0:00

This podcast is not sponsored by . It

0:02

does not reflect the views of the institutions

0:04

that employ us . It is solely our thoughts

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and ideas , based upon our professional training

0:09

and study of the family .

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Welcome to Talking Texas History , the

0:15

podcast that explores Texas history

0:18

before and beyond the Alamo

0:20

. Not only will we talk Texas

0:22

history , we'll visit with folks who teach

0:24

it , write it , support it , and

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with some who've made it and , of course , all

0:29

of us who live it and love it . Welcome

0:34

to another edition of Talking Texas History . I'm

0:37

Gene Parois .

0:38

I'm Scott Sozby , gene . Today

0:40

we have somebody that we probably don't

0:42

want to know how to say how long we've known him for . That

0:44

might date us is correct , right ? Somebody

0:47

we went to graduate school

0:49

with and we've known him for a long time . He's had quite

0:51

the very career We've got Fred Allison with us today .

0:53

Yeah , this poor guy was my office mate .

0:56

That is terrible for him to have to go through that I know , and

0:58

he still talks to me .

1:00

So , Fred welcome to Talking Texas History

1:02

.

1:06

Well , glad to be here and I

1:08

really appreciate the opportunity

1:10

to be part of your show .

1:13

Well , we're really glad you

1:16

agreed to join us , and

1:18

I'll tell you and I hate to say

1:20

this , you know , with old friends , but

1:22

sometimes you

1:24

don't talk to them as often , and

1:26

the one thing that

1:28

you came out with that we want to talk about

1:30

today is

1:32

you've got a new book out . But

1:35

before we get there , let's

1:38

tell the listeners , who

1:40

may just be here in the name Fred

1:42

Allison for the first time , a

1:45

little bit about you and where you're from . You're

1:47

from up in West Texas

1:49

, right at the top of Texas , right that's right

1:51

, right at the top of Texas

1:53

, up in the Pantanal .

1:54

There I was raised

1:57

on a West Texas cotton

1:59

farm outside of Mule Shoe

2:01

, texas . Actually it's on Highway

2:04

70 between Mule Shoe

2:06

and Earth . So

2:09

that's quite distinguished upbringing

2:12

there . And , yeah

2:15

, my dad and my uncle who are main characters

2:17

in the book my

2:19

dad , harold Allison , was in a farming partnership

2:21

with his brother , oscar

2:24

Allison , and they farmed about

2:26

close

2:28

to 2000 acres there outside of Mule Shoe and

2:32

also a farm in Tulia , texas , and so that's where

2:35

I grew up . I've done a lot of hard work there , raising

2:38

cotton and irrigating , okay

2:43

. And then I graduated

2:45

from high school in New York In 1968

2:49

and decided to

2:51

attend North Texas State University

2:53

and play the major in journalism

2:55

. But

2:57

I was having way too good of time at

3:00

the time when I began college to

3:02

really accomplish much , and

3:04

so I

3:08

actually was on probation

3:10

and even expelled

3:13

on academic . No

3:15

way , yeah , two times

3:17

.

3:18

Your early college career sounds a whole lot like mine

3:20

.

