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RG-50.549.05.0014

What was the name of the town or the village where you were living?

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Kfar Warburg. That was the name of it. It was in southern Israel, south side of Tel Aviv, quite a way down there. The whole country in four hours you can traverse it one end to the other on a decent road. [Laughing.] It wasn’t that, you know, that big a country. But it was to the south of Tel Aviv, not far from Ashgelon. So, anyway.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

When did you start serving in the Army?

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RG-50.549.05.0014

I joined the Israeli Army in ’50... I was seventeen, so let’s see, thirty-five, forty-five, fifty-two, so ‘52 is when I, or the beginning of ‘53 1s when I... ‘52. Because my brother had to sign because I wasn’t old enough and I volunteered, so he had to sign my paper so I could join the service. So it was °52, was when I... I know the Korean War was still going on when I joined.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

What made you decide to join?

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RG-50.549.05.0014

You mean the Service?

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Uh huh.

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I just wanted to serve. I don’t know, wasn’t nothing particular. I just wanted to do my couple of years in, you know, the Service. Before that I already worked on tractors, worked down with the Bedouins in the Negev. I plowed their fields for them. I was the only Jew. I was about fifteen years old. Had a.45 on my hip, tractor and my two Bedouins who guarded me. And I was plowing Sheikh Suleiman, who was their Sheikh, the head of their tribe. I was plowing his fields for him. I was the only Jew there. I wasn’t afraid.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

How did that come about?

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Well, the individual I worked for, who owned the tractor, he was my boss basically. I worked for him. I guess he got the contract with, he got hired by Sheikh Suleiman to plow his fields. So, we took the tractor down there. He left me down there to do the work, so I did the work. [Laughing.| Stayed there for about ten days, I guess. One night they woke me up and said, “Shhh, there are fedayins (ph) in the area,” which means there are Palestinian Arabs in the area. So, they woke me up, and they said “We need to get out of here.” But they protected me. I mean I got no complaints. I wasn’t afraid. And sure enough, not long after my boss came with a pick-up truck to pick me up and get me out of there. They had some problems, infiltrators. So, anyway. I had my adventures. I helped build the phosphate pools down in the Dead Sea. We built big pools filled up with water and then the sun would evaporate the water and leave the salt. You made a lot of different product out of that. The salt is, they got potassium and they got iodine and they got all kind of stuff in it. They make all kinds of chemicals from that. So I helped build the pools down there for that. I helped build the first highway to Elath. And also 20 helped started bringing the oil pipelines back up from Elath, from the Red Sea up toward Ashgelon. That was before I left for the United States.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

So this was all done while you were in the Service?

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RG-50.549.05.0014

No, that was during the Service and after the Service. I was in the, in the Israeli Army I was in the Engineers. And the Army engineers built the first road down to Elath, first main road, paved road, regular road. So, I worked on that for the Army engineers, during . And the pipeline was after I was already out of the Army and I worked for a company, a construction company, who were building the pipeline. So, I helped that and also the, I don’t know exactly how you call it, the ponds, basically. They fill it up with water and let it evaporate. Helped build them for the company down there, also through the construction company. I done all kinds of stuff in my life, as far as work. I dug ditches. I built walls from Jerusalem stone. You know, I been supporting myself since I was fourteen years old. What needed to be done, I did.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

So, the whole time you were in Israel were you planning on coming to the United States eventually?

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Yes, yes. Like I told you, my dad said to stay in Sweden and I hadn’t seen him since the war time. Well, I didn’t want to wait in Sweden, so I went to Israel. And then during ‘56, during the Sinai Campaign, the US Embassy came looking for me, they were going to evacuate me. But I was already down in the Sinai, fighting, so, you know. And then they thought that I got killed, so they notified my father that I got killed. I come home and I check back with the Embassy to find out what the status... because I was waiting for a visa. The reason it took me until ‘59 to get to the United States, was because there was no visas. You had to wait. Right now, all this illegal aliens and all this stuff, and everybody says, “Well, poor guys...” Well, that’s not so, because every time you got illegal alien coming in here that means that somebody who is waiting legally, wants to come in, you know, he can’t come in. He’s waiting. So that ain’t right. But anyway, I was waiting for my legal visa to join my father. The only reason by ‘59 I finally got one is because in ‘56, the Hungarian Revolt — Remember that? Against the Russians, and a lot of Hungarians got out of Hungary? So, they increased the number of visas and all that stuff for the Hungarian refugees, and so that’s the reason why about ‘59 I got, managed to get to the United States. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to come earlier. It was a question that I couldn’t legally come to the United States. So anyway, so... End of Tape 2, Side A 21 Tape 2, Side B

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Later on I found out I didn’t need all that stuff, that I have... I really didn’t need a visa till if I came back to the United States before I was twenty-four years old, I was automatically a U.S. citizen, because I was considered an American due to my father’s birth. So anyway, so ‘59 is when I got to the States.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Do you, what else do you remember about, what else happened during the ‘56 war?

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RG-50.549.05.0014

What do you mean what else happened?

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You haven’t talked in detail about what that experience was like.

