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Interview with Mr. Manuel Maroukis November 19, , 2002 For the Naval Historical Foundation

This oral history interview of Manuel Maroukis is taking place on November 19th 2002, at Monmouth University in West Long Branch NJ. This interview is for the Oral History Project for HS 298 01 (Oral History) at Monmouth University. I am Trina Popowich, a student at Monmouth University. I will be conducting the interview. Manuel Maroukis served in World War II. He was discharged with the rank of Coxswain 3rd Class. He served in the following areas: European, Asiatic Pacific, Philippine, and American.

Question: Before you joined the Navy, what was your home life like? What did you like to do for fun?

Answer: I played instruments. I was a drummer in grammar school, high school, riding bicycles, a lot of fun with the boys, played basketball, baseball.

Q: Did you have a favorite radio program?

A: The Lone Ranger, of course.

Q: Did you have a favorite movie?

A: Not really, but we did go to the movies a lot. Abbot and Costello, they were funny guys.

Q: What about a favorite type of music, since you were a musician?

A: Oh, at that time, it was all kinds, all music. I liked all music. Concert bands, when the concert bands used to come to the school we'd listen, and then of course when we got into high school we started a small band, with Glen Miller and Benny Goodman and musicians like that.

Q: Who would you consider your role model or hero at that time?

A: My Uncle Mike.

Q: Why?

A: He lived with us, and he used to take us everywhere. My father worked a lot…but my Uncle Mike used to take my sister and I and our cousins on weekends we'd go, he actually used to be a mechanic on his own car. I used to help, hand him the tools, and things like that.

Q: What did your father do for a living?

A: He was a, I was actually born with a silver spoon in my mouth, he had restaurants, he had car dealerships, he had all kinds of businesses, he was always a businessman, but in the early 30's he lost it all and that's when he went to work in a leather factory, stripping leather, which is a pretty smelly job. That's what he did for a living to keep us food and shelter.

Q: Did your mother work?

A: No, she never worked until, actually I went into service, then she and my father opened up a little hotdog stand in Union NJ.

Q: Do you have any brothers or sisters?

A: I have a sister, she's older then I am.

Q: Who were your closest friends before the war, and what were they like?

A: Oh! I had four or five friends. We used to pal around with bicycles in grammar school and high school. You want their names?

Q: You can give me their names.

A: Hey, Alex, who just passed away, and Richard, Seymour, Steve, Don, these are guys that we hung around together after school.

Q: What were they like?

A: Oh, they were a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun together.

Q: Before you enlisted, what was your understanding of how World War II began?

A: How did I what?

Q: Before you enlisted, what was your understanding of how the war began?

A: Oh, when it began I was in the eighth grade and I didn't think it was going to last that long I didn't think I was going to even be in it, but that was the understanding when they hit Pearl Harbor that it was a pretty serious thing at the time.

Q: Did you know who Hitler and Mussolini were? How they came into power?

A: Uh, no, not at the time. I didn't find out 'til later.

Q: Did you know anything about them?

A: No

Q: What was your opinion of Japan?

A: Japan - the only thing I could remember about Japan was when we went to the shore, we'd go and they had the little trinkets that they made in Japan, these little trinkets that we used to pick up in the, I forget what they call those machines.

Q: Claw machines?

A: Yes, they were claw machines. All that was made in Japan, all these little figures and the little men, army men, navy, what ever they had. They were made in Japan.

Q: Where were you when you heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor?

A: Our eighth grade teacher brought a little radio in, they didn't have TV then, they brought a little radio in class. She set it up on her desk, and the whole class heard President Roosevelt give that famous speech that you hear now on TV. I was in the eighth grade when I heard that speech.

Q: What was your reaction to it?

A: I was kind of annoyed that they should do what they did, angry of course. Uh, kind of annoyed cause I couldn't go in, I was too young at the time.

Q: How did the attack affect those around you?

A: We had the sirens that were put on our - in fact one of the sirens was put on a pole right in front of my house - that you heard sirens for attack and we had blackout rehearsals, we had to take the curtains and shut all the lights out, whenever you heard that noise at night. We did a lot of training like that, as civilians; we did a lot of that. And I was in the boy scouts at the time and they made us messengers at night from block to block at night. We had our bicycles, we used to, I could remember it was so black you couldn't even see the sidewalk, when you're riding down the street you couldn't see the sidewalk, you had to feel your way down. It was hairy, you know, kind of scary at night, but we had to do that.

