CPT Mark Gordon "Doc" Hazard (Army, WWII Veteran)
It's hard to imagine what it was like to fight such a well-drilled enemy. The Nazis referred to America as a "Mongrel Nation," a term meant to dehumanize us as a people of racially polluted degenerates. German preparation was rigorous, with 16 weeks of basic instruction, longer than any basic training in American forces. After that, recruits moved into specialized regimens.
Combat arms instruction emphasized tactical maneuvers like fire and movement, reinforced by extensive live-fire exercises. It demanded discipline, endurance, and leadership by example, building cohesion through shared adversity and indoctrination.
What the Germans didn't realize, though, was that while their training may have been more systematic on paper, the American soldier had already endured incredible hardship. Men like Mark Gordon Hazard were forged in the Great Depression. Growing up in rural Mississippi, Doc was already schooled in one of the core principles of attrition warfare: survival.
The German view of Americans as soft and weak couldn't have been further from the truth. These young men were shaped by poverty, by work in the fields, by the daily necessity of becoming men too soon.
To put it simply, the Germans never saw men like Doc coming until it was too late. The fight would still be brutal, but through Hazard's words, we see why the American fighting man carried such confidence. Their belief in each other, combined with hard-earned fieldcraft, made them one of the most effective combat forces the world had ever seen.
For them, victory was the only acceptable outcome.
Editor’s Note: The following interview contains graphic descriptions of violence and close-quarters combat. These are presented as the subject’s personal recollections and have not been independently verified. The content may be distressing to some readers. Discretion is advised.
What do you remember about the war?
MGH: We were in the mountains with the 7th Armor, and we were kicking butt good. Our unit was on the Siegfried Line, and boy, that was something else.
First, you had to cross an anti-tank ditch. Then you had to cross an anti-personnel ditch on the line. It was about 20 feet across and 10 to 12 feet deep, solid, and it ran all the way across Germany.
Those pillboxes were roughly 300 yards apart. They were built out of 8-foot reinforced concrete with just a slit in the front for shooting. The slit was just big enough to see us and shoot through. To minimize the chance of rounds ricocheting into the box, they had steps built into the bunker.
Every bunker was connected by an underground tunnel system. There were small cars that could move back and forth to transport troops and equipment. I'm guessing those tunnels went on for about 100 miles.
The way the bunkers were connected made it so that in order to get to the second bunker, you had to attack the first one. You couldn't just bypass it. We’d been issued flamethrowers, and we had a couple come up to the line.
We'd bring a machine gunner up and throw so much lead through that aperture that the Germans couldn't even get up to shoot back. While we had them pinned down, one man would crawl up, shove the nozzle through the slit, and spark it.
With one of those flamethrowers, you could fry everyone in that bunker. You'd stick it in that slit, give them a good dose, and make sure none of them lived.
Now remember, I told you about the anti-tank ditch in front of the bunker and the anti-personnel ditch before that. Well, in between those ditches, there was about 30 yards of razor-sharp concertina wire. You couldn't go over it, and you sure couldn't go under it. You'd just get caught and shot to bits.
They issued us Bangalore torpedoes in 10-foot lengths. With rounds coming in on us, we'd have to screw those Bangalores together, shove them under the wire, detonate them, and then rush through the gap.
That's the only day I can't remember clearly. I've thought about it a lot.
I remember getting onto Sergeant Robinson. He had a flamethrower. I needed him to get up to that aperture and burn out the bunker, but he wasn't moving very fast. I told him, "Get your big, fat…" Well, I don't know if I should say it. (Laughs) Anyway, I told him to get up there, and he killed whatever Krauts were in there.
That's the last part of the day I remember. We whipped the Germans for half the day, and they whipped us for half a day.
Mr. Hazard sits down with his friend, Starkville native writer and director Jesse Phillips.
That night was the eeriest night I’ve ever spent on this earth. The Germans were back in their foxholes come daylight, and we were back in ours too. Between us was an area we called ‘no man’s land.’
My battalion had about 600 - 700 men, and I guess you could say I was a big dog. I had about 160 to 170 men going into this battle. That night, after we got done fighting on the line, I had 14 men left. F Company had about 26 out of their 160 or 170. The battalion had only two line officers remaining.
All of the machine gunners from G Company were killed except for two. One of my machine gunners received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Honestly, I’m not sure what he did to earn it. I’m guessing because so many men were doing courageous things, they had to pick someone to give it to, and they chose him. (During the Ardennes campaign, more than 20 Medals of Honor were awarded for extraordinary heroism under extreme conditions.)
Like I said, we whipped them for the first half of the day, and they whipped us for the last half. I remember hollering at Robbie to get the flamethrower working, and I remember getting back into my hole. The rest of that day is a blank in my mind. I asked my men about it later. I knew I hadn’t run, but I couldn’t remember what I did.
The men told me I was out in front giving orders, but in my mind, it’s completely blank. That day’s fight… I just can’t recall. What I do remember clearly is that night. It was the eeriest night I ever spent in combat.
There was no artillery from us, no artillery from them, not a gun fired. Out in no man’s land, there was constant hollering and crying. So many men had been shot. A lot of them were screaming for medics. It was eerie.
Our medics went out with stretchers, and the German medics came out from their side. They worked together in the open, helping each other because there were so many dead and wounded. If an American medic found a German who was shot, they let the German medics know. If the Germans found an American torn up, they let us know. (There are recorded instances of temporary battlefield truces during the Ardennes Offensive where medics from both sides assisted one another in retrieving wounded soldiers.)
That was the day the Bulge, the Battle of the Bulge, began in the Ardennes. We had gotten too far out in front of our line and were told to roll back. We loaded into our trucks and started setting up a defensive line. We didn’t attack for several days, just worked on strengthening that position.
As quickly as we left, the Germans filled in the gaps. Command sent us replacement troops every night as best they could. They loaded rations and ammunition along with the replacements, who came in for our wounded and dead. We divided those new men between the companies to keep every unit as even as possible.
I remember one big, stout boy, about Jesse’s size (Jesse Phillips is 6’5”), and I used him as one of our machine gunners. It was always better if the boys carrying the machine guns were big. We were digging emplacements for cross-firing sections, and I was checking our line.
I walked down to his end, and while he was kneeling over, he suddenly fell into his foxhole, yelling that he’d been shot. I said, “Boy, what in the hell is wrong with you? Not a round has been fired anywhere in this area this morning.”
I told him to get up, and when he did, I saw blood running down his back. We hadn’t heard any whistle or crack of rounds, but sure enough, a bullet had come down from somewhere and hit him in the back muscle. I popped that bullet out and sent him down the line to the hospital. “You’re right,” I told him. “You did get shot.”
He was in the hospital for about three weeks before he was supposed to come back to us. One day, I sent a few of our troops to bring in the replacements. Moving anywhere out there was always risky, and I knew they might get hit by the Germans.
They went out and came back with the replacements. I asked the man I’d put in charge if anyone had been hit. He said, ‘Well, yeah, they hit us with artillery, and some of us got hit. Remember that old machine gunner who got shot in the back when you told him he hadn’t been hit?’
I laughed a little and said, “Yeah, is he with the replacements?”
He replied, “Well, yeah, but he got pretty torn up by the German artillery.”
“The men told me I was out in front giving orders, but in my mind, it’s completely blank. That day’s fight… I just can’t recall. What I do remember clearly is that night. It was the eeriest night I ever spent in combat.”
You know, that boy hadn’t seen a single German and hadn’t fired his gun one time, but he had two Purple Hearts. That was the war for him. He was headed home.
I don’t know if I should say this or not, but to be completely honest, the Bulge was a screw-up on command’s part. The Battle of the Bulge didn’t have to happen, in my mind. The Germans knew they were whipped and were just trying to get to Antwerp as quickly as possible to get supplies.
