hirohito, but it never got there. that was his happy day to ride that one horse. i stayed there a day. bradley came and he got me and he brought me back. i went back to germany. and he stayed there. and i to get all of his stuff ready to get all of his papers, the maps. he was going to leave. the war was over. i stayed there till november. to get him squared away. and okay. so i got all these things squared away. and he told me that i should take a rest because i had other things to be done. they sent me back to a german camp. and i stayed there for about three weeks. in november, i got him all squared away. he had two guards. he had two bodyguards.

every place we went. always two bodyguards were either ahead of me or behind me. he was in this wreck. and france, his bodyguards weren't with him. but i know if they were with him, he would have been alive for a while and enjoyed his victory. there was a big story, assassination. i've got my name in some books and all this about assassination, but i didn't know nothing about it. he liked to go hunting. they were taking him hunting. you didn't see the picture. you've got to see the picture. a g.i. truck, it just hit the front end. there wasn't a piece of glass that was broken, but he got hit in the back of the head. there were two guys riding in the back. they're trying to figure this out. but it will never come up, i

guess. they assassinated him. so now he's buried in luxembourg. they buried him in the cemetery right in the center. so i got a picture they sent me. they dug him up and they put him in the front on the left-hand side. if you ever go to the cemetery in luxembourg, he's on the left-hand side. there's a big monument there. every time people used to go up to see him. where's george patton buried? now it's right there. you can see him. okay? now, one i'm going to tell you about the red cross. now, the red cross, they tried. they were over there. and sometimes you'd get what you wanted. you'd give them a donation or they'd charge you ten franc

notes. we were moving all the organizations, getting ready for the bastone and battle of the bulge. we went over. he said here's a good place over there. it was a red cross truck there. with a bunch of soldiers. they didn't call them doughnuts. they called them crullors. he said where you going, george? this is the first day. he's going to berlin. okay. he said, do you want to have a cup of copy? i said yes, sir. i drove up to the truck. and she gave me two curllers and a cup of coffee. he said ten francs. the government made our money over there, american money, wartime money. so i gave her ten francs and came back. he said, did you pay her for that? i said yes, ten franc note.

he said stay here. so i sat there. he went over there. he said, i'd like to have crullers and a cup of copy. the two blonde sisters were from el paso, texas. they were in this truck. she says, general, you don't have to pay for yours. he said, did my boys pay for it? yes. ten francs for a cruller and a cup of copy. he hesitated and said, where do you keep this money? in the back in an orange crate. you people don't remember orange crates. they had two compartments. and they hshe said all of this in a compartment. she opened the backdoor, pulled out the box. and all of this money was in this box, you know. and he carried a cigarette lighter. he'd smoke a cigar once in a while. he had a little tiny cigarette lighter. he picked up one of them notes and let it.

all the money burned. he burned her all up. them girls turned white. so he burned -- he came to the jeep. you know, he dug a hole. he buried -- we stayed there, all the ashes. he said to the two girls, when you go back, you tell your commander that you ran into george s. patton, and they didn't know what to say, you know. so he came and sat in the jeep. i said, gee, general. you should have gave me that money. i could use it. he said if you want it, i'll make you a check right now. he was one of us, you know? oh. we had -- we had this meeting at 3:00 in the morning. that's when we had the big rainstorm. so general patton and general

eisenhower did not live together. everybody's in the service. in school. so every time we had a meeting with eisenhower and patton, bradley had to go along. bradley was the speaker. if you've ever seen a movie or someplace talking, bradley in the middle. eisenhower one side and patton on the other. patton didn't care too much for him on account of the general from england. montgomery. general montgomery. montgomery and eisenhower were pretty good buddies. every time patton had come, eisenhower would come to see us, he'd say george, have you seen eisenhower? yeah, he's back there. you didn't see him back there? he always pushed his way -- they wouldn't talk to each other.

we had that meeting at 3:00 in the morning. we went there. hodge and hodges. and marshall and bradley was there. we got there and eisenhower wasn't there yet. early in the morning. 3:00 in the morning. and i said here comes eisenhower with the big cadillac, with a big bright cadillac. he wore his george garrison hat. patton said, where's your helmet? the front lines. these are the rules that you wear a helmet when you come to the front lines. he said, i don't have to wear it. okay. turn the jeep around. so we went back. we left him there. never heard nothing no more from him. nobody never heard nothing. that's the way he worked. then he'd get eisenhower would tell him, montgomery's going to take this little town, so and so. okay. by the time montgomery was in there, we went through that town

already, you know. he always -- whenever he knew montgomery was going to do something, he'd go fight for that and he'd get him. he had a pattern of his own. how he would capture. he always made a circle. one time we captured 6,000 japanese, german kids. his idea making a circle. and he could put them all in there and get cut off. 6,000 kids we had. but montgomery and eisenhower, they clicked pretty good. patton and eisenhower didn't work too good. now, i'll tell you now how many jeeps was made during the war. the jeep company made 3 million 862 jeeps. the ford company made 2 million 654 jeeps.

