Oral History Interview with George Brock

Shurtz: This is Clinton Shurtz. It is…June 10th, 2008. I am in the home of George Brock, in Fulton, Kentucky. This is for the Kentucky Oral History Commission. George is a World War II veteran, and…thanks for talking to me, George.

Brock: Yes.

Shurtz: And…I guess to begin with, tell me about when you, where you grew up at, and what… Brock: I grew up in south, south eastern Kentucky, in Bell County…under…I, I guess the shade of Cumberland Gap, this is, this is the identification that I…tell people from where I, I came, or where I was brought up, up a creek from Pineville…this was home, yeah, a family of…eight children. My dad was a coal miner. My mother was a good housewife, good mother. I didn’t go hungry! I 1:00was warm if I could get home, so…I had a good life, yeah. I went to school, is this what you would like to hear?

Shurtz: Sure!

Brock: I went to school in a mining camp in the beginning, called Kettle Island, a Pioneer Coal Company, operated the, the mines at that time, and my dad…worked there and…the…coal company helped to pay for a nine months of high school after…and, and grammar school, actually, and from there I attended Bell County High School and graduated from there, and I, I immediately, a…after having graduated April 12th, early at that time, because we went to school extra, that being right in the heat of the, the war, we went to school extra and 2:00got out early, and I began college June…June the 5th, in nineteen and ’44, 1944, and…was in school for six months, and then I was subject to the draft, and from there—would you like for me just give you a narrative on this, is what you… Shurtz: Oh yes, and where, where did you go to college at?

Brock: Lincoln Memorial University. After…high school and…beginning the summer term, I enrolled at Lincoln Memorial University, and that’s at Harrogate, Tennessee, about five miles south of the line, south of Middlesboro, Kentucky, the biggest town in…the county, and…went for six months and then was subject to the draft. From there…after registering 3:00for the draft, I was…examined…medically and, and mentally, in Huntington, West Virginia, and…from that…experience…I went immediately to Camp Atterbury, Indiana where I was…clothed and put on a troop train to…Huntsville, Alabam—not Huntsville, but…Dothan, Alabama, at that time an infantry replacement center down there. I can’t give you the number of it, but…this is where I, I wound up. At that time all, practically all, able bodied eighteen years olds were going into the infantry, and this is where I wound up, even though I had expressed a, a desire…in 4:00the Huntsville—not Huntsv…Huntington, West Virginia, that…I’d like to get in the air force, and…of course I was kidding about this. They’re always…yes, they say, yeah you’ve got it, but the big step like that, but the war was infantry, i-n-f-a-n-t-r-y. So having finished basic training in…south Alabama, Fort Rucker was the name of the infantry, infantry replacement…camp down there. That little delaying route…here and no…no furloughs, but just a delay in route, and then reported to…Fort Riley, Kansas. This is where the troop train was laid up going…west…to…Fort 5:00Lawton, Seattle, Washington, and from there, just a, a short hitch down at Camp Adair, Oregon for advanced infantry training, and after that, why m…I shipped from Fort Lawton, and Fort Lawton is right near the Puget Sound, as…you, you know, and I went aboard at that location, and after fourteen—eighteen days maybe, we, not knowing where we were going, of course, wound up at…Okinawa and…the war was over at that time, and a, a lot of the…results, lot of the devastation 6:00was…still present at that time, and there were still stragglers at that time and…in three days after I arrived, I was put to operating an amphibian truck that I had never seen. I had never seen an amphibian truck…before that time. If I had, it had been through…oh…war…on, on theater screens or something, because at that time we didn’t have television, and this is where, if I had seen an amphibian truck, so, having….

Shurtz: What… Brock: …had… Shurtz: an…phibian? How, how you… Brock: A-m-p-h-i-b-i-a-n, amphibian… Shurtz: Oh, okay.