3:21

Yeah . So anyway

3:23

, I remember getting a letter from the dean that went to

3:26

my parents too , said we'll give

3:28

you one more chance . I'll

3:30

never forget one more chance . So that's when

3:32

I knew the time had

3:35

come , that I had to do it

3:37

. And so I did , and

3:39

pretty much after that I

3:42

was on the dean's list . But

3:45

I changed my major to secondary education

3:47

because I

3:50

was avoiding foreign

3:52

languages . And

3:54

a friend of mine said if you majored in secondary

3:56

education you

3:58

could still get all the history classes you

4:00

wanted and not have to take foreign languages

4:03

. Well , that's why

4:05

I got certified as a teacher , secondary

4:07

level teacher and after I

4:09

graduated I was wondering

4:11

what to do with my life , and

4:15

my dad and my uncles had all been aviators in the military . So

4:17

that was something I'd

4:19

always aspire to myself , and I joined the

4:22

Marine Corps in order to

4:24

do that , because the Marine Corps offered

4:27

me

4:30

an aviation contract and

4:32

sort of a guarantee to go to flight training . It didn't

4:34

guarantee that you're going to finish flight training , At

4:36

least you would get a shot at it . But

4:40

so that's what I did and entered the Marine Corps

4:42

, and that was one of the best things that

4:44

ever happened in my life , because the Marine Corps has

4:49

really been good to

4:51

me and a lot better to me than I was

4:53

for them . But

4:59

went through officers training

5:01

, OCS and the basic school , Then went down to Pensacola

5:03

for flight training and

5:07

ended up being a naval flight

5:09

officer in the F-4 Phantom

5:12

fighter aircraft sort of a Vietnam air

5:14

fighter . That all the services flow

5:16

is very common . It's just a great

5:18

airplane . My

5:23

official title guys in the back were called radar intercept

5:25

officers and

5:29

what you did was your main job was

5:31

basically a weapon system type

5:34

operator and

5:37

radar . Do the radar work in order to do intercepts

5:39

? In order to do

5:41

intercepts , you

5:44

operate the radar to find an

5:46

enemy aircraft and

5:49

then you set up a , An

5:52

intercept , a direction that

5:54

you can know . You can fly your plane

5:56

to intercept the enemy aircraft .

5:59

So you were the one who actually pulled the trigger .

6:01

No , we didn't have any . They

6:03

didn't trust us with a trigger in the back , but

6:07

besides that , we also

6:10

backed up the pilot on everything

6:12

else . In fact , if you get

6:14

in a dog fight you

6:16

, the Rio radar intercept

6:18

officer , has a very important function

6:20

, mainly to

6:23

help the pilot keep sight and To

6:25

direct the pilot in which way to

6:27

turn or do this or do that . When

6:30

the pilot often can't see the enemy

6:32

aircraft he's fighting because it might

6:35

be behind him or or someplace

6:37

in a Good Rio

6:39

never loses sight . So

6:42

if you never lose sight of the enemy aircraft

6:44

, you're gonna be a great . You're

6:46

gonna be a great , be

6:48

a great real . And the pilots love you , you know

6:50

. So that's what we did

6:53

, and there was a lot

6:55

to it . So did

6:57

that ?

6:58

and how long were

7:00

you in the service ?

7:02

I was on active duty for

7:04

about six and a half years and Then

7:07

got off of active active duty

7:09

and went into the reserves . So

7:12

I flew the F

7:14

war out of Navy

7:16

Dallas after I got off

7:18

active duty and we had lived and we were

7:21

living in Greenville , texas at that time

7:23

and , yes

7:26

, I had got married to my

7:29

, to my bride , martha McCall

7:31

in Yuma , and we're

7:34

still married now after 45

7:37

. Better get this right 44 .

7:39

You don't mess this up , fred .