Washington was in such a hurry to get our combat troops home that they pulled paper-pushers, quartermasters, and truck drivers into divisions meant to occupy. It was quiet in the Ardennes, but they sent those two divisions of support soldiers up without much training.
In my belief, it’s completely different to drive a truck and to kill a man. We were trained to kill. They were trained to drive trucks. You can’t act like it’s the same thing and send one man to do the other’s job.
Command sent them up to the Ardennes front just so they could hear some bullets fly and feel like they were fighting. With their lack of training, they didn’t stand a chance.
Every few nights, we’d send a patrol to the German lines to count troops and see how many trucks, tanks, and supplies they had. I don’t know why, but they sent me on one of those missions. I came back with the information, and the next patrol they sent me out again. I came back every time, so it got to the point they didn’t call anyone else. They just started telling me to go.
You have to understand what you’re doing and where you’re going when you run a patrol. We’d be half a mile to a mile apart, and if there was snow on the ground, we wore a snow cape. It honestly resembled one of those Ku Klux Klan robes, but we wore it to stay camouflaged.
We’d usually go out around 10 or 11 p.m., and the Germans couldn’t see you with that white cape on. We’d lie down and crawl through the snow like rabbits. Sometimes we’d wait ten or fifteen minutes for the right moment. It might take two or three hours to break through because we had to be so quiet. Even a twig snapping could give up our position.
When we got through to a certain point, we’d stand up and act like big dogs who were important. I always brought this one guy named Rowold. He was a big Pennsylvania Dutchman who grew up speaking German at home. I brought that poor sucker with me on every mission because if we got stopped, he could speak their language.
You couldn’t hesitate or act like a fool when you were moving, because even the slightest hesitation could get you caught. You had to act like you were carrying important information from the rear command to the front. You couldn’t walk too fast or too slow, nothing suspicious. The further you got into the German lines, the less likely you were to be stopped.
We had snow capes and they had snow capes, so we’d walk right past them and they’d think we were part of one of their outfits. Of course, you didn’t want to get too close, because then they could tell you weren’t one of their own. We’d keep our distance, march with purpose, and gather information about their troops and supplies while they had no idea. I never had one stop me to ask what I was doing. (Laughs)
That was my first mission. Command asked me to move down a road with my radioman and report back where the German lines were. So Swanson, my radioman, and I went up the road a ways and found the town command had asked us to reach. When we got there, we didn’t see one dang Kraut or any sign of them.
We reported back to command that the Germans were nowhere to be found. The next morning, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon, we saw a German soldier coming up the road with a stick and a white flag attached to it. I told my guy Mark to keep a gun on him, but to see what he wanted when he got close.
When he got to us, we yelled out, “Halt! Was ist das?” (Stop! What is that?) Would you believe he spoke better English than I did? (Laughs) He said, “I am wounded, and I have a friend who can’t walk. We want to surrender.” I said, “Well, you’re in the right place.” He asked if we could bring a stretcher back for his friend. I said, “Sure, but you know you’re going too. In case you try to sucker someone in, guess who’s going to be the first one killed.” He said, “I understand.”
We got about a quarter mile down the road, and all of a sudden, I saw a machine gun nest off to the right. I got behind that Kraut and said, “Is that a machine gun nest?” He said, “Yeah, that’s where my friend is.” I replied, “Now listen, you better pay attention. If someone shoots that machine gun at us, you’re the first one who’s going to die. I’m going to kill you.” He said, “He won’t shoot. I promise.”
We came in through the back of the bunker. Our stretcher bearer went inside to get his buddy, and when I walked in behind him, I started cussing at both of them, because I realized they still had guns on them. I’d been walking with that German the whole way, and he had a little .32 Bulldog-type revolver on him. (Small, inexpensive “Bulldog”-style pocket revolvers, often Belgian copies of older British patterns, were commonly encountered as personal weapons in the ETO.)
They both still had theirs.
I asked if they’d seen any Americans while they were in that machine gun nest. One of them said, ‘Yeah, we saw an American officer with a radioman come up the road. They walked right past us.’ That had been me and Swanson. (Laughs) I don’t know why they hadn’t shot us, but fortunately for us, they didn’t. I asked, ‘Where did all your buddies go?’ He replied, ‘They left us here wounded.’
Anyway, that was my first mission. You develop confidence when you’re in combat a lot, and you learn how to survive. It doesn’t mean you’re invincible or immortal, but when I was going behind enemy lines, I realized that as long as I stayed confident, the Germans never caught on to me. I started feeling really confident on those missions, and that served me well.”
They had these two new American divisions in the Ardennes, and they couldn’t find their rump with both hands. (Laughs) The Germans built up a line right behind our American divisions, and if our guys had even looked, they would’ve seen a big German division there.
Then, all of a sudden, the Germans came after them at daylight. They had plenty of soldiers and plenty of tanks. Our frontline called back to the battalion and said, “We are being attacked!” But those guys in the battalion didn’t know too much about fighting. You have to remember, these were support divisions being used as combat units.
The boys thought it was just a small patrol of Germans, so they called back to the regiment. The regiment didn’t know what to do either. They were just as clueless. So they ended up pulling three or four hard-fighting divisions to go join them in the Ardennes because they were getting their rumps handed to them.
They called us out of the mountains, along with some other divisions that included the 101st Screaming Eagles (the 101st Airborne Division, which famously held Bastogne) and the 36th Lone Star Division. The 36th was the Texas boys, a really good division.
They sent in the 42nd Division first, one late afternoon, but that division wasn’t all that good. The history books say they were, but I don’t remember them being very good. I’m sure they had some good soldiers, though.
Our division was told to head back to the line and get set. As far as you could see, men and tanks were stretching across the line. We lined up all across eastern France, through the little nation of Luxembourg. We didn’t have a single light on, just reflective cat eyes to distinguish us in the dark. We crossed half of France and made it all the way to Belgium by daylight.
When I got to camp that day, they had some mail for us. One of the guys brought me a few letters, and I got one that said my father had died. I went out by myself, sat down against a tree, and cried for a while.
That next morning, we hit Aachen. The Germans had busted a major dam on the Roer River on our way into the city, and they flooded us out. (German forces deliberately released water from the Roer River dams in February 1945 to slow Allied crossings.) We had to fight through the water, and that was really tough.
Once we got past that, we started moving toward the Rhine. They gave us training to prepare for the crossing. They wouldn’t tell us exactly where we’d cross, but they showed us topographic maps so we could learn about the marshes and terrain. I remember hearing we could cross in about 25 minutes. Thankfully, we only lost about six men during the training.
“When I got to camp that day, they had some mail for us. One of the guys brought me a few letters, and I got one that said my father had died. I went out by myself, sat down against a tree, and cried for a while.”
About five boats down from us was H Company. Those were the heavy-weapons and mortars guys. They left a bunch of their gear hooked to their boat and got in without unhooking it. That was our first time crossing the Roer in preparation for the Rhine.
I thought we were moving too fast, and I looked down the line and saw H Company’s boat swerving. Their boat capsized, and those boys didn’t come back up. That was too bad. The equipment they had hooked to the boat sank it.
Getting to Aachen wasn’t too much trouble, to be honest. But once we got there, it got a little rough. Our tanks couldn’t move through the town because of how the buildings had fallen from all the bombings. (Aachen was heavily battered by artillery and bombing, producing rubble that limited armored movement and forced infantry to clear buildings house-to-house.) 
We had to crawl through buildings while hunting the Krauts, and that took some time. Once we got through that, they sent in the 102nd to relieve us. 
That’s when we started training for the Rhine River crossing. They loaded us into blacked-out trucks and took us to some place. I can’t remember the name of it anymore. We stayed in some houses until the next night, then they loaded us up again and we made it to the Rhine.
