Where Do We Go From Here?

One of my favorite projects in my major was for my Folklore course. We had to interview a US war veteran, record it, transcribe it, and submit it to the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. I had the extreme good luck to speak with Mr. James Furey, the grandfather of a friend of mine, and an amazing man. If you read some of the transcription of the interview below you can tell that once he started speaking, I just let him talk uninterrupted, it is because I was so engrossed in Mr. Furey’s amazing story. I am glad that I had to opportunity to speak with him, and permanently record at least a piece of his story. The interview was about an hour and a half long , the accurate transcription took around sixteen hours to complete, fifteen pages of text.

Veteran interview James Joseph Furey

February 17^th 1924

Interviewed by Mary Katherine Wilkerson

Slate:  Today is the 13^th of November, 2008. My name is Mary Wilkerson and I will be interviewing James Joseph Furey who was born on February 17^th 1924. We are at 420 South Adams Street, Arlington Virginia, 22204. This tape recorded interview is being conducted for the Library of Congress Veteran’s History Project. At the end of the interview I will ask you, Mr. Furey, to sign a release form to allow the recording of our interview to be shared with the Library of Congress for the VPH, VHP, pardon me. Who may use the information for scholarly, educational, and historical purposes; including exhibition, publication, presentation on the World Wide Web, and successor technologies, and for promotion of the Library of Congress and its activities in any medium. Today I will interview Mr. Furey about his service in the military in the United States.

Mary Wilkerson: Um, what branch of service did you serve in, sir?

James Furey: Military police.

Wilkerson: Were you drafted or did you enlist?

Furey: I enlisted.

Wilkerson: Ah, what year was it that you joined the Army?

Furey: 1942.

Wilkerson: And why did you choose to join the Army over other branches?

Furey: Well, I tried to get into the Navy right after Pearl Harbor but in the physical, I coming from a poor family, I had some dental work that needed to be done. And they said I had to have the dental work first. And I couldn’t afford it so I went down to the Marine Corps. Marine Corps said they would accept me, but there’s a waiting list. This is in the middle of the war—uh—the early part of the war. And they kept postponing the date I was supposed to report to the Marines and I got disgusted and I joined the Army.

Wilkerson: How soon after joining did you leave for training?

Furey: Pardon me?

Wilkerson: How soon after joining the Army did you—

Furey: Right then, next day.

Wilkerson: Next day, okay. Um, could you tell me a little about your boot camp or training experiences—

Furey: Well, it was at Camp Burton at North Carolina and eh…it consisted of uh physical fitness, weapon qualification, and uh code of conduct. And uh, you know, obstacle courses and things like that. But no unit–not as a unit, as a group. [mmhmm] And it wasn’t bad. And then we left there, and we went to uh maneuvers in the Solomon Islands in Maryland, amphibious training. And uh, then we went to Camp Tyson, Tennessee uh for packing up and leaving. And we went to there just for a–oh maybe a month, not more than that. And then uh we went and shipped out for-uh-as replacements for the 1st infantry division to North Africa.  [okay] And we landed in uh Casablanca and at home–funny thing is letters were all censored at the time, but we had just seen th-the movies Casablanca with my mother. And we never went to the movies, so I says, I remember our last movies-so-I didn’t say what it was, hoping she would remember so she’d know I was in North Africa. Cheated a little bit I guess. And uh…we fought mainly in the French and not the Germans uh early, uh Vichy France. And they didn’t fight–we didn’t fight very well, but they fought less than we did. I mean, they didn’t care I guess. But then we got in-into ah Africa and ah…its strange–weather was hot in the day time, real hot, and very cold at night when they dropped— the temperature would drop down. And we were doing pretty good ah fighting, but then all of a sudden the Germans come up with their tanks, Rommel…and he kicked the hell out of us. And we…didn’t fall back we retreated back to the mountains. [mmhmm] And uh luckily we were up in the mountains; he couldn’t get the tanks up there. And uh our artillery… would fire at them and help-you know-shoot them up a bit.  And the ships offshore with their big guns would f—give us direct fire over our heads, and I guess his supply line from Libya to North Africa was too great to ah, to keep. He ran, and he could have got ?—he could have beat us if he, if uh he could have got the in. But when his supplies started running out, when our Air Force was going after him, and our artillery, he pulled back. And we were able to take North Africa in maybe a month and a half, two months. Then we went on over to uh Sicily…and uh that was a piece of cake. It wasn’t– fighting was not bad—I mean you were being shot at and people were getting killed, and you get wounded but ah it—it was not bad. And then we uh…we thought we were great, we thought we were pretty good. And uh they said “you’d be the big red one or a dead one.” So ah, they told us we were going—we thought we were going home but we went to England. And uh landed in a…Liverpool, England. And they put us up in a British deserted Army camp, and we stayed in the camp there maybe, maybe a month, a month in a half. And then we went on…

Mrs. Furey: No, go ahead.