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It’s war. People get killed. You get shot at, and basically I was with the Combat Engineers there. To breach the roads we had to blow up roadblocks and stuff in Rafah. I was up in the northern section: Rafah, El’ Arish, Qantara, all the way out to the Suez Canal. And so anyway, so basically we breached the road and opened it for the armor to get through and we went through. And basically, the Egyptians didn’t want to fight. We found tanks, they were still operational, the engine running, just left them. They just jumped out and ran out barefoot into the desert. Just left their equipment there. So... they’re poor , their officers were partying somewhere and they left them there in the trenches. So anyway, the Egyptian Army in those days anyway, weren’t very strong. And anyway. We lost some people, sure we did. Took a hundred hours for the whole, it took the whole Sinai Desert one hundred hours, that’s all, so. I did my job, whatever I was supposed to have done. I did mine and everybody else. And to understand the Israeli Army you have to realize that they didn’t even have transportation. And guys who missed their units, they hitchhiked to get to their units, to join them. You know, in those days anyway, I don’t know about now, but in those days, people knew their duty and you didn’t have to tell them. They knew what they had to do and it got done. So, it wasn’t like an experience, sure it wasn’t no pleasant experience. I came back, I had a beard [Laughing.]. And when everybody else came back, because Eisenhower forced, you know, the Israelis to withdraw from the Sinai. And since I was in the Engineers, I stayed behind. And what we did, we plowed up all the roads coming back from Sinai, this a-way, and we plowed up all the roads, destroyed all the tracks, train tracks. We took the train tracks, blew them up and all the bridges, anything to slow them down. To slow the Egyptian Army from coming back in. And so we were the last ones out of Sinai. I guess that’s the reason maybe they thought that I was dead, you know. [Laughing.] I didn’t come home. Most everybody was coming home. I was still down there. We were the last ones out. So anyway, that’s the experience.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Had you been keeping in touch with your father during those years, writing letters?

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Yeah, we were exchanging letters, yeah. And he worked in Newark. He worked in a store as a salesman and he got remarried, so my stepmother, she worked in a bakery as a saleslady. She had ason. She lost one son, too, in the war. She had one son, he was with them. And he went to school in New York. And that’s basically it. I kept in touch. And then checked, I went to get a visa and I was working with the U.S. Consulate in Tel Aviv and finally got the visa. And that’s it. That was in ‘59. 22

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RG-50.549.05.0014

How did you come to the U.S.?

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I flew, one of the Super Constellation, four-engine prop jobs. Flew from Tel Aviv to France. And something happened to the plane, and we stayed overnight in France. But the French Air, they paid for my hotel stay in Paris for the night and all that till the next day. Then we flew on to Idlewild, now it’s Kennedy. In those days it was almost new. And my parents, my dad waited for me there. And they took us, they lived in Newark in an apartment. So we got there, my aunt, the one who never left the States, she lived in New York in those days. No, I’m sorry. No, she didn’t. She already lived down in Miami. His son, her son, his name was Milton. He served in the Second World War as a flight engineer on one of them Dakota airplanes. He flew mission over the hump in Burma. So, he was a Second World War veteran. He’s passed away now. And my uncle, he served in the Second World War. My aunt’s husband. He was with the CB’s, construction battalion. I arrived in May of ‘59. My dad said, “We’re going to move down to Florida.” He had a ‘56 Ford, and so we drove down to Florida. We towed a U-Haul thing behind us. And went to work there in... well when I was up in New York I worked for, within a week, I had job, I had work. Work no problem. I have never had problem finding work. I worked for a chemical company, Ephart Fiber and Rubber Company. We were making erasers in a factory. Worked for them and then father said we’re going to move down to Florida. I said, okay. We moved down to Florida, that was toward the end of ‘59, the winter season. He worked as a waiter and I worked as a busboy in a hotel down on the beach. Name of the hotel was Sterling Hotel.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

What was the town?

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It was Miami Beach.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Miami Beach?

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Yeah, and I was down there. In 1960 I got a letter saying, “Greetings from your neighbors, you just have been drafted.” [Laughing.] So, I was just barely a year in the United States and I got drafted in the U.S. Army.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

So, you were already a citizen before you came? Is that right?

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I didn’t know it. I came late. I waited for my visa. I thought I had to have visa and all that, everybody else said the same thing. I just found out, long time later that I could have just come as a visitor. As soon as I stepped my foot in the, if I was less than twenty-four years old when I arrived, this way, too, I was less than twenty-four, but if I would have got to the United States before I was twenty-four, I was automatically considered just like a native-born American. I didn’t even need a visa. Nobody told me and I didn’t know. The only reason I know now ts because the Justice Department represented me against the Germans in... what do you call it?

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Restitutions? 23

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Damages, restitutions, yeah, under the Prince litigation. They would only represent people who were, that were considered to be U.S. citizens during the war, okay, and on. And I was, by the Justice Department’s own... so the Immigration Service don’t know their own laws, basically. But anyway I had to wait till ‘59 till I got visa to get to the United States.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

How did you feel about being drafted to the U.S. Army?

