Q: Okay, we're back at March 7^th^, '65. Can you say something about
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_?

**Bob Mouts:** Oh, it was at the point where Josea Williams\-- Josea
ah.. had said that ah.. the people have come to march and we're gonna
march. We left the church, some of us, and went to the parsonage uhm..
to decide who would lead the march.

Q: Before you get there, let me ask you this. Were there a lot of people
that came from the Black Belt for this march?

**Bob Mouts:** Yes, because you\-- it was quite significant. More people
came from throughout the back\-- Black Belt than they did Selma proper.
Remember there was organization\-- organizers going on before the march.
They could have presence in uhm.. in\-- in Selma and in the Alabama
Black Belt, with the exception of maybe Li\-- with the exception of
Lowndes County. Uhm.. there were people working and the effort was to
mobilize people toward coming to G\-- to Selma to\-- to speak and the\--
and the march on March 7^th^. So people from all over came. Uhm.. we
left the church and went into the parsonage where Reverend Reese was
ah.. living and as the pastor of\-- of Brown Chapel at the time, uhm..
to decide who would lead the march. In the parsonage, uhm.. James
Bellville, Andrew Young, and Josea flipped coins, played odd man, to see
who would lead the march for\-- for SCLC. I always jokingly say because
Bellville and Andy had worked together longer. If you knew how to play
odd man, you could always make sure s\-- \<laughs\> the other guy. So it
fell to Jo\-- ah.. to Josea's lot that he sh\-- should lead the march
for SLCL. Then the question arose, who would lead for SNCC. There\-- and
John Lewis was there and the man who would lead for SCLC. Albert Turner
who was SCLC's state director, uhm.. was the third person be chosen. And
I was the only other sn\-- person there, so it fell to me by default
\<laughs\> and for no other reason that there\-- there were I was chosen
to lead the march. Uhm.. I was twenty-one at the time, the youngest of
the four, and also the tallest and the handsomest of the four.
\<Laughs\>. Uhm.. and I remember us lining up and right before ah..
leaving the church in the\-- in the playground ah.. in the area right
behind the church at carble homes \[ph?\] and we knelt and prayed and
Andrew Young pr\-- praying. I was\-- the Reverend Reese was there,
another guy whose name is never mentioned is Willy Bolden from SCLC, who
was right there. Uhm.. Charles Malden, who's from Selma, was the guy who
was directly behind me uhm.. during the march. But I also remember when
we topped the bridge. There was this eerie silence all the way. Our
intelligence had come back and\-- and told us that the state troopers
and the posse was poised. So we knew that when we left the church it was
very likely that we would be beaten and arrested. The people that we had
uhm.. was coming back with Wilson Brown and Lafayette Surley \[ph?\],
who were SNCC members. Uhm.. they were in direct touch with the Atlanta
office, ah.. giving a blow by blow description of what was taking place.
When we talked this\-- I remember Josea Williams said, we were atop the
bridge, Josea said, "When I was in the service, I would know how to top
this bridge." He said that as a tension reliever---a releaser. Uhm.. we
saw ah.. what is called the sea of blue of these Alabama state troopers
and cars lined up and people lined up behind them and the posse as far
as you could see. We went\-- came across the bridge near John Clau
\[ph?\] said, "This\-- this march is illegal. You have so many seconds,"
like three seconds or something, whatever it was, but I don't think
they\-- they \<laughs\> gave us the full seconds. But at the moment he
said that, I remember hearing this clack-clack-clack-clack,
simultaneously. What was happening was they was unbuttoning their tear
gas canisters and they released the ah.. tear gas. And I remember there
was a group of us who were separated from the rest of the crown that
went behind this store, Hastings, a farm implement store, down this
steep ravine. During that time, I was weighing about a hundred and
twenty-five pounds soaking wet. And I remember this lady who I carried
down \<laughs\> this\-- this ravine on my back. The lady had her
sleeping bag and quilt and stuff \<laughs\> that was tangling my feet.
But we ke\-- then uhm.. the posse came in on horseback and said, "God
damn it, y'all, you wanted to march, now march." And they came with
the\-- the canes and the cattle prodders and stuff and\-- and ah..
rounded us up back into\-- back across the bridge. And there was these
guys who were on horseback, with these, ah..canes... swinging and\-- and
hitting people. It was really ah.. a melee that day. Sirens ah.. from
the hosp\-- ah.. from the ambulances and people laying around uhm..
overcome by tear gas and being beaten and everything else.