Furey: And then we went on to ah…ah, what they call the—a what they call the-the Warren mountain—we went to Bristol, England. And we didn’t have…ah…houses—I mean we didn’t have posts, we had houses that they took over. Two and three and four—ah private homes. Well of course our leader said “grass was growing, windows were dirty, let’s clean it up.” And of course like dumb soldiers we were we cut the grass, clean the windows, and the English come by and says “DAHHH, what’re you doing?” “Well, making the place livable” we said. “Yeah, but to make it for the Germans to unload his troops there when they come over and take pictures. They’ll ahhh…they’ll see–see the grass had been cut and windows shining with their aerial photography, they’ll know something is going on. So, word come out, no more grass cutting no more window washing. And ah, on each floor of the house ? was in—was the third tier up [mhmm] and they had a hand water ah pumper. And I said “that ain’t going to stop no bomb coming in” and I didn’t know whether if I was better off up on the third floor or on the first floor because the bomb go in, it may go to the bottom. But it didn’t happen, but it-it’s a— we had a few air raids and things like that. And then we practiced some on what they call the downs which is like uh…one of our parks, you know level ground. But the English had stuck big poles in this ground so in case the Germans tried to land there, they–they couldn’t—their wings would be shattered. So that then…and they always kept a guard around us like we were prisoners uh we couldn’t associate with the public or nothing. And ah then General—we spent Christmas there, and ah General Bradley who was the commanding General at the time he come by and said “I hope this is your first Christmas” which is wasn’t. And ah, then my company was sent to London which as a…we were sent up there to—they hadn’t—I didn’t know at the time what they called SHAEF the headquarters for the invasion, and they had to have guards all over the place. And ah they had taken three to four buildings—I don’t really remember, that were together, and they knocked a whole through the wall, closed up the doors with a cement front ? . And the only way to get in was through that front door and you go through the halls to the ah different offices. And ah…oh—it—you were like a, a runner. Somebody came in to see somebody, the desk would call and see if the person wanted to see them. My job then was to escort them to where the room was they were going to visit, leave and go back. But the man when it was time out to leave he couldn’t go wandering around, he had ah–they had to call for the guard again. And I’m talking about Colonels and Generals, I mean—and not Lieutenants. But–all we’d do is escort them. And at night, if you got that duty, I was put in a room ah with some—with some maps I guess, but I was locked in a door with a list of names that could get in there after hours, that was allowed in. [mhmm] And I was told look…ah…go tu—I had a lock on the door and they could open it up, and the person would wait outside and he’d give you his identification, and you’d check it and then let them in. But you’d always go with a pistol in your hand, and ah lot of times the guy be hiding behind the wall, they didn’t like the idea and I didn’t blame them [wow]. Then we left ah London for a while and we were replaced by some service troops. And we were ah called down on the moors of England, it’s a…where its foggy and a lot of grass growing, they called the heathers. And ah…we were—you know, practice maneuvers and tactics, stuff like that. And then they uh took us to a uh…a school of some sort, that had a swimming pool inside and it was rare in England. And they would set the water on fire with gas, and we would get on a balcony, and say jump in. And they showed us how to do it, just spread the water like that. But they wanted to ?? on the ship when it got hit, how to survive. And at first it was scary but then after they seen no one getting hurt it wasn’t that bad. But then, we went to Land’s End in England and boarded ships. The ships were tied up at the—at the pier, and they—we went over the sides practicing uh going down a net into the water—into the boat. Well that was a piece of cake, and now they said unscrew your helmet don’t uh—your pack you were carrying about fifty pounds of weight, wear it loosely in case you fall into the water, uh you won’t have any equipment on. Well, that went off pretty well it wasn’t—just a—we were—I was younger and in good shape at eighteen. And then uh when it came time for the—we left ah…left there went back to Bristol and they gave us ammunition, and grenades, but every night they counted it to make sure we had it. And then we boarded trains to go to ah…I don’t know, some part of the coast of Fran—uh England. And we got there—before we got there on the train we were on I seen it looked like miles, must have been at least ten or twenty ambulance trains—you know, trains with the Red Cross on. That made you think they were just lining up, no one in them, I mean no patients. And they put us in what you call a marshing area, a marshing area is an