[Interview Begins]
BLUMENBERG: Okay, we'll get started. Today is October 27th, 2017, and it is my pleasure to be here in Hayward, Wisconsin with Ralph W Cornell. This, my name is Tom Bloomberg. And I'll just, make mention of the fact that I am not associated with any organization. I'm doing a veterans history project interview with Ralph, and we'll get started. Okay, Ralph, as I mentioned, I'm just going to try to get some biographical detail on you and just tell me where and when you were born.
CORNELL: I was born in Royce Lake, Wisconsin. April 27th, 1938, 1938.
BLUMENBERG: So that makes you.
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: 52 plus 17 and.
CORNELL: Something like that.
BLUMENBERG: Yeah. Well, good. 1932. Okay. Then could you tell me a little bit about your parents?
CORNELL: My parents, were living in Barron County at the time, at the tail end of the depression. And, they were at one time involved in a family farm on my mother's side of the family and farm one kind of downhill. And we ended up moving to Old Clara in 1941.
BLUMENBERG: Okay. Where was the farm located?
CORNELL: In, their county. Right off highway 25, south of Barron.
BLUMENBERG: Okay. Yeah. So that's that's, that's tough farming anyhow. And then in the depression, boy, things were stacked up against you.
CORNELL: Yeah, well, everything everything went downhill, at that time, you know, and the farming and. Yeah. And, there were more than one family involved in the farm, and my dad had an opportunity to return to Clara and go to work for his former employer in El Clare. So we were down here and 1940, 41.
BLUMENBERG: What was your dad's name?
CORNELL: Fred. Fred. Cornell.
BLUMENBERG: Fred. Our Cornell. And what? What about your mother? What was her.
CORNELL: Name? Harriet and Cornell.
BLUMENBERG: Harriet. And.
CORNELL: Okay, she was formerly Harriet and Stair.
BLUMENBERG: All right, so you moved to Eau Claire?
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: And? Then what was going on in your life there? You said your dad went back to his original employer.
CORNELL: Yeah, my dad worked for Harlan George Roofing Company.
BLUMENBERG: Okay.
CORNELL: And, he was involved in installing and maintaining roofs, various buildings throughout, the northwestern Stratton area.
BLUMENBERG: Yeah.
CORNELL: And, growing up, he would be out of town for weeks at a time. I remember one situation where he was gone for a whole two week stretch that he never got home. Oh, well, yeah. So during the war, there was a big demand for, buildings and construction areas and and so on and so forth there.
BLUMENBERG: I wonder how big O Clare was at that time.
CORNELL: All Clare was probably, maybe in a 25 to 30,000 at that time, you know, you know, Clare Knoll was, 60 some thousand most people.
BLUMENBERG: Right? Yeah. Group grew quite a bit. Yeah. Did you have any brothers and sisters?
CORNELL: No. I was an only child.
BLUMENBERG: You were an only child. Okay.
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: And then you were in. Clare and your dad was working, and your mom was, stay at home homemaker. Okay, so she took care of everything at home. And, of course, your dad was traveling, so she she had her hands full taking care of you.
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: Yeah. And then. You went to school until Oklahoma, I guess.
CORNELL: Until until, second grade. And then during the summer between first and second grade, my dad, bought a, a lot in Altoona. And, we began construction on a home and in Altoona.
BLUMENBERG: Okay.
CORNELL: So I graduated from Altoona High School. I went through the Altoona school system from second grade on.
BLUMENBERG: Okay. And what what year was it that you graduated?
CORNELL: 1957. Okay.
BLUMENBERG: From Altoona?
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: And then what? Well, what happened after you graduated from high school?
CORNELL: I went to University of Wisconsin Stout for one year, and then I returned home and continued my part time working full time work in a cooperative store. And I worked in the hardware department.
BLUMENBERG: Okay. And that was all in Altoona.
CORNELL: That was all in Altoona.
BLUMENBERG: All right. And then how how did you end up in, in the National Guard?
CORNELL: I joined the National Guard when I was a junior in high school.
BLUMENBERG: Oh, so you got an early start.
CORNELL: You got an early start?
BLUMENBERG: Yeah.
CORNELL: And it was. It was in camp. We got paid monthly. Once a month we got a guard National guard check. And that was for once a week, monthly drills at the armory.
BLUMENBERG: So that helped.
CORNELL: Out. That helped out.
BLUMENBERG: And it got you tuned up.
