away it was. Maybe 15, 20 miles, 30 miles. I don't know how far it was. But
 halfway there some fellow, in a little little German village, some guy came out
 with a gun. He said, "Stop, stop." He was a Polish guy. Civilian. And he
 indicated to us that there were some, couple of S.S. troops holed up in a barn and
 he wanted us to go and capture them. I took off my medic badge and the driver
 gave me his machine gun and he said I won't go through all of that. Anyway it
 turns out that this very brave Polish guy went into the barn on one side, I was
 covering him and we went into one side of the barn. There wasn't anybody there.
 Went into the hayloft on the other side. Gave a cry. And so I fired at the hay
 mound and my gun jammed. So I bailed out. The other guy, the driver, only had
 a single shot weapon and he was covering the back side. It turns out there were
 eleven S.S. troops in there. So we're out-manned 11 to one. So, needless to say,
 we essentially had to get out of there. Fortunately they didn't charge us. They
 were scared. But we did, the driver threw a phosphorus, a grenade in it, into the
 barn and set the whole village was up. It was a kind of a horseshoe and the barn
 was part of the village. We set the God-damn village on fire. That was a terrible
 thing to do because it was near the end of the war and these poor civilians were in
 such a beautiful little place really.

Q.: So, the S.S. troops got away then?
A.: Yeah, they went out the back way. The guy, who threw the grenade went out to
 cover the back entrance while I pretended I had a gun. I squatted on the other side
 of the barn where they could come out. I pretended I was covering them. I had a
 single shot. You know, I had a single shot weapon at that point. And, but the
 guy, the Polish guy, when he saw that there were eleven of them he was smart
 enough not to shoot. That was, but that was the only time. So we didn't hit any
 of them, so we didn't have to serve as a medic.

Q.: Were medics allowed to carry weapons?
A.: Yeah, we were allowed, but we never did. Once in a while. I actually, when I
 was on the beach that time... Oh, I know. I was hit when I was on the beach that
 time and I had to go to a M.A.S.H. hospital myself. I was just hit a little bit, but I
 had to go to the hospital. And when I left the hospital to go back to my unit they
 gave me a weapon. And I kept it. So I had a weapon thereafter. But curiously I
 hadn't taken, wasn't taking my weapon with me when I was brought to service
 those 30 troops. Maybe it was a good thing. Because if I had it I might have
 gotten into some real trouble.

Q.: So, overall, do you feel that your training that you received was sufficient for the
 job?
A.: Oh, yes. We had excellent training. And we started off with anatomy. So I know
 we had excellent training.





 DsraT P