area with tents, chaplains, food, maybe a movie, ah but…we hadn’t—they had us guarded all around the camp, we were enclosed inside there, we could have anything we wanted inside but we couldn’t—some guys were married and they couldn’t go see their wives or nothing. And we spent about three days there with the chaplain and different faiths, and the Catholics gave you last rights. So that—that made it kind of scary, I mean you did get a little concerned. And then they put us on trucks and took us down through this town, and you could see the people, you know waving and…looking on you, and we got to the pier and they had boxes, big boxes about that big. Some with ammunition, some with cigarettes big cartons of cigarettes, other with C-rations ah food, and D-rations which is a hard chocolate bar about two inches thick. And—something to survive on. Well, I took some uh two more bandoliers which is about one hundred and forty rounds more than I had, and I didn’t take—I didn’t smoke so I didn’t take no cigarettes, and I didn’t know they would be valuable later on. And uh we put that in our protective mask. And uh a lot of people don’t know it but we donned protective clothing, which was another set of fatigues that was—we called it impregnated it was chemically treated if we–when we landed. And uh they were very heavy and very sticky. And uh we borrowed a British ship…ah to go across the channel. And because—we knew we were going to France but we didn’t know where or nothing. And uh we got—oh a couple miles out and those Navy guns were blowing away, firing away I mean, the cruiser Augusta which was a—has about a sixteen inch gun on it or at least fourteens and they were firing inland. Oh, this is going to be easy. And uh the first group the 29^th Division and part of the 1^st Division part made the initial landing and they caught hell. We went in about three hours after the initial group. A boat come out, like a tug boat and said “When do you got to board,” over the microphone, “Infantry?” “Well, load them.” And we had to go over the sides to the uh landing craft. But you got down near the bottom, the water’s going up and down, up and down. We hadn’t practiced that. And if–you might fall a foot if you didn’t wait for the boat to come back up. And so I didn’t like that you know, we got in there all right but you had to be…you had to wait until the boat to come up otherwise you were a foot difference. And uh, we headed—made a circle and got three, four, five, ten boats together and we landed on Easy Red, the beach we were supposed to land at was Easy Red. And uh, it wasn’t easy, but it was red. And uh, we started in—you know—I guess we were—I don’t know how—a good ways out, you know maybe a mile or two, it’s hard to tell. And were we all crouched down on and there’s twenty four people, and plus the crew, two to three people on the crew. And your big gate up there, and they drop the gate when you get in, and then you have to run out. Well, we got really close in, uh there was some destr—a lot of destruction, and uh around there. And uh the bullets start hitting the front of the…the door that’s going to drop down. Hey, we can’t go out there because they are going to kill you right away. And uh I said “I’m going over the side,” you know, to jump over that way. But luckily they changed—they either ran out of ammunition or had another target, they stopped firing at us and picked up somebody else I guess. So, the gate went down and we had a—not a life preserver—a life belt that had two foam things that filled up when you press them, and you don’t know far you are jumping into the water. Luckily, the tide was out and I made—and we got in the water and trying to work our way in, and you didn’t lay down, you just, the water’s up to here. And some didn’t make it, but you made it to the— behind the—the Germans had railroad tracks bent in half up in the water and dynamite on the top of them. But it was—I mean—the boat would s—the boat would hit it but you could get behind it, unless they hit the TNT you were alright. So we used that for cover. Then when you get into the…into dry land—and you—and don’t forget you’re wet, you got heavy clothes on, you got a big pack on your back, well, you cannot run. You can’t in the sand—I mean—and you think you can run or wish we had run before that pass but you walked, walked and crawled the best you could because you’d like to run but—so after I while, I don’t know how long, I made it to the breaker wall. And the…the side of the mountain came down like that, the enemy was up—up at top shooting down or throwing grenades down. But if you made it to the wall uh you—you were fairly safe because they couldn’t shoot straight down. And I—I should say this but, I’m sitting there, don’t know what I am going to do next, and a bunch of other guys, we are all mixed up now, and here comes a foot. A par—a regular foot. And to this day—I says to the guy “is that a left foot or a right foot?” Why I said that, I don’t know, and uh…I don’t know what was going through my mind. And…well, anyway there was a draw—a drawl is a cliffs on this side, cliffs on that side and then like a passageway down. To use