Q: I guess a young person today would say, "Wouldn't you have fought
back?"

**Bob Mouts:** Well, s\-- I- I grew up in the south. I love the south. I
had many opportunities to go other places uhm.. to work, but I love the
south. I love the open spaces, I love to fish and hunt, I love to listen
to the frogs and the crickets, to see the rolling hills or the
Mississippi Delta or the Louisiana Bayou. I love the south. Usually
those people who talk about wouldn't you have fought back are people who
were not involved, who don't understand the dynamics of what was taking
place. In many instances, for you to have fought back would have been a
massacre not only of yourself, but other people. Now I'm not one who
will strictly adhere to nonviolence, but it's me being practical in some
end so that\-- so that the\-- the cause for which you work exceeds your
own personal concern. And many of them who say that ah.. they are people
who were not involved, were not involved. They were sitting on the
sidelines talking about wouldn't you have fought back. There are
sometimes when we did fight back and there are times we didn't.

Q: It was a different kind of courage. Am I right in that, in terms of
fighting back and all that?

**Bob Mouts:** Well, yeah. Yeah, it meant that\-- for me it\-- it simply
meant being practical. It meant\-- it meant being practical. Uhm.. and
then that was also a\-- a time of ah.. for many of us who ah.. that
was\-- that was a\-- a more healthful and spiritual guidance for what we
did. So it was not something\-- and I always tell people when they want
to talk about me being a leader, I've never wanted to be a leader. I've
never considered mys\-- fact\-- as a matter of fact I resent people
calling me that. It has never been about me. It has always been about
him who sent me. So given the spirituality of what I thought, and I
still think, that ah.. the movement was about, and giving s\-- some own
personal history of things that\-- that motivates you. When I tell you
what my dad told me about my family and Emmett Teal's death, ah.. are
the kind of things that\-- that ah.. that guided me. And that's the
reason why I think it's also in the spirit of our ancestors ah.. that
I'm able to sit here now. There's always been a shield of protection
around me ah.. because I've been in some situations ah.. that normally
ah.. other people would c\-- certainly not be. I was supposed to have
been in a house down in Terrell County, Georgia that was\-- that was
bombed and machine-gunned. The bomb was thrown in the bedroom that I was
supposed to have been in. And I've always been guided and led\-- been
led by what\-- whatever it is, guardian angel, \<laughs\> that has
always\-- always protected me.

Q: I think one of the things we're sort of missing in the telling of
this story is there was obviously lots of awareness of what happened.
You guys were in the melee, the middle of all of this. You had to
retreat. You wound up at Brown's Chapel. How did you assess what had
happened and what you were going to do next and the impact of all of
this?

