How did you get into the military?
When I graduated I hadn't the faintest idea what I wanted to do. The principal at the high school said, ‘You ought to go to college!’ I was 5th in a class of 126, so he said, ‘You ought to go to college!’. [Sara: I’m not surprised!] I said, ‘Where?’. He said ‘Well, they have a good school up at Penn State. It’s a land-grant college’. And I didn't know what ANYTHING meant. He said, ‘I’ll see that you get an application’. So I got an application, filled it out. Didn't hear a thing. Didn't hear a thing. The summer went by, its September. Didn't hear anything. And my mother and father, we didn't know what to do! So I enrolled in Pierce Business School in Philadelphia. Took a train from Valley Forge into Philadelphia to go to Pierce Business School. Ugh! Didn't like it at all! And I’m home one weekend, I ran into my high school principal. He said, ‘How’d ya make out?’ I said, ‘I didn't hear a thing.’ ‘Didn't hear a thing?! That means they didn't accept you.’ I said, ‘Okay, okay.’ He said, ‘Let me give them a call.’ So he called them and I get a telegram. And that telegram said to report IMMEDIATELY – this is the middle of October. So my mother and father picked me up. Put a footlocker in the trunk and away we went! I forget how many hours we rode, and we were only 5 miles from home. We had taken the wrong turn! This is before they had route signs! (IE: Route 322) And so we wound up in Downingtown and its daylight. So turned the car, headed north, went to Penn State.
I was overwhelmed by the campus, but we found Old Main, the principal administrative building. And first person we talked to, I told them what the problem was and they took me down to the registrar’s office. So I walked in, whoever I don’t know, I told them my name was Howard Busch. Their eyes lit up, ‘Ohhh, yes!’ They took me in, my mother and my father and they brought out the registrar himself! And he sat across the room, the table, from me and apologized that they had made a mistake. They had given somebody else my grades, my high school grades, and refused me admission. He was so apologetic, and carrying on and on and on. It was almost embarrassing. I just wanted to go to school! He said to me, ‘Howard, what is it you plan to study?’ and I was as silent as you are. There were no such things as guidance counselors in those days. But I knew I liked to fool with trees, cutting trees, eh, this and that, so I blurted out, ‘Forestry!’ He said, ‘Fine. The freshmen forester’s spent their first year at Mont Alto. There is a military man taking a car to Mont Alto tomorrow. We will put you in a dorm tonight and tomorrow morning you will go to Mont Alto.’ So I got caught up, they gave me an ROTC uniform and I was in business.
I took a minimum, absolute minimum, in forestry courses. I took everything else in civil engineering, that’s what I enjoyed. And that’s what I did. I did a very little bit of forestry, but I enjoyed the civil engineering.
The depression was still fading away, it was still active. This was fall of 1934 and there was still depression there. I graduated 1938, and jobs were still scarce. But there was a man from the Soil Conservation Service who came to Penn State and went to the Dean’s Office and he wanted to pick up 3, actually, student trainees for the summer. And so, they gave him my name along with two others, an interview, and I got a job at the Soil Conservation Service on the basis on my degree in forestry. They sent me to Lancaster. Lancaster, PA where they had a CCC camp – Civilian Conservation Corps – doing work on farms, and so on. They didn't know I was coming, that’s how well organized everything was. I always thought that they closed the door and talked among themselves and said, ‘what are we going to do with that kid that came in here?’ They agreed that they would send me out among the Amish. So I go my first work among the Amish of Lancaster County – enjoyed every moment of it. When the three months were up, they extended it, and they extended it. And finally after 18 months, they said, ‘We can’t do any more of this extending. It’s just not in our authority to do that.’ So I took an engineering job, went to work for the War Department, Civil Engineer. And that’s where I was until the summer of 1941. My roommate, close friend, Eugene Forquer, we were both distinguished military graduates from the ROTC program of Penn State, and we always kept in touch. He was from Washington, PA, Carmichaels. So Gene and I sat up all night, ya know, when you’re 22 years old you know everything in the world, you know what’s going to happen, we sat up all night, when daylight came - this was in 1941 - we said to each other, there’s a war coming and we are going to be involved. Let’s go in now so we have a choice of what we do.
So we called Fort Meade the next morning, and they were anxious to get two 2nd Lieutenant Infantry. Real anxious! ‘Come on down, come on down!’ so we waited a day until we got caught up on our sleep and then we went down. They said to Gene, ‘We’ll take you right now, if you’re ready’. They looked at me and said, ‘We have to get a release from the War Department, you’re doing engineering work for them, they have their rights to you for 60 days. We can’t take you until after the 60 day period has expired.’ So Gene and I separated. We had gone arm in arm together, ya know, in the service. So we went outside, talked it over. We came to the conclusion that Gene would go and I would catch up with him later on. [Long pause] That is the last I saw of Gene. He went in. Was assigned to the Pacific Theatre, died on a prison ship on the way to Japan, a rough way to go. They took me in September and first to Fort Meade, and then to Fort Benning and then to other places and then I went to Europe. That was the last I saw of Gene. Kept in touch with his mother for a short period of time. But that was it. So life puts you through a lot of different experiences.
[Sara interjects: they sent you down to me! Fort Benning!] We met on July the 25th, 1943.
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