Q: What exactly did you do as a boy scout, you…

A: We were messengers for one street to the other. Boy scouts would earn our badges, we would get our badges for whatever we did at the time, but I don't exactly remember it's been so long.

Q: How do you think the tragedy of 9/11 compares to the attack on Pearl Harbor?

A: About the same. When I saw the pictures of Pearl Harbor I was, the thing with 9/11 was why they hit civilians. I'm going to tell you the truth; I think they're sneakier than the Japanese were. The Japanese were sneaky enough. And then we find out later on that the Japanese soldiers were kind of annoyed that we didn't know before they hit because it was an honor to let them know that we're going to come and get you. They didn't do that.

Q: So, do you think that's similar to 9/11 that you didn't know it was coming?

A: No, they didn't know.

Q: Why did you decide to join the Navy?

A: You know before you go into service, you go to parties, dances, and stuff like that and I was deciding what service to go in and I talked to soldiers and I talked to navy men and stuff, and I was at a dance one day and I said well, if you want to be clean you go in the navy, if you want to wind up kind of muddy, you go in the army you know? And I decided to stay clean. If I was going to die, I'd die clean anyway.

Q: When did you enlist?

A: On May of 1944, I was drafted.

Q: You were drafted?

A: When I enlisted they didn't want me in the navy. I had a perforated ear drum. That was in February cause my birthday was in March. When my enlistment came up for a physical for the draft, that was in March and then in May I went into service. I was lucky enough that they asked me what I wanted. A lot of fellows weren't asked, in fact they used to joke with them, they used to put them in something else, and when I approached the officer when I was accepted I asked him, he says to me what can I do for you? I said stop kidding cause I was kind of annoyed, I didn't want to go in the army, and he said I'm not kidding, I said well if your not kidding, sir, I'd like the navy, and that was the only way the navy said you could get in the navy, other then that you couldn't get in. And I remember our first gunnery practice up in Portland, Maine, on a 3" fifty, my ears nearly blew apart. I understood why. And then I went to the medics and I asked them to move me some place where I wouldn't get concussion on the ear. And it worked out, I had cotton, they didn't have plugs then. We used cotton and moved me to the center of the ship on a 20 mm which was a lot better.

Q: How did your family and friends feel about you joining?

A: Well, of course they didn't want me to go in, but it was a necessity, we had to go, we had to go in.

Q: How did you feel during your last few days before leaving for the navy?

A: Boring, it was Lido Beach, and it took us five days to put us out and I think they could have done it in three, but it was five days, it was boring, and they were feeding us beautiful food, it was anything you wanted to eat, there was good food. We called it "shipping over chow" they wanted us to stay in and we didn't want to stay in. We wanted out.

Q: Did you do anything special before you left?

A: The ship?

Q: Before you left for training and stuff.

A: No, we went to Bainbridge, we trained. When we went to Bainbridge to do our calisthenics and all that stuff before we caught our ships and stuff. We didn't do anything special.

Q: And where did you say you went for training?

A: Bainbridge, Maryland. There was a boot camp, they called it, boot camp.

Q: Could you describe a typical day at boot camp?

A: Again, I'm a very lucky guy, you know, right place at the right time. I was a drummer in school and the first thing they asked us when we first trained, there was about three hundred guys in the company, and they said I want all the drummers and all the trumpeters to step aside. And I didn't want to say I was a drummer because, I don't know, I Just thought they were special and I didn't want to be special, I wanted be with the guys, you know. I didn't say anything for two weeks, it was an eight week training program, and it was calisthenics and push-ups, a lot of strenuous work. The reason why I wanted to train more because in high school, or in grammar school, I couldn't climb the rope, they had ropes that I couldn't get halfway up, I had to drop down. But after two weeks, I went through that course, and man I was stronger, I was able to go up - I was in good shape, I thought I was in good shape. So I go up to the officer in charge, and I said, you know, I am a drummer, you know. He said, well why didn't you tell me? I said well I didn't want to say anything, you know. He said, you take this and go to this particular barracks and ask the wire officer that you're a drummer and he'll take care of you. I went to that particular barracks and I did nothing but play on a pad for the next four weeks, they did nothing but play on a pad, go and eat, play on a pad… it was amazing, and then, of course, they gave me a test to go through to get in the band. And I passed test for getting in the band, and then they said you had to join for six years, and I didn't want to join for six years, so I went back. This is when I graduated, I still graduated the course but I didn't do six years, I did the two.