Brock: Now the word comes from the ability to operate both land and water, and…so, 7:00one man operation…with…fifty-caliber machine guns, two of them, and of course, when the war…when, when things were, and before the war end, you had gun turrets…on either side of, of, at the front where that the operator could operate one and your side-kick could operate one, so…I wound up, but the guns had been removed at the time. They called them pieces at that time, it wasn’t a gun, it was a piece of it anyway. I operated an amphibian truck, all of the, the harbors, all of the docks were out, as a result of…well, war, plus a, a typhoon that hit there in nineteen and…’45 8:00about, I have forgotten, maybe…July of ’45, somewhere…there, and had wrecked everything, and of course kamikaze, and a kamikaze plane was a, a one-manned Japanese…plane that, no return. You’ve read about… Shurtz: Mm-mm.

Brock: …a kamikaze plane, lots of them, and this is where they came to the front as a offensive weapon against…the Americans, and as a result, lots of wreckage in the harbor and…the docks were all blown out, there was a lot of, of…ship-to-shore firing in addition to…concentration of air, air power off of Guam at the time before 9:00a Kadena strip was…secure, and as a result, why…all supplies, all equipment, food, clothing, ammunition, everything that had been moved in there was being transported by amphibian trucks. There were twenty of them or something that—I mean twenty, twenty outfits, twenty companies…maybe with…forty to fifty amphibian trucks, so these things were just, just like bees working, hauling from mountain to China sea, where that, where merchant ships, mostly that haul supplies at the time, were delivering these things, and a lot of it…they were shipped before the war was over and…it meant unloading whether they was being needed or not. 10:00So, needless to say, we ate well, because the, there were steaks being hauled, we had a steak, equipment to make shacks, we had the equipment. A, a thing that really was negative, as far as I was concerned, the waste that was involved in, specially unloading from ship to truck, or amphibian truck. This was done by nets overhead cranes and nets, and a net coming down was considered a load, regardless, and sometimes, if it had been lead, of course it would have been too heavy for it, but this was sort of judged, so, if the crane operator missed an area, a little bit longer, 11:00not quite as wide as the dining area here, and about sixteen, the load area, about sixteen feet, something like that, and if he missed that, then it went floating off because he had already released…there is a, need to go in, no need to go into this, but from overhead is the way that they released the net with a hook, they control that, turned the hook so that the net fell free. So whole—at that time, and before I left home, coffee, sugar, these things were rationed…rubber…tires, automobiles, these kinds of things. But of course we didn’t haul any automobiles, but we…tires, and…things of that sort…yeah gasoline, and 12:00we, we hauled these things. So if it fell short, or over the side of the truck, if it floated, it floated off. I’ve seen a lot of that kind of stuff and so I, I…this was a little disappointing, having experienced back home…the, the rationing, and, that went on at that time. But anyway, having…a little time at that, say some three months or something, why I…I went over as an infantry replacement and in three days, I was operating an amphibian truck, and then when these…I became a replacement for anything, or everything, because they transferred me to the air force at that time, from the army infantry into the air force and…into the (administradium?) 13:00echelon of…the air force, and…at that time it, it required a time and grade, time in, in service, it wasn’t like in war time when if you merited taking over an outfit where that, the brass had been knocked out or…you didn’t have leadership, why they promote you and they put the rank on you right there, but, after the war, they’d make you responsible, they gave you the duties but they wouldn’t give you the rank because it required so much time between each promotion. So this was going on and I, I wound up in the first, I believe that it was the 346th Bomb Squadron, and…as I remember correctly, but I know that I was discharged from 14:00the 994th mat…Air Material…Squadron. But all of this…was on Kadena Air Strip, and Kadena Air Strip at that time, afforded space…for…the…take off and landing of B-29s, a B-29s was the supper flying fortress. It was the aftermath of the B-17, the B-17 in England, especially operated by the 8th Air Force. And I served with a group of the 8th Air Force younger guys that after Europe, they came on to Okinawa, and…if I were attached to any…air force, it would have been the 8th Air Force, because the guys we… (were in?), 15:00but I don’t know anywhere, or anytime that…I had, I wore—I wore the insignia, but, at no time did I use that as part of the address or, or a part of the location, or anything of that sort. But, having…served…there for…about a year, in the meantime those people, people were discharged in those days, based on points, and points were garnered by…time in service, double time overseas, plus extra points for battles, so I had some guys that…as soon as the war was over, they began to ship them out, and this accounted for my being…pushed 16:00around in, in different…organizations, but, I got along fine, competed and…was discharged…October the 26th. My discharge shows October the 26th, 1948. Even though I wasn’t active all that time, they held us for any…unexpected requirement that they might need for personnel, so they, they kept…a, a bunch of us until 1948, so that’s the, the date of my discharge. As for…ribbons, as for…recommendations, 17:00as for that kind of thing, I guess the only…I received a commendation in infantry basic. Of course we had…battalion, and that constitutes a whole lot of men, and…I don’t want to imply that I’m being boastful or anything but…out of big and little, and I started out a buck private in the rear rank, but at graduation exercises, I was the only one who received a commendation out of all of the, the battalion men, so, I, I felt…rather proud of that. Right now I couldn’t tell you where it is. I, I don’t…[Chuckles – Shurtz], couldn’t put my hand on it. I know it’s not here. We’ve moved around quite a bit, and as a result, I lost track of some of my…things that I picked up in, in 18:00service, including a, well a Japanese rifles, things of that sort, I sort of lost track of them. Any questions?