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Well, I really didn’t have no bad feeling about it. I felt that if 1 wanted to become a citizen of the United States it’s my obligation to serve, you know, I felt, my country. I had no problems with that. So the only problem I really had was, you know, to me, basic training and all that was no big deal. I been through all that. [Laughing.] So, that was no big deal for me. But anyway, language, I wasn’t speaking that well English during those days yet. I had a good friend, went to basic training together, his name was James B. Smith, J.B. He was from North Carolina. And he basically took me under his wings and he was teaching me English. Anytime I was saying something that wasn’t right, he would usually correct me and all that stuff. He was like, Mutt and Jeff? He was tall, skinny guy, you know, and I was short, stocky. And you didn’t have to look far, 1f you seen one of us there the other one wasn’t too far away, was somewhere nearby. So we became really close friends. I’m a godfather to one of his daughters. Even today we still keep in touch. So we really been good friends. That was when I first, you know, got in. The only thing I didn’t like about it, after basic training and advanced individual training. We both were straight leg Infantry and they sent us to Germany. [Laughing.] Sent me right back to Germany, so that’s the only part, that was kind of rough on me, you know. I got over it anyway.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Did you consider, do you think they that would have considered your case if you had objected and asked to be posted somewhere else?

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RG-50.549.05.0014

They might have, I never tried. I’ve never been the kind that wanted special treatment or, you know, special consideration or what have you. I’ve never, ever used my, all the twenty-some years in the Service, I’ve never used my personal experience to try to get something different or special consideration or anything else. I never asked. I never even thought about asking for special consideration because of that. They sent me, I went and that’s basically it.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Did you have to mingle at all with Germans?

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Well, I didn’t have to. Basically the U.S. got its own bases. There’s some Germans who work there on post, but you know, you don’t have to mingle with the German population. You got PX, you got snack bar, you got movies, you got a club. You got everything on post that you would need. So for a long time I didn’t go downtown. After a while I said, well, you know, go downtown and look around, whatever, you know. You can’t lock yourself away. Don’t have to be friends with anybody, but you can’t... and after a while you can’t blame a whole nation for what happened, it just doesn’t make sense. So I mean I don’t love them. [Laughing.] God knows I don’t love them. But I have no particular hate for the Germans. You can’t hate a whole... if you had a specific individual that you knew was... you could hate them. But to me, don’t make no sense to hate a whole nation. I mean it just doesn’t make sense. But anyway. 24

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Did your other buddies in the Army wonder why you weren’t going to town or did they mostly stay there at the post as well?

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I don’t know if they wondered or not. They never asked me personally, you know, about it. A lot of them, there was a lot of American guys that didn’t go downtown. You know, so I don’t think that was particularly strange. If you knew what we went through, then you wouldn’t, you didn’t have time. I mean Monday morning, you put your gear on and you marched out to the training area and you trained all week out in the training area. And then you came back Thursday night, sometimes late at night and then you cleaned your weapons and stuff after midnight before you even got to bed. And the next morning you had PT, you had classes, you had this and that and then you had, Saturday morning you had a full field inspection. So you had Saturday afternoon and Sunday, that’s all you had. Then Monday you went back to the field. So, day and a half, I mean you had to ask who wants to go running around? There were a whole lot of other guys who didn’t go a whole lot. Some ran around out to the night, the guesthouses and stuff, looking for German girls and all that kind of stuff. But you know, it wasn’t unusual for guys not to go out. You only had about a day and a half to rest and relax. So, I don’t think it was anything particular.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Did people in the Army with you know that you were Jewish?

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Oh yeah. I went to, matter of fact, I used to get Saturdays off, Saturday mornings off, while they stood full field inspection. I had to lay my stuff out, but I didn’t stand by my bed while the inspection was going on. I went to the Saturday morning prayers in the chapel, Jewish Chaplain. I went to, Friday night and Saturday morning I went to Chapel for services.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

So, you did have some faith at that point, some sense of...?

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Well, I never denied that I was Jewish, my Jewish identity. Everybody that knows me, knows that I’m Jewish. I’m not hiding anything. I’m just... what I’m saying is that I have just... and I believe in God, don’t get me wrong, even to this day. But I just do not believe that God really gives a hoot about any particular individual, you know. Something created this world. But I do not believe that he cares about any particular individual, any... you know, which a lot of faith says that, your personal, whatever, savior or He cares for you, whatever. In my view He don’t care for anybody. He created and it’s up to you to, you know, to do the best you can. He couldn’t care less about anything at all.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

But would you actually pray when you went to services on Saturday morning?