CORNELL: And it got me tuned up. We. Or spent two weeks every summer at Fort McCoy for annual training. Okay. And the unit I enlisted in was battery B, 121st Field Artillery.
BLUMENBERG: Okay.
CORNELL: And we were an artillery unit.
BLUMENBERG: Yeah. So you you were doing that when you were 16 years old?
CORNELL: 17 or.
BLUMENBERG: 17? Okay.
CORNELL: Well, I graduated from high school when I was 19.
BLUMENBERG: Yeah. So you're you're a young man and you're in the National Guard.
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: And then you were still working in Altoona in.
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: And you, you kept up with the guard?
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: So tell me a little bit about, about that experience.
CORNELL: Well, we were on active duty, and we spent several weeks down at Fort McCoy, and we spent an annual fall training session down at Fort McCoy. And when we got home in September, the political situation in, in Germany was getting agitated. And, the Russian people that were of charge of, West Germany, East Germany, they shut off traffic in Brandenburg Gate, which was the only access into East Germany at that time. President John F Kennedy activated two National Guard divisions. The 32nd Division from Wisconsin and the second Armored Division out of Fort Hood, Texas.
BLUMENBERG: Okay. And you and.
CORNELL: We were on active duty.
BLUMENBERG: You were active duty 32nd.
CORNELL: We were shipped to Fort Lewis, Washington, for active duty training and possibility of being shipped overseas. Right.
BLUMENBERG: Yeah. That's some that's some big history.
CORNELL: That's a lot of history. Yes. Yeah. We were never shipped overseas, but elements of the fourth Division were. There was a whole division on the in there. They were a regular army and they were the host division on Fort Lewis. And one night we were all down in the movie theater and the lights all went on. And all members of the 32nd Division are ordered to report to their duty stations immediately.
BLUMENBERG: So what were you thinking when that happened?
CORNELL: Well, I thought well we're going somewhere, right. And at that point when we got back to the, to the unit, they were oh, there was blackout tape over the, over the unit numbers and word for division we were in and whatever all the vehicle identification was, was, taped over and in preparation for this. Either remove or drill one or the other, you know, and it ended up that we spent, almost, 21 days or more at, Yakima Firing Center in Washington. Okay. And we were doing live fire exercises at night during the day. And, we were out there and, at the time I was in the guard there, I ended up in, in the, mess section or the the the division of the unit that prepared all of the meals. So for ten months I cooked. In the field and on base and, and mobile kitchen and our truck trucks, we had to make a move and we had a very varied menu that we prepared every, every day three times a day.
BLUMENBERG: A lot of us a lot of hungry soldiers.
CORNELL: Yeah, yeah. A lot of hundred soldiers. We, were on active duty out there until August of 1962. We were out there 1961 and 1962. Our unit arrived in Fort Lewis, Washington in October.
BLUMENBERG: October of 61, 61.
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: Wow, that that's quite a history.
CORNELL: And, we got off the bus and transported us from the airport to, station where our luggage and baggage was, and we boarded trucks and all you could see was rain, you know? Yeah, yeah, the old, the old, motto was, who the hell likes Washington? Who the hell likes rain?
BLUMENBERG: Because you had plenty of it.
CORNELL: We have plenty of it. Yeah. The month of January. We only had two days that it didn't rain. I'm pretty sure that's what we were out there.
BLUMENBERG: And it's getting to be that way around here right now. Well, let me back you up a step when you. When you first reported. I know you were you were, involved with training at Fort McCoy.
CORNELL: Yeah, but.
BLUMENBERG: Do you recall any of the, original, instructors that you had or, something about your physical training that sticks in your mind?
CORNELL: Well, we had, our unit was broke down into, four gun sections.
BLUMENBERG: Okay.
CORNELL: Service section and, and, record and radio section. And we, these units coordinated their training at Fort McCoy, and we would we would, sometimes during, drills on base in or clear out of the armory, we would load up guns and all, and we set off for an unknown location, and we would get a fire mission from from, battery headquarters, and we would set up a mock firing battery, you know, lay the guns and get them sited in and, just everything, the live show shoot. And we would pack up and go back to the duty station and unload the equipment and go home. You know, we would do this or every once in a while we would do this. It'd be in in the military plant. We got all our, instructions from National Guard headquarters with, the training plan that we would get a training plan for every month.
BLUMENBERG: Okay, so then you you followed through with that?
CORNELL: You'd follow through with that.
