WILL: My name is Will Corndwell and I am the interviewer. The date is November 19, 2002. I am in the home of Col. Clyde W. Bradley. Who I'm interviewing at 3713 Everest Drive, Montgomery, AL 36106. Artis Thompson is here with me and he is the recording operator. Col. Bradley, for the record; what branch of service did you serve in?

BRADLEY: I spent my entire military service in initially what was called the US Army air corp then ended up, of course, the United States Air Force. So I spent 27 years (271/2 years really) of active military service.

WILL: And what was your rank?

BRADLEY: When I retired, I retired as a Colonel.

WILL: While in the war, where are some places where you were stationed.

BRADLEY: Well of course, most of my flight training was in Texas. Four different bases there. I graduated from Waco, TX Blackman Army Air Field .Commission 2nd Lt. Rated a pilot and then was immediately sent to Kyo Air Force Base where I started my flight training in B-17.

WILL: And do you remember what you were doing right before you enlisted in the Army (the Air Force).

BRADLEY: Yes, Yes! I was working in Biringham [sic], AL. Actually, the job site was Childersburg, AL where they wee [sic] building an ordance plant. I was an employee at the US Army. A civilian employee in construction work. I was a concrete inspector for all the construction work at that time. Of course, when the war broke out, I immediately left that job & went back to my home which was Asheville, NC and immediately applied for aviation cadet training.

WILL: Was there a particular reason that you joined or that you joined an aviation period.

BRADLEY: Well, it really go back probably to when I was about 15 years old. A friend & I saw an airplane flying around our home there in Asheville. We read in the paper that there was a bomb storming pilot that was going to be at the airport adjacent to the river and he was going to give rides to people for 50 cents each. My friend & I went to the site, stood in line, paid the man a dollar & we sat in the front cockpit of an open biplane aircraft. I was just fascinated by the experience. There I guess was the germ that was sort off lying dormant for me to fly airplanes. So when the occasion came, I jumped at it and went right into the service with the real purpose of being able to fly airplanes.

WILL: Do you remember what your first days of service were like?

BRADLEY: Well, initially I was a private & was sent to Fort Jackson South Caroline. We stayed there for five days. Then we moved to Lacklin Army Air Field @ San Antonio, TX which was the pre-flight school. We were there for four weeks undergoing what they called psychomotor testing to determine if you had an aptitude for flying. It included all kinds of physical exams. Just top to bottom. Quite a few of our people were eliminated physically. Unfortunately, I wasn't. But I was there four weeks & then went into flight training & my first civilian flight school.

WILL: Do you remember some of the things you had to do in flight training?

BRADLEY: Well, I was fortunate. Although I had no prior military service, I was selected as one of the cadet officers and as such, I had a position of responsibility, which involved recording the people present at the formation. I was responsible for inspecting them as far as dress is concern and leading the formation in whatever particular activity of the day was going on. So basically, I was what you might call the teacher of that particular group.

WILL: So this was boot camp?

BRADLEY: Nah, nah! We did not experience boot camp per say. I did not go through that hellish period of time. NO!

WILL: What exactly, what war did you serve in?

BRADLEY: My entire military service (war time service) was in World War II. I went to Mossworth, England. A B-17 base. I arrived there around the first of December of 1943. I graduated from flight school June of "43". I went through phase training, then went to England, arriving around the 1st of December. Then I started flying combat in the 3rd week in December - was my 1st combat mission.

WILL: Now did you stay the whole time in England or did you move around?

BRADLEY: No! The entire period of time in World War II was in Mossworth where I flew 28 missions. I was shot down on my last mission, which was my last scheduled mission. Had I returned to our base, at the end of the mission, I would have come home. As it was, my aircraft was disabled over Berlin by any aircraft artillery and we just couldn't sustain the flight. So, we ultimately ended up crash landing.

WILL: So where did you crash land?