7:42

And yeah , cuz she's sitting right here but

7:45

and four

7:47

kids later , but anyway , in

7:51

Greenville , after got out I wanted

7:53

to teach school . That was in my mind all

7:56

along . So I did teach in the middle school

7:58

in Greenville and , and Marty

8:00

was teaching too . So we were doing good

8:03

. But the problem arose

8:05

when she she

8:08

got pregnant , we got pregnant and

8:10

Having

8:12

the kids are pretty consistently there

8:14

. So I had to find a better paying job and I

8:18

was still with the reserves , which

8:20

helps some . But

8:23

I got a job with a company

8:25

called roadway express , which is a

8:27

trucking company and I

8:29

was a Basically

8:32

a manager Kind of

8:34

did everything at a small

8:36

City terminal in Greenville

8:38

and it paid really good

8:41

. So I did that for about nine years

8:43

and After

8:45

, after Martha

8:48

, my wife , marty , was

8:51

able to go back to teaching when

8:53

our youngest child or four

8:55

child Started

8:57

school . Okay

8:59

, so that's when I started working my master's

9:02

degree over at East Texas State

9:04

University , or

9:06

as it's known now , texas A&M Commerce

9:08

, and I just had some great

9:11

, great instructors there and

9:13

as I moved along

9:16

to my master's , had to get a thesis

9:18

project and Dr

9:20

James Conrad I don't know if you don't know he

9:23

was the oral historian there . Yeah

9:25

, jim , really

9:27

well yeah super

9:29

guy and he kind of took

9:31

me under his wing and and

9:34

said why don't you do a thesis

9:36

on major field in Greenville , texas

9:38

, which was a airbase in World

9:41

War two it was dropped

9:43

into Greenville and

9:45

do sort of a Social

9:48

history on the impact that

9:50

a a big base

9:52

would have on a little Texas Southern

9:54

town ? And so

9:56

that's what I did and that's when I got into oral

9:59

history too , because I started doing

10:01

a lot of interviews with locals

10:03

that had been there and will work too . And that

10:05

was just fascinating

10:08

and Thank

10:10

God I finished that

10:12

up and I Think Dr

10:15

Conrad said why don't you see if the

10:17

Newspaper in Greenville would

10:19

be interested in publishing that

10:21

? Because you know it's all about local

10:23

history and World War two and stuff . And

10:25

sure enough they did . They published the whole thing

10:28

. It was like an 11 series

10:30

of 11 issues and and

10:33

that just sort of hitting

10:36

that is . That's the first time I really thought

10:38

I could write something

10:40

that people . It's just an amazing feeling

10:43

to think that somebody was going

10:45

to read something that I wrote , you know

10:47

that's much of it .

10:49

I'm still amazed he may read anything I write , so

10:51

I understand .

10:54

That was actually . You were kind of leveraging that

10:57

early interest in journalism and

11:00

writing and interviewing

11:02

as well right and kind of

11:04

marrying those to your . But you said

11:07

you sound like you had a passion for history even

11:09

as an undergraduate .

11:12

Well , even as a young boy I remember reading

11:14

books on history a lot and

11:16

one of my dad's friends , a very impressive

11:19

gentleman , just out of

11:21

the clear blue one day gave me a little book

11:23

. I must have been like eight or nine years old

11:25

. He gave me a book on World War II

11:27

and that's

11:31

sort of I mean that I was sort of a parent , I guess

11:33

the people that I really liked history , especially

11:36

military history . So

11:39

anyway , you know , I've had an

11:41

abiding interest in that , I guess all my

11:43

life really .

11:45

Well , I didn't realize . I mean , I guess I did

11:47

, but I guess I knew this but reminded

11:50

the fact that you had studied under Conrad

11:53

. And you know

11:55

, I gotta say Jim

11:57

Conrad was one of the nicest people

12:00

I'd ever met and when I was doing my

12:02

dissertation under

12:05

at Tech

12:07

, there under bar , I went

12:09

and Conrad helped

12:11

me out a lot too

12:13

because I was doing getting

12:15

on a topic on a politician

12:18

up there from from Paris .

12:20

So yeah , jim

12:22

, when I took over here , these text

12:24

talks . Of course Jim is a prominent member

12:26

and he was really good to me in

12:28

that . Well , fred , you went on after you

12:30

finished graduate school and you went

12:32

to work , went back to the Marine Corps as

12:35

you served as a historian for the Marine

12:37

Corps . A lot of people may not know what that

12:39

. You know that the all the military branches

12:41

employ these historians . So tell

12:43

everybody kind of what you did as a

12:45

historian for the Marine Corps .