Shurtz: One, whenever you were in college—now, I know in wars, after World War II, there was somewhat a resistance from college students sometimes, going in or whatever, what was the—it’s always been portrayed that, that, that everyone in, all Americans were really for the second war, you know, and it was a very patriotic time. Were you okay with…leaving college to go into the military, or would you’ve, you know, had, had you had a choice, would you had rather had stayed in school or… Brock: Oh no, I, I…I didn’t…I, I guess I had this much of eastern Kentucky in me I was proud of, proud of…guys. 19:00I had two older brothers that were in the service, both of them had been wounded, one of them twice, one of them…was wounded…in the Gulf of Mexico, German submarines operating, it’s come out within the last few years that a total of twenty-seven, or twenty-eight were trapped into the Gulf of Mexico.

Shurtz: Whoa!

Brock: So he was…in the navy and was on shore duty and, as a result of…the actions of the German submarine he received a, a silver plate in his head that he wore, he lived to be age 74, almost 75, and…died on Pearl Harbor Day, December the 7th, and would have been seventy-five in April, April the 27th, but, and the other one was wounded twice, my oldest brother, wounded twice. He was in the medics and in Belgium, and…the Battle of the Bulge, 20:00got a, a sniper hit him in, in the back, and a German (S flying?) blew his…conveyance of a jeep I think it was, maybe not a weapon scare but, a jeep and…he…actually lost the hearing at that time and was hospitalized at some, for some time but…I, to answer your question, not one time would I have…taken a, a referral, I just wouldn’t, I just wouldn’t. And…I, I felt that it was my responsibility, my duty, and I’m glad I did, and…I didn’t, I could have stayed in, but I didn’t want, I, I, I appreciated the opportunity to serve, but I didn’t want anymore of it, so I came on out when I got a chance to come out, yeah. 21:00Shurtz: So what was, I, I don’t know if I caught when you, when you went in, what…how long were you in…the military total?

Brock: Well, actually, actu…and, active, active, almost two years.

Shurtz: Okay.

Brock: Almost two years, but I had, by requirement, in other words, this was a condition of my getting out…becoming inactive, that three years be extended, and that would have been up to 1948, yeah, October, so…if you want to…count that, if you want to count two years, or if you want to count…say, four or five years… Shurtz: Okay.