BRADLEY: North of a little town called Solute which is in Northwest part of Germany close to Hamburg. We crashed landed there. Of course, we broke into three groups right quick to try to avaide capture which was difficult to do. This was in April. It was cold and of course, we had no food. We had no water. We broke into three groups. The group I was with, three others & myself was captured the second night after which I had to replace ---. The others was captured two or three days later. It was almost impossible to escape from Germany. If you were in occupied territory, you would have had a better chance but we were unfortunately we didn't.

WILL: So you was actually picked up by Germany military?

BRADLEY: German civilians. We were walking along, we came out of a pine forest. We was suddenly surrounded by farmers who wives were digging potatoes. The farmers (the men) were loading potatoes on wagons and they surrounded us, they took us to a nearby end. A little German end. They kept us there until the German soldiers came and took control of us. And then we were under military control then.

WILL: What was it like in England when you first got there.

BRADLEY: Cold! Cold & damp. Ah...of course, we are, our primary concern was flying at that time. A lot of the men would go off in the nearby communities and visit & go to church, go to the local bars and so forth. I stayed on the base. I spent most of my time right on the base waiting for the next event to transpire. And we...It was a hectic period of time. We fly, like one period of seven days, I flew five missions. And these were fifteen hour missions. So I decided to stay on the base and shepherd my energys and my activities all toward completing my combat tour and coming back home again. That was my main objective.

WILL: Can you tell us exactly what your mission was?

BRADLEY: Ya! The last mission that we flew were over Berlin. That was the target, Berlin. Maraningburg, which is the northern outskirts of Berlin. It was amazing that day. We were at 25 thousand feet. We were the third unit wing going in to the target and coming back from the target was B-24s. They were higher than we were. And everywhere you see was B-51s, B-47s, B-38s fighter air crafts. Then down on the ground, you saw B-26s flying down low. And our B-17. There must have been three thousand airplanes in the air that day. A fantastic site. You will never see it again! You will never see it again! And I can shut my eyes and still visionlize that exact scene that day. Over the target, any aircraft artillery hit two of our engines. Set number three on fire. Number four, the propeller ran away. You couldn't control it. We were finally successful in getting the fire put out. But we wasn't sure if it would start up again. So we had the crew prepared to bail out, but the Tail-gunner called and said, "How long can we fly?" Well, maybe an hour or an hour and a half. Well, if we are lucky, we can get back to Belgium. So, I will stay in the airplane. The other crew members said we will stay with the airplane. And so I told them, throw away anything that you don't need. Get rid of everything. But me personally, carried a bag like you all carry a bag with you where you go. We did too. Had all our junk in it. Come to find out we was down about two thousand feet. Flying along. Wing Gunner called and said that there was a FW-190 coming in from eight o'clock. Now that's like the clock here & eight o'clock is over here. So we are flying & he is coming in this direction. And I said, "be prepared if he starts to shoot at us. He flew up & pulled up along side. Then he look over & he could see that we were disabled. We were flying with a wing down like that & we were having a hard time controlling the airplane. We flew for about maybe five or ten seconds along side. We saluted.

WILL: This is a German airplane?