12:48

Okay , yeah , I had continued

12:50

to serve in the reserve so I still had

12:52

an attachment with the Marine Corps and

12:55

my

12:58

as I got on

13:00

later in my career I was

13:02

promoted to major and

13:04

but anyway my airplane went away

13:06

and it was replaced by an airplane that

13:08

did not have a guy in the back

13:10

. So really I didn't have a job

13:13

in the Marine Corps . But as a reservist

13:15

you can kind of shop around and see if there's

13:17

other billets that you might get could

13:20

serve in . And so a guy

13:22

told me . He said

13:25

you know , the Marine Corps has a history division

13:27

and I'd started working on my PhD

13:29

at that time , so people were

13:31

aware of that . And they

13:33

said the Marine Corps has a history division that

13:35

uses reserve officers to

13:37

do field history work . He

13:39

said I want you to see if you can get into that organization

13:42

. Well , it was in DC and

13:44

I was in Lubbock at this

13:46

time . I'd started my PhD

13:48

program at Texas Tech . But

13:51

anyway , I checked with them and

13:53

sure enough , I was able to get into that organization

13:56

and because

13:58

I lived so far away , they

14:01

allowed me to just come in and

14:03

do all of my drills , that's the weekend

14:05

drills that you're supposed to accomplish

14:09

. They allowed me to sort of

14:11

stack them and come in

14:13

and do like

14:15

a third of the years like do four

14:18

drills , four weekend drills

14:20

at one time , and

14:22

so they were very helpful there

14:24

. And anyway

14:29

I did that as field historian

14:31

in uniform with the Marine Corps

14:33

for two years

14:36

and retired . That's

14:38

when I retired . Okay

14:41

, so then back to Lubbock

14:43

and finished up my PhD

14:45

program , the coursework and whatnot , and

14:48

then after about four years

14:50

they had a position come over and for an oral

14:53

historian as a civilian at

14:55

the Marine Corps history division and

14:59

up in DC . I was in DC at that

15:01

time and

15:04

I applied for that and I got that job because

15:06

I had been a . It

15:08

really helped that I was a field historian

15:10

and so I had become

15:12

associated with that organization . So anyway

15:16

, that required a move from Lubbock

15:19

to Virginia and we

15:21

ended up living in Frederick burg

15:23

, virginia , but just

15:25

a real blessing and I

15:27

served there like 20 years , almost

15:30

20 years , so

15:32

actually they

15:35

gave me like 43 years in the Marine

15:37

Corps . I never , I had never

15:39

intended that .

15:43

That's a long time . That's it . That's

15:45

putting your service in for absolute

15:48

.

15:48

Well , it was just like I said . The Marine Corps has

15:50

been very , very good to me and I just got

15:53

some , had some great , was

15:55

able to serve with great people and

15:57

there's still friends with a lot of them . And

16:01

you know , you hear a lot of people

16:03

talk about the Marine Corps . It's always about

16:05

you know how sort of rough and tough it is

16:08

, but it's that . But it's

16:10

also they take care of their people

16:12

. You know , once you're part of it and

16:14

you sort of prove and you can do a credible

16:17

job , they take care of you . They

16:19

really do so

16:21

. But again , a lot of that time was

16:23

as a reservist , so it's not like full

16:26

time for 43 years , but

16:28

so but

16:30

yeah , the services all do . They have

16:32

history organizations and

16:35

most of them will all over much

16:37

bigger than the Marine Corps . When

16:39

I was there in the history division they

16:42

only have like five or six historians

16:45

or as other services like

16:47

the Air Force or Army

16:49

or Navy they'll have , they'll just

16:51

have bevies of them and they're all

16:53

scattered out all over the United States

16:55

. You know , of course they're all bigger services

16:57

too , but still . But

17:01

it was , and my job

17:03

was , as I said , oral historian , and

17:07

so what I got to do was do a lot

17:09

of interviews . I think I did about 1,100

17:11

interviews in that 20 years

17:13

.

17:13

What was your probably most memorable

17:16

interview you did with somebody ?

17:19

Oh yeah , I wouldn't have to

17:21

say that my

17:23

most , my most memorable

17:25

interview would

17:29

be , of course , the one I did

17:32

this book on that

17:34

was published by North Texas Press to

17:36

the World War Two veteran

17:38

who was actually from Mule Chateau

17:40

and he lived up

17:42

in Fredericksburg . But he was just an amazing

17:45

man and he had been in some

17:47

of the most ferocious

17:49

battles , or two like Guadalcanal

17:51

, terawa

17:54

, saipan , leading

17:56

a 37 millimeter

17:59

gun platoon , and

18:02

anyway , I interviewed him about 30

18:04

hours .

18:06

Oh , wow .

18:07

Yeah , they . My organization

18:09

, the history division , was very

18:12

gracious and allowing me to spend

18:14

that much time on one man

18:16

or you

18:18

know , there's so many other people you could interview

18:20

that have done great things , but they allow

18:23

me to do that and it turned

18:25

into a book . I edited the interviews

18:27

and published

18:31

and actually got an award

18:33

from the Marine Corps Heritage

18:36

Foundation for best biography career

18:38

2018 .

18:40

That's great .

18:41

Was that the one with Roy

18:43

Elrod ? Yeah , the .