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RG-50.549.05.0014

No, not really. I would listen to the sermon and all that stuff, but. No, I don’t think I really prayed. I don’t think I ever prayed since before the war. Well, I did when my father died. And when I go out to the... me and my step-brother, we usually meet once a year. We go down to Florida because both my father and his mother is buried 1n cemetery there. And so, yes I say prayer for the dead at his grave. That I do, not because I believe, but because, to honor him, you know, but it’s not the same. So anyway. That is just me.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Did you experience any anti-Semitism at all in the U.S. Army? 25

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Yes, well there were always some, who hated everybody, you know. I really, didn’t bother me any. I mean they didn’t bother me personally, but I heard them talking, you know. I guess some didn’t know I was Jewish initially. Jewish jokes and this and that. But that, it didn’t bother me any, and once they knew who I was, they won’t do it in front of me. Once they knew I was Jewish they did not tell jokes in front of me or anything like that. I don’t know whether out of respect for me or they knew if they did then me and him going to go to Fist City. I don’t know which. [Laughing.] Anyway they did not. So, I personally I really can’t tell, say that... I wasn’t prosecuted or anything. I wasn’t threatened or anything in that sense. Insensitivity? Sure, but, you know, that’s everyday life. Doesn’t bother me any. Once they knew I was Jewish, then I don’t ever, never remember a guy twice telling jokes in front of me. And if he was a buddy of mine, then fine. I got a Jewish joke for you. I says, “That’s okay, let’s hear it.” But that was friendly banter not out of malicious, you know, hurtful type of thing. So that’s quite different. No, I can’t, honestly can’t say that I was in any way discriminated or treated unfairly or differently because I’m Jewish while I was in the Service. I really, honestly can’t say that. I don’t know maybe I was just fortunate, you know, the units that I was with. Or you know, what I can answer... matter of fact, once I had a Jewish Ist Sergeant. I had a Jewish guy working for me later on when I got up in the grades.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Did you, well you kind of, you entered the Army at time when...

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Cold War.

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Cold War and I’m just wondering how you saw that and then also I know there were so many issues going on about civil rights for African-Americans. And I know the Army was one of the first really to integrate...

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No, that was before me. I mean integration started before I got into the Service. The integration started with Truman during the Korean War. Prior to the Korean War he ordered the Army to integrate its units. Because before you had separate black, separate... but we had a lot of racial problems even when I first got into the Service in the sixties. As a matter of fact, we had a race riot and we had fights, racial fights and that kind of stuff. Because, you know, for me, since I did not, wasn’t raised with black, first time I ever seen blacks was when I got to the United States. I had no prejudice. I wasn’t raised with any kind of preyudice against anybody. So, I basically, as I always, I would take an individual for himself. You know, I rate an individual for the individual. If he deserve respect, he got respect. If I didn’t care for him, whether it’s white, black, whatever, then I didn’t care for him. It wasn’t because of his race. It’s because I didn’t care for his character or his behavior or, you now. That’s the way, you know, it was for me. But when I got in in 1960, you had a Brown Boot Army. I don’t know if you understand what a Brown Boot Army was. But Brown Boot Army, you had... basically, we had, like, our Company, we had a room that was empty. There wasn’t a stitch of furniture, anything, it was an empty room. If you had any problem with anybody, you and him just went into the room and settled your business with your fists. That’s the way things were done. We had a Platoon Sergeant, his name was Cooper. He was half Indian and half Irish. And he was about 64” and weighed about two hundred thirty, somewhere around there. And you messed up and he’d take you into the room there and put you through the woodshed. So he had a very well behaved 26 Platoon. Everybody worked together. You can’t legislate away prejudice. That’s something that you learn at home from your parents, from your society, from your parents, whatever, church, whatever. What you can do with the Army 1s, you force civility. Regardless of whether you like him or not, while you are 1n the unit and while you are in the Army, you treat him the way you expect to be treated. And later on when I became a Platoon Sergeant, whatever, that was my guiding principle. I didn’t care whether... I say, “I don’t care if you like him or not. That’s neither here nor there. You two work together, perform the job, be civil to each other. Once you get to know each other maybe you like him.” You know what I’m saying? That’s all you can expect. You can’t legislate love or you can’t legislate racial prejudice away. That’s silly to even think about it. Just like now, all this silly thing about the gays and all that stuff. I don’t hate gays. Bible says that’s wrong, but I would want to know if anybody in my unit was gay that I had to fight with. I might have to, he might have to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Or I had to go to the shower with him, if I know he is gay I would be uncomfortable. Not a question that I hate him. That question doesn’t make no sense, because in the Service you live so close together, you know? There is no little shower stall where you go in in your privacy. They got one big room with a bunch of shower heads where everybody takes showers. And guys just feel uncomfortable when they know somebody is gay. And that’s the problem, not that anybody has anything against gays. In my view anyway. And you got AIDS, you don’t want to have to deal with somebody out in the battlefield if you get shot if you know he is gay. You’re going to deal with it, try to patch his wound, which you have to do. And then catch AIDS from him, you know. Those are the issues that people don’t think about when they condemn the Armed Forces, well they’re preyudice or whatever. There’s a lot more to it than that.

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Were you surprised at all by some of the racism that you found in this country that is founded on principles of equality?

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Yeah, I was surprised. You know, because... I really didn’t realize it till I got to this country due to the fact that I never encountered any black people. So when I worked for Fiber, for Ephart Fiber and Rubber Company, they had blacks there and all that. I was friends with, I treated them, like everybody with respect just like I treat everybody else. I got to be friend with one of them. But I noticed that every time like when you sit down to eat or this and that or lunch, or whatever, you would see all the whites congregating. All the blacks would go sit over there. There was no interaction between the races. That kind of struck me funny. So, I sit down and I sit down with... End of Tape 2, Side B 27 Tape 3, Side A

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This is tape number three, side A of an interview with Paul Schlisser.