BRADLEY: German pilot. German pilot. He could have kill us. He could have come right in and literally in one burst of his machine we would have blown up. I went back to Germany after I retired from here. Liz & I went back to the place where I crash landed, went back to the place where we were held in the German end and I tried to find the name of the pilot. Then come to find out after I met a research historian, a German historian in the schools there (a college professor) and I gave him my story and he tried to find the pilot. Come to find out, the man had died about two months before we got there. So, I missed the opportunity to see him. Which would have been great. I owed my life to him. You know, he could have killed us. So we crash landed & they captured us and took us to this German fighter base. Then to an interrogation center, which was the main interrogation center for all prisons of war. There you were strip of clothing., examined, they took your shoes away. You were put in solitary confinement. Probably wasn't a quarters as big as this one. You had no communication with anybody. You were in solitary confinement. You had no one but yourself. You waited & waited & waited until you were called for interrogation. You got a bowl of soup at noon time. That evening they gave you a slice of bread and some more soup. We called it soup. Actually, it was more grass than anything else was. In the morning, they give you a warm cup of herb size coffee. A funny tasting stuff but we were glad to have it to survive. I was in solitary confinement for seven days. One of our crew members talked and when they found out what they wanted to know, they let us go. Then they moved us over to a holding center and from their train moved us to the POW Camp. Where I spent most of my time, which was Stay or left free(which was a camp over near a town called Sorau (southeast of Berlin). I stayed there from the time we were captured in April of "44" until January of "45". They moved us because the Russians were approaching. Then they moved us out by foot. We walked, let's see, we walked, the lst night we started at twelve o'clock. We walked all night, all the next day, all the next night. Then mid day of the second day, they let us stop in this little town. We just sort of spread out so we could find a place to sleep. I slept in the wood factory. It was warm to me. We stayed there for two or three days. Then they put us in another train and moved us to Nuingburg , Germany which is where an Italian POW camp. It was actually filthy. You will read about it in this book. That is the letter I told you about. The conditions are just horrorable. Didn't have any food. You didn't drink the water. If you did, you knew you would get dissenter So all you do, you get a tin can and build you a little fire of wood chips & boil the water then wait until it cool and drink it. But, just no food at all. Then it was decided that they was going to march us from there to Dacca (which is south of Nuingburg). We had all heard about Dacca. We didn't want to go there. We knew it was a extermination camp. But our commander told us, now we will march out of here like true soldiers. We will stay in formation. We will do like we are told, until we will get half way there, then we will revoke. We will kill the guards. We will take their guns and we will kill all of them and we will form a mass body and we will protect our selves. Then we will move toward the west where the Americans were. Well as it turn out, General Patton's armor division cut across the highway between us and Dacca. Then they move us over to a little camp called Mooseburg (close to Nunik). We were there for about eleven days. Then that was when the Americans took over the camp. That was it. We were free men.

WILL: Did you see a lot of unjust behavior in the camp?