The 102nd (“Ozark Division”) was there by then, and they were new to the fight. Command would paint our unit's number over theirs because the Germans knew our units and learned which ones would fight hard. They wouldn't mess with us as easily as they would with the 102nd.
When we got to those houses around 3 a.m., there were roughly two rooms to a house, and we had to pack all our men into one of them. I was in charge of all the fighting troops, and I had to cram all those soldiers into two rooms. There wasn't any room to lie down, so you had to bring your knees up to your chest and sleep against the man behind you.
We were told not to leave the house under any condition because the Germans were in the area. We sat there all the next day, and at about 2:45 a.m., we went out and patrolled up to the boats on the other side of the dike. That's where we would cross the Rhine River.
George Dale and I were the big dogs, the two company commanders. I remember George couldn't help but get wounded. He was shot on four different occasions. Anyway, we sat there in our own chairs, since we were the big dogs, and waited to cross the river. Men were digging, and I wanted to get my mortars set. We placed our machine guns so the enemy would have to push through two lines of interlocking fire to get to us. Then we had what’s called a defilade area, which was covered by our mortar teams. (A defilade is an area shielded from direct enemy fire, often used as a kill zone pre-sighted by mortars or artillery.)
We zeroed the mortars into that area so that if the Germans attacked, we could sit behind a knoll on the hill and drop mortars right into it, killing as many Krauts as we could while staying out of sight.
I was up on the hill with Carter, my mortar sergeant, and Caudill, who was my main man. We were standing on a knoll with the mortars behind us. I was taking an azimuth to a defilade area. That’s the last thing I remember.
I woke up with Carter and Caudill standing over me. They’d grabbed me and pulled me down behind the hill. One of the sleeves on my uniform looked like someone had taken a machete to it, and I couldn’t use my hand on that arm. My back was hurting pretty badly, too.
As I came to, I could see Carter and Caudill standing over me. I said to Caudill, “Did I get hit?” He replied, “I believe you did.” I asked, “How bad is it?” He said, “I don’t know. We’ll see.”
They took off my uniform, and what they told me was that I had a big blood blister on the right side of my shoulder blade. Caudill was always a thoughtful person. I said, “Did I get hit? Is it bad?”
He got my shirt up over my head and said, “Oh hell, this isn’t any worse than if you’d been hit by the side of a broad axe!” (Laughs)
I asked, “Well, do I need to go back?” I was beginning to get some feeling back in my hand. I got to where I could close my fingers. I asked again, “Do I need to go to the aid station?”
He said, “Well, there’s plenty of Krauts between you and the aid station. I do believe you’d do better by staying here with us.” (Laughs)
I stayed, and by the next day, I could use my hand again. It took a while for that blood blister to disappear, but I was okay.
Carter and Caudill said they’d seen a tank fire a shell our way. Of course, that tank shell was faster than the speed of sound. Evidently, it must’ve missed me by about three feet because it slammed into the hill behind me.
I never even heard the sound because the round hit before it ever reached my ears. A piece of flak metal off the end of the shell hit my shoulder. That was shrapnel, of course.
That’s what happened to my canteen, the one you’re holding now. That dent came from shrapnel off that tank round.
I started thinking about all the men I'd come in with who weren't there anymore. At one time, we had six officers in our company, but that didn't last long. Not long after I got there, Keith got hit. He was in the machine gun section, a lieutenant.
They asked if I would attach machine gunners and mortars to my platoon after he got hit, and I told them I could handle both. Then Lieutenant Batchcaloopa got killed. He was about twenty feet away from me when it happened. I watched him die.
It ended up with George running one company and me running the other, because all the other officers were gone. We never did get any more officers. That's how we ended the war.
We knew we had the war won, and they were trying to build esprit de corps. Command said that from each infantry division, they’d pick one to three men to go home for 45 days. They picked me.
George came to me and said, “You son of a bitch, they picked you to go home.” I also got to take Sergeant Elza Caudill with me. We were the two chosen out of 15,000 soldiers in our division. We never ended up going back either. The war ended.
What do you think was the hardest part about fighting the Germans?
MGH: I don't know what made fighting the Germans hard. The first thing you had to understand was that you weren't coming back. You weren't going to make it through.
When you're up at the front, head-to-head, knife-to-knife, or fighting with anything you can kill with, you start to realize you're not going to make it. You don't let "probably" come into your mind. You have to believe it's not going to happen.
I went over there intending to kill Germans. That's what I was asked to do. The only way I could keep my sanity was to accept that I would die.
Every morning, I came out of that foxhole ready to lead my men across no man's land, prepared to kill all I could. I prayed the same prayer: "Lord, if today is my day, please take me home."
“When you’re up at the front, head-to-head, knife-to-knife, or fighting with anything you can kill with, you start to realize you’re not going to make it. You don’t let ‘probably’ come into your mind. You have to believe it’s not going to happen.”
Do you remember the young man who told you he didn’t want to go on patrol that night because he felt like he wasn’t going to make it?
MGH: Peter Rossigno. We were at Ripsdorf, and there was a Panzer division backed up in the mountains. You don’t see a tank outfit without infantry around it.
Peter had been a chef at the Parker House in Boston. Good soldier. He came up to me and said, “Mark?”
I said, “Yeah.”
We knew we were going into the mountains that night. They told us about where they thought the Germans were, and we’d find our way in there, stay a little off the road, and go until we found those tanks. Had to do it at night.
We got up on a kind of plateau, and we could see the road down in there. But before we left, Peter eased up to me. He said, “Mark?”
I said, “Yeah.”
“Is there any way I can get out of this tonight? I don’t want to go up there.”
He said, “I think I’m going to be killed tonight.”
I said, “I think that every day when we get out of our hole. I think I’m not going to see the sun go down.”
I said, “You know, nobody doubts your ability and your willingness to fight. But if I let you stay here tonight, how many will I have in the morning who figure they’re going to be killed that day and ask not to go?”
He said, “I understand. I knew that’s what it’d be, but that’s alright.”
The Germans had their infantry scattered around a perimeter where the tanks were. It had been sleeting on us a little that night. I told the boys, “Put your guns down, put them on the strap until we find somebody. If you leave them up, sleet will go down the barrel, and it’ll freeze. We won’t be able to do anything.”
We found the most miserable bunch of Krauts I ever saw in my life. They’d been out in the open all night, asleep. This icy little rain was falling, freezing cold. They had a machine gun and their rifles. They saw us at the same time we saw them.
They raised their guns and started to shoot, but that sleet had frozen the guns solid. Their trigger guards were packed with ice. They couldn’t get their fingers inside the guards. The gun barrels were full of ice too. The machine guns were damn water-cooled models with a shield around them. Hell, they were just blocks of ice.
They knew nobody in their right mind would come back into the mountains at night to get them. All they could do was shout “Boom, boom,” and pretend to shoot. I saw one or two of them grab their rifles by the barrel and beat them against the ground, trying to break the ice out of the trigger guard. Their fingers were frozen; they couldn’t even pull the trigger. Just a miserable bunch of Krauts.
We killed all we could find and went back home. I lost one man.
Peter Rossigno got shot right through the eyes.
The rest of us didn’t have a damn scratch on us.
How did you settle with that thought?
MGH: A platoon leader in WWII averaged 17 days of life. That was a good career in World War II, just to make it a month as a platoon leader. I went all the way across France and Germany and only got hit once. I must've done something right.
I didn't even get a Purple Heart. (Laughs) They never confirmed I was hit because I never went to the aid station for it. I'm glad I didn't go. They would've sent my family a telegram saying I'd been wounded in action, and I didn't want that.