that the Germans so they could mine things had to have a passageway down. So somebody, I don’t know, started up that pass-way and once they started up there we all followed because it was safer than where we were. And we got up to the top and uh the Germans had pillboxes but we got behind them through this draw. And uh needless to say we didn’t take no prisoners and neither did they. It was right at that—you couldn’t take a prisoner because you had no place to put them. I mean what you would do, even if they wanted to surrender you…you couldn’t and sort of—we made pretty good time through the—through the pillboxes and that. And the next day…I don’t know where they was, but they had set up a prisoner of war cage, and I seen a guys I thought was Japanese, they were Mongolians, Russian Mongolians but they looked like Japanese. I said “what the hell, we got the Japs and the Germans?” And uh…but uh we went on, and what we were trying to do, they—I mean I say we—higher ups people, much higher than I am. Well, I’ll tell you. This Colonel come by, and uh he had a jeep, and we’re drinking the water. Just—you know we had only had a canteen of water and what food we had on ourselves from the mess hall and the cooks. And he says “that might be poison!” I says “we’d already be dead if it is!” and it wasn’t, it was just regular well water. And we tried to link up with the 82^nd Airborne, called—uh—they had dropped in Carentan was the name of the town. They tried to—they took or captured or were fighting for it, and we were coming up behind them to link up, because they were scattered all over the place. And uh, we got to uh…Carentan. I and another fellow were left in town there to direct to uh, anybody coming from the beach to where the fighting was—like replacement tanks, replacement officers, replacement enlisted men, ambulance…and uh there’s two stories there. One was a…a ambulance was coming and it says “how far can I go?” I says “about half a mile. Off to your right there’s an aid station.” An aid station is where they bring the wounded in first. And as I’m talking to them there’s a wall about six feet or higher, a brick wall around a church. And this church has a cemetery before you go into it, tombstones inside the churchyard, and then you had this church. Well all of a sudden PANG, a bullet goes over my head and hits the ambulance right in the Red Cross. And then the ambulance says “what’s happened?” And I says “get the hell out of here!” Well, we got against the wall where they couldn’t hurt us now, we were safe uh, we had about six or eight men then. And we worked our way along the wall, and because they were—they weren’t shooting at us because they couldn’t even see us. Why it happened, to this day I don’t know. They got to where the gate would be, there was no gate it was just an entrance that you would go into the cemetery and then up to the church. Well, without knowing I ran into the churchyard, ducking behind tombstones, got into the church, didn’t get hit. And the German is upstairs shooting at the people. I’m downstairs. I start up this thing by the choir—I guess where the choir and the organ would be, he don’t know I coming. And I know he’s there. So I get to the top, I fire a few shots at him, and he starts going across the balcony out the door. And by that time there was some more troops up in there, and this kid from Tennessee…”what’re shooting at?” I said “damn German just got away from me.” And he—uh—kind of a hundred yards away this guy was, POW, one shot and he got him. And I said “where you from?” and he said “Tennessee.” Ha, Brooklyn and Tennessee. He shot him and uh…that was the end of that little fiasco, but when I got down people were kind of—you know—“you did a good job.” Well, I couldn’t even hold a cup of water. I shook for about fifteen minutes, and I was numb. And that happened to me a lot after the fight—after the worst part of it was over. I was never in control of myself for a while. Uh, well getting back to this little town we’re in, ah Carentan, here comes a—a jeep with a black man driving it, and he says “where’s Master?” Master’s the code name for the invasion beach. Well, we haven’t been down there, but I knew this road went down and to the right would lead you to the beach, because people had come up that way. And uh, he thanked me and took off. About a half hour and it’s getting near dark—it is dark, and uh he comes back and says “where’s Master?” and I says “weren’t you here before?” I’m a little mad now. I said “I told you how to get there.” He says “but you didn’t tell me about them signs, ??, they had a skeleton head on a piece of wood, the Germans did, se—saying where the mines were. And he says act—“I ain’t going down that road with those mines.” So, we figure we had the jeep and another weapon, because a Sergeant comes and says “expect paratroopers to make a jump in here. Germans.” That’s all we need, three of us now, but we have a jeep. ??? When we can’t fight them we can try to get someplace away from here. And this poor young colored fellow, “Ahhhhh, I don’t know.” What happened, German planes come over, but they weren’t paratroopers, they were trying to