18:44

Roy Elrod book .

18:46

Right , we were going to die . We

18:48

were going to win or die there .

18:50

Yeah , it's a water canal

18:52

, yeah this exact quote said

18:54

that the Marines were not , they were

18:57

not going to surrender , they they

18:59

would die there before they would you

19:01

know , before they would surrender .

19:03

Well , you've got a new one coming out , right , you got a

19:05

new book coming out just about to come out , yeah

19:09

, from UNT Press , my Darling Boys , a

19:11

family awards , a very personal book . Won't

19:13

you tell us about , tell our audience

19:15

about , how you came up with that book ? And

19:17

then did you learn something about your family

19:20

? And tell us about the books about , and did you learn something

19:22

about your family ? You didn't know , maybe , why you're doing

19:24

.

19:25

Yeah , it was really illuminating because

19:27

, going out of course , my heroes

19:30

were my , my dad , who had been

19:32

a B-25 co-pilot , and

19:34

his partner and farming , oscar

19:37

, who had been a B-24

19:39

turret gunner flight engineer

19:41

but had been a POW in Germany

19:43

, and Lord too . And

19:46

then there was this mysterious uncle who

19:48

was their younger brother , who had been killed

19:50

. He was a fighter pilot and

19:52

had been killed , and they

19:55

they really nobody really seemed to

19:57

know how he had been

19:59

killed . So it was just

20:02

a . It was a

20:04

great , great investigation

20:07

finding out exactly how he

20:09

had been killed , and it

20:11

was in dogfight against German fighters

20:14

. But , yeah

20:17

, so much brother stuff to

20:19

I , because , though , the

20:21

book is about the home front too , not

20:24

just the brothers that went to war

20:26

, but also the family to stay

20:28

behind , and so I

20:30

was able to do research on World War two

20:32

, farming and

20:34

New Mexico . They were

20:37

, and their farm was

20:39

outside of Roswell , new Mexico

20:41

, and a little town called Hagerman , and

20:44

my mother's

20:46

family . They were neighbors

20:49

, so yeah

20:52

just learning about those , those families

20:54

, and how , how

20:56

their lives changed in World

20:58

War two and some of the activities that

21:00

they they participated there on the home

21:02

front . These are sacrifices they made

21:05

. That was all new to me and

21:07

that was tough to find that information

21:10

out because and

21:13

it really not , you know , like most family records

21:15

they don't really record what their day-to-day

21:17

activities are . But

21:20

I was very fortunate that

21:22

there was a large stock of letters

21:25

amongst the family members . I

21:27

think I used 71 letters in

21:29

the book and there was many

21:32

more that I didn't use . Well

21:34

, not many , but maybe 20 years

21:36

, seven , 20 or 30 , right , or

21:39

they're talking their writing letters

21:41

to each other , from the people at home , from the

21:43

family at home , to

21:45

the , to the boys at

21:48

war , and they're can't imagine

21:50

.

21:51

That and I try to think about that time . You know

21:54

, so many , so many of them , of

21:56

the men were often so

21:58

much uncertainty about where they were going to come back

22:00

and then so many Sacrifices

22:02

and they were having to make on the front , home

22:04

front , and I can't help always think I mean , you know

22:06

, I don't know that we would do that as a nation

22:08

today . I don't know if we have the what would

22:11

be the word intestinal fortitude to

22:13

go through something like that now .

22:15

Yeah , no , well , I think they actually

22:17

Scott , I think they actually they

22:19

all . They worried about the same thing at that

22:21

time , to whether Americans really had the

22:24

the intestinal

22:26

fortitude to to

22:28

make those sacrifices . But they did .

22:30

They Dank your day , that's without

22:32

a doubt .

22:33

Yeah , we worked out so the

22:36

title of there the title

22:38

of the book Fred .