I didn't want them to be upset. I didn't give a damn about that Purple Heart. I'll tell you, my men and I were very close. We called each other by first names or last names. There was no rank among us, because there was so much respect between us.
When men respect each other naturally, there isn't much need for titles. When I'd take men with me behind enemy lines, I'd always bring two or three. After a successful mission, when we made it back to our lines, command would always tell me they'd get me a Bronze Star or Silver Star for my actions.
I'd say, “Well, that's nice, but get three.” They'd ask, “What do you mean, get three?” I'd reply, “I had two men with me. I couldn't have made it without them.” I always told leadership that if they wanted to give me an award, they'd better have one for every man on that mission.
I came home without a damn decoration. They offered me awards plenty of times, but I always turned them down. When I got home, they sent me a Bronze Star, and the French sent me the Legion of Honour, which is their highest award.
They sent me those medals when I got home because they knew I couldn't turn them down. (Laughs) I just couldn't imagine taking my men on a dangerous mission and us not receiving the same honor.
The 79th set the record for most days in combat without a rest: 129 days. That's 129 consecutive days of combat. They pulled us back for seven or eight days to re-equip, then sent us back to the frontlines for another 89 straight days without a break.
Did you ever have to get into hand-to-hand engagements with the Germans?
MGH: I was good with a knife, and the good thing about a knife is it doesn't make noise. There were a few Germans I had to kill with a knife, and one I had to gut. I think the most nerve-wracking moment was when I got a call from command. They said, “We don't know what we're up against. We have no idea the numbers or how strong they are. We need a prisoner.”
Now, we were used to sneaking behind enemy lines and just gathering information. But capturing someone, that's a different deal. You've got to get eye-to-eye with that cat. I knew it'd be a fight, so I picked nine damn good men. I told them, “Now listen, we need a prisoner so we can get intel. We're going to get ourselves a prisoner tonight, and if we don't, we'll find a place to hide and grab one tomorrow night. We can't come back empty-handed.”
In no man's land, there was a creek running through the middle. Snow was on the ground several feet deep all the way to the water. The creek was frozen, but not frozen enough to walk across. The engineers floated a pontoon down there and built a little walkway across.
As we patrolled down to the creek in our snow capes, one of those engineers showed us where we could cross. We started working across no man's land and crawled about 75 to 100 yards, then just lay there in the snow and listened. I'd lie there about 15 minutes, motionless. In those 15 minutes, someone on the German line would do something to give up their position. I knew that if we could be silent for 15 minutes, we could find someone who would give away their location.
I'd crawl 75 to 100 yards up ahead of my men, perform reconnaissance, then come back. Then we'd crawl back up to that same spot together. It took us about two hours to get through their lines. Our map of France was damn near perfect, so we could pick out individual trails to make it through into Kraut territory. Command gave me a map, and I'd sit there for 30 minutes to an hour studying it. By that time, I had the whole thing memorized. I knew every damn trail.
We took our time and crawled real slow, and by the time we got to the woodline where their frontline was, we'd stand up and walk like we belonged there. We walked like big dogs. Nobody ever stopped us because it was always night when we went out.
I want to say we were about 200 yards behind their lines at one point, and I heard someone crunching in the snow behind us. Rowold and I immediately split to the right and left, behind a couple of trees. We waited for the Kraut to walk between them. Back then, I spent all my free time sharpening my knife, making sure it was combat-ready. I got behind him and put my knife against his belly. Rowold let him know we were taking him prisoner. He was the one who spoke German.
He told the German, “We are taking you prisoner. When we walk, you walk. When we speak, you listen. When we stop, you stop. You don't open your damn mouth.”
We couldn't believe it. We hadn't even been behind enemy lines for an hour and already had a prisoner. I walked behind him with one hand on the back of his neck and the other with my knife against his belly. We were Siamese twins at that point. (Laughs)
We got to about the edge of the front line, and he decided to holler. I took my knife, slit his belly, and let his guts fall out. After that, he didn't holler anymore. We brought his body over to a section of trees. We stripped his clothes off and took his gear. We left him lying there with his guts out. We rolled his clothes together, tied up his gear in the clothing roll, and kept it all together with his belt.
We brought it back to our intelligence people because we knew they could figure out which unit he was from. I never got to see our intelligence and interrogators in action, but I remember two of them really well. They were Jews who'd served time in a concentration camp, and those boys could get the Germans to tell them every detail of their lives. The German prisoner would go into the room with those Jews, and he'd come out telling them anything they wanted to know. Those Jewish men were very meticulous in how they interrogated, and there was no resisting them. I never saw them work, but I knew they worked very well.
Anyway, we were coming back from one mission one day, and there was a clearing. We were close to home at the time. There was a house with smoke coming out of the chimney, and that house was up on stilts. Don't ask me where those French folks who owned the place went, because I don't know. All I know is, any time we came into a town to clear it, the damn French completely disappeared. (Laughs)
When we got near the house, I motioned for my men to get down. Rowold and I took point, circling the place to see if there was any activity inside. I told Rowold to put his ear up to the door and listen. We could hear men talking, and it turned out to be a German unit that had taken the house for themselves. They were in there laughing and joking around.
Rowold and I lined up on both sides of the front door, at the bottom of the steps, so they wouldn't spot us. He prepped a fragmentation grenade, and I readied a white phosphorus grenade. Those white phosphorus grenades are nasty. They'll burn up hell if given the chance. When you pull that pin and release the handle, you've got about three seconds before that frag goes off.
We each hooked a finger into the ring of our pins. We wanted to give them a chance to surrender, so, like a gentleman, I crept up to the door, pushed it open, and immediately dropped down low outside the entrance. I shouted at them that we had them surrounded, and their only option was to surrender.
Rowold was still outside to the left of the door, down by the stairs.
“Pop, pop, pop, pop…”
They opened up on us with everything they had. I reckon those fools thought we were standing in the doorway, but we sure as hell weren't. (Laughs)
We saw they weren't going to give up, so we both pulled our pins and gave it about a second. Rowold and I threw our grenades through that entrance. The first grenade, a frag, made the talking and laughing stop real quick. The second was my phosphorus grenade, and I'll tell you that the house was completely ablaze in less than a minute. Every one of those damn Krauts burned up in there. We figure there were about 30 or 40 of them in that house.
We took off and told the rest of the men to come on. We didn't want to move toward their front lines, so we went deeper behind German lines. We ran maybe 300 to 400 yards to a deep depression. There wasn't any water in it, and we sat there to rest. We were catching our breath when we heard a bunch of jabbering Germans headed our way. It was a squad of Krauts, and they were heading straight toward the house. They saw the depression we were lying in and started talking about it. I couldn't make out what they were saying. It was in German, of course, but they were definitely interested in our position.
Of course, my men were so well trained that we'd already picked out who each of us would take out if they came our way. While they were talking, we lit them up. We made our way toward the squad, seeing if we could pick up any of their wounded, and would you believe it? Every single one of those men was dead. There were about 10 to 12 Krauts on the ground.
We knew the noise would draw more Germans our way, so we pushed even farther into enemy territory. The map in my head told me there was a railroad headed into an adjacent town that led up about half a mile to the train station. We patrolled toward it, got down into the snow near the station, and set up to make sure it was clear. As we lay there, we saw a Kraut lighting up his Zippo and smoking.
We could tell he was a Kraut by his helmet and the rifle leaning up against the station. He brought that Zippo to his cigarette and lit it. Rowold and I decided to make a big half-circle around his position so we could close in.
I took a slow step forward so I wouldn't crunch the ice, and Rowold stepped in my step. We did that all the way to the corner of the train station. That Kraut was still smoking. I cut the corner quickly, knocked his weapon over in one motion so he couldn't reach it, and put my knife into his belly. Rowold was right behind me. I told him, “Tell him in German we're going to take him prisoner, not hurt him, treat him well, and take him back to our lines.” Rowold told him.