**Bob Mouts:** Well, SNCC didn't get really involved in the\-- the march
as an organization, and that's the Blood\-- Bloody Sunday when uhm..
SNCC workers ah.. poured in. Uhm.. you understand that uhm.. in most
dangerous situations, ah.. more\-- where\-- where there would be more
danger, uhm.. it was SNCC's veterans that\-- who came there. And I
consider anybody who's\-- who has spent three active years in the Civil
Rights Movement a vet\-- veteran. People came in from Mississippi, SNCC
staffers were from South Georgia and other places to participate in the
march. It was the act of violence on Bloody Sunday that got SNCC as an
organization ah.. involved and then they wanted to participate, uhm..
because it was clear and pr\-- present danger. One of the other
questions that's often asked me, why Alabama as\-- as opposed to Georgia
or Mississippi? And my response to that is because that was the place of
the greatest opposition to voting, or for human rights, or for civil
rights. When George Wallace ran his wife for governor in 1966, George
Wallace could have ran his yard dog for governor and his go\-- and his
dog would have gotten elected, unlike Mississippi or Georgia or other
places where the state troopers would come and the sheriff would run
them out. "I'm the high Sheriff in Isaqueena county \[ph?\]. I'm the
high Sheriff of Humphrey County. I'm the ha\-- high sheriff in Taro
County." No such thing in Alabama. Their allegiance was to George
Wallace and the state of Alabama. The greatest opposition, the great\--
greatest resistance was in Alabama. Alabama was organized as a fascist
state to the point that any civil rights people coming into the state,
the Alabama state troopers, the Alabama sovereign commission would pick
them up at the county line, at state line, and follow them throughout
everywhere they went. George Wallace had successfully built what people
call a populist movement, county by county, in Alabama. That's why if he
had ran his yard dog his yard dog would have gotten elected governor.

Q: Let's stop for a second. \<Inaudible\>.

**Bob Mouts:** Well, uhm.. before the Selma to Montgomery march, SNCC
had a presence not only in Selma but many of these other rural areas,
the exception being Lowndes County because of SNCC's lack of resources,
both financial and human resources, to go in Lowndes County. Lowndes
County had had the reputation of being the most dangerous county in
Alabama for black people. Uhm.. again, I come from Georgia. Stokely
Carmichael came from Mississippi where he had worked ah.. in the summer
before. And in talking to our state director, Silas Norman, we decided
allowing us kind of\-- to be able to be organized this is the time to do
it. Of the fifty-four mile trek from Selma to Montgomery, forty-three of
those miles came ah.. come through Lowndes County. So we wanted to be
able to capitalize off the motion of the march to be able to organize
Lowndes County, and that's exactly what we did. We would leave uhm.. the
SNCC headquarters here in\-- in Selma and go work in Lowndes County all
day, around the county, passing out leaflets, passing out SNCC bu-
buttons, telling people that the march was coming soon. I remember ah..
our first encounter with- with ah.. law enforcement ah.. people. We were
going to the Lowndes County training school at times. We were passing
out leaflets about- on campus as the s- kids were getting out of school.
Ah.. we were passing out leaflets about the march and the SNCC buttons.
And uhm.. the principal came out and uhm.. warned us that we weren't
supposed to do that. So we kept passing the-the- them out. We left and
was coming back into Selma and the sheriff ah.. car pulled up along us
and signaled us to pull over. And we did and ah.. they brought us back
to the campus. And one of the\-- the wisest things that Stokely
Carmichael ever did \<laughs\> was to pick up the ah.. two-way radio,
the mike on the two-way radio, and was giving this ah.. describing what
was being\-- taking place; who was there, the\-- the state troopers and
the\-- and the principal and\-- and these other people were there. Ah..
but the only problem was we were out of range \<laughs\> with the base
here in Selma. So\-- but they didn't know that. But there was a
precautionary ah.. security measure for our own safety that people from
that day that even kids were getting out and school was turning out
again. And uhm.. the teachers were coming out and that's when we met
ah.. John Jackson, who's currently mayor. He was ah.. driving the school
bus and he was begging for us to give- give him some ah.. leaflets. And-
and we did that. Uhm.. there were a coup\-- as we left coming back into
Selma, driving up the eighty, there was this car that was following us.
And ah.. we used to take some little real security measures. But anyway,
we did what we had to do and stopped this other car. And there were two
teachers there from the school, which seen w- ah.. what had taken place
and they wanted to make sure that we were safe to get back. Uhm.. had it
not been for that confrontation at the school, it would have probably
been several months later before we actually moved into Lowndes County
full-time. But once uhm.. we discussed it and we got back to S- Selma,
and uhm.. we had the show the next day because the rumor that had been
all\-- was all\-- spread all over the county that the civil rights folks
were in here and they wanted to\-- some people wanted to make sure that
we were safe. So the next day, we went out being in full\-- in full
blast. I mean it's all over. And people were asking, "What happened to
you? Y'all alright? Have a meal." They would fix us ah.. food for us or
something. And from there, we were able to\-- to uhm.. to start moving
to organize in Lowndes County.