22:39

That comes from something your grandmother

22:42

wrote correct

22:44

, right , yeah , the boys mother Ali

22:48

Rizal . She'd actually been

22:50

Ali Allison before

22:52

, but the older boys

22:54

father

22:56

had died , his name of the Allison

22:59

first and she remarried

23:01

to why they grizzled . So that's sort of confusing

23:03

. But yeah

23:05

, in many

23:07

of her letters she will refer

23:10

to her boys with great affection , like

23:12

my darlin , this or that , or even she

23:14

even calls so calls them her baby boy , calls

23:16

them her baby boy . I

23:19

said they had a tremendous amount of affection

23:21

for her she was . She

23:24

was such a hard-working mother and I just

23:27

know that she would Just

23:29

did everything possible

23:31

to Raves a good family

23:34

. Did you know her ? Yeah

23:36

, yeah , sure did grandma . Yeah

23:38

, she was a . She was a very

23:41

Sort of

23:43

austere woman , very thin

23:45

, petite , of course very

23:47

nice . But you know the death

23:49

of her younger son , wiley

23:52

, grizzled junior . He was killed

23:54

in the war and

23:57

Really I think it really Traumatized

24:00

her , a type of PTSD

24:02

even right now she

24:04

just bore that with her and so

24:07

she was just not not

24:09

a really Not a really

24:11

happy , joyful . She was always

24:14

Just

24:16

a little bit reticent , I'm

24:20

just . She was just suffering from that

24:22

part of the . Imagine shit

24:25

. For so long she did not

24:27

know all she knew that he was

24:29

missing in action and

24:31

so for years Well

24:35

, like years , many months , it was over a year she

24:38

did not know . Can you just imagine living

24:41

with that ?

24:41

I can't , man , that's got to be um , but

24:44

that's just got to be heartbreaking .

24:46

Yeah , and then and then , when they

24:48

did report that he was killed in

24:50

action , they weren't able

24:52

to prove it . There

24:54

was no body , there was . No

24:56

one saw him crash , they

24:59

didn't really know what

25:01

, and she was not convinced that he was

25:03

dead for the longest time . So

25:08

that's a yeah

25:11

, that's . But she was a great woman , just

25:13

you know , full of love , and

25:15

it was , um , there's

25:19

a great , a great role model for

25:21

her .

25:21

Had this book , fred , kind of been in the back

25:24

of your mind for a long time to do

25:26

, and it was just when you got the time , or

25:28

just the inclination to do it .

25:31

No , after I retired , I started

25:33

looking into it . My

25:35

uncle , oscar , had written a memoir

25:38

in 1973 . And

25:42

I had a copy of that and I'd sort of

25:44

I'd looked at it and I'd read it . But

25:47

when I pulled it out again in

25:50

2020 , I mean 2020

25:52

, after I retired , and I started

25:54

real really reading it and

25:56

focusing on it and I said , hey , this is a pretty

25:58

pretty good story . He's

26:01

a he was a good writer , the

26:04

very smart man , but

26:06

he was able to tell a great story

26:09

. You know , which is the key to being a good writer

26:11

? Actually , he's telling a story .

26:13

Absolutely .

26:14

Yeah , and so he was able to do that

26:16

. He had sort of a sarcastic

26:19

, uh jaundice view of life

26:22

and his experiences . He was , he

26:24

, never purported to be any kind of a

26:26

hero . The only thing

26:28

that he was proud of was that he kept

26:30

what he said in

26:32

his memoirs . He kept his family together

26:34

, which were the other crewmen on

26:37

his B24 that

26:39

had all been made POWs , all

26:41

the enlisted men anyway , and

26:44

he kind of kept them together

26:46

that sort of a self-protective

26:48

, protective organization

26:51

against the conditions they were in in

26:53

the German prisoner war camps . But

26:56

uh , yeah , he's uh

26:59

kind of nonchalant

27:01

about a lot of stuff . And then , if you do

27:03

, your did some research

27:06

on the events that he was talking

27:09

about , the conditions in the prisoner

27:11

war camps . They were really bad

27:13

, but he never really focused

27:15

on how miserable they were . He would

27:17

, he was sort of , uh

27:20

, you know , skim over it and

27:22

um , just uh , I

27:24

think , because he didn't want to do anything

27:27

.

27:27

I think that's a lot . You know , I found that I had great

27:29

uncles who were in World War II

27:31

and I you

27:34

couldn't get them to talk about it and it

27:36

was like pulling teeth to get them to talk

27:38

about their experiences . And I think

27:40

I always said about . I think it was because it was

27:42

not something they wanted to relive in the

27:44

large degree .