Brock: …I…this is the period that I was in. I…I’m not for bringing the boys home right now. I am a Democrat, but I…I 22:00am of the opinion that you, nor I, nor nobody around us know what’s best for us in Iraq. Our powers that be are not going to sell us down the river, there is Republicans up there, they are not going to, these are not going to. They feel…when, when the, it gets down to the real nitty-gritty, they love this country just like we do, and these people who, including senators, Pelosi…Reed, any of them, they don’t know. Now this general that’s in charge over there, knows what’s best, and nine out of ten of the guys who have served over there. Now some of them don’t like the idea that they had to return, and return, and return, they don’t, they don’t feel good about this, but they appreciate what they’re doing, 23:00they can see…the light at the end of the tunnel, and…we’re winners, and this is what they want to accomplish, so, for them all the way, yeah I’m for them all the way, yeah.

Shurtz: You were here during the, during the war though, and tell us, tell me about the, the rationing.

Brock: The, the…we had…real active office of price control in those days, what was called OPA, and…they did a, a good job because there wasn’t a lot of…unfair play in most items that were required to be rationed. Some of them required to be rationed because the production wasn’t great enough to supply the cilvian—civilian 24:00needs plus the boys in, in uniform, in what sometimes there were over six million…over six million military personnel, plus some of those people had some…a, a well, relatives and what have you, state side, and maybe some in countries that were friendly toward us, maybe in England and then, but I don’t know exactly about that. But there were people that were living near the base during the w…the war, and…as for coffee, why would coffee be rationed? The origin of coffee…in the islands and in the south Central America, and South America. Sugar? The islands produced rubber, especially Borneo, 25:00in, in that area…rubber was a real…scarce item, and of course, all that was needed for…warring material. Fats, as for…lard, this is ammunition…stuff, fats used a lot in the manufacture, and…as for how much…that…we could have? You dec…you, you couldn’t go buy…candy like you can today. You had been exposed to candy, nickel bars of all kinds of candy, you had had sugar any time that you had wanted and then I didn’t drink coffee at the time, but I know 26:00that it really bothered, my (Noisy commotion) my ( ) parents at the time, so…it…affected life, but people didn’t complain, people didn’t complain. Now the, the war effort…was a real progression. We weren’t ready when…the Japanese attacked us. We weren’t ready when the Germans, when…our allies needed us over there, we weren’t ready. But you might say children got into the act, which I… Third Party: Hello!

Brock: This is Clinton, my wife Elma.

Third Party: Hi.

Shurtz: Nice to meet you.

Third Party: It’s nice to meet you. I don’t want to interrupt you.

Shurtz: Children. My, my wife, I picked up scrap metal, jar lids, zinc jar lids, all kinds of old metal 27:00pieces…whether it be…parts of railroad rails or whether—whatever, regardless, metal, we picked it up and spent quite a bit of time on Saturdays, just the war effort. Women specially, women played a big part in this progression that I spoke of, being able to turn the tide after about three years, after about three years, why…the war began to go the other way. Up until that time, it was touch and go at…and…of course if we hadn’t taken the Germans off of…England’s back, they, Germany would have whipped England and then Russia. The weather was the only thing that kept them from whipping Russia. 28:00Got all the way, I believe to Stalingrad and…bogged down in winter snow and whate…so, as for the rationing, and as for…the military force, our fighting men had priority. That was in the minds of people. Clinton, I don’t know whether that would hold truth today or not. I…I, I would like to think that young men today would be as loyal and patriotic, but since…World War II, there’s been a lot of…proof that…youngster will leave this country to keep from going to service, and…a lot of politics have been played in order for them to get relief to get back, yeah, yeah. 29:00So…loyalty Isn’t as prevalent as it used to be in World War II. I…again I say, we as, as citizens of the United States, better leave it to those people who know. If you’re a Republican and a Democrat is…in power up there, leave it to him. Now, he has advisors around him, he has a cabinet around him that…he has a, a pool of information, and I don’t believe one time, that we would have a president that would lead us into…war and the inevitable deaths that occur from war for some self gratification, I don’t believe this, I just don’t. Because any president is aware, 30:00if he is smart at all, he is aware that…war is cruel, war is…devastating, and it was proven in World War II. Now we helped people just then, rightfully mothers, their sons were just as good as sons in, in World War II, but they weren’t any better. And…we have people, politics just up in arms about something over four thousand. On Okinawa alone, there was eleven thousand men killed, eleven thousand men on Okinawa alone, and Okinawa’s a strip of land thirty some miles long and one place four miles wide. But there was hundreds and thousands of men there, 31:00in preparation for the invasion of Japan, November the 1st of ’45 if it hadn’t been for the atomic bomb…and the Americans would have gone ashore…on Kyushu, which is the most southern island of the chain of Japanese islands. There was a, about almost four hundred miles from where I was stationed on Okinawa, four hundred miles from here to eastern Kentucky, close in, close. Had that been successful…March the 1st, we would of hit the planes of Tokyo, and…the…estimated casualties, a million two hundred thousand 32:00Americans, a million two hundred, and then people, talk about the atrocity and the, and humane…way…that the American used the atomic bomb. I glory in the spunk of Harry Truman. He gave them a chance, he warned them, he warned the rulers of Japan that we had the power to do this and that we would do it unless they surrendered. So this is what happened. And I, even though it’s cruel to think of children and women and people getting killed by the wholesale like that, better for them then us. This is just how I’m made up, that’s the way I feel, yeah.

