Ernest Graves
a whole array of people who were on his staff, [Lieutenant General John C. H.] Lee in
Europe, and so forth.
They knew about these things, but we didn't preserve it after World War II. We can
talk about this later, because this is one of the things that, in my opinion, we definitely
didn't get right in Vietnam.
Q:
When you were young, did your father like to talk about his experiences in the Army?
A:
Yes. One of the inspirations of my life was his talking about all these experiences.
That's the reason that I went into the Army. From the time I was very little, I was
fascinated with the things he had done, and I wanted to do the same kind of thing.
Q:
I was going to ask you that myself, about whether there was any question about what
kind of career you were interested in.
A:
Well, no, there wasn't. But you know, it wasn't parental pressure to do what my father
had done, so much. It was that I wanted to do the kind of engineering things he had
done. I don't remember the incident, but somebody asked me when I was about five
years old what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said, "I want to be an Army
engineer." They had expected me to say that I wanted to be a fireman or something like
that.
Q:
That's right. Yes.
A:
From the time I was very little, I had heard about this and all the time I was growing
up. Something that enhanced this was that my father's friends would come to dinner
and talk about these things, not only the things they had done in the past when they had
been together, but things that were going on at the time with the Corps of Engineers
in the 1930s. I would sit over in the corner and listen to all of this. This was a terrific
education for me to hear these men discussing all these engineer subjects.
Q:
Sure. Did you meet John Pershing?
A:
I did meet General Pershing, briefly, in an interesting way. My mother and I were in
Edmunds Optician on 15th Street, and my mother saw General Pershing getting fitted
for glasses. I was there being fitted for glasses, also. She took me over to where he was
sitting and said that she wanted to apologize for disturbing General Pershing, but that
she wanted me to have a chance to meet him because he and my father had served
together. He was very gracious.
Q:
Did your father have a pretty high opinion of him as a commander?
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