Q: Do you remember your instructors?

A: Yeah, well, one was Doc. Sam was one of the other guys.

Q: What were they like?

A: Oh they were good fellows. The trainers were very good, you know, with us. But the officers were a little rough. If there were any kind of noise or anything, we had a watching field, big field, and I guess it was a mile around the field and one of the fellows was opening a window one night and got his fingers caught and made some noise and an officer happened to be walking into the barracks at that time. He said there's too much noise in this barracks, in ten minutes I want your boots on and out and you're going to march around, you're going to run around the course. And we had just taken showers, we had just settled down and what a mess. We come back in, and the poor guy's got his fingers-In fact I pried the window open on the guy that had his fingers caught-he couldn't help. That was one of the bad things about boot camp.

Q: So how did you get through it?

A: Very well, I think we did fine. Most of us did fine, no problems, nobody went crazy. We did have two men aboard ship who went crazy.

Q: From the stress of it?

A: Yeah, too much stress I guess. One of the men took a fire extinguisher and was putting out cigarettes with a fire extinguisher. It was kind of weird.

Q: What were your feelings about being on a destroyer escort?

A: Feelings? Well it was a duty. We had a duty to perform and my first six months were pretty tough to get used to the discipline, and the work, of course, but after the six months, I thought well, I got to do it, this is it, I made up my mind, whatever they're going to throw at me I got to do it, and we did, after six months. To me, I guess, it wasn't easy, a lot of times it was kind of rough. It was like, I guess like being in prison. I don't know how prison is because I was never in prison. You had to do certain things at certain times, and they had to be done right otherwise you'd get in trouble.

Q: Did you understand what type of ship you would be serving on, one that was supposed to be expendable?

A: No, these ships that I was on, were only designed in 1942. They were specifically built to go after submarines on convoy duty. But then they did other things for them, they converted them into other types of work during the war. My ship was the first one to be converted to electrical power to supply electricity to a city. Then there were other ships, D.E.'s that were converted to APD's, they were the ones that carried four LCVP's, they were four smaller boats that would be lowered into the water, now this is before an invasion of an island. They used to call them "frogmen", they used to go in with demolition men and they would go into shore and blow up al the mines and buoys before the actual invasion. They would sneak in at night and do this and then go back out.

Q: Where did your ship go? What areas did you serve in?

A: We went to, in the Atlantic, we went to Baserti, Palermo, Italy, we come back to the United States and we hit Boston, New York, Virginia. And then we went to the Pacific, after our converting. In South Carolina we were converted in January of 1945, we went through the Suez Canal and hit San Diego and then we went to Pearl Harbor. From Pearl Harbor we went to Vlite. We passed by the island of Truck, which was occupied by the Japanese at that time and then we went into Late, the Philippines, and we went up to Manilla from Letty and we anchored in the North harbor, where we were hooked up to supply. We got into Manilla Harbor, between Bataan and Corregidor, the end of February, beginning of March of 1945. Now I remember all the invasions, all the tornadoes, everything that happened up until August the 15th, we were sitting in Manilla Harbor. The only thing we go involved in, in the beginning, was GQ where the front lines were only a couple miles outside the city, and we weren't allowed on shore, because they still had snipers, they still had snipers in the city.

Q: How was it going to Pearl Harbor, after knowing that it had been attacked and that's how America got into the war?

A: Well to me it was just, I don't know…it was a lot of ships. I never saw so many ships in my life. Quite an experience to wake up in the morning out at sea and the horizon when you're out at sea, you know, the horizon went all the way around, there's nothing…and as your coming there's a little island, but ships from one end of the horizon to the other end of the horizon was ships. I never saw so many of them. We got in line to have breakfast and I said whoa the whole navy is hear. And there were carriers, and battleships, and cruisers, cargo ships, and it probably was an invasion force that went into the islands after us cause we weren't even into Pearl Harbor yet and it was amazing. Then we left, we were more or less alone.

Q: What was your job or assignment on the Destroyer Escort?

A: Well I was deck force at first, chipping paint, handling lines. Mostly cleaning, then we stood watches. They were four hour watches. Four hours on, eight hours off.