Shurtz: Did you have any an…any interaction with the Japanese people after the war?

Brock: Oh yeah, oh yeah. I 33:00guarded Japanese people, guarded, guarded Japanese soldiers…I had interaction with the, the people of the Ryukyus Islands, that’s Okinawa is the largest. If you’ve studied history in the northern, most northern, is a, an island by the name of (le-Shima?), and (le-Shima?) was where that Ernie Pyle, you remember reading about Ernie Pyle? Ernie Pyle was a correspondent, a, a newsman and he was known as the doughboy’s friend, because he was right up there with them, and so I have been right to the place where he and, and the signs, put my hand on the sign, just a rough sign, immediately after this had happened. He was killed along at the last on (le-Shima?) and that’s the northern most of the chain. But a, a, a small place like this, but this island was, 34:00or Okinawa, this chain of islands which is, as I say, known as Ryukyus Islands, was the…base for the…invasion of Japan and…because of the proximity, because of well, the importance of, so…I…guarded them…I…had…an, an, I started to mention that Okinawans were Japanese. They looked like them, they…felt like them, and of course the Japanese drew…military personnel from that island, just like they did at home, we used them in domestic…ways, in kitchens and 35:00what have you, the women and the women at the time were in compounds. Well, all of the people really were in compounds. They had been…fenced in, especially…well for two purposes, to keep the Americans away from them, plus…their safety. And…this was under what was called quartermaster, quartermaster regulated and controlled the compounds. These women would be brought out…during the, the day to…work in the kitchen, or they worked in the laundry, or worked wherever…they were needed. But the Japanese were a, they were a proud bunch. They were men, I was a boy. Some of the guys that I, I remember could have…in 36:00hand-to-hand combat, could have taken me to school, there wasn’t any, any…question about it, even though I had better equipment than they did, they were just more of men, eighteen years old, my size and all, outweigh me…these guys were heavy built individuals. At that time I weighed about a hundred and fifteen pounds, something like that. You ran into these guys all muscles at two-hundred-and-ten or something, and…I, I thought about that lots of times, when I’d help them, a bunch of them under my control, but they were very…subdued. Now these, these people wouldn’t surrender. The Germans would surrender, these people would die for…the rising sun over there…Tojo and…Hirohito, 37:00these guys, this was the way that they…were indoctrinated, and as a result, why…they were tough to fight, they were jungle fighters, so, I, as I say I…happy that I served, but when I got out I didn’t want anymore of it, yeah, yeah.

Shurtz: Another question…the Soviet Union was our, was our allies at the time, and then we immediately…the cold war began not too mu…too long after, after World War II. What was the sentiment about, about Russia, when the United States, I mean I supposed were behind the Soviets as well. How did that factor in with the, with the communist nation and a, you know, capitalist nation like ourselves teaming up, and you…what was it ( )?

