Gordon Claude Gordie Waters

And I worked at the Air Force Base in Moncton. And I left that to join the Army. When I was younger, I was in cadets and it was good training. In fact, glad I had that, even the boy scouts is a big help to go over to the army. I could already march, I could already do all these things. I sort of enjoyed it already, the military. Some people don’t, but I sort of liked it from my cadet experience, I thought it was just great. Yeah. It’s like I said, our first thing. We gave, we gave M tests, what they call them, memory tests and all that, these things, we marked up and everything. And we knew a lot of the stuff going on, but we couldn’t say anything. I still don’t talk, my wife used to get mad at me because I wouldn’t tell her where, what was wrong. That’s after the war. But it’s in there, you learn to keep your mouth shut and your ears open. That’s the secret of the whole thing. I’ve been to so many different places in England, and in and around and when Germany surrendered, we went to Germany. I was about, I left, and so I retired from Germany. I went back to England and back home. You see these pictures on T.V. of the earthquakes and all that? That’s just what it was like in Germany. I went overseas on an hour’s notice. Imagine getting ready and all that in an hour? And we had to get, make the ship before she sailed from Halifax, the RMS Queen Elizabeth, so it was a mad rush to get out. My CO [Company Officer] called me from Saint John [New Brunswick] and it was our district headquarters. And said, “I’m going overseas, you want to come too?” I said, “Yes, sir.” So there were about three stripes, I gave them up. (laughs) And I volunteered for Germany too. And I would have volunteered for the Korean War, but I was married then and the wife didn’t like that idea. I married a girl from Ireland overseas. Yeah. I learned a lot, you take a lot of chances. War is war. You know, they’re going to get you or you’re going to get them. And you don’t care that, people are different languages sort of, but you don’t care what language the other guy is next to you, he may save your life or you may save his. That’s the way we looked at it. It’s, one thing is just put up with. You have good days and bad days, like every day, everybody else. All in all, it was a good experience.