bomb the ships. Well, I don’t know how many hundreds or thousands ships might be in the bay. You know—I hadn’t seen them but they’re firing at the plane, shooting, you know all kinds of stuff up in the air. Well, what goes up has got to come down, comes down in pieces. And you—first of all you says “what’s that?” And you hear PING PING, hot—the hot pieces of steel from the shells that they didn’t hit—but—the ?? and some cover and not much we could do about it. So this young fellow says, I didn’t know how old he was, probably older than I was “I’s from Georgia and I wish I were there now. The good Lord never meant me to be here.” I says “shut up, shut up!” “All I have is an old carbine to defend myself!” Well, I says “shush! Don’t let no one know we’re here.” Well, ah the next day he took off when it was daylight, down the draft and got to the beach. And we stayed there and moved up to the next town. And uh, we were trying to get to Cherbourg, which is further north and had a regular pier—I mean that’s what they told us. And uh we never got there because we moved somewhere else. But they eventually captured Cherbourg, and we went back down…and uh…time is missing, but we set up a machine gun near this bridge. And all of a sudden, it looked like a thousand but it was ten para—an airplane got shot down, but ten of our men jump—the crew jumped out. Well from high up with uh binoculars all you see is paratroops coming down. In your mind you make it a lot more than there is. And you say—you say to your buddy “wait until you get closer, before we shoot. Wait until you get closer.” They’re too high, you wouldn’t hit them. And this English guy comes up and this convoy of ammunition, “what have you got Sergeant?” “We’ve got paratroopers dropping.” “I believe they’re your own men.” Well, I—my god— says “take it easy men.” Well, they don’t—they don’t land near us, they land somewheres, I don’t know where exactly. But the British stop right on the bridge we’re trying to protect, and going to have tea. And I says “what do you got there?” “Ammunition.” “And you’re going to have tea? Get the hell out of here.” Tea! I says “crazy.” One round of something goes off and us sitting there—and they had ammunition there they was delivering. So…I forgot some of the things at Normandy getting back there ?? my mind. The first night after we got in—we didn’t know what a hedgerow was, now the hedgerow is a…like a…rosebushes, one over the other that, but that’s how the German—the French marked their fields. [Oh] Hedgerow this way, hedgerow there, and they made them into squares. Well, the Germans knew all about this, they had been there for a year or two, and they had dug holes underneath them. And so—but the vines and everything else, you can’t see them but they can—they had fields of fire where they can shoot you. But they did. And we lost quite maybe a lot of people. But, before the first ones we had they didn’t have a chance they were running and we—they said dig in for the night, which dig—means dig yourself a hole and we just stay the night here. Well, I did, and this one guy…he said “the hell with it I’ll just sleep right on the ground.” And the next morning he got up, and he laying on an anti-tank mine. He used it as a pillow, he didn’t know it. “Ahh, there’s mines here!” Well, lucky they were anti-tank mines because you had to have the weight to set it off and we didn’t. So, we get the hell out of there, and we went to a…we were trying to hold…an area where facing St. Lo first and east I guess, and uh started raining. And uh, where the bombs went off—ah aerial bombs, and in the field there was a lot of dead cows and they were bloated. And, I don’t know what caused it, but where every bomb went off there was a hole with green water. The water was stagnated and green. Well I got a position right near one of these dead cows, and it stunk. But that’s where I had to be. Now it’s raining, and we’re not getting no—no fire from nobody. So, I had a bunch of other guys, five or six I guess. There’s a barn not twenty yards, fifty yards down the road, back down the field. So we run in there, and we’re going to keep dry and warm, and hay all over the place. Pretty good, pretty good. Well the Germans start shelling again. The shells are near us…near us, but not at us—and it has a shingle roof, I said a slate roof [mhmm], that’s the kind of roof they had, it wasn’t—and the shells would come near and the roof would slide off. The slate would come down. Well, while we’re in there, they got close. Uh the shells—not really close, but close. And the rats in the hayloft started scurrying around and running. Brave me…I see those rats and I say—you know I wasn’t afraid of dying, I—I was saying I was saying I was going to get wounded there, but no one’s going to help me and the rats are going to eat me. I was scared as hell. So I says I’d be better off waiting with that dead cow than staying in here. I says I thought that I’d get wounded and then get the rats—they were big things, big as cats. And we hadn’t seen them until…until uh, started uh shelling. I thought I was better out in the rain in a hole away from them. [phone rings] And uh…

