we had eight coats of lacquer on that baby. then he had pistol. he wanted his pistol, i guess you heard about that story. pearl handles he wanted. so we did -- we could fix it. i brought some pieces of plastic back from the airplane. a guy by mcdonald, yeah, we can fix him up. he gave us the pistol. the handle. he got this plastic and he carved it. he did a wonderful job. so he painted it inside, all nice and white. a little lacquer. looked like pearl handles. he was happy. pearl handle gun to go with. then we went down and it ended the war. he couldn't go -- he couldn't go to berlin. he felt bad. i took him back. he went back and stayed for a while. two days later he called me. he said he's going to take me to austria. where in austria? i'm going to ride the white horses. he used to be a countryman in

louisiana. they closed down the -- he said the jeep took over his horses. so he got permission for himself, the horses and get rid of the equipment. we won't have no more cavalry because we've got the jeeps now. so he sold -- all the trained horses he sold to the movie stars to hollywood. the ones that they weren't trained, he sold them -- gave them to the people in louisiana. and then he couldn't get rid of he opened the gate and let them go. get rid of all the junk, we had no cavalry. so the jeep took over his cavalry. so he wanted me to go to austria. okay, we went to austria. i'm going to ride the white horses. okay, we went. so we went -- two women owned the stables. you people know about the white hoarseness austria?

some of you don't know. the white horses. so we got there, and i remember seeing the two ladies they came out to the gate. they knew who he was, you know? and he says, i want to ride a white horse. she said all we have is white ones. i remember him saying that. she says, i have one i think you might like to ride. she said you see that one over there? he says, yeah. she said, hitler bought that for hirohito, but it never got there. that was his happy day, he got to ride that one horse. i stayed there a day with him. bradley came and got me and he brought me back. i went back to germany, and he stayed there and i had to get all his stuff ready because -- out of his van and get all the papers and maps and everything rolled up and put away because he was going to leave. the war was over in may. i stayed there until november to get him squared away. okay.

so i got everything squared away. he told me i should take -- it tack a rest because there are other things that need to be done. so they sent me back to a little camp, german camp. i stayed there for three weeks. and then november i got him all squared away. all the maps put away. he had two guards, two bodyguards. every place we went, he had bodyguards either ahead of me or behind me. like i said, he was in this wreck in france. his bodyguards weren't with him, but i know if they're with him, for a while, enjoy the victory. but the big story, fascination. i got my names in some books because of the assassination, but i didn't know nothing about it. he liked to go hunting. they were taking him hunting.

so you didn't see the picture. you have to see the picture. the cadillac had a wreck with the g.i. truck and hit the front end. there wasn't a piece of glass that was broken. but he got hit in the head with the back. how we don't know. two guys were riding in the back. trying to figure this out, but it will never come up. i guess not. they assassinated him. so now he's buried in luxembourg. they buried him in the cemetery, right in the center of the cemetery. i've got a picture they sent me. they dig him up, put him on the front on the left hand side. if you ever go to the cemetery in luxembourg, he's on the left-hand side, by the big monument. where is george patton buried? where is he? so now it's right there. you can see. you can see him there. okay.

now, one i'm going to tell you -- i'm going to tell you about the red cross. now, the red cross they tried. and they were over there and sometime you'd get what you wanted, you give them a donation or they'd charge you for c nos like this. so one day we were going -- all the organizations, and getting ready for the basston and the battle of the bulge. we went over. here's a good place over there. we went in and there was a red cross truck there. a bunch of soldiers. crawlers. they didn't call them donors, but called them crawlers. two crawlers and a cup of coffee for ten francs or something like that. they waved. where are you going, george? fis day. so okay, so he said do you want a cup of coffee? i said, yes, sir. i drove up to the truck.

she gave me two crawlers and a cup of coffee. she said, ten francs if you want this. i had franc notes, the government made our money over there, american money. war time money. so i gave her the -- gave her ten francs. i came back. he said, did you pay her for that? i said, yeah. i said, ten franc notes. okay, stay here. i stayed there, sat there and he went over there and he said, i'd like to have the crawlers and a cup of coffee. two plond sisters from el paso, texas, they were in this truck. and she said, general, you don't have to pay for yours. he said why? my boys pay for it? she said, yeah. ten francs, two doughnuts, a crawler and a cup of coffee. he hesitated. where do you keep this money. he said, in the back of the orange crate. you remember orange crate, they had the departments.

