Bob Rupert’s experienced combat pilot turned to him as they flew low over the jungle and shouted, “I want you to listen for beeps on the headset.” “What’s it mean if I hear them?” Bob asked with concern. “It means the Vietcong’s locked onto us with their missiles.” “What do we do then?” Bob exclaimed, looking out the window as the plane slowly sputtered above the treetops. “Not much,” the pilot calmly said.

BOB’S STORY
https://youtu.be/9PP1kE23lpI

Bob Rupert of Clinton, Pennsylvania was working as an aircraft mechanic for a major airline when he was called up during the Vietnam War. It was a good job. He was a well trained technician. But the army needed infantrymen in 1968.

Not long after landing in Vietnam and being assigned to the 1st Air Cavalry’s 11th Aviation Group, Warrant Officer Herman C. Bliss noticed Bob’s aircraft experience and recruited him as his crew chief—and sometimes co-pilot.

For the next year, the two-man team would fly assorted missions in a de Havilland Beaver, an all-purpose, slow-flying, prop-driven, single-engined utility aircraft, otherwise known by its Canadian manufacturer as a “bush plane.”

Bob Rupert’s oral history interview is a production of The Social Voice Project’s Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh Oral History Initiative.

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Bob Rupert of Clinton, Pennsylvania was working as an aircraft mechanic for a major airline when he was called up during the Vietnam War. It was a good job. ...

From one of our favorite conversations with veterans . . . Mr. Rose was remarkably thoughtful and humble about his experiences during the war.

On this 74th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, we remember the stories of those who were there.

LISTEN: https://wp.me/p8nTyT-8b

On this episode of Argot: Audio Short Stories from the Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh Oral History Initiative, WWII veteran Robert Rose of Rochester, Pennsylvania shares a story about the cold during the Battle of the Bulge.

In Memoriam
Robert J Rose
1925 - 2017

During WWII, Robert J. Rose of New Brighton, Pa served as a cannoneer with Battery “A” of the 574th AAA Auto Weapons Battalion, 13th Armored Division. Patton’s Army. After landing in France, he and his unit moved across Europe towards a particularly stubborn German entrenchment known as The Bulge. Mr. Rose’s job was to take out enemy aircraft by engaging the swooping threats from his M16 Halftrack–those peculiar looking war vehicles, much like the front of a commercial cargo truck welded to a tank. Atop the halftrack are swiveling machine guns–exposed and without much armor–but capable of striking the enemy at 7,000 yards.

And there sat Robert Rose on April 12, 1945, feeding four, red-hot .50 caliber machine guns during an ambush at Urbach in the Ruhr Valley of Southern Germany.

ACK ACK ACK ACK! ACK ACK ACK! ACK ACK ACK!

The guns roared, sweeping the surroundings, striking at everything and anything flashing around them. And then a hot piece of well-aimed German steel knocked Robert to the ground. “I’m shot,” he cried out before settling in and losing consciousness in the freezing snow and cold.

https://thesocialvoiceproject.org/2017/01/20/argot-audio-short-story-collection-episode-20/ ... See more

"They knew the Chinese would work them to death and then eat them.” ~Al Armandariz

On episode 25 of the Argot Podcast--Audio Short Stories from the Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh Oral History Initiative Collection--Pittsburgh WWII veteran Al Armandariz recalls the humane treatment given to army mules used in the China-Burma-India Theater.

https://thesocialvoiceproject.org/2018/12/15/argot-audio-short-story-collection-episode-25/

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“The Congress has designated December 7 of each year as ‘National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day’ . . . . Today, we honor those who perished 77 years ago at Pearl Harbor, and we salute every veteran who served in World War II over the 4 years that followed that horrific attack.” ~Presidential Proclamation

Alex Dyga of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania joined the Army just months prior to the Japanese attack on the islands. When the attack came, Alex was stationed on Hawaii as a “mule skinner.” He would serve the entire war on Hawaii.

Until his death in October 2018, he was one of two living Pittsburgh survivors of Pear Harbor.

https://youtu.be/A0Yi0dXcOyo ... See more

Alex Dyga of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is a Pearl Harbor survivor. He joined the Army just months prior to the Japanese attack on the islands. When the attack...

ORAL HISTORY MATTERS

Please don't take this living history for granted. Time is not on our side.

Since 2010, The Social Voice Project's Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh Oral History Initiative has been capturing, preserving, and sharing the voices of veterans throughout Western Pennsylvania. ... See more

Veterans oral history interview collages from the Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh Oral History Archive.

©Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh Oral History Initiative (Farkas Collection)/The Social Voice Project, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ... See more

A behind the scenes look at the often messy process of recording oral history interviews.

“Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.” ~Henri Cartier-Bresson

As any oral history project should, we've diligently photo-documented our interviews for archival and historical purposes. The challenge has always been how to share the thousands of images we've collected.

One method we employed is to "summarize" the interviews via photo collages documenting the interview itself and some of the veterans' artifacts they shared with us.

Here are just some of the oral history collages from our archive; we will be adding more as we continue to curate our digital media. ... See more

Veterans oral history interview collages from the Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh Oral History Archive.

©Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh Oral History Initiative (Farkas Collection)/The Social Voice Project, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ... See more