Q: Could you describe a typical day on your ship? What did you do from the moment you woke up?

A: When you heard the bell, then you wouldn't hear a sound. In other words, you didn't make any sound, you didn't talk, didn't say a word, you just got up and went and you shaved, got a shower, and you didn't talk or say any word cause if you did, you'd get into a fight. The only time you started to hear a murmur was at muster at 8 o'clock. You had to be in a line, set up, and your name was called. After that you were assigned jobs, chipping paint, painting, holding watch, take your clothes to the laundry, things like that. At the end of the day, of course, we had a fantail, that would be the rear of the ship, where guys would smoke and chit chat, talk.

Q: What kinds of things did you do for fun on the ship?

A: Well we did have a punching bag, weight lifting, played cards mostly.

Q: Did your ship see combat?

A: No.

Q: Could you tell me about a couple of your most memorable experiences while on the ship?

A: Well there was one. You must remember there was maybe five men aboard the ship that actually saw any kind of action, cause we were all green, what we call green. We went through a lot of practice, a lot of practice. We had a GQ, which is general quarters, the first night we were anchored in the harbor, we knew the front lines were three miles out, they said the planes may come in, Japanese planes. We were worried about the kamikaze planes, suicide planes. It was pitch black. We used to see movies on the fantail, they had a big screen. We had the GQ, the movie was Kiss and Tell with Shirley Temple. We had the GQ and I run up to my gun, I was gun number 7 and I put the phones on and I remember being scared. I put the phones on, reported it, everybody was ready to fire. Pitch black, you had to feel your way around that's how dark it was. And the word come down from the bridge, the skipper got on the loudspeaker and he says, okay fellows I want to let you know that's the fastest you guys got ready to fire a gun. It usually takes you two minutes for the whole ship to get ready, you got ready in less than two minutes. Relax. And then it got quiet. And then I'll have to tell you, I got so scared I peed my pants, and I never told anybody. But I was scared. Nothing happened, it just cleared up, and we were told to go back to finish the movie. That was one of the experiences. Of course I went down and changed my clothes.

Q: How was everybody after that, though? Could they watch the movie?

A: Yeah, yeah. We were kind of mad because it had happened three times. We got mad afterwards cause we wanted to finish the movie. But they never come over.

Q: Are there any other experiences that you remember?

A: When we were allowed to go off the ship, I'd go into town. Of course when we first went in the harbor, there were these sunken Jap ships, and they had these little canoes-the Filipinos would come around in these little canoes and as Americans, we never saw Japanese, we never saw Filipinos, we didn't know what they looked like, they all looked the same. Until you see two. Once you see a Japanese, you know the difference between the Japanese and a Filipino. They would go in these ships that were sunk, and catch the Japs that were alive, and they would kill them and hang them, and we saw that. But going into town, we'd walk along the street, and everything would be blown up, there was no buildings, I think there was only one building-a donut and coffee place. But as you were walking along you could smell the dead bodies, but you didn't see them. That you don't forget. I still can smell it. That doesn't leave you.

Q: Describe your relationship with the crew and officers of your ship.

A: Officers of the ship, I don't know how it is today, talking to some men, they had a good time with their officers, we didn't. They were kind of strict with us. They went by the book, and you saluted them. There was only two officers aboard the ship that were pretty nice. They got along well with the guys. But the rest were strictly orders and stuff.

Q: What was the name of your ship again? I don't think I asked you before.

A: Wiseman, D.E. Wiseman. He was shot down in 1942, one of the pilots off one of the carriers in the Pacific.

Q: Who were your closest friends on the ship and what were they like?

A: Oh, the laundryman. He lived in San Diego. See I'm of Greek descent, and when we hit the Philippines, I was the only Greek fellow aboard the ship. And we picked up eight fellows to replenish the crew, and as they were getting aboard I asked them is any Greeks in this crowd and there was two of them. And I got pretty friendly with one of them, and actually he married my cousin after the war. Chris Jones, his name is Chris Jones. And we still, we see each other.

Q: Were there any African- Americans on your ship?

A: Oh yes, they were stewards, you know, for taking care of the officers. We got along all right with them. They just had their job to do, we had our job to do.

Q: Did you notice a difference in how they were treated?