Q: When you talk about organizing a county like that and working in
rural areas, it's a big area.

**Bob Mouts:** It's a big area. This county long is over\-- over seven
hundred square miles, Lowndes County is. Ah.. you\-- you talking
about\-- you talking about going on the plantations, well people would
in time. Ah.. there was a danger\-- always clear and present danger and,
as the old folks used to say, the danger seen and unseen uhm.. on
these\-- on these plantations, up these\-- and down these long dusty
roads. Uhm.. it was not easy. Ah.. one of the old organizing techniques,
especially in rural areas, has been\-- is to move on the outside of the
townships as opposed to being\-- there's usually a correlation between
people's response, let's say to the movement, or participating in the
movement, given their proximity to the big house. So the effort was to
organize around these incorporated townships first as we did in Lowndes
County, so that we used to go out and people used to warn us, "Don't let
dark catch you in Lowndes County. Y'all be careful. Don't let\-- don't
let dark catch you here." And we would do what they said, come back, but
we'd also ah.. organize a\-- around the county in different places
telling people about m\-- ah.. mass meetings, holding mass meetings,
that kind of thing. And Fort Deposit was one of the most dangerous
places you can go into. Ah.. we built up the movement around Fort
Deposit before we went into Fort Deposit to have a mass meeting. When we
went\-- the first time we went we had twenty-six cars to go into Fort
Deposit, bumper to bumper that night. \<Laughs\>. The night ah.. after
the mass meeting they burned the church down, the Macedonian church
there in Fort Deposit. Ah.. but we were\-- we were\-- you use in these
places, some of 'em, your more skilled organizers ah.. in more\-- in the
more dangerous places. See, that's what happened.

Q: So the march happened in Lowndes County. And there's a lot of people
after the march who wanted to register to vote and were kicked off their
land, right?

**Bob Mouts:** Yeah. What happened, ah.. when the march came through\--
through Lowndes County I mean, people from all over the county, black
people, came out to greet the marchers. They were jubilant, they were
clapping\-- there's classic\-- classic ah.. photographs of
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ ah.. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ the marchers. Uhm.. and one
lady ah.. describes her feeling towards seeing all these people coming
from the west to the east. And she talks about the\-- the old negro
spiritual, "I done saw\-- I done saw that number. No man could number,
coming up, coming up from Zion." And there was a great jubilation.
People\-- there were some forty families in Lowndes County who were
either told to leave, evicted, or forced off the land because of their
participation in voter registration, ah.. trying to register to vote in
many instances... Uhm.. and they telled us\-- they tell their stories.
There were some instances where people who had been on the folk \[ph?\]
place, and one instance I clearly remember. As I say, I'm like been on
this man's place for thirty-five years. He went to try to race for the
vote and the man told him, the\-- the landowner told him to give him the
keys to his truck. Uhm.. there were other instances of\-- of blacks who
had\-- who had almost reared white plantation's owner kids\-- owners'
kids, and they were told to leave. The other thing that happened around
that same time was the United States Department of Agriculture had what
was called a diversified land program, which meant they pay landowners
not to plant crops so that there were a number of people who were forced
off\-- off the land when landowners start planting or plowing right up
to their front doors so they couldn't even have a vegetable garden let
alone places to grow\-- grow cotton and other commodities as\-- as\--
for their livelihood. So they were forced. So they weren't told, "You
got to leave." But if you don't have a place to\-- if the land's the
basis of your income and what you\-- and\-- and the commodity that you
produce then you\-- you obviously have to go somewhere where you can
make a living. There were some forty families that did this. As a result
of that, we formed ah.. Tent City for people to stay temporarily. There
were a number of people who left the county, who moved to other areas to
live with relatives. And some left the state, some never to return.
There were some people who had no option but to live in Tent Cities and
we provided for those people as\-- as best we can. Ah.. the community
was ah.. al\-- always supportive ah.. to bring them food, clothing and
anything else. And uhm.. we had to provide security for those people
because people would come by shooting ah.. at the tents. There were
several\-- a couple of incidents that I recall, one that was a hepatitis
outbreak there, and there was a lady who had ah.. a baby in the dead of
winter and we thought we would lose her and the baby. Uhm.. but ah..
there were some major kinds of things that I\-- that stands out in\-- in
your mind.