Brock: It, it was talked immediately after…the, the next fight we have is going to be with Russia. 38:00We didn’t have any confidence in them whatsoever. That…ill feeling…well, even in negotiations high up. Now, you’ve been told this, or you’ve read this, it, it was hard…the allies, main allies…Roosevelt, Stalin and Krutchve….

Shurtz: Churchill.

Brock: Yeah…Churchill…these guys, it was hard for them to…come to an agreement as…crucial as it was. It was hard for them because of, well, pride I guess…with the, and right up, when, when it was time, when, when the Germans were running, especially the Germans…Russia 39:00and the United States especially, were concerned about who…what we looked at as the big dog in the fight, and…they…we were, we were skeptical…I’ve talked it…people who knew a little more than I did, or maybe a whole lot more than I did, were skeptical of…whether that, they would be satisfied to…stop at a portion of…splinting Berlin, and…receiving only part of the—of course, they arrived first in Berlin, and, as a result, thought that they…deserved more, I guess in all, but Bolsheviks, it’s a…Reds, this is, these kinds that were applied 40:00to them. The feeling wasn’t good. We didn’t trust them, and we thought that within a short period that we’d have to, have to fight them. So, but it didn’t happen, and it could have gone one…as, as late as…just before Reagan. Reagan had the…know how, had the…particular time in history…to…pull the bluff, and he pulled it, and he stopped communism really, and the wall came down, and so this was a…a…and he is a Republican, so I’m…that. I…politics do harm instead of helping us at times, they really do, politics…politics, 41:00a lot of things, n…not necessarily jeopardizing the nation, but lots of money is put into useless politics, yeah, lots of money, so, and in Frankfort, a lot of stuff goes on that shouldn’t go on, expensive stuff…and…we just…I’ve got, I, I’m said to be opinionated [Chuckles – Shurtz] and I am, really I’m, yeah. Any other questions?

Shurtz: Tell me about…after you, you got out of the military, then you went back to school?

Brock: Yes.

Shurtz: And what did, what did you do?

Brock: I, I’ve, was discharged…the twenty…26th, or 27th of, of December, 26th or 27th. 42:00Now not, not in ’48, that three years was added, when I say discharged, I hadn’t had any time off the whole time I was overseas, so I got home late in October, November. A delay in route or a time earned…put my discharge for the period up to about December the 27th, as I recall. And then, I couldn’t get in school, because all the GIs were plentiful and had occupied all of the rental space in the small town, the, the dorms and what have you, I lived in the dorm. So I stayed in Middlesboro and commuted for…three months, and then I was able to, to, to get in, and…I went, I went to summer school and 43:00graduated in ’49, and… Shurtz: Your degree was?

Brock: AB Degree, and, and…I went to work a Kentucky-Virginia stone company building a, a bridge, this was during the summer. But I was going to teach school in the fall, and I worked for them on, building bridges and, and until, and I taught at Bell County High School, biology and English, and I taught a science, general science course. These were my majors, and so I…taught there for a year and then I went over to the…grade school and high school that I attended one year, Kettle Island. During the war, we didn’t have enough bus transportation that I could go to Bell County in my first year. 44:00So there was a class of eleven students, freshmen class at, at Kettle Island. One time there was a high school there, but…we had a, a, a good class, but anyway, from, from…there I went over to Principal this grade school, eight, eight grades, and from there I l…I went into the insurance business and…worked claims and claims is what brought me here, and…we left here and went to Huntsville, Alabama, and I went to Huntsville, Alabama at the time the Saturn Five was being tested down there, and…we…were to do…the…claims resulting from…air disturbance, sound, 45:00not, not impact but sound, sound…wave disturbance. There is a town west of…Huntsville, about thirty miles, called Decatur, Alabama. Decatur, Alabama…you got a Decatur in Illinois.

Shurtz: Mm-mm.

Brock: Decatur, Alabama, about thirty miles, and factory glass panes, glass panes, were broken as a result of this air disturbance. I—are you interested in this?

Shurtz: Go for it, yeah.