“Versteht?” Rowold asked, which means, “Do you understand me?” He told the German not to make any noise or holler. The Kraut understood just fine. I said, "Tell him we've done enough killing tonight. We don't want to do any more. But I'm going to give him a nice little test. If he passes, he lives.”
I stuck my knife into the meaty portion of his butt and started slowly pushing it in until the blade was buried. Then I let go of the hilt and watched him. He stuck his hand over his mouth and started grunting from the pain, but he didn't make a sound. I said to Rowold, “He's passed the first part. Now let's see if he's lying.”
I slowly started turning the blade and pulling at his flesh. I said, “Tell him he passed, but that knife stays in there the whole way back as a reminder of what'll happen if he hollers.”
We had about two miles to patrol back to our line. I kept my left hand on his neck the whole way, ready in case he tensed up. I'd know if he was about to holler. We moved in tandem every step. That German was the most cooperative son of a gun you'd ever meet. (Laughs)
We went back the same way we came, stopping at the spot where I'd gutted the first man. I told the German, “Versteht?” When I crawled, he crawled. When I walked, he walked. He knew what to do.
I suppose we killed about 40 to 50 men that night, without taking a single scratch. We got back, and they told me I'd get the Silver Star for bringing in a prisoner. I said to command, “Nope, I need ten Silver Stars, one for each of our men.” They replied, “Hell, we can't give you ten Silver Stars!” I said back, “Well then, I guess I won't be getting a Silver Star either.”
I'm proud. Hell, that's all I've done.
I was the only one who sent helmets back to the rear. I threw that German helmet in the ammunition jeep so I could prove that I'd at least gotten one.
“We got to about the edge of the front line, and he decided to holler. I took my knife, slit his belly, and let his guts fall out. After that, he didn’t holler anymore. ”
I remember we were at Blamont. We took the town, and there were three roads leading out from it. We were just fixing to break out of the mountains onto the Alsatian Plain.
They told me to take my company and go down where those three roads come in and dig in, in case they wanted to counter-attack. The last building in town was a big tavern. They loved their damn taverns.
It was a nice town and we checked it as we came by, went in to be sure nobody was in there, then went on and dug in. They told us to spread out around where those three roads come in and hold it if they counter-attack. So we did. It was cold.
That night, we saw three Krauts coming. Those soldiers had on their regular brown overcoats. We could see them when they came out of the woods in the snow, just black dots walking along.
Cowboy Alvin, from Tremont, Mississippi. He was a staff sergeant. He was mean. Cowboy said, “Mark, let me go out there and lie in the snow, wear a snow cape, and kill those sons of bitches.”
They're coming right on to us. I said, “We got a bunch of men over there who've seen them. We got guns on them. Let them walk up here, and you kill them right in front of us.”
He said, “I'd like to go out there and kill all three of them.”
I said, “Well, damn it, if you want to do it, go ahead.”
So he crawled out there through the snow. We couldn't see him after a while. We could see those three dots. And all of a sudden we heard, “Bam, bam, bam.” And those dots fell. Cowboy came back. He said, “I got all three of them. They're dead.”
Next morning, I told them, “I don't believe the Krauts are coming, but I'll tell you what we'll do. Half the company goes back to that tavern and warms up. Light a fire in that big fireplace. Y'all stay an hour or two. Then come back and get in the holes, and the rest of us will go warm up. We can do that all day.”
I went back, and they had a courtyard there. There were turkeys and geese and chickens, ducks, I think. And Cowboy was with me and Rossigno, the one who got shot between the eyes.
Peter was a chef at the Parker House in Boston. He told me, “Mark, if you go out there and kill some of those chickens and turkeys, I can make us a stew. We can eat some warm food.”
I said, “All right, Cowboy, I'll go with you.”
We couldn't catch them with our big muckluks and all that. So I got a long pole, eight feet. I could get close enough to one, and I'd swing it and break its neck, and then there was no trouble catching it. We had both of us with chickens and all that, all we could hold, and we were going back to get some more.
It was down in a kind of basement with steps going down about six or seven feet, all concrete. Just about the time we got to those steps to go down, I heard a damn artillery shell screeching. You know an artillery shell if it's going over your head. But if you hear that thing screaming, look out, it's coming to you.
And it was screaming. I wasn't brave. I turned loose all of those damn chickens and the turkey. They were dead. I just went headfirst down those damn steps.
But Cowboy was brave. He just held his. He got about this much in, and that shell hit in that damn courtyard. Cowboy fell in there on me, and you couldn't recognize him. He was torn up.
He was from Tremont, Mississippi. He'd written about me to his folks. When I got back, they called, wanted to know if I would talk to them about their son. And I told them, yeah, I would.
You can't tell Mom and Dad that Cowboy and I were out killing turkeys and geese. They said, “Well, how did he die?”
I said, “Well, he was out on the point. And three German soldiers were coming, and they got Cowboy.”
I haven't told them the truth yet. They're dead now. But I wasn't going to tell them Cowboy and I were killing chickens.
Do you remember any moments in leadership where you told your men to do something, and if you could, you'd go back and do it differently? Maybe change a decision you made?
MGH: No, I wouldn’t change a thing. I went over there intending to kill Germans; I don’t know how many I killed. Every man I had would have done anything for me. I never had to tell them I was in charge. Hell, they knew it.
Only one man talked back: Cook. He questioned an order but did what I said, and it worked out. One night, we were sent to pick up replacements and supplies. I told Cook, “Go back to HQ. Load them down heavy with ammo and rations and bring them up.” He said, “Why the hell me?” I punched him hard enough to knock him ten feet back. When he came to I stood over him and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I understood what you said when I gave you an order.”
No other officer would have said a word like that, but they knew I wasn’t playing. I was going to take care of them. I wouldn’t ask them to do anything I wouldn’t do.
Why did you decide you wanted to be an officer before you joined — where the fighting was?
MGH: You see, when World War II came along, we had a different attitude.
When the war started, the Depression was still on. The trains running the main lines, the GM&O, the Illinois Central, and the C&G, every empty boxcar was full of young men looking for work. They had no money, nothing to eat, just hunting for a job.
The government under Franklin Roosevelt started the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps, made up of men like that. We had a big CCC camp about three miles that way. They built roads, dug dams, and stopped erosion. The government paid them twenty-one dollars a month, fed them, and gave them clothes.
They’d send most of that money home. That was good money then. There must have been a million or more all over the country doing that kind of work. When the war came, they went straight into the Army, same twenty-one bucks a month.
I was at Mississippi State. My folks were big farmers, but we were paying so much in labor we couldn’t make it. A good hay hand worked from “can to can’t,” from when you can see to when you can’t, for fifty cents a day. A good tractor driver who could take care of the equipment made seventy-five cents.
Nobody was starving, but nobody had money either. My folks scraped together enough to get me into Mississippi State and said, “You’re on your own now. We can’t help anymore.” So I got a job feeding hogs for the AG department, purebred pigs and bulls, at twenty cents an hour. I’d feed in the morning, clean up, make my eight o’clock class, then feed again after.
Later, we got a job training the agronomy mule for the agronomy department. That paid eight dollars a month, four for each of us. We were energetic, so we talked to the sheep folks. Dogs were killing their sheep, and they needed help penning them each night. That job also paid eight bucks. Eddie and I took both.
We were still making twenty cents an hour feeding hogs, and we saved enough to pay for the next semester, ninety-eight and a half bucks. The cafeteria food was good and cheap. You couldn’t even eat twenty dollars’ worth in a month. Vegetables were a nickel, roast was a dime, you could eat for fifteen dollars a month.