Mrs. Furey: Hello?… He’s busy right now, can I take a message?

Furey: We went on…we went down uh…we…

Mrs. Furey: Okay, thank you.

Furey: We linked up and fought, and then we were near a town called St. Lo after a while. And uh, of course we had sunshine, and you want to wash your feet. The only thing you had to wash your feet in was your helmet, and put your feet in and take your socks off and wash them, and put them back on. Well, thank god we were no closer to St. Lo than uh—the American bombers came over, about a hundred of them, and dropped their rounds short. And they killed about a hundred and fifty of our own people. Uh, they didn’t know it, but our troops, they thought they were ??, so uh that was very, shaken up. And when there were bombing, you’d up and down off the ground. You’d bounce up and down. And uh…that finally uh…got through. And uh, they told me to take six ?? German prisoners back towards the beach, just get them away from the fighting tomorrow, and I got to go through this town, St.—uh St. Mary Gleece, to take them down. Here comes uh…half ton truck, with six special—not special, but Rangers who had landed earlier. “Where you going?” I said “I’m taking these people to the beach, their prisoners.” He said “we just come through that town and they tried to shoot us.” I said “what am I going to do?” they said “you go on back to where you were, we’ll take care of them.” Needless to say, they probably executed them. But that’s the way war is, war is dirty. You don’t mean—you shoot people with the Red Cross on them if they—if they happen to cross you when you’re firing, you’re not the same person, you can’t say “Oooop!” You just react, and the longer you’re at it the worse you get. And uh…we went up, do some fighting and…we had—took a villa, and you can, you know, strip down to nothing and bathe. Stuff like that. And sometimes, I seen Edgar G. Robinson, Bing Crosby, and uh not ?? some girl from the South, a singer. Ah, entertainment. [mhmm]. Of course they were far back than us. And I got hit, and was sent to England. And uh…they say uh get cigarettes and that. I say yes. They say “Where’s your ration card?” “Ration card? Lady, I haven’t—don’t know what you’re talking about.” To get anything you need you needed a ration card. When you come from war they give you everything you had. I mean they ran around bringing toothbrushes, cigarettes, uh whatever they had, oh uh cognac usually. Uh, whatever they had, and not everyday but once in a while they would come around and give you stuff. And uh, that was pretty nice; it was like a rest camp. And then we went up to another town, the next town from Paris. Well, that time Paris was just fighting in the city, St. Germain—St. Germain was the name of the town. And they made us sit and wait—wait while the French took the town. So I figured well at least we don’t have to do that, but we circled Paris, we never got into Paris. Took us and loaded us up in trucks and jeeps, and I didn’t even see the Eiffel Tower and we were just a few miles away. But we circled them and went up towards Belgium. And uh we had uh—Belgium was pretty good…Belgium wasn’t bad. And uh, then we went up to a place called Archen, which was the first city in Germany. First industri—like industrial city. Well, again it was a matter of artillery, and then—and then it was the first time we did house to house fighting. [mhmm] Ah, because you couldn’t—you’re trying to take a block after block, and driving them out. Well it was not suicide, but it was dangerous to go out and run out of the house to the next house without being shot at. So what you did, you had some uh bazookas which is a—a rocket launcher, and you blow a hole through the wall and you go from one house to the other. And it worked. Sometimes you—you could hear the guys upstairs—the Germans and you’d be downstairs. Well, whoever had the most men won, I mean they would surrender. But uh, it took about two or three weeks of heavy fighting before the Germans uh…I don’t know if they surrendered or pulled out. I guess they pulled out. And we had been fighting for…months. We needed replacements, we needed rest, and I guess they said we needed more training, you know. So they sent us to Belgium, Eupen,  Belgium. This is up near the German border. And they made a rest camp there. Well the rest camp, you mean you just lay around and did a little training, and you could drink and socialize with the city. But you always had your weapons, I mean, we lived with them. And uh, since I had been twice wounded and twice decorated, been over—over three—two years—two and a half years then overseas, uh they were letting some of us go home on points for thirty days. Well it depended upon how long you were over there, how long—if you were decorated, if you were wounded, take twenty men at a time out of a battalion. Don’t you know I come up twenty-third. “It’s all right Furey, we’ll send you home in January. We’ll take care of you.” But I missed the first shipment out. Well, January never came around. So we’re in this camp, uh the Germans, December 15^th started the Bulge, which was only a few miles away. And uh…they’re trying to—we’re unorganized—we’re at a rest camp so you don’t have an organization. I mean it’s—so they start loading us up on trucks, they go to St. Fiat which