Brock: Being over the office down there, why it was…necessary for me to…sort of be up close to know what went on. They had a, an apron that directed most of the impact away from Huntsville, the exhaust. Now, the power plant of the…the Saturn Five was made 46:00up of six engines, six engines with exhausts six feet in diameter, a million and a half pounds of thrust for each engine. They opened them wide open, they had enough concrete buried and enough anchors, that they could tie this down, and operate wide open, and hold the load, hold the…Saturn Five down there…with nine million pounds of thrust, going up. So…this caused downtown Huntsville, four miles away, just…our, our office was on Governor Drive, do you know Huntsville at all?

Shurtz: Uh-uh.

Brock: On Governor Drive and…just like this, the glass didn’t, never broke any of it, but it took, caused it 47:00really to, to vibrate, but…from there I went to…stayed there a while and while I was there got a, an offer to come back here and go in the, the agency, general agency business. So I did this…I moved here August the 25th…nineteen and ’68…August—that be forty years, August the 25th, we unloaded at this house here, and…stayed in, and, and retired…and… the last day of…nineteen and ’91, 1992, was the first time that was up, without a job, off a…somebody’s payroll from the time I started 48:00with Kentucky-Virginia Stone, until…January the 1st, nineteen and…and ’92. So, I was on somebody’s payroll all the time, yeah, yeah. I didn’t…collect no unemployment and ( ) so. That’s sort of the, the history of my adult life.

Shurtz: And…when I was given your name, I was told not only could you tell stories about World War II, but you also know a lot of veterans. What’s your role around here in, in, in…with, with the veteran community?

Brock: Well…last Saturday at, in front of the Wal-Mart, two of us, a…retired marine after twenty-years, and I, sold…American legion baseball chances…on a…I 49:00attempted to…be the commander of Post 72, which has been in existence since 1924…for twenty some years, about twenty five years, twenty-five plus two, I guess. I had served two years, and then got [Chuckling] well, shanghaied into…going back and, so, ( ) the younger guys you know, at the time and so they said, you can do, let George do it, so this is a, a state commander for twenty-seven years. Now as for…I enjoy watching them play baseball. We are attempting to field…two teams, boys fifteen to seventeen, and seventeen to nineteen. In fact, over the weekend, the boys…fifteen to seventeen 50:00played at home here a tournament of s…sixteen teams I guess, all around Tennessee, Missouri…Mayfield, Calvert City, Tri City, all these places, Union City…so one, two Friday, two Saturday, and the championship on Sunday, so…we were playing all, but we, we lucked out. In ad, in addition to…the American Legion and the, the things that the American Legion does, now, you, you’re not interested in that, what you learn, how the American legion works in the community?

Shurtz: Oh, I am interested, yeah.

Brock: One of the things that the American Legion has done that I’m proud of is Boys State, and we have two high schools we have one in South Fulton, and right now we have more 51:00World War II veterans living in, I think I told you this the other day, World War II veterans living in Tennessee, because Tennessee…has been residential area of Fulton…more so than, than Fulton. Fulton has always been the shopping area, and ( ). So we send boys state re…delegates, girl state delegates in bo…in both teams. We support…Trooper Island, do you know what Trooper Island in?

Shurtz: Mm.

Brock: This is a, a weekly camp a number of weeks for blind students. We support the, the boys stay—oh no the boy scouts and girl scouts. We…have, have been real active 52:00in…we were real active, during the time of the Banana Festival. You probably didn’t hear the Banana Festival, it, the Banana Festival went on here from ’61, 1961 up until about n-n-ninety, and…involved, well Miss America was here and…the secretary of state was here, and…the little whole town drew twenty-five thousand people… Shurtz: Whoa!