But I found a way to cut that too. My roommate worked at the DP, a little flash diner on campus, the only other place to eat besides the cafeteria. Folks would walk around at night, grab a ten-cent hamburger, things like that.
I asked the head of the dairy department if he had a night job. He said, “You can pasteurize milk in the back of the DP.” It paid twenty-five cents an hour, about three hours a night, seventy-five cents total. You could be rich on that.
My roommate, Butch, worked on the other side of the wall, making sandwiches. Sometimes they’d pass a five-gallon bucket of ice cream through the little opening between the rooms. If I hit the right shift, Butch would slip me a hamburger or barbecue sandwich through that window.
You’ve talked a lot about leadership and responsibility in combat. Were there ever moments when you bent the rules a little once the fighting was over?
MGH: I was not always the perfect soldier.
We reported back to Camp Rucker, North Carolina, to ship overseas again. Each division that had been in combat could send up to three men home for forty-five days, and then you were supposed to rejoin your unit.
When I reported back, a major stood up and said, “We’ve made a change in orders. We can’t send anybody back to your unit or to Europe.”
Somebody in the back asked, “Where are you gonna send us?”
He said, “I think a staging area for the Pacific.”
We’d come home because we were good fighters, but nobody wanted to go to the Pacific. It was a damn jungle. We were used to snow.
Then he said, “Now, we don’t have your 201 file, your record, so we don’t know how to assign you. Write down what units you’ve been in and what your job was. When your records get here, if you made a mistake, it’ll be all right.”
I thought I fought all the way across Europe. I’ll be damned if I’m fighting in a jungle. Then I asked myself, What’s the easiest job in the Army?
I came up with a supply officer. I’d never seen one on the front line. They were always clean, shaved, dry, and had good uniforms. So I went up to the major and said, “I can’t think of my MOS. Can you tell me what I should put down for what I did?”
He asked, “What was your job?”
I said, “I was a regimental supply officer.”
He looked it up and said, “That’s 600.”
I wrote 600 down.
They sent me to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. When I reported in, they said, “We don’t have a unit like that here.”
“Well,” I said, “maybe they’re starting one. Just give me a bed, and I’ll wait.”
Pretty soon, more guys showed up, all just like me, men who’d come back as a reward. We found out they couldn’t send us overseas again, so they were giving us jobs stateside until Japan was done.
A lieutenant colonel looked around and saw several of us who’d been company commanders. Since I’d written down “regimental supply officer,” he put me in charge of supply.
It was a new outfit. I went down to the supply room where two sergeants were getting everything ready. The place was huge, with shelves from floor to ceiling. I thought, I’ve got to order supplies for a whole regiment. Boots, shoes, socks, utensils, canteens, everything.
I didn’t know a damn thing about supply. The only time I’d ever been in a supply room was to draw something. I thought, You’ve really gotten yourself into a mess.
Then a master sergeant walked in, chest out, squared away. I was the only one there. I asked, “What can I do for you?”
He said, “I’m the supply sergeant.”
“Has the lieutenant asked for me?”
“Yes, sir.”
I said, “How long have you been a supply sergeant?”
“Fifteen years, sir. That’s all I’ve ever done.”
I said, “Sergeant, pull up a chair and let me tell you a story. I can’t find my ass with both hands in a supply room. I’ve never filled out a requisition. I don’t know what we need to set up a regiment. Do you know?”
“Yes, sir, I know.”
“All right,” I said. “You’re going to be the supply officer, and I’m the supply officer. You’ll fill out the requisitions, and I’ll sign them. I’ll take care of you. Nobody’s going to bother you. You’ll be the supply man, and I’ll be the ignorant son of a bitch signing the papers. We’ll make a wonderful team.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can get a pass anytime you need it. You’ll be in supply heaven.”
“Yes, sir.”
And that’s how we ran the supply operation.
One night I was at the regimental officers’ club shooting pool with a boy from the 34th Division, the Red Bulls. He said, “I’m in a mess. They put me in command of C Company, and I don’t know a damn thing about running a company.”
I asked, “What were you?”
“I was a supply officer.”
I said, “Sit down. Let me tell you a story.”
When I finished, I said, “Would you like to be a supply officer again and let me command the company?”
He said, “Hell, yeah.”
We went to the colonel. I said, “Colonel, I want to tell you a story and make a request.” I told him the truth and said, “I’ve been in an infantry company all my life. I’d like you to put Tom as supply officer and me as company commander. We both want to do it.”
He looked at us and said, “All right.”
“That’s how I became a company commander,” I said.
He said, “You lied once.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you told me another lie?”
“No, sir.”
We got a group of soldiers, processed them in about a week, and sent them to the Pacific. Then we didn’t get another man. The war was winding down. They couldn’t send us back overseas. We were just living the life of Riley.
Big John McCurdy was another company commander from the Americal Division. When Japan surrendered in mid-September, Big John and I didn’t have a thing to do. I called my men in and said, “Men, the war’s over. I’m giving each of you a three-day pass. Get off post, and we’ll shut down the company till you get back. Don’t screw up.”
Big John and I caught a train to St. Louis. We walked around for three days, looking at tall buildings, laughing, and having a drink now and then. When we got back, all my men were there.
Then Big John and I got orders to see the colonel. He was sitting there staring hard.
He said, “Where have you been?”
“In St. Louis.”
“Doing what?”
“Walking, looking, having a drink now and then, just enjoying life.”
“You went off and left your men here?”
“No, sir. I gave every man a three-day pass and told them to get off post. My company wasn’t here for three days.”
He said, “Do you know I could have you court martialed for being AWOL?”
I said, “I don’t believe you heard the news.”
“What news?”
“The war’s over.”
He stared at me for a while, then said, “Get your ass out of here.”
So, you joined the Army while at Mississippi State?
MGH: Everybody was joining the military. You can’t imagine the attitude of the country then.
We didn’t have a dime. Everyone was out of work. Hobos on trains, hundreds of them heading north and south, hunting for a job.
But the people were tough. Not tough acting, just tough.
We weren’t bothering anybody. Then one Sunday morning, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The next day, we declared war on them, and on Germany too, because they had already been sinking our ships in the Atlantic.
The nation’s attitude wasn’t fear. It was, “They can’t do this to us.”
All those CCC boys went straight into the Army. And the Army? We didn’t have enough tanks, jeeps, or even guns. Barely any trucks.
There were a bunch of us in ROTC, mandatory for two years. Sixty-five of us, mostly from the ag school, went in together. They told us, “You’re in the Army, but we don’t have rooms for you yet. Stay here, go to school, and when the barracks and gear are ready, we’ll call you.”
We stayed another semester. Then they called us and sent us to Camp Shelby. All of us asked for infantry, because that’s where the fighting was.
They sent us to Fort McClellan, Alabama, and kept our Mississippi State group together. That’s where we met college boys from Illinois, Clemson, and a small school up in Minnesota.
The next company down had boys from Georgia and Maryland, but they kept us together. We all put in to go to Fort Benning and get commissioned.
I’ll never forget one night. They came in and called thirty names out of a regiment of about 3,000 men. I thought I might be close to getting picked. Turns out they chose us based on IQ, though we didn’t know it then.
They told us to report to the infirmary at 7 a.m. We lined up. Doctors everywhere, eye doctors, hand specialists, leg doctors. They said, “Stick out your arms. Show your hands. Work your fingers. Walk.”
Then, one by one: “You can go home. You can go home. Back to your company.”
When they were done, there were just two of us left, me and a little Jewish boy.
The next morning, they sent us up to headquarters. An officer named George came in smiling and said, “You boys have a wonderful opportunity here. You’re going to West Point.”
I wasn’t trying to be a smart-ass, but I said, “That’s fine, sir. That’s where I’m from.”