and how much at the end of the war, a little smaller than the jeeps they made, 285 of them. so you know how many jeeps we've got running around this country. we were going to areas to fight. he wanted to go and find places where we could put trucks that would be safe when we were going to hit bastone. i took him up one day. the roads were bad. the roads were very bad. you hit two and you miss one. bouncing around. so one night -- and i hit a hole. i must have raised him up six inches off his seat. i always wore my helmet, you know.

so he didn't say nothing to me. he looked at me. he straightened up my helmet. he said, can you see better now? i used to take him to the hospital, you know. that was bad. every thursday we'd go to a hospital. they were tents. and he'd have a box full of purple hearts or medals and stuff like that. it was a day on a thursday that we would go to the hospital. and he'd be all dressed up nicely to go see them all. and i couldn't leave the jeep. i had to stay there. g.i. couldn't go inside the hospitals. i stayed there. if i was there a half a day, i was there a half a day. no matter where i went with him, if he walked a half a mile, and he says to me, if you see me

there, don't you come and get me. so i'd stay there till he comes to the jeep. never did he call me. never knew my name was. all he knew me was soldier. then when i made a technician, i made rank, and i never got paid. oh. the jeeps -- how many jeeps, the circle over the head, it has a star in the middle. you notice that? the circle around there, circle on the middle and the outside of the star was painted. so if the germans or somebody used mustard gas or something, that would turn red. we knew right away we'd have to

wear our gas masks. when we invaded france, we had our gas masks with us. when we got into charleroix, we didn't use them at all. oh. when we were in charleroix, he came down, we painted his truck. a company from our company painted his truck. and he came down to see it. we were there. and they were bombing us at the same time. when we were coming down, we came down off the little hill. here comes bing crosby and dinah shore, came up. bing crosby had a violin player. he was very good. so this was about 10:00 at night. 10:30. bing crosby and dinah shore was

there with us, you know. so -- the bombs were getting close to where we were. so we all laid on the ground. we all laid on the ground. and he stayed there. he had a microphone with a battery microphone and a violin player. while the bombs were going on, he sang "white christmas" for us in july. bing crosby did. when we were coming down, i walked down with him. and in them days, we had indelible pens. we didn't have the pens we had then. you had to fill them up with ink. you remember them old pens? i had some notes and i had him sign them. and dinah shore signed it for me. and bing crosby was signing. he said, where in the hell did you buy this pen? england? he said, it won't write. but mother's day when dinah shore was over there, we were there. she'd go around to foxholes and give all the men white carnations.

and when we went to munich, munich is in germany. they call it munchen. they call it munich. so glen miller's band was there. they came down the ocean. johnny mercer took over glen miller's band. he said, they got into munich. and in munich, there was a radio station. so they fixed it all up and reopened the radio station. so they had to give it a name. they'd call it munchen. at 12:00 every day. munchen -- luncheon at munchen. it worked out nice for him.

>> something that i can tell you. i had it written down. i don't want to forget them. oh, the bombs. when we went into germany, german planes, they were bombing up pretty close. when a bomb would hit the ground, they wouldn't go off. they found out why they didn't go off. the german people were sending bombs out, but they wouldn't put the detonators into the bombs. they'd just go down -- they didn't want to be bombing their own towns. so all the bombs that the germans dropped were just a waste of time.

when we were coming home, i had 12 bombs i always kept in my jeep, you know. i was supposed to get rid of them. and he told me, he says, i want you to get rid of these. he says, i don't care what you do with them. throw them in the river. so that's what i did. i went up there. they were smoke bombs. all of a sudden i saw bubbles coming up with smoke. then all of a sudden i saw a lot of fish with white bellies floating down. and i told him about it. he said, well, it was better killing the fish than some kids pick them up and you were killing them. they were worried about the children. then the germans, they got smart, i guess. all the american vehicles we had

no tops on our cars. we had no tops on them. they started putting piano wires across the road, okay? i hit one one time. they must have played the polka when it went off. right away, they put wire cutters on all the jeeps. then they got on to that. maybe you've seen them. welded a bar on a bumper and the arrow went this way. and it was sharp. so when it would hit, it would break it. they got on to that. they quit doing that. i don't want to forget something. so just hold on a minute. oh. when we went into munich.

i robbed a bank at munich. there was -- oh, i think about eight women in there. there was no men. it was all women. okay. comrade, comrade, you know. comrade. i went to the vault. i was looking for gold. i couldn't find no gold. so i had a bag and i took some money and put it in a duffel bag. they had children's banks. i took one. there was something in it but he never opened it. i don't know what's in it, the little german bank for the kids, you know. so i kept that money. so when the war was over, i was in diggendorf. i went for the ship, i was going home. and there was a lady who came around washing our clothes.

