At Paris Island we went through the usual tough training the marine corps is noted for, i.e. over high obstacles, crawling over ground under live wire while live ammunition is fired over your body, going into a gas chamber and then having to take off the gas mask so that we would understand what it was like to be gassed, climbing up rope ladders, jumping off the high board into a deep pool, how to fight with a bayonet, learn judo, many days at the rifle range, and many hours of class work. At the conclusion the successful recruits ere promoted to private first class, PFC, and sent to officer's training class at Quantico, VA. There we had more training in firing various weapons, many hours of class work in tactics, and many hours at nigh on long marches, carrying and using fairly heavy weapons such as machine guns and mortars. We were also issued and trained in the use of carbines, a smaller rifle using a small magazine of bullets. Later in combat we learned that we preferrred using the M1 rifle and disposing of our lighter rifle, the carbine, because the magazaine of bullets would get clogged up with sand too easily.

On May 19th, 1943, at the age of 21, I became a second lieutenant. In my graduation class there was also Tyrone Power, a very famous and handsome actor in Hollywood at that time. Also in my class was Will Green, husband of Maureen O'Hara who was also a very famous actress at the time. Also, at Quantico was Sterling Hayden who was a famous actor of the time. Ty Power happened to be the first person ever to salute me as a second lieutenant.

My mother, my brother, and my sister attended my graduation at Quantico. After graduation I was assigned to the Portsmouth Navel Prison in Portsmouth. NH and there I met my wife, your mother, who was a navel supply officer at the submarine base in Portsmouth. I was seriously looking for a wife, the girl of my dreams. We had several dates immediately and became engaged about a week later. My future wife Mary Margaret Bracewell was from Iowa, graduated from the University of Iowa, and entered the navy at about the same time I entered the marine corps. I thank God we got together in NH.

Mary Margaret met the Woods family and we talked with her family in Iowa and we were married three months after meeting. We got married at St. Helen's Church in Schenectady. At that time St. Helen's was a little wooden church on upper Union Street where there is now a Trustco Bank. In 1944 there was a theatre across from the church.

We had a few days leave and spent some time in northern NY, Glens Falls and Lake George area. I chose as my best man another young lieutenant in the navy yard, John Lawler. When Mary and I returned to Portsmouth after a very short honeymoon my orders to the Fleet Marine Force and Lieutenant Lawler's orders also the the Fleet Marine Force were handed to us. Apparently the service did not approve of our marriage and shipped me away from Mary immediately.

Some of the nice things about our engagement and marriage was that we were of the same religion, each of us wanted a large familly, actually mentioning thirteen children probably because I admired Uncle Fred Hesler's family of thirteen children.
thingsabout our engagement