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So anyway, the Fiber... I worked with a fellow worker who was black, and when everybody went to lunch I noticed all the whites were sitting on one side and all the blacks were sitting somewhere else. And the guy I worked with, he sat down to eat lunch. I just got my lunch and sat down beside him. He kind of looked at me a little funny. I didn’t realize there was anything wrong with it, because, you know, I had no idea it was not supposed to be that way.

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RG-50.549.05.0014

Did you keep on sitting with him after that?

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Sure, yeah, every morning, every day lunch we usually, he and me, we’d sit down and have lunch and talk. He was asking me about Israel and I was telling him about Israel. [Laughing. ] And you know, he would tell me about what they were doing in Newark, his neighborhood and all that. Yeah, I mean, you know, we became friends.

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Where were you posted in Germany?

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My first tour I was Bamberg. I was with the Ist Battle Group, 15th Infantry. And that’s the same outfit that Eddie Murphy was in the Second World War. The most decorated individual in the Second, Third Infantry Division. And Eisenhower was in the same outfit, at one time Company Commander a long, long time ago. So, it’s a famous unit and I served it two years in the Straight Leg Infantry.

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And you were on another tour in Germany later?

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At the time I got out... I was draftee, so when I finished my two years I got out and went home, back to Miami and looked around and decided I was going to go into heating and air conditioning. And so I went to school and then I had to work. And I said, “Well this ain’t going to get it.” No time for myself or anything else. Went to school, from school you went to work and next morning got up, went to school, went to work. You had no time for yourself, nothing. So I said, “Well I’m going to go back into the Army, this time voluntarily. I’ll make the Army a career.” Because I liked the Service, its purpose. And during that time we went up to a place called L.Z. X-Ray, which is now longer classified anyway. But it was up on the Czechoslovakian border and there was a bridge there that was mined. And you went up there, pulled your duty for a month at a time. And if the balloon ever would go up, or the East Germans would attack the West, the job was to blow up the bridge. It was all mined and all that. So then I realized, I seen the border and all that, I realized that this whole, back basically, the Russians were back to where the Nazis were. Plus I read, I don’t know then or a little later, Solzhenitsyn’s book about the gulags and all that. And I said, heck, they’re no better than the Germans were. So anyway I decided I was going to go back into the Service. So, I re-enlisted and lo and behold they went and sent me back to Germany. [Laughing.] That was my second tour in Germany. We were sent to Kaiserslautern and spent three years there. It was an Army Depot. I went into the maintenance field there. Then I came back, went to the 18" Airborne Corps in Bragg, North Carolina. And from Bragg, North Carolina there was a little altercation in 28 the Dominican Republic. There was a Leftist uprising and they had to send in the 82™ Airborne and I was with the 556 Light Maintenance Company and we were in there for support. My platoon went in to support the 82™ in their operation in the Dominican Republic. That was ‘65. Came back from there, our unit was declared D-1, which means that we were alerted that we were going to get shipped to ‘Nam. So we had to pack everything, all the equipment of the unit and all that stuff. That was going on, the deadline rates which means the equipment, inoperability of a lot of the equipment on post at Fort Bragg got so big that they told us to unpack our stuff and go back to work. [Laughing.] So, we went back to work and then they started taking individuals. Like me, they took me, not me, but from the unit just individuals and shipped them to Vietnam. So 1966, I was sent to Vietnam. I was there in the Central Highlands for a year. And say well I’m just going to go back to the States and get shipped back here again, so I might as well extend. So, I extended, got promoted and was sent to the Korean Tiger Division, support of the Korean Tiger Division, along Highway 1, between Bomber 2 and Elza English (ph)*. Anytime the Korean Tiger went out on a sweep and destroy, we went with them in support of them. In ‘68 I came back to, from ‘66 through ‘68, I was in Vietnam. I came back from Vietnam in, I think it was November ‘68 and was assigned to Fort Knox. I reported in, in December ‘68 to Fort Knox and I became an instructor in the Armor School.

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About Vietnam, you had, you had by then already fought in a war and then been through a war as a victim and the war you fought in you obviously had, in Israel you felt passionate about the cause. And how did you feel about the cause in Vietnam? By that point were you, were you...?