she had all this paper money. it was in this compartment, you know? he said -- she opened the back door. pulled out the box. all of this money was in this box, you know? he carried it. he had a cigarette lighter, a tiny one. and he picked up one of the notes and lit it. and he threw it down with all the money. all the money burned. he burned it all up and so burned it. them girls turned white. he burned it. he came to the jeep. you got a shovel and a pick. and he dug a hole, he buried all of the ashes. we stayed there -- until all of the ashes burned. burned it nice. he said to the two girls when you go back and you tell your commander that you ran into george s. patton and that was taken care of. they didn't know what to say, you know? so i sat in the jeep. i said, you should have gave me that money, i could have used it. he said i'll make you a check

right now, he says to me. he was one -- he was one of us, you know? oh, we had -- we had this meeting at 3:00 in the morning. we had the rainstorm, and all the mud. so general patton and general eisenhower did not sit together. see what i mean? it don't work. everybody is in the service, the school -- so every time we had a meeting bradley had to go along. bradley was the speaker. did you ever see the movie, you always find bradley in the middle, eisenhower on one side, patton on the other. patton didn't care for him on account of the general from england. montgomery. general montgomery.

montgomery and eisenhower are pretty good buddies. every time patton -- eisenhower would come to see us and would say, george, have you seen eisenhower? he's back there in the car drinking tea. you see him back there. always pushed his way. they wouldn't talk the each other. he'd come out, we had that meeting at 3:00 in the morning, we went there and hodges and marshall and brandy was there. we got there and eisenhower wasn't there yet. early in the morning, 3:00 in the morning. all of a sudden here comes eisenhower with the big cadillac, with the big cadillac, you know? where's your garrison hat and patton says where's your helmet he said you're at the front lines rules you wear a helmet when you come to the front lines, you know. he said yep, i don't have to wear it. okay.

he said to me, turn the jeep around. so we went back. we left him there. never heard nothing no more from him. nothing. so that was it. i said -- then eisenhower told him, my army is going to take this little town and so and so. okay. by 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 it. he'd get them. you know, he had a pattern of his own. he would capture. always made a circle. every time -- one time he captured 6,000 japanese. german kids. his ideas make a circle. you make a circle. he could cut them all. they'd get cut off. we had 6,000 kids. but montgomery and eisenhower, they were pretty good.

patton and -- and eisenhower -- they weren't too good. now, i'll tell you how many jeeps was made during the war? the jeep company made 3.8 million jeeps. the ho company made 2.654 million. right back almost at the end of the war, hadn't -- they had bantam jeep a little smaller than the jeeps they made 285 of them. you know how many jeeps we have running around this country? i took him -- we were hunting in areas to fight. but he wanted to go and find places where we could put tucks to be safe for then vation that we were going to hbastone. and i picked him up one day.

the roads are bad. the roads were very bad. i didn't have to hit -- you hit one bounce, you miss two. you hit two, you miss one. you're bouncing around. so one night, i hit the hole. i had a big hole. i must have raised him six inches off the seat. i always wore my helmet, you know? so he didn't say nothing to me. he looked at me. he straignne en streetened up m said, can you see better now? and i used to take him to army hospital -- to the hospitals, you know? that was bad. every thursday we'd go to a hospital. the hospital, they were tents, he'd what boxful of purple hearts and medals. stuff like that. a day that he picked, a thursday, we would go to the hospital.

all dressed up nicely to go see them all. so i couldn't believe -- i couldn't leave the jeep. i had to stay there. g.i. couldn't go inside the hospitals. i stayed there half the day, i did half a day, just to stay with the jeep. no matter where i went with him. if he walked half a mile. and he said, if you see me there, don't you come and get me. let me come walking, so he'd get his exercise. so i'd stay there until he comes to the jeep. never did he call me. never what my name was. all me knows of me was soldier. he put a rank in for me. i never got paid for that. i knew nothing about it. oh, you know, people know, the jeeps -- how many jeeps, a circle over the hood, you noticed that?

that star's to notify the airplanes can spot our automobiles. a circle around there, and the outside of the star was painted so if the germans or somebody, used mustard gas or something, that paint would turn red, so we knew right away we had to wear our gas mask. when we invaded france, we had our gas masks with us. and when we got into charleroi, the gas masks, they figured they wouldn gas our soldiers at the the same time. so we didn't use those gas masks. oh, when we were in charleroi, he came down, we painted his truck. from our company we painted his truck, that olive color, did all

of the colors and then he came down to see it. we were there and they were bombing us at the same time. we came down off the little hill where the little truck was. here comes bing crosby and dinah shore. while getting bombed there. bing crosby had a violin player. he was very good. so this was about 8:00 at night and bing crosby and dinah shore was there with us. you know? so the bombs were getting too close to where we were, so we laid on the ground. he said, everybody lay on the grounding even generals. we all laid on the ground. he stayed there. he had a microphone with the battery microphone. and invited -- and while the bombs were going on he sang "white christmas" for us in july. bing crosby did. yeah. and when we were coming down, i walked down with him.hem ys we t have the pens like today. you had to fill them up. remember them old pens?

