The American Soldier An Autobiography - 1746 Words

The American Soldier: An Autobiography Hello, my name is James Collier. It has been 2 years since the end of the war and I’d like to tell my story from beginning to end about the hardships that I endured throughout my career. I would hope that someone, someday can find use for these stories. My story begins late September, early November of the year 1942. I am a 19 year old boy from Fort Worth, Texas working for my father’s business which paid well, plus I got to learn some things that’ll help me own it someday. Anyway, at the time I was acutely aware of the conflicts going on overseas with the Nazi party invading the Soviet Union and I also knew that they were apart of the â€Å"allies†, see the war was a war between the Axis powers and the†¦show more content†¦I knew this because already, a couple of my close friends had already been chosen, but I wasn’t chosen until around November of 1943. At this time the U.S. had already been in the w ar for a couple years so I came in hoping that I wouldn’t have to been in combat for too long, and that the war would end soon. After the war it was found that about 10 million men were inducted into the armed forces because of the draft. A lot of men were disqualified due to educational issues or physical impairments. But, as for me, I was a healthy young teenager that has been working for all my life, so I was a perfect fit for the armed forces. Before being deployed I was put through something called ASTP or Army Specialized Training Program. This was a military training program instituted by the United States Army during World War II to meet wartime demands both for junior officers and soldiers with technical skills (Ball State University). It was fast paced training system that basically took a four year program and crammed it all into a 18 month program to quickly create wartime ready recruits. It was a bunch of basic training that attempted to toughen, and sharpen us u p to defend our country, but I don’t think even the standard four year program could have prepared us for what was coming. It is now about January 1944, I am within the 116th Infantry Division (history.army.mil), and it was at this time that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was appointed