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No, I was all for the war. I believe we did the right thing. And I still believe we did the right thing, actually. Except you can’t fight a war when the people are not with you. To me that was the thing, because we were justified in what we were doing. I mean the North Koreans were attacking the South and it proved, I mean, it shamefully, the reporters and everything, they all twisted everything to suit their views. But in fact, we were right. The North Koreans basically, if not for us, they probably would have gobbled up all of Southeast Asia, the Communists. They wound up, years later, they took over Cambodia. Laos, they already controlled. So basically the dominant theory was right, even though the reporters disputed it. So, we stood up against the Communists. And that’s eventually after Reagan, finally they collapsed. But we basically contained them and that was Truman’s policy, containing the Communists from spreading. If we wouldn’t have opposed them, heck probably over two-thirds of the world today would have been all in the communist top. You know, so, in my view we did the right thing. I know a lot of people opposed it. And I got called a baby killer when I came back on leave from ‘Nam. After my first year there I extended, so they gave me thirty days’ leave. So I came in, in Fort Lewis, Washington and everybody said, “Change clothes. Get in civilian clothes, don’t go out in the airport in the clothes.” I said, “I fought for this country in these clothes, it was my uniform. [Il be doggone if I’m going to change clothes. I’m going home in uniform.” “Oh, you’re crazy, you’re crazy.” “That’s okay.” Anyway I went and I went to Seattle to the airport and there were Hare Krishna and all them other ones. And, “Baby killer!” I went and punched him in the mouth and knocked him down. [Laughing.] A cop was standing there looking, he didn’t, he just smiled, he didn’t say nothing. And I just kept walking. Don’t call me no baby killer. I never killed no baby. I came home in my uniform, and I hauled back to ‘Nam after a month leave, but on my uniform and went back. I believe firmly in, you know, I’m not hiding. I think we did the ? Schlisser was with E-Co 43" Sig BN, in the Binh Dinh mountains of the Central Highlands. 29 right thing. I know a lot of people disagree. But it’s not true. We didn’t lose a single battle in ‘Nam. Nota single, they can’t point to one single engagement that the United States Army or the Marine Corps, the United States Forces lost. Not a single one. Every battle that we fought against the North Vietnamese we won. But they made it out that we lost, and we didn’t. The people who lost is the comm... the politicians here in Washington. Because they first of all tied one hand behind your back and said you can only fight with one hand. And you don’t go to war that way. It’s ridiculous. So anyway, so yeah, I thought it was justified. I was for the Vietnam War and I still say it was justified. Everything we found out up to now it just reinforces my view that we were justified in doing it. Not the way we did it. Now, I agree we should never have fought the way we did. We should have gone in with the purpose of winning and we should have won. The way you did that is you gone into North Vietnam and kicked their butt and got it over with. Instead of just, you know, “Well, you can’t get into Cambodia, you can’t bomb this, you can’t do that.” You can’t fight no war that a-way and win. Crazy. Just like, you know, I was interviewed by WAVE 3 TV. They wanted to know about Kosovo, what my views were. I told them, I said, “Well I’m not talking for the Jewish community. You want my view, I'll talk for myself. My view.” And I said, “First of all, anybody said that is a genocide 1s a liar. There was no genocide in Kosovo.” And now it’s proved out, it’s true. There wasn’t any. Sure, I’m not saying there wasn’t atrocities. But there’s a big difference between atrocities and genocide. I told them, “I wish they would have taken my family and put them on a passenger train and take them to the border and put us off. All of us would have been together.” You know. I don’t call that genocide. Sure they killed some here, killed there, but that’s atrocities they did to scare the population so they would run. That’s a long ways from genocide. Now Cambodia, that was genocide. Did anybody open their mouth and say anything or do anything, where it really counted? No, they didn’t. You know. To me, we have no business in Kosovo, that stuff been going on now for hundreds of years. And even while we sitting there, you know, they killing each other. The minute we move out of there, we be there a hundred years from now, we be still sitting there to keep them apart. They need to settle themselves. And same thing in Bosnia. Bosnia, I don’t care what anybody says. The minute European forces get out of there, United States and NATO get out of Bosnia, they’Il be right at each other’s throat. And they say Kosovo, you know, ethnic cleansing. Well, where were we when Croatia forced out over half a million Serbs? We didn’t say a word, so what 1s the difference here? The Croats I hate. They were with the Nazis. I mean they were allies to the Nazis. We caused, the United States caused most of the stuff that’s going on in Balkan now. It’s our fault. Okay? When Croatia, when Tito died and Croatia was the first one to declare that they are, their independence. Without asking any questions, anything, right away we jumped in and recognized them as independent country. Okay? Well, they murdered a quarter of a million Serbs during the Second World War, including, plus Jews. The Croats. Okay? You think that the last of the Serbs are going, who live there, are going to agree to come again under the rule of the Croats? You got to be crazy. I mean, you got to know the history of the world before you meddle. And if you don’t understand what the history 1s, they got no business meddling in there where you don’t know what the hell you're doing. That’s my view anyway. I’m very upset about it, because I don’t think that, you know, we had any business in there at all. But anyway, when they asked me I told them, I said there was no, you know, genocide there. There might have been atrocities, but there’s no genocide from what I consider, you know. They were comparing it to the Holocaust.

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Is that why they were asking you, because they knew about your history? 30

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Yeah. They had, they taped the thing when I was talking at the Jewish Community Center on the Remembrance. So they knew my background. So they came. I told them I’m not talking for the Jewish community. You know, matter of fact, I’ve had very little contact with the Jewish community, but if you want to know my opinion, personal opinion, I’ll gladly tell you what I think. And that’s exactly what I told them. So, anyway.

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Did you, how long did it, it’s pretty clear that you had to really believe in this country and in its founding principles in order to do the kinds of service that you’ve done.

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Yes.

