experience. I have strong memories of those front line days and nights. One night, from the front lines, I witnessed a sight in Cebu City that would be considered rare. A Japanese soldier with a bomb strapped to his body passed through the Army lines and crawled into an ammunition dump where he detonated the bomb. The fireworks lit up the night. Some five miles from Cebu City, the front lines were illuminated most of the night by the explosions of the ammunition. When I was finally found and transferred to a desk job in the headquarters of the 182nd Regiment, the island of Cebu had been taken back from the Japanese occupation. Training for an attack on Japan was ongoing when the Atomic Bomb was dropped. I was hospitalized with yellow jaundice for three months and returned to the 182nd the same day that the unit was being ordered to go to Yokohama, Japan. The 182nd was in the Yokohama port when the Japanese formally surrendered to General MacArthur. The Americal Division was the second division to land in Japan. For my front line duty, I was awarded a Combat Infantry Badge (which increased my military pay from $50.00 to $60.00 a month) and a Bronze Star. My time in the military service opened a door of opportunity. I returned home to marry my sweetheart who had waited two plus years for me to return. Wayne H. Skeen Wayne H. Skeen was born 2 January 1927. He served as a sergeant in the Army from 12 June, 1945 until 16 December 1946. He was classified as a firefighter and served seven months stateside and eleven 118 months in Alaska. Wayne enrolled at Weber in 1947, played varsity football, and graduated with an associate degree in 1950. He is the recipient of the WWII Victory Medal. Louis E. Slagowski Louis served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1945. He was inducted in the Army in 1943 and was sent to Camp Hood, Texas. His high school ROTC proved to be beneficial and it wasn't too long until he became gun commander for a tank destroyer unit. He had done a good deal of shooting and had qualified as an expert in everything from a forty-five automatic to a three-inch cannon. Because of this he was reassigned to an infantry division and was trained to be a sniper, a position he held for the balance of his military service. His unit was sent to Europe, and he 'foot-slogged' across France, Belgium, Holland, and into Germany. In Germany he got in the way of a German hand grenade and was hospitalized until medically discharged in November 1945. Shrapnel had cut his throat and had pierced his voice box. After surgery only one-third of his vocal chords were operative. He was unable to speak and for several years was only able to speak in a whisper. For many years, he also was unable to do anything requiring much physical exertion. His military decorations consist of the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, World War II Victory Medal, American Theatre Service Medal, European-African Middle Eastern Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal, and the Combat Infantry Badge. Sidney S. Smith The following story is true. It is a narration of a strange twist in the lives of two friends, and a tad of the military as a group of young enlistees enter the U.S. Army, en masse and ship out from Ogden for military service. National conscription (the draft) had ended for filling military ranks. Now it would depend upon the process of enlistment (volunteers) to satisfy the reduced demand following the great victory of the Allies against the Japanese and Axis powers. We were the first class to graduate following hostilities at the end of WWII. The majority of the record group had been students at Ogden High School. Various reasons existed for entering the service following the cessation of hostilities. Perhaps the GI bill, which included educational benefits, among other gratuities, was the most convincing of all. On the appointed day, we mustered for active duty on the steps of the federal building at 24th St. and Grant Ave. There was, including the inductees, members of their families, girlfriends, and friends assembled. It was a fairly large gathering and a special day in the lives of the 50 young men. We were to be bussed to Ft. Douglas, Utah, for assignment. We posed on the granite steps of the post office federal building on 24th St. and Grant Avenue for the Ogden Standard-Examiner, who published a picture of this extraordinary group of enlistees. Most of us had known one another as classmates. These soldiers to be were not going off as warriors, as it were, the war had ended. Rather, just having home as young adult men in uniform, which in itself was reason enough for some few tears to be shed. In the main the event was a joyful farewell. Local dignitaries termed it a national record of enlistees per population on this occasion. For the new doughboys, it was a short trip to Ft. Douglas for physicals, clothing, shots, indoctrinations, and the inevitable introduction to military discipline and army chow. After several days we boarded a train for Ft. Bliss, Texas, for army basic training and antiaircraft school. That was to be our new home for a couple of months. While there I picked up the welterweight title in the large Army post's boxing tournament. We learned to shoot rifles and 40 MM howitzer antiaircraft guns. We suffered rigorous physical conditioning and training routines, the pains of which prepared us for, greater pains down the line. We suffered the area's hot days and cold nights. Wisely, we learned never to volunteer for three-day passes, and to starve yet exist on army food, plus infamous guard duty. We visited Nogales, Mexico, across the Rio Grande, El Paso City proper, and the distant Carlsbad Caverns. We were thrust together with a variety of lifestyles and personalities that brought amazement and awe to our youthful innocence. We learned to march in step, take orders, say 'Sir', yearn for the next break, play cards with toughs from Omaha, Chicago, the Bronx, barrel-chested Indians and occasionally a 'gold-brick' or two. We learned to get along and thrived on letters from home. Yes, after a fashion we learned to survive. Time passed quickly at Ft. Bliss. The basic training ended on schedule. In the Far East, the Korean strife was beginning to bubble over. American troops were being deployed there to save the southern part of Korea from advancing communistic designs. While in Basic several of us classmate buddies signed up to serve in the U.S. Army paratroopers. It meant six weeks of jump school training along with a hefty fifty percent pay hike. Our fifty-dollar monthly base pay quickly jumped up to seventy-five dollars. There were to be no regrets for that decision. Late in October following Basic we boarded a train for 82nd Airborne Division located at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. It was a couple thousand miles east of Ft. Bliss. For most of us travel by train was a new experience. The porters and waiters and their dutiful obeisance for pay were matters of curiosity to us. The trip eventually required three to four days of panorama-like whistle-tooting travel by rail. Most notable of our stops would be on the east side of the Mississippi in New Orleans. No other city on the way could equal its size or reputation. The railroad personnel busily switched the train for the next lap of our route to Ft. Bragg. It was late in the day as they made the changes. Although unable to disembark from the train, we walked the length of it from stem to 119