27:45

That's right . Yeah , it would stir

27:48

up those other emotions and , uh

27:50

, they , they were afraid

27:52

of him . And he even has a disclaimer

27:54

. He put a disclaimer in his

27:56

memoir saying

27:59

that , uh , he

28:02

would try to tell the tell

28:04

about the events as he remembered them

28:06

, not

28:09

over glamorize them , but

28:12

there were a lot of , a lot of things

28:15

that he was not going to say and

28:17

he'd been trying to forget those things since

28:19

1944

28:22

. Wow , yeah

28:24

, so that's the , uh

28:26

, that's the part that I wish I

28:28

had .

28:30

It's absolutely passing . I think everybody's

28:33

, everybody's listening to this . Now , all of you

28:35

, uh , make sure you get out there and buy that book

28:37

.

28:38

Fred , I'm going to say this is that I think

28:40

you did your family proud .

28:42

Well , that's what I was trying to do . I was trying to

28:44

honor you know that because

28:47

I know my uncle , oscar , by writing

28:49

his memoir , was trying to honor his

28:51

fellow serviceman

28:53

, his fellow crewman and

28:55

uh , and

28:58

produce something that would last thing

29:01

and be appropriate

29:04

for their service . But there was like

29:07

he said there were so much that was

29:09

really ugly about

29:12

that , but he was not

29:14

, he was not going to

29:16

, he was not going to bring that out .

29:19

Well , it's a good book and I hope

29:21

that people will will

29:24

pick it up , order it . It's

29:26

put out by University of North Texas

29:28

Press and , uh

29:30

, it is . It is a moving , moving

29:33

story . I mean

29:35

it's , uh , it's , it's , it's

29:37

, it's beautiful .

29:40

No , thank you , Gene . I take that

29:42

as a great compliment coming

29:44

from you , knowing what you

29:46

have done in the historical field

29:48

, so I really appreciate

29:51

that .

29:52

Well , you're very kind , you're very kind .

29:55

Well , Fred was growing to the end of our time

29:57

and they always goes way too fast for us . And , of

29:59

course , when we're ending up , we always ask

30:01

everyone of our uh uh

30:04

people we have on there the last question , and

30:07

this is your chance to give

30:09

pearls of wisdom to everybody out there

30:11

as much as you chance . So , Fred

30:13

Allison , what do you know ?

30:16

Okay , what I know is that God

30:18

is faithful . I

30:21

, uh , I

30:23

became a Christian a long time ago

30:25

and uh , I've , uh

30:27

, I've trusted , uh , I've trusted

30:29

God with so many big decisions and

30:32

sometimes we don't understand . You

30:34

know why things are going

30:36

the way they are , but if you keep your faith , even

30:40

when you're not faithful , god

30:43

will be faithful to you and

30:46

uh , but eventually , if you keep your faith

30:48

, things are going to work out

30:50

.

30:51

That's , uh , that's my pearl of wisdom

30:53

and that may be that may be

30:55

the best one we've ever had . Well , fred

30:58

, thanks for coming . This has been great .

30:59

Yeah , Thank you very much again . I

31:02

really appreciate the opportunity to talk about

31:04

uh , talk about this book .

31:06

Once again , folks , it's my darling boy . It's

31:09

a family of war . Uh , university

31:11

of North Texas Press . Uh , hot off

31:13

the presses very soon . So make uh you can

31:15

. You can go on the website right now . Uh

31:17

, in order .

31:18

Absolutely Great book . Great book , Fred

31:21

. Thank you so much . Uh

31:23

, it was a real honor to be

31:25

your office mate and

31:27

to still keep in touch with you . We need to get

31:29

together soon .

31:30

Yeah , yeah , we're all close . Hey

31:33

, every October we have East Texas Historical Association

31:35

meeting . Uh , fred , you need to come up .

31:37

Okay , well , again , gene

31:39

, and , uh , scott , in the office next

31:41

door . It was a pleasure being there with you

31:43

, it really was .

31:45

And , uh , we had . We talked about it often . It was a

31:47

fun time .

31:48

And we survived . And uh

31:50

, here we are , Okay .

31:51

Thanks for it .

31:52

Okay , yeah

31:57

.