BRADLEY: No! Not really. You have to recognize now we were officers and the Germans General Gore (commander-in-chief of the Air Force) insisted that we were treated like officers. The only mistreatment was psychological. You were not free. You were behind barb wire. There was always a guard there with an aimed gun in your face, pardon my expression, and at night they had roaming guards in the camp. But, you were constantly set with these massive rolls of barb wire. You weren't free. We weren't accustomed to that. We were customed to going where you wanted to go. If you wanted to go to Canada, you went to Canada. If you wanted to go to Mexico, you went to Mexico. But over there, we were under their control. Twice a day, they made us stand in formation, while they counted everybody to make sure you wouldn't escape. And it was a hum drum existence. You got up in the morning and the first formation was at eight o'clock. And you got a cup of coffee. It was a metal can about this tall. It held twenty four cups of water and you put one tablespoon full of coffee. So it was warm water that's what it was. Then you come back to the room and you got one slice of bread and maybe some jam and that was it. Then at lunch time they bring you what they called barley soup. Then the rest of the time, we had a small library. Then the rest of the time, you could walk around the camp. You could play bridge or whatever card game you wanted to. I spent most of my time in reading the bible. I read the bible once in complete and two thirds of the way the second time. I read a book by Loren Douglas entitle The Robe. A fantastic book. I am going to get a copy and put in the library at the church. It's just so great. It talks about the excicusition of Jesus Christ and the robe that he was wearing at the time which was a purple robe. It tell about what happen to the robe after his exicusition and how it affected the lives of the people. It is fantastic. I kept my faith in the fact that I knew that I was going to come home. I knew that I was going to service. My main worry, of course, was my mother & father and my two sisters and a brother. They didn't know wether I was alive or not. In fact, in retrospect, you will see in the log book, the telegrams that came from the War Department to my family. It was like forty days, they got a message that I was missing in action. For forty days, they didn't know if I was alive or not. Then they got the message that I was a POW. My mother told me an interesting story that my dad would go to his office in the morning to work and the first thing he would do would take out his wallet, open it and take out this folded western union telegram. And you will probably see the picture of it is in there is creased where he had folded it so many times. She said it was a tear jerk to watch him sit there and open it and read it. A lot of young men that didn't have any religion at all started to realize that there was something stronger than us. As an example, I was flying along one day and I was here. Another airplane was here. There was not an airplane here. Ten men at each other, flying along they was sitting right here. I looked over there and they were sitting right there. I looked back at my leader and looked back and they were gone. And I looked away and they were gone. There were twenty men. Just bang like that and you think. You know, why did that not happen to me. We was more than fifty feet of each other and the airplane is gone just like that. It sober you up and made you really do a lot of thinking about who we were and what we were and what will you be today and what will you be tomorrow. Of course, over there we were all in the same boat. Nobody was better than another was. Although, we had our hierarchy of rank. The senior man was a colonel and I was a Lt. and I knew where I stood but I knew as a human being we were all the same. I got the same amount of food that he got. That proves, he is no better than you are. He is no worst than you are. You are all human beings and you are all treated alike. So it became a sort of a regimented life, you woke up. I participated in the walking primarily. I was involved in the sports program. I played the outfield position on the softball team. I played touch football. We had two all Americans on our team. But I tried to stay involved. I learned to play bridge. As I said, I read. There is a list of books I read. I just tried to stay busy. Some people couldn't stand it. One kid in my room would cry every night. He would cry his self to sleep. He wasn't right. Some kids got letters from their wives that said, "if you stay a prison for another six months, I can pay for this fur coat that I bought. Or, do you remember Johnny. Well, Johnny is home and he has been separated from the service and Johnny and I are going with each other. Well, it was cruel. What could you do. Man is sitting there, a thousand miles away from his wife and he has no control of what's going on. Don't make him crazy. That was one of our objectives was trying to keep his mind off of things like that. So, you had all kinds of people. In all walks of life. My navigator was a rich man. A rich son. His mother & father had died and left he and his sister with tons of money. He was a very wealthy spoiled kid. But he was a human being like we were. So, not withstanding all that wealth, it did not do him any good. We were all in the same plateau. It was a year, eleven day, two hours and fifteen minutes of an existence that I don't wont to ever repeat again.

WILL: So that is how long you were a POW?

BRADLEY: That is how long I was a POW. But I feel that I am a better person for having gone through that. I learned a lot of things over there that I didn't know. I think that I gained some forms of attributes that under normal substances, I don't think that I would have formed. The reliance on other people. Trust on other people. Exclusivity trust. Like we were marching along and it was like five below zero and there was four abreast. There was four of us in the prison camp together, Joe was in front of me and he started dragging his left foot. That is a sign that you hurt yourself sometime and this is evident here in this cold weather. We found that he had hurt his knee playing basketball. Now he is dragging his foot along. The Germans told us, if you don't keep up with the convoy, we'll shoot you. We don't have time waste. The Russians are coming. And the Germans had fear of the Russians. Just tremendous fear. So, we helped Joe. We put an arm around each side. We helped him for four or five miles until he could get some strength back in his leg. Fortunately, I did not witness anybody getting kill. Some were. It was just too much to take. I think that if I had seen that, I would have rebelled against the guard and would have gotten myself killed too. But, we learned a lot over there. I think it made us all better people in the long run.

WILL: What kind of emotions did you have when the Americans showed up.

BRADLEY: Well, I was going to mention that 20 thousand prisoners were in this camp. All nationalities. There was some Indians, some Pakistinian, all races and creeds and colors were there. Twenty thousand. When the Americans came and impersonated the longer shelves in the guard turners. The guards was already gone. They knew the hours were coming. They were already gone. Then the next thing was the Gates. The wood gates, barb wire. This tank came in and just smashed them open. This GI got out of the tank and it pull up right next to the flag pole and we reached up and pull that German flag down and put the American flag up. Man, you never heard such a roar in all your life. People who wasn't Americans, they cheered and laughed and clapping and dancing and jumping up and down. We wished at that time that we had a movie camber to record it. It was a tremendous feeling. You knew you were free. And you knew you were going to go home. The best thing, you knew you were going to go home.