was the first Army headquarters, which was evacuating the personnel troops. They were going out and we were going in. Ahhh…and y—you see these troops, some service troops, and some tanks. So you look down, and you have maybe five hundreds rounds of ammunition, machine gun ammunition. I say “can you spare some ammunition?” They’re going back, I find this guy that says “take what you want.” So, we stayed there, and uh, the people held, most of them. We lost two divisions…that’s fifteen thous—ah fifteen hundred men a piece that we lost, brand new divisions from the States. They put them in when they pulled us–us out: the 29^th, and the 1^st, and the 4^th division out ah to rest, and to get these people used to being fired on—patrols, get accustomed to war. Well they got accustomed in a hurry. They got overrun. And of course then you had a…Bastogne. They got in, they were lucky to get in, but they couldn’t get out. But anyway, in Eupen a friend of mine named Barry Winestock went out on patrol the night before. We had a—a big house, no furnishings but big glass windows and a little balcony, like you seen uh Mussolini on, you know one of those things like that. It was a nice—nice little place, but nothing in it. We slept in sleeping bags, and the Sarge comes out and says “Winestock, we got a detail for you.” This is seven or eight in the morning. I says “Sarge, he just come in. I—I’ll take his detail,” uh because he was a friend of mine. I said “I’ll go.” “You’ll go?” I said “yeah.” Well, I didn’t know what kind of detail it was. So they loaded us up in the trucks, and they take us to this last town in Belgium, and they got three prisoners they are going to execute. What they did—they—I don’t know how it happened—but they captured these three Germans in an American jeep, American uniforms, American equipment, could speak very good English. And some fellow, one of the people—I don’t know who it was got suspicious that there was a Midwest accent, but it was nice and calm, good English. Well, frontline soldiers ar—are not that way. It’s this and that, and this and that, “what the hell are you bothering me?” There’s none of that, and he got suspicion. And he searched the vehicle and found explosives, and uh he turned them into the…I don’t know, to where they had them—where they sentenced them to death, because they was ah…saboteurs. That’s what their plan was, change road signs, do things like that. Little did I know we were…one of twenty-four soldiers that were on the firing squad. So we got there and they explained to us what they had. I mean they were saying not that you had a choice but this is why you’re executing them. But then they didn’t have the dignitaries that day. I mean they had ah press and everything else, so they sent us back to where we came from, and sent us back the next day. But that time you had a lot of photographers, in fact I have a picture somewheres of the thing. And in the court, in the yard they had—I call them stakes—pillars. And the guys were marched out, hands behind their back. And uh, the chaplain come up and spoke to each one of them, and then the doctor come up and put a red—a white disc over their heart, a white paper disc. And that is what you’re supposed to aim at. And this one fellow they took his glasses off and put them in his pocket, and one fellow says—well not mine, the guy I was…the guy on the end says “I die for the Fuhrer, Adolph” and all of a sudden there was a volley. Doctor come up and felt their throat, and uh that ended that. Uh, it don’t haunt me, uh I don’t know if I could do it again but—I mean now. But that uh, that’s about it. Uh, I, we got near Remagen, that’s a landed there, but we didn’t get—some Calvary unit got to Remagen first, and they found it intact, it was still together. I’m not there, I’m down further, I’m near…Castle, Castle, which is this big city, big churches, which is down from the Rhine. And uh, so the guys in Remagen get across, and once they get across they set up the beachhead—beachfront. The Germans are getting now trying to knock it out and they hit it a few times. I say we, the Americans set up what we call a pontoon bridge. Well we get the job of ah, Germans sending—what we call flagmen, water demolition men swim down and try to knock out the pontoon bridge. Or they send down ah charges, uh something like a mine [mhmm]. And our job was, I got me a nice big soft easy chair and a box of ammunition to fire into the water, to see if we can explode that stuff before. And we did, and I says “man this is good.” And uh…we got to uh Germany and the war ended. [mhmm] Uh, then troops were going to…to Japan. Well, we were too-too high in points, too long over there, so—so they put us on occupation duty. And sent the newer troops that hadn’t been there quite as long, three years is a long time. And uh, we stayed there until the end of the war. And ?? they sent everyone else home but they ones they should have. But they did. We—put us on a boat, got to New York. I stayed out of the Army six months, but I couldn’t get adjusted to civilian life, I couldn’t. Girls and fellas, they thought I was stuck up. I didn’t recognize them, I didn’t know their names. So I says—after a while I says, in June I says “I’m going back in the Army.” And from then on that’s where I stayed. End of story.