Q: \<Inaudible\>.

**Bob Mouts:** Yeah. Uhm.. fortunately everybody who stayed in Tent City
was eventually able, with community help and our help, ah.. SNCC's help,
to acquire their own homes.

Q: So now you stayed in this area.

**Bob Mouts:** Yeah.

Q: So the Lowndes County experience has \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ you.

**Bob Mouts:** Well, I worked\-- I worked for other places. Ah.. Lowndes
County is very unique in many ways to me. I almost consider this my
mission in life to be able to be working doing \<inaudible\>. Ah.. given
ah.. everything considered, I wouldn't have it any other way. Uhm..
there's so much that needs to be done. There's still a lot of work ah..
that needs to be done, and changing the quality of life for people. I
remember ah.. one of my buddies ah.. from California who had worked with
us called one day and just\-- he told me, he said, "Bob, I understand
you're still in Lowndes County." I said, "Yes." He said\-- told me, he
said, ah.. "You always took it too seriously." And I cried. You know, a
few times I cried. Uhm.. I don't know any other way to take it, other
than seriously when you are talking about bringing basic and fundamental
change in people's lives. This is nothing to play with. You can't be
pussyfooting around with this. And, you know, you can't be teasing when
you're talking about helping to bring about basic and fundamental
changes in people's lives. I don't know any other way to take it than
seriously. And I uhm.. I can't see why somebody else\-- anybody else
would take it otherwise. Here is a person, a family, whose livelihood is
dependent upon their being able to make a crop, and they\-- and living
on a white man's plantation. And he gets involved because a civil rights
worker came to him and talked to him and he's\-- he's for the first time
in his life, he wants to take a stand, to stand up, the\-- the\--
perpendicular to the earth. That ain't nothing to play with. Not only
does\-- is his life in jeopardy, his whole family's life is in jeopardy,
his neighbor's life is in jeopardy, anybody else who he can influence.
That ain't nothing to play with. So I do take it seriously. Uhm.. so
perhaps sometimes too seriously, but I don't know any other way to take
it.

Q: How are young people involved today in Lowndes County? I don't know
the question I'm really kind of looking for.