Were you offered a spot at West Point?
MGH: Yeah, they offered me a spot at West Point.
The officer in charge said, “You boys are from Maryland, West Virginia, New York, Conway, and Mississippi?”
“Yes, sir.”
He said, “I’m talking about New York. You’re all going to a prep school up there. It’s a high-priced school. You’ll spend a year there, then go on to West Point. You’ll graduate as officers in the Army.”
I said, “No, sir. I don’t want to go.”
He looked at me. “What?”
“That’s enough, sir. I just don’t want to go.”
He said, “It’s the best education you’ll ever get. Won’t cost you a penny. You’ll be paid while you’re in school.”
I said, “Yes, sir, but by the time I finish three or four years of college, the war’ll be over. Then I’ll be stuck in the Army for eight years because I graduated from West Point.”
“You’re going to turn West Point down?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. I’m already approved for Benning. I’ll be an officer there in three or four months.”
He shook his head and said, “And you’re turning down West Point?”
“Yes, sir.”
He stared at me for a second, then said, “Get your ass out of here.”
So I went back to the company. Hell, I’d been on my own all my life. By the time you finished four more years of college and then eight years in the Army, you’d be there your whole life. I didn’t want that. I just wanted to go over, kill the Germans, and come home.
So that was that. We went to Fort Benning.
Benning was almost entirely college boys. You didn’t need to ask where someone was from, just what college they came from. On the first day, they told us, “Look at the man in front of you. Look at the man to your left. Look at the man to your right. Now turn around and look behind you. You won’t see all of them in four months. You’ll be dead, or they’ll be dead.”
They told us our class was one of the best. We graduated about sixty-five percent of it.
After that, you could pick where you wanted to go. Back then, there wasn’t a separate Air Force; it was all Army, Navy, and Marines, each with its own air component. If you graduated from Benning, you could choose the air branch and go to a separate air training school. I never wanted that.
I thought paratroopers might have it easier since they seemed to live pretty well. But jumping out of a plane into a bunch of Krauts wasn’t any fun either. We were already in with the Krauts, so either way wasn’t great. Matt Thomas went to the paratroopers. He jumped the Rhine River crossing. They jumped about ten miles behind us, which was ideal. We figured we’d squeeze a bunch of Germans between us.
But that night they sent me home.
You mentioned growing up during the Depression. What do you remember about your mom and dad?
MGH: My father was a very smart man.
And your mother?
MGH: At the time I was born, people were still fighting over the Civil War. My mother was from Kentucky, and my father’s great-grandfather had served in the New York Infantry under Sherman.
He made the whole march across the South through Atlanta, destroying railroads and supplies as they went. When the war ended, soldiers were given the chance to go west and homestead land.
He took his family to what is now Sac County, Iowa, and started a farm. My grandmother was the first white child born there. Later, my grandfather developed a bronchial condition. It wasn’t tuberculosis, but it was serious enough that the doctors told him to move south for his health.
My father graduated from a school in Marathon, Iowa, which only went through the 11th grade. My grandmother was a college graduate from Coe College in Iowa, which was rare for a woman at that time.
My father wanted to attend Iowa State, but they wouldn’t take him because he hadn’t completed the 12th grade, which Iowa required. He found out the University of Arkansas would accept him, so he enrolled there for a year or two, then transferred his credits to Iowa State and graduated.
My mother’s family was from Fredonia, Kentucky. They were big farmers and ran a wheat mill. The mill burned down, and since there was no insurance back then, they decided to move south. That’s how both my parents ended up here and eventually got married.
We were big farmers. Hay was the main crop, either for feeding or selling. We sold a lot of top-grade grass hay to the U.S. Army for their cavalry and mule teams that pulled the guns. Even the Germans still used horses to pull artillery in World War II, not all of it, but quite a bit.
We never fought over the Civil War in our house. My mother’s folks were from the South, and Dad’s were from the North, so we just never brought it up.
We didn’t owe but a few thousand dollars on a good, big farm. They sold several carloads of hay that would have paid it off. But then they closed the banks in 1933. That check was in one of those banks, and it never came through. We still haven’t gotten that check.
Connecticut General ended up owning the land. They foreclosed and took the horses, cattle, and machinery. All of it.
When that happened, my parents just moved down the road, rented another farm, and started over.
Did that resilience and emphasis on education carry forward to your own family?
MGH: I've got two children, both smart as hell. One was Phi Beta Kappa and at the top of their class. Little Mark's got a master's and maybe even a PhD. One's a CPA, and the other's a pharmacist.
Steve has three children, and I think all of them have master's degrees, except for one. She's a schoolteacher. She has a degree, but didn't pursue graduate school.
My boys did fine. Mark worked in Washington, went to law school, ran campaigns, worked for senators, and then ran a bank.
We gave much of the land to our children to avoid estate taxes and keep it in the family. We structured gifts so they could manage them. Mark took over the farm and did a good job.
We always wanted our children to be well-educated.
I tried to teach them and help where I could. I keep busy with stocks and cattle, invest in dividends, and long-term companies. Coca-Cola and others that have paid dividends for years. I keep a portfolio of seventy-five to eighty companies.
You talked about education, but when you went overseas and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, what lessons did you bring back with you? I can see you smiling already. What did you learn over there?
MGH: My father died while we were at the Battle of the Bulge. I was still just a young man. My mother was back home managing a grocery store for John and Charlie Brown. They had the biggest store in town, and she ran it.
When I came back, I stayed on the farm for a year. My mother didn’t know much about running a farm.
I bought a Case combine and a three-man Case hay baler. I was running that farm, but that baler was always breaking down. I was up near Stovall combining for a fellow, and it clogged up with duck hay. Every hundred yards, I had to stop and clean it out. I thought, “Hell, this ain’t it.”
I sat on that tractor the rest of the day, cleaning that combine and thinking, “What can I do to make a living that doesn’t involve cleaning out duck hay every ten minutes?”
First, I thought about being an auctioneer. Figured I could learn to call cattle sales in six weeks. Then I thought maybe I’d be a veterinarian. That would take four years, but I was serious enough to check.
So I got up at three in the morning and drove 250 miles to Auburn. At the time, there were only two vet schools in the South, Auburn and Texas A&M, and only about fourteen in the whole country. Auburn was the best in the South, so I decided to see it for myself.
When the war came, they stopped building cars. Not a single one was made until production restarted in 1946. Veterans were supposed to get every third one. I got the first car that came to West Point, a new Plymouth that cost nine hundred dollars.
I took that car and drove to Auburn. It took about five or six hours. I’d never been there before. I drove to Toomer’s Corner, the one with the big oak trees, then asked somebody where the vet school was. They told me to go up and take a left. I drove across the street from the stadium, and right there was the vet school.
I walked in and told the receptionist I wanted to see the dean. She said, “He’s in. Go on in.” So I did.
What did he say?
MGH: Well, he looked me over and said, “Get out of here. You just trying to get out of town?”
I said, “No, sir. I’ve been out for a year.”
We talked for a while about the Army and the war. I had my transcript in my pocket; that’s all I brought. I told him, “I want to get into the vet school.”
He asked if I’d been in school before, and I showed him my transcript. Had a 3.56 GPA. He looked it over, handed it back, and we talked for about an hour.
I said, “So when does the next class start?”
He told me, “January.” This was in May or June.
He said, “On your way out, grab an application.”
I asked, “For what?”
He said, “To apply.”
I said, “What do you mean by apply? You saw my grades.”
He said, “We only take sixty-five students.”
I asked, “How many applications do you have?”
He said, “Right now, seven hundred fifty. By November, it’ll be over a thousand.”
And they were only taking sixty-five?
