at them and I thought, boy, I don't feel bad at all with this little pain that I have. A doctor looked 11