**Bob Mouts:** Look. I think\-- I think what you're trying to ask is
about youth in general and their\-- how they perceive this movement. I
think to a considerable extent, how youth view the movement has to do
with the kind of leadership that we presently have in the African
American community. Uhm.. see it's not the civil rights folks who are
the leaders now in these communities, it's the\-- primarily the
politicians who are. And many of them have a vested interest in the
problem, but no interest in the solution. They wouldn't solve the
problem if they had solutions in their hands, because if they solve the
problem they can't lead the march anymore. If they solve the problem,
they can't sit on the corporate boards. If they solve the problem, they
can't be a spokesperson for the inarticulate masses. It has gone from us
to I. And what I mean by that, done\-- when we were organizing, working
the movement, we used to talk about us as a people, as a race of people.
And it has become, with a lot of the leadership, it's I; very
self-centered, self-serving in most instances. So young people see not
us, they see I. Let me give you another example of what I'm talking
about. During my generation, for most of us, when we went off to
college, we carried the whole community with us. We carried our
community. We were motivated. We were encouraged by the Sunday school
teacher, by Brother Jones on the deacon board, by this
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Lucy down the road who might have sold corn liquor.
But we went off to school, we carried our community. So we know\-- we\--
we knew we had to achieve, we had to make it, because when you came back
home, Miss \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Lucy's gonna ask you, "Boy, how you
doing?" If she couldn't give you a dollar she would make you a pie. They
would give you a little chicken box and\-- some chicken in a shoe box.
So you carried your community. That sense of community is you go on
col\-- these college campuses now, it's been lost. Most of them think\--
a lot of these college students think when they graduate there's this
big, fat salary working for some major corporation. So the\-- the sense
of community is lost. I remember during the 60s, we could go on
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_'s campus and get seventy or eighty percent of the
student body to do anything that these Black Belt counties demonstrate;
citizenship, education, whatever kind of things we were doing. You can't
find that anymore. So I say that\-- it\-- a lot of it has to do with the
kind of leadership that's\-- that young people see today. They're
self-centered. They're self-centered, so they don't have the kind of
sense of community. And \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ necessarily
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ them or not. It's in the history of the movement or
anything prior to them, before them, 'cause it's all self-centered. When
you see a ah.. so-called civil rights leader now, and what do they\--
who do they represent? Themselves. When you see a lot of the politicians
or black people in public office that don't relate to the people, they
see themselves only \<laughs\>. And so young people see that. So
where\-- there would be no interest in understanding the background of
the civil rights movement or wanting to see the accomplishment when they
can see\-- they see individuals. I'm not saying\-- that's one of the
biggest problems with history when you talk about these civil right
icons. And if you look at history, one of the biggest problems I have
with it is history is usually associated with a\-- an individual. If you
were to talk about crossing the Delaware, the first person that comes to
mind is George Washington, as if nobody else goes \<laughs\> there but
George Washington. And that's\-- that's how it happens ah.. much too
often. And uhm.. but my dedication, my commitment these next few years
is to see those people, those who bore the burden in the heat of the day
and their descendants, the civil rights movement was not ah.. Martin
Luther King. The Bloody Sunday thing was not John Moore's. It was all
those people who came from all over\-- everywhere. But we protect these
people as these icons. And what happens in the\-- in the process you\--
you project these individuals and you lose the history. And that's what
happened with a lot of young people. So they'll gravitate toward the
individuals as opposed to\-- to understand the history.

Q: Let's figure out where to go next. You've covered so much territory
and I think you've provided a lot that will be useful to us. Let me just
throw it back at you. I'll tell you this about a caring community. I
remember my grandmother, when I went off to college, I came back after a
couple of years and she asked me what I was studying. And I said, "Radio
and television." And she said, "Oh, that's interesting." So she went
around and she told all of her friends that her grandson was up there in
college learning how to fix TVs.

**Bob Mouts:** \<Laughs\>.

Q: So when I came back to Roanoke, Virginia to visit her, people would
say, "Oh, can you fix my TV?"

**Bob Mouts:** \<Laughs\>.

Q: We've been at this for close to an hour and I think we've got great
stuff. I'm not trying to shut it down. What else do you want to add to
this?

**Bob Mouts:** Yeah. Basically, uhm.. the civil rights movement and the
voting rights movement was an act of a disfranchised people. And that's
where it belongs. That's\-- it belongs in that\-- not with the\-- again,
not with these icons, not with these organizations and so-called
leaders, but with the people, these people who make sacrifices. Many of
these people that we view as quote, "leaders" will never cross the
plantations, never had to drive up and down those long roads at night,
never had to sit in a\-- had to sleep in a cold house or stood up all
night peeping out the window ah.. under bushes or behind trees with
shotguns, who don't\-- never understood the full impact of what they
did, how it affected those people. This\-- this is their story. That's
what I want to be told. I want their story to be told. We have enough
being told these so-called leaders. How does Miss Bessie Lou's story get
told? How do Brother John's story get told? That's\-- that's the heart.
That's the heart of the movement; those who bore the burden in the heat
of the day.