WILL: Now did you go home immediately after that?

BRADLEY: We were flown to a little town forty miles away and put on airplanes. Taken to a camp in Lacuna Stockin, France, who allowed us hot showers and clean fresh uniforms. Then they started feeding us very rich food:. milk shakes, candy bars. I weighed 89-98 pounds when I was captured. I was skin and bone. We were there at that camp for about five days. They put us on the troop ship and sent us home. Curious of the Navy. I end in Boston, Mass and went on a troop train to North Caroline. I got off the troop train and got a bus to my home tome. They didn't know that I was coming. They knew that I was in the states, but they didn't know where I was. When I got off at the bus station, it was three o'clock in the morning. I got a taxis and drove to Mom and Dad's. The front yard was covered with all kinds of stuff. Like if, you roll somebody's house today. Well, the house was just covered, all this scrubbery and everything. Of course, I knocked on the door and my Dad came to the door. Well, my brother was there. He had been discharged from the service by then. Then the relatives started coming in.

WILL: Did you do anything for good luck during those times?

BRADLEY: No, not really. No, you just sort of pick up where you left off. We had sixty days of leave at home and then I went to Turnerville, GA and started my peace time career there.

WILL: Are there any events that maybe happen at the POW Camp or before the POW Camp that were humorous that really jump out at you?

BRADLEY: Yes! As I mentioned, the four of us - we crashed landed in a German land in the Moors. It was a marsh area. And they harvest this and it solidifies and they harvest this and they make it in to a briquette for fires for barbecuing or whatever. But it is marshy and it stinks like mad. We were walking around and the odor was bad. My navigator was in charge and I was on this side and the Charlie was over here and my two enlisted men was in the middle and my chief engineer and my wing gunner and I was over there and I said Charlie. He didn't say a thing. I said Charlie. I said Charlie and my wing gunner Sgt. Succor said Lt. he is not here. I said wait a minute. What do you mean, he is not here. He is not here. I said, he has got to be behind us. So, we returned and started walking back but what happened, when they harvest this peek ball. They do it in like a ladder. Like a stairs. So, they cut this block out. They lift it out and they move forward and cut another block out and they always got this footing to use to cut this peek out. He had fallen off this edge. We were in this particular row. And he had fallen off and this last cutting. He was so serious. He was at zero. He was in the muck. He was going to freeze to death. So, what the hell are we going to do? I said: "listen, the human body has a lot of warmth in it." So, we put him in the middle and we surrounded him like a chair. And his teeth kept cheating. I was afraid that he was going to freeze. So, I said: "Hey fellows, we are going to have to build a fire. Now here you are and you are in this cave prison and we are trying to evade capturing. We are in the middle of Germany. It is two o'clock in the morning and you got a crew member that is going to die of pneumonia if you don't do something. So you get down on your hands and knees and gather where ever you can find the wood from. At that time, it was amazing to me, the moon came up. Before hand, it was dark. The moon came up and you could see enough to see where the trees were and we gather a pile of brush and lit it. We had a fire like five foot tall. We took his clothes all off of him. Made him stand in front of the fire and turn around. We were holding his clothes trying to make him, we finally got him dry but stink, oh man! I wouldn't walk next to him. And when they captured us and took us into this military base the first thing that he said to the guard was wash, wash, wash. The guard said: Ha! So they took him into the shower room and made him take a shower. That was the funniest thing that was. Of course, it wasn't funny to him. It was funny to us. Nothing funny happen the rest of my time in basic camp. No! Nothing was funny. There was some good moments, like our softball team. We beat everybody in the camp. Twenty-three wins. We bet cigarettes. I bet a cigar one time. A fellow gave me a cigar. I bet it and got two cigars. We would bet one pack of cigarettes and we were winning left and right. You know, it was pretty good. I did all right. I would take my cigarettes and swap my food. I smoked but I didn't smoke that much. So nothing, funny happened. But there is some good moments and bad but nothing really great. Oh, we had some shows that they put on. Kids dressed up like women and put on some stage shows. I guess that was funny. It broke the monopoly. I put it that way. It broke the monopoly.