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Did you have that right away? Is that something that you came to this country with or is it something that developed?

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No, I came with it to this country. I’ve always believed that the United States represents the freedom of the Free World. In other words, even as a, when I was, right after the war in Sweden, you know. And some of the children in the orphanage, whatever, they were for the Russians, the communists, Left inclination. We always had big argument, even as a little boy then, and I was always defending the United States, because I felt, you know with my dad being from, born here and everything, I felt, you know, as an American, [Laughing.] even though I had never been here. Anyway, I felt a kinship and I always believed that the United States basically represents the human freedom. And I still do, you know. And it’s fine with me. I have no problem with somebody like Joan Baez and all the other ones who opposed the war. That’s why we fought. I mean, they have the right to speak their view. They’re Americans and I respect their views. I might not agree with it, but I respect it. I cannot expect, accept somebody like Jane Fonda, who went to North Vietnam, you know, with North Vietnamese troops and there was prisoners of war in the Hanoi Hilton and stuff. And they went in to look at them. Any show that she is in, that is not on my TV. I will not. Pll turn the station. I will not have anything that Jane Fonda has played in, movie, whatever. It may be the greatest movie in the world. It’s not going to play on my TV.

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You think the people who were protesting the war just didn’t understand the nature of war itself?

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I don’t know. They were misled in my view by the reporting that was going on here. Obviously none of them wanted to go to fight. And so if you don’t want to go to fight, what do you do? You oppose and you riot and you do everything else you can to get out of it. I don’t know what the motive... I’m not setting any alterior motives. It might have been very noble motives for them to oppose it. I’m not condemning anybody. I respect Muhammad Ali. He opposed the Vietnam War, but he had the courage of his convictions. He stayed in this country. He said I won’t fight because I’m not, you know, whatever. And was willing to go to jail if he had to for what he believed in. I respect that. I cannot respect someone like Clinton, you know, who did everything he could to stay out and then he lies about it. You know, what kind of principle is that? He’s not a principled person to begin with. That’s my view. I always voted. Every election I always vote. I believe in participating. As a matter of fact, I’m just reading a book 31 about the history of Democracy in the United States, from back before the colonies, how the Democracy developed. Just reading the book right now.

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When and how did you meet your wife?

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That’s a good question. [Laughing.]| I was stationed here in Fort Knox in ‘69, the beginning of ‘69. And I had a friend, Larry, and he was from Bristol, Tennessee. And he would always ask me to go home with him. And I said, “Nah, I don’t want to go. What do I go over there for? I didn’t lose anything there.” So months later his car broke down and he had no way... he was married and his wife was back in Bristol. And he had no way to get home. So, I said, “You know what? All these months you’ve been asking me to go with you home and all that, so Pll take you home this weekend.” And we come back... I worked with him on his car, trying to get it fixed. We couldn’t get it fixed in time. So, I said, “Well, Pll take you home.” That’s the way it went. So he stopped on the way home, telling his wife that he’s bringing me, says, “Why don’t you get him a date while he’s there?” [Laughing.] Okay. That sort of guy. That’s the exact way it happened. So we got there and then Helen was, that evening, we got there late in the evening, late in the afternoon. That evening went out to the VFW Club to dance and drink. Anyway, she was there. And then, that was April, and I think a week or ten days later or two weeks later was the Kentucky Derby. So, Ray’s wife was going to come up here, so Helen said, “Well, Pl come with you.” You know, so, “Okay,” so, one thing led to another. So that’s how we met. [Laughing.] It’s one of those freaky, unintentional, you know, something that you never...

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When did you get married?

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In July of ‘69, so I think about three months after we met.

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What kind of ceremony did you have?

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Just a civil. She wanted a church wedding. Her pastor wouldn’t marry us because I was Jewish and she was Presbyterian, whatever. [Laughing.| So we had just a civil service, civil ceremony, which was fine with me. I didn’t want no church wedding anyway or any kind of religious ceremony, anyway. So we just had a civil marriage, you know.

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You said a little earlier how you really, haven’t talked much about your history during the war.

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Yeah.

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Did you talk with your wife at all about it during those early days?

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No. I told her I was in concentration and stuff, but I never mentioned anything about it, no. I think the first time she ever heard it, is was when Dr. Dickstein, Professor Dickstein was here from the Shoah Foundation for the interview. I think that was the first time she ever heard anything about it. I don’t talk, not just to her, I just don’t talk about it, period. I want it behind me, not in front of me. I don’t want to live... my sister been twice in the nuthouse, the one in 32 Sweden. She lives in the past all the time, that’s what she lives in. She can’t get over it. I don’t want to be like that.

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You feel like in a way like looking back too much would make you less healthy mentally?