Q: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ how precious his mother is. 'Cause I just
let her talk.

**Bob Mouts:** Um hmm. That's all you had to do

Q: That's all I had to do. I just let her talk.

**Bob Mouts:** You'll be surprised when you talk to these people how
nobody's ever asked them their story. And there was something that
everybody could contribute. If you\-- some of the greatest contributors
in the movement were people who led the songs. You know, if you couldn't
sing, you could moan. And if you couldn't moan, you could shout. If you
couldn't sh\-- shout, then you could clap. And there was a participa\--
patory thing where everybody had an opportunity to do something. And
that's where the heart is. That's where\-- that's where ah.. my p\-- the
passion is, that's where my heart is, with those people who bore the
burden, who made the sacrifices, uhm.. who are not the celebrities, who
didn't go on to fame and\-- and fortune. And there's a strong emotion
among those ah.. with those people about that too. Uhm.. when you were
saying again part of the reason why there's no continuity of struggle,
let me give you an example of what I'm talking about, and I mean this.
When we look at uhm.. our so-called leaders, civil rights leaders in
particular here in Selma every year, \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ and
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_, how many marchers do you intend to lead in your
lifetime? Most of us are grandfathers now. If there's to be any kind of
continuity of struggle for us as a people, it would seem that common
sense would tell you that you need to take two steps back, at least two
steps. I have grandchildren now. If there was anybody gonna n\-- need to
learn how to lead a march, my grandkids. But you\-- how many marches can
you lead in a lifetime? Where's the continuity of struggle? How do you
pass the baton onto another generation? You don't do that when you're
self-serving, 'cause you always have to be before the cameras. You have
to be the one leading the march.

Q: Okay, let's cut.

\<Pause in tape\>

Q: There are gonna be a lot of young people coming to see this and they
don't know about the National Guard. Tell me, what is the National Guard
and how did you get involved in it?

**Man:** Well, I got involved in it because my brother joined back in
1949 and\-- and I just worshipped my bo\-- brother and I had to be with
him. So I told a story and told the com\-- company commander that I was
seventeen and I wasn't but fifteen. Of course I was six foot two,
weighed a hundred and sixty-five pounds, pretty good sized kid, you
know? So ah.. they signed me up.

Q: What is the National Guard exactly?

**Man:** The National Guard's purpose is we are under state control for
anything that might happen in this state, floods, ah.. just any kind of
disaster. Ah.. you know, we\-- we\-- we're called out ah.. for large
fires or something where a town is\-- will have looting or whatever.
We're called out for that ah.. type duty under the state control. But
when it\-- but then the federal people, the President, he's our boss.
They pay us, so we're not\-- we're not paid by the state, we're\-- I'm
saying we're not. I'm retired now, you know? I'm\-- in fact I've been
retired ah.. nine years. Ah.. and then when we're mobilized under
state\-- under federal duty, then the President becomes our boss, which
we go to the U.S. army. The Commander-in-Chief of the army is our
President, so that's\-- he's our boss. And then we are assigned to
either a division or some unit, you know, to do the job that they've
called us for.

Q: But the Guard actually receives military training, right?

**Man:** Oh, what you talking about? We've got to. We take basic
training. We go to the regular army for our basic training and\-- and
for our skill training, for our job duty. Ah.. I\-- when I was a kid, I
liked to repair stuff. I grew up on a farm, so ah.. when I went into the
Guard I wanted to be a mechanic. So I went to Aberdeen, Maryland and
that's where I learned that trade. Went ah.. and I got my basic
training, just like a regular army. I mean you are trained just like
army. You are army. That's\-- that's what you are.

Q: I'm gonna take you back a little ways.

**Man:** Okay.

Q: You're back in 1965.

\#### End of CD 15 \####