WILL: Did you are any of you or the people that you were with pull and pranks?

BRADLEY: Nah, I don't think so. I don't think so. And the reason being, we were all under the same substance. As an example, If you had to go to the out door toilet . A building that had slacks and had four holes. What we called the eight horror place. If you had to go to the toilet you would go out there, you had four sheets of toilet tissue. That is all you could take. It was a fashion. All you could take was four sheets. If that wasn't enough you had to do like the Saddom Arabians do, you had to use your hands. Then wash your hands with soap and water. I was a very firm habitat and stayed clean. A buddy of mine in my room was a weight lifter back in school. A weight lifter and wrestler. We called him the bear. They had a recreational place there in the Smoky Mountains and he had to wrestler a bear once a day for tourist. Les was pretty strong. I said to Les one day, you know we take that shower once a month. That is not enough. So, we went down to the little wash room. This had four sinks, two on each side of the room. We took the facet and turned it up. We only had cold water. We didn't have hot water. We had only one hot shower a year and it lasted only about three minutes and that was it . We turned the facet up and it would come up about maybe that high. We would turn it side ways and stand under it and take a cold shower. Man it was cold water. But, I think my system sort of got use to that and I stayed clean. I took a shower every two nights. Monday, Wednesday & Friday just tradition got in there and took a shower. I never had a bad cold. Never had a bad cold. Everyone else sniffing and suffering and sneezing. You only had one handkerchief. And if you used your toilet tissue, what was you going to do. I never did get sick over there. Like diarrhea. I got diarrhea so bad. I lost about five pounds in about two days. All I could do was lay in bed. What happened, over there when your system, if you tasted a rotten egg, odor of a rotten egg when you belched, that was the second that you would get sick. One morning, I stayed around eight months or so. And I was in good shape, I thought. Like I said 89 to 98, pounds and I could run around the compound. I would win candy bars from betting people. I could run around the compound in eight minutes or less. But I did, it was about three quarters of a mile. But I did run track in high school. So, I was in pretty good shape. When I belched that morning, I drink a cup of coffee. Oh, gee! That was horrible. My buddy said, "what does it taste like. What did it smell like" I said, " a rotten egg." I can not eat an egg today. If you go in there in the refrigerator and take out and egg and break it and bring it in here in a saucer and hole it to my face, I will regurgitate. It's psychological, probably. The minute I smell somebody cooking eggs in a restaurant like McDonnell's or some place, man I have got to get as far away from the source as I can. I can't stand it. But I was fortunate, I didn't have any physical disabilities at all.

WILL: Do you recall where your service ended?

BRADLEY: Military, I retired one December 1967.

WILL: Where were you?

BRADLEY: I was at San Antonio, Texas at Headquarters Air Training Commander. I came to Montgomery and then went to work as a Federal employee at the University and worked eighteen more years as a Federal employee. So I have a total of 45 years, I have dedicated to this good country of ours.

WILL: Did you make close friendships that you may still have today?