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I get nightmares, my dear. When I talk about the stuff, for a week after that I got nightmares every night. I didn’t tell you all kind of stuff that I could have told you, but I don’t want to, because I don’t want to dig it up. I seen old man get shot right in front of me, old guy with a beard, looked like my grandfather. On the march to Budapest he couldn’t walk, just shot him like nothing. I just, you know, doesn’t do nothing good. And I can’t deal with it. I can’t live like that with the nightmare constantly on my mind. I just put it behind me. I closed it down as tight as I can close it down and that’s it. I’m willing to step forward when she asked me to, you know. And like I said, the main reason I did that because I feel that at least I got to go on record that it did happen. That it’s not somebody’s fantasy and it’s not, you know, somebody made it up. People say that it didn’t happen. That it did happen. So I felt that was my obligation do, but that’s all. I mean I’m not going to be living in that. I refuse to do that. I’m just not...

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I respect that. I don’t want to make you feel like I am pushing for something that you don’t want to talk about. Of course, you know what you’re willing to talk about and what you’re not. But I also was, I’m interested, you had mentioned a little earlier that you’re not very, you’re not very connected with the Jewish community here in Louisville?

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No, I’m not. I think I know a total of two, three people, beside Professor Dickstein and her husband. I know Doctor Freiger, he’s a psychiatrist at the UL, University of Louisville, Mr. Grossmann and a couple of workers at the Jewish Community Center. And that’s basically all the Jewish people that I know here in Louisville. Because most of my friends are from the Army and none of them are Jewish. And I probably wouldn’t fit in very well with my views and my way of thinking. I wouldn’t fit very well in with the Jewish community to be perfectly honest with you.

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I was interested because I think in some places where you have a large, I mean for example, when I’ve spoken with Holocaust survivors who live in New York City, where there are many other Holocaust survivors, they tend to really...

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Get together?

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...band together more. Whereas I think a lot of the people I’ve talked to here are more, you know, just leading their own lives and it’s not as important to them to have that.

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No, to me, I don’t search out other Holocaust survivors. As a matter of fact, I met a lady at the meeting with, what’s his name?

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Martin Goldfarb... Goldberg?

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Yeah, that she was from the same town as me, Debrecen. And she was also a survivor. And she didn’t know my family, because I was too small to remember. She was, must have been, 33 probably my sister’s age, maybe a year or two older than her during that time. We talked. But she was also liberated in Bergen-Belsen. But no, I don’t have any, first of all, it’s too far away for me to drive all the way out there just for programs and stuff. There is no connection between me and my view of things and... most of the Jewish Community Center, they’re mostly Americans, who were born here and raised here. Who have never been through anything like we have. There’s absolutely no connection between us that, you know, that we can... see my life experience is different than most of theirs. So, we have really nothing in common. I’m nota businessman. I’ve never been in business, never plan on being in business. I couldn’t sell you a glass of water if you were dying of thirst. I’d give you a glass of water, but I wouldn’t sell it to you. I’m just a different type of person. So I just, wouldn’t fit in there. I go off to my own little drum. I’m involved with the veterans of this state. End of Tape 3, Side A 34 Tape 3, Side B

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Tape three, side B. You work with the...

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I work with the veterans of this state. I volunteer for Kentucky Center for Veteran’s Affairs as a counselor, veteran claim, help file claims and that kind of stuff. I’m also Vice-State Legislative Representative for Non-Commissioned Officers Association. So, that keeps me busy. I’m an official briefer for my association out at Fort Knox. I go out to the units and give them classes on VA benefits and that kind of stuff. I do volunteer work under the Retirement Service Office on Post at Fort Knox. And every time I have a Second World War veteran, I can help them it makes me feel good. Even though I wasn’t liberated by American troops, but you know, I know that he had a hand in liberating me, you know. So I’m glad when I can help one of them. So, that’s what I do. I try to help veterans as much as I can. That’s my thing.

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When did you retire?

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I retired medically in ‘83. I had two heart attacks and I had my colon removed. The VA rated me at two hundred percent, not a hundred. They can only get a hundred, but if you add all my stuff together, you get two hundred percent. I was exposed to Agent Orange. They sprayed that stuff down on me. We’re watching this thing fly over us and spray. We were underneath it. So, yeah, I’m basically a hundred percent disabled rated since ‘84, June, July of ‘83. That’s when they removed my colon. I’ve got a plastic bag. That didn’t stop me. I just keep on trucking. [Laughing.] I’m a tough dude. I’ve got diabetes. Nobody in my family has diabetes, never had. Again now it comes out, there’s a study going on that shows that guys exposed to Agent Orange have twice or three times as high a chance of getting diabetes as the normal population. So, I don’t know if that’s what caused it or something else, but anyway. So, I got heart disease. I got colon gone. I got diabetes. Taking about twenty-some pills a day. But I ain’t quit. I’m still going. I’m sixty-five, will be in November and until God lets me stay around I will do the best I can and that’s it.

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You have one child?

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One son, he’s adopted. He’s not mine. I adopted him. He was my wife’s child. He was just a young boy, and his name is Anthony Keith Schlisser. I don’t have any children of my own. Anyway, not that I know of.

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Did your son ever ask you about your past? Do you ever talk?

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Yes. We talked about it. With him I talked about it, not in particular details, just in general terms, so that he’ll understand where I’m coming from. And what my views are and why I got my views the way I got them and all that. Yeah, we are pretty close, him and me. We understand each other. We are good friends. We are close.

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Do you have anything else that you would like to say that I haven’t asked you about? 35

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