going down there, i had some fresh notes and i had him sign them. and dinah shore signed it for me and bing crosby was singing. he said where in the hell did you buy this pen, in england? it won't write. and then for mother's day when dinah shore was over there, we were there.and went and to the d gave all of the men white carnations. and when we got into munich, munich is in germany. it's called -- they call it munchkin, and glenn miller and his band was there. glenn miller went down. they went down to the ocean. he had johnny who took over glenn miller band. he kept coming with us. so they got into munich and then munich, there was a radio station. so they fixed it all up and reopened the radio station.

so they had -- they had to give it a name. so they called it munchkin. we called it munich. then on at 12:00 every day. so he did -- luncheon at munchkin. it worked out nicely for him. i'm trying to find something i can tell you, i had it written down. i don't want to forget them. oh the bombs. we went to germany and germany, german planes, they were bopping us pretty close. when the bomb would hit the ground they wouldn't go off. and they find out we had -- why it didn't go off. the german people would send the bombs out, but they wouldn't put detonators into the bombs.

they'd go down and they would -- they didn't want to be bombing their own towns, you know? so all the bombs that the germans dropped were a waste of time. well, they were coming home. i had 12 bombs, always kept them in the jeep, you know? so i was supposed to get rid of them. he told me, he said, i want you to get rid of these. i don't care what you do with them. go up to the danube river and throw them in there. so that's what i did. i went up there and it was smoke bombs. i got, i pulled one, all of a sudden i saw bubbles coming up with smoke in them, you know? doing it for a while and then all of a sudden i saw a lot of

fish with the white bellies floating right down. i had to get rid of them. i told him about it. he said it was better killing the fish than some kids picking up the bombs and killing them you know? the germans, they're smart, i guess. all-american vehicles, we had no tops on our cars, our trucks, we had no tops on it. they started to put piano wires across the road. okay. i hit one one time. it must have played polka when it went off. boy, it hit the jeep and right away, they got wire cutters in all the jeeps. and weapons carriers. and then they got on to that and maybe you have seen them, on the bumper. you had an arrow that went this way and it was sharp and they got on to that and so they quit doing that.

>> i don't want to forget something. hold on a minute. there was something there. i went in and looking for gold. i couldn't find gold. they had them and i took them. i left them at home.

something in there, but i never opened it. i don't know what's in it. i kept that money. there was a lady coming around and they were going home. they gave me for the bag of money they had. i cashed over with the german money and what am i going to do with it? and she kissed my hand and got a million dollars.

>> we had houses and the officers stayed in the bungalow for months. we never were ready and got to get in for the battle of the bulge. they had to move forward.

we moved the organizations closer to the front. when we move out tomorrow and supposed to move out and check the place before we leave. they were about 4:00 in the afternoon. the lieutenant i met him from. we stayed in the bungalow. they left that morning and he said we have to go down to the office down here where the people are checking out. the lady was about 45 or 50 years old. take her and go down and read the meters. i said what meters? he said you know how to read them? whatever it is. he said he is going to read them

and i read them and brought them back. you know how he was. the tax moan goes. i said they made me carry the mail.

with the zipper on and i fight the important papers. he left there. where did we go from here? i had it somewhere. >> we have just a few minutes left. that goes to questions?

let's give these gentlemen a round of applause. we do have a couple of minutes left for questions. questions from the audience? speak louder, please. >> holler. >> use the microphone, miss. >> i would like to know -- >> the question was, were there times when you thought about giving up. things were too hard. >> i can't hear. >> the question was were there times during your service when things got so bad you thought about giving up. things were too hard?

>> i can't imagine. i can't imagine that. >> other questions? >> i went --

>> i was wondering, why did you >> there was a lot of money floating around. a couple million. i had a son, frank. he said they are no good. he goes to the bank. from napa, california. i live in napa. he was saying give me one of them. he came home and he had $2,000 in the envelope $45,000 for myself.

he was no good. two days before he came to the bank. she said is frank here? i said no. i knew who she was. i should have told her you went to germany and didn't tell her that. i said what's the matter? we cashed this money from germany and they called in san francisco and they told them the money was good. it wasn't good. it was in 1975 or something like that. she said i gave him $2,000 cash. i said i don't know where he's at. she said i'm responsible for that. i went in the house and she said you are looking for this.