HomeMy WebLinkAboutVeterans Reflect on Life During War L
''' Bryan- College Station, Texas
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Thursday, February 20, 1997
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• istory "You didn't know what you were going to get.
From A9 Could be Marilyn Monroe, could be Roseanne."
force up the Brenner Pass, on the DICK MAGERS
border of Austria and Italy," he
said. "We encountered absolutely Army veteran
no opposition. The Germans had
received word that it was over,
that it was finished. the Navy. Dorsey brother and then the
"So they told us we could turn "My commanding officer didn't other. And they didn't charge that
on the lights on our vehicles and want to let me go," he said. "His much. Only $1,200 or so."
just drive. I hadn't seen a light on prestige depended on how many Magers said the Corps' major
a vehicle since I don't know people he had under him. But units would collect the money to
when, and I looked back and saw there was a clause that said you hire the bands, and the students'
the long line of lights coming up had to let someone go if they were dates would spend the night in
the pass. It was quite a sight." going to school, so I said, `Let me professors' houses or in dorms
The movie We've Never Been go, I'm going to school. "' emptied of male students.
Licked, which was made in 1942 at Skrabanek already had a bach- "They would just tell us, `Clean
A &M and is about the university elor's degree, but says he proba- out Dorm 6, the girls are coming
and the war effort, provided more bly never would have gotten a this weekend, "' he said, "so we'd
memories. master's degree if that hadn't be in Dorm 8 with binoculars."
"There were no dressing been his only means of escape Magers said that, aside from
rooms," Allen said, "so I saw from the Navy. He went on to the dances, entertainment for
• Robert Mitchum go behind a car become a professor of sociology. A &M students was sparse, con -
and strip down and change his Magers remembered the dances sisting mainly of swimming in
clothes." held at A &M in his days with the the clay pits and "a few pinball
Navy veteran Bob Skrabanek Corps of Cadets. machines in Northgate."
said he was in no major battles "We had great bands at our Skrabanek said World War II
during his World War II service dances," he said. "We had Xavier had an impact on local social life
on ammunition ships and a Cugat, Glenn Miller and the through Bryan's air base.
water- distilling ship, but after the Dorsey brothers were feuding "A lot of local women married
war he had to fight to get out of with each other, so we had one fellows from out there," he said.