A: I don't think they were treated any different than what we were. They had their job and they had their gunnery places. We used to have a little bit of fun with them. A fellow by the name of Philips-I guess they hung by themselves, we hung by ourselves. But there was a Philips, we were playing cards one time, there was three stacks of beds, you know, in the second compartment, and as we were playing cards, the ship used to roll very bad. It would roll so bad Philips, one of the stewards was on a top bunk, he was thrown out of the bunk as he was trying to sleep ad he flew out of the bunk, and he gets back up in the bunk, and he puts his straps across, three straps he puts across himself to keep himself in the bunk. We're playing cards, and one of the guys remarks, you know if a torpedo hit this compartment, Philip's would never have a chance to get out. Then slowly he was taking the straps off. If a torpedo hit the compartment, forget it, none of us would've. So we laughed. It was one of the jokes, it was funny.

Q: Did you keep in contact with friends and family at home?

A: One thing I regret, I didn't write my mother enough. I think about it today. I don't know why I never wrote to her. I should've wrote more. That's what I regret.

Q: What did you miss most about home life?

A: In the service? The freedom. The freedom, you weren't free. You were under the orders of whatever they wanted you to do.

Q: Do you remember what you were doing when you heard about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan?

A: I was on watch in Manilla Harbor. I was on the pier, and somebody hollered that they dropped a big bomb in Japan somewhere and maybe the war was going to be over. It was the following week, I don't remember now, when the second bomb was dropped that's when it ended. I was on watch that day.

Q: What was your reaction to it?

A: Oh, my reaction was that I could start saving money. Really, cause I didn't think I was coming back. I started to save my money. That was my reaction, I said ooh I have a chance to get home. I started to save money and that's what I used to buy my first car when I came back, which was a year later. Because I didn't get out right away.

Q: What did you think of President Roosevelt?

A: I voted for him. I thought he was a great speaker, he was a great speaker.

Q: How did you feel about his death?

A: Worried what was going to happen, because we didn't know what was going to happen, you know, once he passed. We were young, we were eighteen, nineteen, you know, and we were wondering what was going to happen. And President Truman, we didn't know him, cause we, at that time we were able to get and talk to people, to the Filipinos, and they were asking us, how's this Truman, we don't even know him, we didn't know anything about him. And yet he became one of the great presidents. Did you ever read the book on him?

Q: No.

A: Great book on his life. I wish we had a couple more like him around.

Q: When and where were you discharged?

A: I was discharged in 1946, May in Lido Beach, NY.

Q: Describe your reception when you returned home.

A: My reception? I didn't come home right away, I stopped at the candy store, right around the corner, and everything looked so small to me, cause you visualize your neighborhood and stuff as big, but when you get home everything is smaller, and I had an ice cream cone and then when I went to my house and opened my door, my cousin, Sue, who married my buddy, greeted me at the door. It was a great day. It really was.

Q: After it was all over, did service in the navy turn out to be what you expected?

A: Well I had a job, I had a post office job when I come back. They asked me to stay in, but I didn't want to stay in at the time. You know, as you get older things start to get different. I don't know, I could've stayed in, made twenty years with the navy, but I didn't choose to do that. I could choose whatever you want, I come back I had a post office job.

Q: You experience in the navy, was it what you had thought it would be, before you signed up?

A: No, it was kind of rough. Well, because I never got home. I wore my uniform, my dress uniform, that's two years and what is it, 700 days? Whatever it is. I wore my dress uniform 37 times so that's in two years, so I was never home. They, in fact, when I got out they owed me, 45 days I think it was, which I wanted when I got home to San Diego, I wanted to get home, and they wouldn't let me home. They said we needed you aboard ship to decommission the ship. But then they paid me the 45 days, which was alright too.

Q: After you were home did you do anything special to celebrate?

A: Not really. I was kind of nervous, I was running around a lot, and then one day I said to myself, well I'm home, why am I running around? I settled down, I was kind of nervous when I got home.

Q: Nervous of what?

A: Well, you're sitting in the service for two years, and you're thinking well when are you going to get it, you don't know, you go along with what everybody else is doing. But then when you go home, you say to yourself well you're home, but still you're worried because it was kind of nutsy out there in civilian life, running around, you're worried about getting hit by a car, or running across the road, that bothered me a little bit.

Q: Was life at home as you remembered it or had it changed?

A: Oh life at home was nice, was great.

Q: It was the same as before you left?