you wash your clothes, so and so. she used to wash my clothes. we waited. every day you'd come back to nice clean clothes, fresh. i was going home and i could only cash in $360 for that bag of money i had. so i transferred over the german money, i got the $360 at the post office. so i had all this money. i said, what am i going to do with it? i gave it to this lady. she had two kids. and she kissed my hand like it was a million dollars. i gave her all the money i had. oh. this will kill you. we were in france. we stayed there for three months. we were getting ready for bastone. the battle of the bulge. we were there for three months, we stayed there. we stayed in a place in a wine

barrel factory where they were making wooden barrels for the wine, wine barrels. and all women. there was no wen. all women was working, you know. so they found a place that we could stay there. first the first platoon, second platoon and officers. we had two houses and a bungalow. we slept in the houses. and the officers slept in the bungalow. we stayed there for three months. okay. so we've got to get into bastone to fight the battle of the bulge. so the time came that our three months, we were moving, we had to move forward. that's when i took patton up so we could move his organization and get closer to the front. patton says to me, i want you to stay here and take a lieutenant. when we move out tomorrow, we were supposed to move out of there and check the place before we leave. okay. so it was about 4:00 in the afternoon. they all pulled out. the lieutenant, i met him from

galveston, texas. we both stayed there. we slept in the officer's bungalow. so we got up that morning. he said, we have to go down to the office down here where we check out. i said okay. so i went there. there was a lady. she must have been about 45, 50. he said take her and go down and read the meters. i said what meters? he said electric meters. he said, you know how to read them? i said yeah. hundreds of thousands, whatever it is. he says, go read them. i read them. i brought them back to him. and then you had a pink sheet of paper. we had to pay rent for the houses we stayed there for three months. this kills us. we stayed there. we freed them. we have to pay them because we

used their property. we had to pay for gas, lights, water and rent for the place. so you know where your tax money goes. oh. patton went off for two months. we were in metz for two months. and i stayed with our company for two months. and i had to carry the mail. i had a private seat in my jeep with a zipper, important papers. i put them in the seat and he couldn't find them. so okay. i had to go there. we left there.

where did we go from there? i robbed a bank with the jeep. i'm going to tell you something. >> we have just a few minutes left. can we devote those to questions? let's give these gentlemen a round of applause. we do have a couple minutes left for questions. any questions from the audience? speak loudly, please. >> holler.

>> my name is shawn. and i would like -- >> use the microphone there. >> i would like to know, was there ever a time -- given up [ inaudible ]? >> the question was, were there times when you just thought about giving up, that things were just too hard? either of you gentlemen. >> i can't hear you. >> the question was, were there times during your service when things got so bad you thought about giving up, things were just too hard? >> no, no. that was a good life for me. >> general titus? >> i can't imagine. i can't imagine not getting after it. >> all right. another question? >> when i went to take us over [ inaudible ] to bastone

[ inaudible ] any day. [ inaudible ] >> i enjoyed being with him. i liked it. >> all right. >> sir, united states naval academy. i was wondering if you could elaborate, why did you rob the bank? >> why did i rob the bank? what would you rob a bank for?

i was looking for that gold. there was no gold nowhere. there was not a lot of money floating around. i tell the truth, i brought a couple million dollars home with me. they were big notes. i had a son, frank. daddy, what are you going to do? i said they're no good. so i live in napa, california. and he went over and said, give me one of them. he come home and he had $2,000 in an envelope. he said, i put $45,000 in the bank for myself. i said thanks. the money's no good. he said yes, it is. so two days later here comes a lady from the bank to my house. okay. and she said, is frank here? i said no. and i knew who she was and what she was doing. i should have told her that he went to germany, but i didn't tell her that. and she said, i said, what's the

matter? she said, we cashed some money for him from germany. and they called in san francisco. they told him the money was good, but it wasn't dpood. good. it expired in 1975 or something like that. she said, i gave him $2,000 cash. i said geez, i don't know where he's at. but she said, i'm responsible for that, you know. so i went in the house. i said, are you looking for this? oh, her heart. so we had -- the german money was dead after 1975. they had to make new money. but i did rob -- i did a lot of things. i stole -- the jeep was getting ready to go to berlin. i spotted a mercedes-benz. there was a mercedes-benz over there. i used to go pick up the mail and come back.

that blue car was still there every day, you know. so i opened the door. the door opened and had nice bucket seats, mercedes. >> all right, we're going to have to wrap things up here. >> hold on a minute. >> let's give a round of applause for these two. >> i took that jeep out of there, patton's jeep. he was in paradise. mercedes-benz. i did a lot of stuff. i stole a lot of stuff. i stole a lot of cars for the captains.

sculpted by james earl frazier, hamilton has a slightly quizical look on his hands and face. perhaps he is trying to recognize his surroundings. after all, it was his famous deal with congressional supporters of thomas jefferson that led to federal assumption of state debt in return for the capital's removal from new york to an entirely new city to be built on the banks of the potomac.