BRADLEY: Oh, yea! I've got probably a telephone directory in here with oh, probably a hundred names that I can call on the phone and say; Bob, you know I've got a little situation here and I really in a jam and I need five thousand dollars and I need it tomorrow and I would get it. I get it from more than one. From more than one . I just talked to a man down in Florida. He wanted to see us about a month ago. He came over and spent two days over to the long house. He called awhile ago and be sure that we are going on a trip in January, a cruise. He said, listen. You drive you car down here to Fort Lawndale is where the ship leaves. You park your car at the port and it will cost you ten dollars a day. Seven day trip will cost you seventy dollars. There is no guarantee that your car will be there when you come back. Of course, there is a pretty good assurance that it will be, but you may loose a little. He said, you come and stay at our house and we will drive you. That is the kind of friends that I have. That just offer it to you. You don't ask for it. They just offer it to you. I got a friend in San Antonio. His wife died, Jackie. My wife died. We were as close as any four people could be. I played softball. I think I managed the team there at Randoff. He (Bob & Jackie) would bring their two kids. We had two at that time. We would all go together. After the game, we would stop at the barbecue place and have some barbecue and coke. We were a real close family. We lived next to each other. We had the love of Texas. We lived next to each other in Waco, TX. Our nearby neighbors in San Antonio. I will go in there and call Bob right now and say Bob, I have two young men here interviewing me, they needs some money. They are sort of in a jam. They are going out on a convention. They needs some money and I am flat out. I need some money. How much do you need. And he would wire it to me tomorrow. There are not a lot of people that are like that. We are bless.

WILL: Did you join any type of Veterans organizations?

BRADLEY: Oh, yea! I counted the number of cards I got the other day. Fifteen life memberships. Ha! Ha! A knock on the door and say, I am starting a new Veterans organization and we would like to have you as a life member. Hell yea! Come on in and set down. How much do you want. And the reason being it that they do a good service to a lot of people. You may not know what or who they benefit but there is a beneficial aspect to every veteran's organization. Now I do not contribute to the Police Benevolence association. The Sheriff Boy's Ranch, I don't do that. But, I will contribute to the Veterans organization. I just came from the VA Hospital today. They passed a law it talks about concurrent receipt. What this is, I retired and I get military retired pay of five dollar, I went to work as a federal employee and retired and I drew five dollars a month, but the Veterans Administration said wait a minute you got a disability so we are going to give you three dollars a month. So now instead of going five and five, I get five, five and three, but they takeout that equal amount of money out of my retired pay. That makes since?

WILL: Yes and no.

BRADLEY: No! because I retired, 27yrs. I earned that five dollars, I earned that OK. I worked 18yrs. as a Federal Employee, I earned that! I worked 18yrs. Sometimes seven day a week, 14 hours a day. One job in the military I worked for seven straight days without sleep because we had a underground silo on fire and it was getting ready to explode and I was the on scene commander. I'm in charge of five hundred people trying to contain that missile had that thing gone up, Bam! Half of California. Is deluded with a Nuclear with a nuclear warhead. So, I earned my five dollars. I earned this five. Well the VA said because you suffered an extremity to your leg because of that fire that you were working in, you feel and hurt you leg we are going to give you three dollars a month for disability pay. So, that would have been five, five and three. But then they said wait, dual law says, that is concurrent receipt. You 're drawing civil service pay, and military pay, nall we gotta take this three dollars a month away from you.

WILL: Yeah that's not fair.

BRADLEY: I know. They just passed a law, and it says that I will get all of the money that they withold because of my VA pay all the money that they've been holding from military pay, they won't hold it anymore, but they held a considerable amount for the past 27yrs.

WILL: Did you have any preconceived notion of what the war would be like before you got into it?

BRADLEY: No, No, No, No, I knew people would die but I had no conception of what combat would be like, air combat. When you're fighting along and airplane is coming at you, you'll see little silver dollars coming at you. That means he's shooting. Clouds of black smoke with a center of red fire and it explodes and shrapnel goes in every direction and you hear it hitting your airplane. One case came through came through our cockpit, I was holding my hand on the throttle and we had four throttles like this. And I was holding my hand and there was a bar across that you rest your hand on there and you can easily grab the trottle and do what ever, but I hit my hand and the flat came through and I had gloves on and it landed in my hand, burned my glove. That could of easily hit me in my eyes, so there's a divine presents that take care of us. More times than one.

WILL: What about the military, did you have any preconceived notions of it?