Wilkerson: Umm, so you went back into the Army, what year did you finally retire from service?

Furey: 1968.

Wilkerson: And uh, after you retired what did you do?

Furey: The next day I became a policeman. I put in eighteen, nineteen years as a policeman in Washington.

Wilkerson: Okay, umm, you mentioned that you received several awards and citations, would you tell me about a few of them, what they were and how you received them?

Furey: Well, I got the Legion—The French Legion of Merit which is their Medal of Honor, for landing on D-Day and exposure to fighting in ?? and they wanted to recognize someone who lived through it. I got the first Bronze Star, uh…for St. Lo, Battle of St. Lo. Uh. An artillery shell landed around four of us, killed three of us, and I got my knee, my knee hurt. And so they gave me a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. And uh in Archen I got hit behind the head. And uh…I guess in…I took a few….took a few uh…prisoners and stuff like that. So uh, they had to give somebody some medals. Then in Panama, when we were down there for the riots…Panama is one road from Cologne to ah Panama City, one highway connects the two places. And uh the Panamanian Police started a riot, shooting up our positions, killing some of our people, and we were pushed back into, into uh stop them—you know, try to stop them. And I had a reconnaissance platoon, I had no platoon leader, and I was uh—we had a hospital that was down that main road…and come hell or high water we tried to stop them. They aren’t all armed, some of them were—stop them from, at least from, we thought, hurting the hospital. So I sent my platoon and set up a position along like that…and uh, there was couple of hundred of them I guess. And me and my driver got in front of my own platoon, got up a maybe half a mile, further up. And fired our weapons—over their heads, not to hit them. And they sent a guy up on a motorcycle with a flag of truce, they’re going into Cologne. I said “no one’s going to pass here. None,” I says “I got a whole platoon behind me, more coming.” They says “we outnumber you.” And uh, for holding them up—for holding them up they thought I deserved a medal, so they gave me the Medal for Valor. But I’m contented, I don’t belong to none of the organizations. I found that I’d be too…if fact I’ve spoken to anybody like I’m talking to you. Uh, that’s why it’s not in good order I guess. But uh, the reason I don’t—I never voted, until uh ’72.And why? I had to serve under every president there was regardless. And uh I didn’t know who my—I lived in so many different states I didn’t know my congressman or local, you know local politics [nhmm]. And then I’d be overseas, uh for a year, for three years. Panama for three years [mhmm], San Diego for two and half years. So I was overseas in France three year—six years. Not in a row, but three and three. So, for those reasons I—we never voted.

Wilkerson: Okay…and those are all the questions I had, was there anything else that you wanted to add that we didn’t cover in the interview…?

Furey:…Well, not really, because uh, uh, well oh yeah I guess you could say, after I got back from Panama I was assigned to the 3^rd Infantry at Fort Meyer [mhmm]. The—I had been there before, I has served there before. And uh, which is the guard of the President, the guard of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, and it’s quite a decorated unit. When I was in Intelligence on uh, and…they assigned me another job in addition to that, of escorting congressmen and senators on trips overseas. They sent an enlisted man, and a officer, and colonel to go with these congressmen and senators on these either South America, Mexico, or Europe. And that was interesting, of course you worked, you’re on a first class plane, you lived first class, and it was a nice way to go to retire. My wife thought—she said they only went to warms places in the wintertime, and in the winter…

Mrs Furey: ???

Furey: In the winter they went to warm places. So she says uh—it was nice. And the congressmen and senators treated you uh, like an equal if not higher sometimes. And you—since you had top secret clearance you went to all these, I guess all these briefings because they wanted you to, I guess to sharpen a pencil or something. But uh, that was a nice—my wife didn’t like it. We went to—then uh the Himalayas, we flew over the Himalayan Mountains, and they said “you haven’t called home!” “How am I going to call home?” “Well use the airplane—over, you call Andrews Air Force base, Andrews Air Force bases taps it into your home phone. “Hey mother, I’m over the mountains OVER.” Then she’d have to say something, and uh I found that—I thought that was kind of interesting.

Wilkerson: Okay, well, that is it for the interview, and thank you so much for talking to me.