A: Oh yeah, it was the same. My mother and father had a business, they were working, I started to help my dad in the store and stuff.

Q: At what point did you share your war experiences with your family?

A: Oh right away. I told them where I was, what I did.

Q: Did you keep in touch with any of your crew members after the war?

A: No, not until 40 years, 45 years later we had a reunion. And that was caused by a crew of the ship that went out in '51 to Korea. That crew got together and had a reunion, and they said how about if we try to get a hold of the guys that were on it during the Second World War. And that's how we got together, otherwise, I don't think we would have ever got together.

Q: And how was it seeing them again?

A: Oh it was nice. We had a reunion down in New Orleans, our first reunion. And we met a couple of guys. And then we had these conventions, the navy conventions for D.E. sailors, it was started in the '80's. So it was quite a few years later that we had these conventions, and I met a couple Balsa mates, a Lieutenant that was on our ship, but only a few, we didn't meet a whole lot. Then eventually we got, at the most, at our reunions of ships were 24, 24 fellows, something like that, up in Canton, Ohio which was pretty nice.

Q: Did you consider going back to school after you returned home?

A: You know I did go back to school. I chose to do federal service, and I did federal service for thirty-five years, but it was at first with the post office, and then it was with the V.A. and then the air force, and then the army. But back when I was working for the post office, they had an exam that you had to have to keep the job, and twenty-two of us took this exam, there was fifty drivers I think in the post office, twenty-two of us took this exam, only two of us passed. I didn't worry about the other twenty that didn't pass, but I said to myself oh my god, I says, I have to go back to school. I got to go. And I did, I went to summer school for a while. And then I took the exam again and I passed enough to get on the list. I actually quit the post office, I shouldn't have did that but I actually quit the post office, but I got this exam and I got back on the list and that's when I got back into civil service about a year or two later and I continued my time.

Q: When you went to school did you do it under the G.I. bill?

A: Yes. I went to music school under the G.I. bill too. I was a drummer.

Q: Did you join a veteran's organization?

A: Yeah, I join the American Legion back in '47, '48. I was in the American Legion, I'm still in the American Legion. Of course the VFW I just joined a couple of years ago.

Q: And what do you do in those organizations?

A: Actually I don't participate, I just support them. I don't participate. The only participation I have is with the D.E. sailors.

Q: And that's an organization?

A: Yeah, that's an organization. Destroyer Escorts, that's what Professor Douglass got a hold of us through, that organization, that's how I got to get involved here.

Q: So what do you do with them?

A: Oh we have luncheons every month and then we have meetings. It's a social organization. We get together and have luncheons and we go on tours and stuff.

Q: Have you seen any World War Two movies in your lifetime?

A: What kind of movies?

Q: World War Two Movies.

A: Oh sure. The thing that I hope to tell students to watch is the History Channel. I didn't realize as a nineteen, twenty-year old, coming back some of the things that the services did, but that History Channel tells you, it shows you, and it's pretty rough.

Q: Do you think that the movies are accurate?

A: The later ones are, yeah.

Q: Which ones have you seen?

A: The movies in the beginning were propaganda movies, but the ones that they are showing now, Speilberg has come out with some real true-to-life stuff. And also some of the books that some of the men that were aboard these ships are telling stories that they didn't tell before. In fact, one came out in '96. The book, Liverpool, the troop ship Liverpool that made an invasion in '44 it was the 24th of December of '44 that made a landing in Normandy, and was hit by a German sub, and the chaos that followed was very bad. Cause we had training, we were trained that when something did this we did this, we did that. There was utter chaos on that ship, there was no organization, they could've saved a lot more men if they had, but this person who wrote the book, he studied and researched all the men that were aboard that ship and the ones that were lost and interviewed every one of them. He took a long time, he didn't write the book 'til '96 so it took a long time for him to get this together.

Q: What do you think is the most important lesson you learned from serving in World War II?

A: Lesson? I don't think I learned a lesson. But I grew up fast. I met people that I probably would've never met. And you know, you talk about, my first cuss word was heard aboard the ship, as friends we didn't talk like that in school, we didn't talk like that in the family. So it was kind of weird to be hearing all this language aboard the ship.

Q: Is there anything else that I haven't covered already that you think is important to discuss?

A: Not that I know of, no.

Q: Alright, thank you for your time, this concludes the interview.

A: You're welcome.

Conclusion of the Interview.

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