BRADLEY: None, none, none what so ever but I enjoyed every bit of it . I was fortunate enough to be in the category of being know as a leader and a good commander. And I was a good commander, not being vain, but I was a good commander and I progressed up the ladder because of that. Had I gone to Vietnam from San Antonio in return I would have been promoted to general, very problem. The circumstances were that they would send me to Vietnam and I was not going to fly. I said wait a minute, I'm a pilot. If you send me to war, I'm going to fly. I'm not going to sit on the dog gone ground and wave good bye to the pilots in the morning and when they come back. Sit at the bar and have a drink with them and they're talking about combat and I wasn't in it, no I can't do that. The job you are going to you'll be the base commander. There will be eight military people there and you'll be responsible for them. Man I could handle that. You got to delegate at authority, pick good people. Say you do this , you do that and you do your job and you do your job and would've had no problems commanding that group of people in combat with the Vietcong right outside your base, didn't bother me a bit. But I was not going over there and not fly. So I went to my commander and Lt. Zenal and he sent a wire to the commander of the 7th Air force and I said I can't go in a combat general environment and not be in it. And I didn't . So what if you had of gone? I could've been killed who, knows. The service in the military is a lot of vast unknowns, there are a lot of knows, because your job is delineated. You know exactly the what the job requires. But there are a lot of unknowns about the military.

And I had five meetings before we were able to form one. We had about one hundred and five members. After that, I have a start for the other chapters in Alabama. Then we form the State Department of Alabama. I was fortunate. I served as the commander for the first term. Our chapter, had a meeting yesterday. We meet once a month. We have a program and a speaker. We have a military man yesterday and spoke to us about the Hero combat in Afgavistan. It was interesting. But, it was only thirty people in there. There are still more than a hundred. They are dying. So, I was active in forming that and I joined the exchange club of Montgomery. I started, developed and started what is the crime prevention program of Montgomery. Neighbor hood watch association. I started that with Major Jim Robertson. When he was the major. I also started the drug use program with the police department. I then, joined the Kawannis club and started the Kawannis Club in Huntsville along with the Disable American Veterans. I do not belong to the American Legions because it was duplicated. I belong to the Historical American Society. I belong to the Third Club Mountain Society. I belong to the Rescue Association. And the list goes on and on. If it is a military organization, I belong to it.

WILL: Overall, how would you say your military experiences have affected your life?

BRADLEY: Oh, I am military oriented. Truefully [sic], top to bottom. Cut me and blood come out as patiortic [sic] red. I volunteer for recall active duty this last year. I am 82. Sir, all due respect, you are too old. Thank you very much! He thought I was joking. He did not know how serious I was. I think of the cadet commander in officer training school in those year of San Antonio. It's at Maxwell now. I was going to go into my close [sic] and put on my uniform and walk out tomorrow morning just like that picture. Uniform fits. And I could be a cadet out there tomorrow, as affective [sic] as the man out there. And I say that not to be in vain. Because I know him and I know him. He is a good person. He is doing a good job. He is a member of Godian Organization which is comprised of military pilots. Strictly military pilots. So, I know him. He is good. I could take the job if I wanted it. Those airplanes over Iraq. I'm keeping my fingers cross [sic]. My advice to him, personally. Four years, a young lady in the military, four years minimal. I guarantee if that police went into effect. If this policy went into affect to day I grantee a 60% decrease in drug use and robbery. The biggest problem we face today is lack of a home. Lack of love and affection and fathership. I had 2 sisters and a brother, my father was 6'2 , 240lb. Just as strong as an ox, with a a heart as tender as a dove. He told my brother and me you go to school for one proposes [sic], to learn. While there you are in the care of teachers but they are your family while you are the, and if you got in trouble there you were in more when you got how. 82yrs. And never been involved in a fist fight, a lot of opportunities. but I didn't. I was a boycott [sic], a good boycott , a leader.

WILL: Well that's about all is there [sic] I have

BRADLEY: I just want to thank you for coming over and chatting with me. I think it is a great honor for to [sic] young men to ask me to participate in a [sic] interview