Brock: …in, big parade, and…just a, a big blowout for a small town and…it was all anchored and hinged to Fulton being a…a location for bananas from the south republics down there that grew bananas. Bananas coming into the, the ports, Louisiana, 53:00shipped by rail into northeast, central, and, and…more bananas came on, on the Illinois Central Railways at that time than anywhere else in the United States. So, they were iced here at an ice house out there that ran from here almost downtown, now where they’d pull whole trains in there with bananas, and ice them down…to be shipped to Hartford, Connecticut, or to…Detroit, Michigan, or maybe sometimes into Canada, wherever Illinois Central operated. We took a big part in, in promoting that. As for the Veterans, we just finished a, a Memorial Day putting out…flags 54:00in each veterans grave in six cemeteries in that area. Each…November the 11th, which used to be called Armistice Day…it’s Veteran’s Day, I think it’s termed now, we…feed all veterans, regardless of whether they belong to the American Legion or, or what branch they were in. We…feed them the old…[Chuckling] well, barbecue pork and white beans and the trimmings that go, go with that. These are some of the big things that, that we do, and I am active, I’ve…in fact I worked four hours last weekend, two, 55:00two hours on Friday afternoon and…two hours on Saturday morning, raising money for boys to play baseball and it, it’s…satisfaction that twenty-four boys in the last five years have received that have played out here, our Post 72…team…twenty-four, four boys have received college scholarships playing baseball. The day before yesterday—no, Saturday, one boy who lives over in South Fulton, was drafted by the major leagues that played out here, a boy named Corey White, a pitcher. Incidentally, he pitched on Saturday and struck out sixteen and lost two to nothing [Laughter – Shurtz]. So what, it was sort of ironic 56:00[Chuckling] but…that…that happen. We…promote things, we promote the youth, we have given, since the beginning, since the inception of our post…we’ve given awards at eighth grade…graduation to boys, a boy and a girl, here and over in South Fulton, because the post is made up of about an equal number at one time, but I believe there is more now over in South Fulton than… Shurtz: So, as far as that relationship between—because I’m going to be interviewing, even if this is a, a Kentucky thing I’m doing, because of the close relationship between Fulton and South Fulton, it…are the names Fulton and South Fulton just technical? Or do you people see themselves as Fulton, as one community? Or is there the, is… Brock: We, we have to work at this all the time. The, the schools aren’t as bad as the adults 57:00[Chuckles – Shurtz] in this competition, this, and competition is good with people who can handle it, but people who can’t handle it, then it becomes a, you know, and then this has been a, of a case. We, the heads, the Chamber of Commerce, the Fulton, South Fulton Chamber of Commerce is situated over in South Fulton. We work all the time keeping the community together. On our team we have, oh, three or five boys from South Fulton that plays on, on the team. Our park out here, which is known as Lions’ Park, is a park that South Fulton has used all the time. South Fulton now contributes to Twin Cities youth, children who began with T-ball…play 58:00out on, on the Fulton side. The Lions built the, the park in the, in the beginning. They—both the federal government, and I guess the state government, have gone a long way in…providing improvements in games or, or…well, whatever goes in the park there, the kids slide on and swing on and whatever. We have contributed. We, we built the shelter house and we built a statue, we built…things and actually put a lot of money into, we sponsor a team now. But at one time we put a lot of money into…the, the park out there. The youth, and I’m still of the opinion that, if you have a, if you promote and if you work at making a, 59:00good citizens out of youth, you’re on the right track.

Shurtz: Yeah.

Brock: That’s the way I think. So, whether you’re teaching school, or whether you set an example in the community…be sort of responsible for the neighbors kids, yeah, sort of philosophy that I have, yeah. If you see them in danger, why…get them out of it, if you can, yeah.

Shurtz: Well George, I think that’s a, that’s a good interview [Chuckles – Shurtz]. Thank you for… Brock: Well I hope that I didn’t… Shurtz: No.

Brock: …ramble too much, and you… Shurtz: Oh no, it’s wonderful. Thank you.

Brock: Yeah, well…I…didn’t m…put any thought to it, I didn’t know what you were going to ask me, I probably could have organized it a little bit better but…this is what you…that’s what come to mind and, if it’s good, well all right. If it isn’t why it will be all right anyway. 60:00So, isn’t that right?

Shurtz: Yeah!

Brock: That’s right, okay… “END OF INTERVIEW”