World War II veteran James Climo discusses the importance of American victory in World War II.
Video by Air Force Tech. Sgt. Neal Uranga
Transcript
[Orchestral music]
(Franklin D. Roosevelt) The American people and their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.
(James Climo) It was just about the thing to do. Either you were gonna get drafted or you went and joined the military. And a buddy of mine, and myself, decided when we were 18 years old on my birthday I joined the Marine Corps. Because if I didn’t join the Marine Corps, they were gonna draft me and I didn’t care to go into the Army. I was fortunate enough to never have to go to combat. I was in the Marine Corps and I joined and the shooting war, World War II, was actually over. I’m sure that I saw in the newspaper or in the movie theaters the pictures that were taken on the Missouri of General MacArthur and the surrender. A great relief about human life. If we didn’t do what we did in World War II, you could just imagine how much longer that war would have lasted and how many more Americans would’ve been killed. War is ugly, period.