MGH: Yep. I stood up, walked to the door, then turned around, came back, and sat down in front of his desk. I said, “Doc, let me explain something to you. I’ve got a farm, I’ve got cattle, I’ve got mules, I’ve got equipment.
“If you let me know in November, that’ll give me this summer to get everything in order. I’ve got to put up hay for the cows and tend to the rest of the farm.
“That’s absurd. I can’t do something like that.”
He said, “Well, that’s the way we do it here.”
I asked, “Are you on the committee?”
“Yes,” he said.
I said, “Doctor, you’ve talked to me, you’ve seen my transcript, and you know right now whether I’m going to get in or not. If I go back home and don’t know until November, I’ll have to sell a cow just to buy shingles. I’ll have to sell hay I’ve already put up for winter feed. You can’t sell all that in thirty days.
“You just tell me to go home and sell the farm, and I’ll do it. I’ll forget about all this.”
He said, “Maybe.”
I said, “If I can sell everything I’ve got and come over here knowing I’ll get in, I’ll take that chance.”
He said, “Yes.”
So I went through vet school. During the war, they switched to the quarter system instead of semesters. It took a little over three years.
When I finished, I came home. We got close and became good friends. They offered me a job as Assistant State Vet. They called me and said, “So I hear you took the job.”
I said, “Yes, sir. Put it in your book. Pays four hundred a month.”
He said, “You’ll get to eat from the public trough. You already have one child, and you won’t be able to practice and make what you could.”
I said, “Yes, I will.”
He asked, “You already took the job?”
I said, “Yes, I told them I’d take it. I’ll be out of here soon.”
I started working down there as Assistant State Vet. Then they called me again. The State Vet was crooked, breaking rules, not a good man. Around that time, the Army called. The Korean War was coming. They told me:
“If you’ll volunteer to come back, we’ll guarantee you a position as an instructor at the Infantry School at Fort Benning.”
I said, “That’s fine, but I have a question. You usually use combat officers at Benning. I’m one of them. But I want a guarantee that I’ll stay there.”
They said, “We can’t guarantee that.”
I said, “I’ll train your troops, but as soon as you get combat officers back from Korea, I’ll go back into the line.”
They said, “We can’t promise that.”
I said, “Then I won’t volunteer.”
They said, “We’re going to call you back either way.”
I said, “Well, I’m now qualified as a Veterinary Officer. I’ve never heard of a vet officer being shot. Maybe get hooked on a meat hook in a cooler or something, but not shot.”
So I put in for transfer to the Vet Corps. I was already a captain, but they gave me a commission as a second lieutenant again. Probably figured they had to teach me something.
I was to report to the Mississippi Military District and from there go to the Chicago stockyards to inspect meat.
The man in charge of the Mississippi Military District was Donald McDonald. He had been chief of staff of the Philippine Army before World War II and had Eisenhower and Bradley, both five-star generals, under him.
The Japanese captured him. He made the death march on Corregidor and spent the war in a Japanese prison camp. They don’t promote you in captivity, so he came out still a colonel.
They didn’t have anything for him, so they stuck him there until retirement. He looked at me and said, “What the hell did you do to get demoted in rank?”
I told him, “I got out of the infantry and into the Vet Corps.”
He said, “Hell, they usually promote you two ranks for getting out of the infantry. I’ll take care of it. Report to Chicago.”
I was there for a couple of months, then got orders to report back to the Mississippi Military District.
He looked at me and said, “It’s been a while since your last promotion, hasn’t it?”
I said, “Yeah, nearly a month.”
He said, “Write yourself a recommendation.”
So I did, and two weeks later, I was a captain again.
Next time I went back, he said, “Well, I got you where you were. It’s up to you now.”
I came back to practice. I was in command of an engineering company, but I had a friend, Harvey Buck, a college buddy. He had been in the infantry and was now a lawyer. He said, “Why don’t you get in my outfit? We don’t do a damn thing but talk and joke around.”
So I transferred to Harvey’s infantry outfit. We had a couple of meetings, then they wrote me and said, “You’re an engineer in an infantry outfit. You’ll have to take infantry training.”
Hell, I was a little old for that. I had nineteen years in. They never mentioned I had already done all that and fought in World War II. Just said I needed the training.
Then, in January, they wrote again: “You didn’t have a good year. Not enough drill days. We’re retiring you.”
I said, “To hell with it.”
I had nineteen years in. At twenty, I would have had a pension for life. That’s how they thanked me for the Battle of the Bulge and World War II.
That’s the Army. “Oh, he’s getting close to twenty. Better get him out. We don’t want to pay him for the rest of his life.”
I applied for help through the VA. They got me a hearing, but I figured, hell, I know what I did. I’m not going to get worked up about it.
I did ask them for a hearing aid. They told me I made too much money and wasn’t eligible.
If you were going to explain World War II to a civilian, how would you put it?
MGH: Wars have been going on since time began. In World War II, the Japanese jumped on us, and the Germans were sinking ships in the Atlantic. We had to go over there and fight.
I don’t think we’ve needed to be in many wars since World War II, maybe when 9/11 happened. If someone attacks you, you respond. If they don’t attack, let them fight their own fights.
How did you meet your wife, Mr. Hazard?
MGH: I was back farming and thinking about going to vet school. I had a lot of buddies who were back in college finishing up. I’d go over there, and one old boy told me there was a girl who didn’t have a date.
He got me a blind date. She was at Mississippi State.
We went together about a year. She was a senior in college. We got married, and she took her last year at Auburn, then transferred those credits back to Mississippi State.
This September, we’ll have been married seventy years.
And how would you describe your wife? What is she like as a person?
GH: She was really vivacious. One of the best dancers. At Mississippi State, I was probably the worst.
A friend used to ask me, “What in the world are you doing going with somebody when you can’t dance?”
But we got along.
How do you want people to remember you?
MGH: Work as hard as you can. Pray to God. Stay close to Him, you know.
I started teaching Sunday school when I was sixteen years old. I was one of the boys. I’ve tried to do better and be decent.
And don’t get the idea that you’re any better than anybody else, because you’re not.
You can’t carry your money to the cemetery. You leave it. You just get to use it for a while.
The Bible says that when Christ came, they asked Him about the Ten Commandments. The first commandment, He said, is “Love the Lord your God and serve Him.” And the second commandment—He took the last six commandments and condensed them into this: “Treat your fellow man as you want to be treated.”
If you’re fair every time you start a deal with somebody, ask yourself, “How much can I get legally?” And realize the other person is trying to do the same thing.
He’s got to buy those cattle, or whatever it is, at a price he thinks is fair. Same for you. Your father didn’t mind paying a fair price.
That’s just kind of the way I live.
Men like Doc Hazard are quickly slipping away.
Doc peacefully passed on December 5, 2017, a well-respected man, husband, father of four, grandfather of seven, and great-grandfather of ten (at the time).
He came home from World War II a legend, and his life only grew in scale after the war.
I remember a moment when Jesse Phillips and I sat in my car as Doc shared stories of life at home, and the silence that followed. Some of my greatest lessons as an interviewer came from those moments. There is power in the silence.
Although this will likely be one of the last World War II veteran interviews we share, I take solace in knowing I got to spend time with these legends in the first place.
Doc Hazard was a man no enemy could plan for, shaped by the crushing weight of the Great Depression, given no quarter and offering none in return. His job was to take down the enemy, and he did it with surgical precision still marveled at today.
His abilities in combat were matched only by a resilience and steadiness that helped define what courage under fire truly meant.
We don’t know how long the results of their sacrifice will last, or even if they will, but there’s no doubt that much of what we enjoy today was built on the quiet courage of men like Doc.
Young men from small towns who carried the weight of a world at war, and then came home to build families, communities, and lives defined by service long after the fighting ended.
Their stories remind us what strength and humility look like, and why remembering them still matters.