Howard Agee
United States Army
143rd Anti-Aircraft

"During the Battle of the Bulge, they'd surrounded us on this Battle of the Bulge, and we had fog so thick we couldn't see hardly in front of you.  And they had us surrounded and they were dropping flares, trying to find us at night.  And we had orders to not leave there until the last man was gone cause that's when they had the shell with the radar or something in it, in the nose.  In other words, when you shoot at a plane it has to be within seventy-five feet or it won't go off.  So a pilot won't know he's shooting at him until he's already hit.  So we had orders to not go, not leave.  One night I sat in a truck, me and another man, and I sat this way, and corner angle the other way, all night long.  We had to make no noise cause they were trying to pick up up, and so it was hard to believe I sat that many hours and did not scratch my nose or do nothing.  The other guy didn't nobody talked.  No noise whatsoever.  It was real serious."

"It was during the 1930s, when everything was, the economy was at the very bottom and a lot of the people with no jobs at all.  And those that were, a lot of times, they were hiring for fifty cents a day, a good smart man.  And there were so many unemployed that the government decided to do something about it.  They established the CCC: Civilian Conservation Corp.  And there was a lot of people that were much worse off than me, but someone thought that I needed to go so they signed me up."