BLUMENBERG: So tell me about, did you have to do physical training?
CORNELL: We had to do physical training. We had to do individual weapon training. I qualified for sharpshooter with the M1 rifle. Okay. And I was only about 2 or 3 points to make an expert.
BLUMENBERG: So you were a sharpshooter with the rifle.
CORNELL: And.
BLUMENBERG: Then you. What? Piece of artillery were you trained on, or.
CORNELL: We were trained on one five millimeter howitzers. Okay. And, they're a 5.5in, projectile. And they were loaded with, a number of powder bags, depending on how far we were going to shoot or what we were going to shoot. Different, different shells were available for smoke or, shrapnel or illumination. If we were firing at night, we would fire rumination rounds where they would go up in the air and and they would come down a little parachute. And, you know, I knew they had phosphors, candles that would burn on the way down to provide light for ground troops making an assault. You know, so we worked closely with, with infantry units and, we worked closely with some armored units providing back up support. Yeah. The armored units, they had, no trajectory, like like the howitzers that, you know, the armored units were more more direct fire. And, our, our, units could, fire over a hill and and things like that. You know, we had the capacity to provide, combat support for people that, that, armored units couldn't. Right. But, one mission, we were we were dug in behind, an armored unit, and the armored units were on a bunker. And so they. Add some elevation. And, command came down for fire mission, and we were firing illumination for the armored units. And the infantry was on the ground ahead of the armored units. And when they opened up for sustained fire with those armored units, it was just like all hell broke loose. There was just a steady roar. I mean, they could fire just faster than we could. Well.
BLUMENBERG: You know, that's. Frightening in a way, when you when you.
CORNELL: And I think back about it now, you know that the firepower that, that they had in the armored units was fantastic. Yeah, but they were a World War Two tanks that we were using do. Yeah. You know, we didn't have modern equipment.
BLUMENBERG: Right?
CORNELL: In our, artillery division, we had, 105 Hall servers. We had one five, five highlighters, and we had eight inch howitzers. And alien inch were good for at least ten miles. Yeah. Of of accuracy.
BLUMENBERG: Isn't that. Isn't that something?
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: That was your specialized training with those volunteers.
CORNELL: Yet without success? Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: And how many worked on that?
CORNELL: On a gun crew?
BLUMENBERG: On a gun.
CORNELL: Crew that you had. You had a gunner. You had assistant gunner. The the gun sergeant who was in charge of the howitzer. He was the gunnery sergeant, and he'd be a sergeant, the 6 or 7. And he would run the gun, and then the assistant gunner would be responsible for elevation and, deflection. And, they would set the sights up on an aiming stake. And, they lay the gun and we'd have an image stake from a reference point, and they would shoot, a light beam out there out of that image so that you could see a little red light on it, and they would focus on that at night, and then they would make their their adjustments of the aiming stake for elevation or deflection or light or left.
BLUMENBERG: So there's a little bit of, physics and science.
CORNELL: And yes, there was, you know, and then, when we were, when we were, first off, when I was in the first unit down there, we had 1 or 5 howitzers, and then they transfer those to Stanley, Wisconsin, and we became A155 self-propelled outfit. But we did not have self-propelled units. We had all towed units. Okay. And these were, projectiles. And then, as I mentioned before, you shoved the projectile in, and then the green bag one in that was the safety, charge on, on it. And then they would be green bag charge five for three or whatever, depending on how far we were going to shoot with the guns, you know, and, then they, we had, they closed the breech on it and they had, the firing mechanism and the whole, charge. And the chamber was set off with what looked like about a 38 special, pistol shell. And then they cocked that, and you pulled the lanyard and fired that which set off the charge in the barrel. Well, it was a lot of mechanics and that. Sure. And then, they would pull the. They would open the breech and we would, they would swab the barrel with. With what? Well, the what gun sack on the end of the stick to make sure there wasn't any powder residue in there. So they didn't throw another bag in there and have an explosion. One we're getting ready to fire that. Put the, projectile in the chamber. And to do that we'd have to two guys or four guys on, on on the, on the cradle that held the projectile. And then the gun crew would shove it in with the big brass and on the base of the projectile and, there was a, device on the front of it that was calibrated for so many minutes or so much time, and then you'd set that with a little digital device, and that would, allow the shell to explode at such and such a distance or height from the, from the gun. And it was all very complicated.
BLUMENBERG: Yeah, it sounds like it. It sounds like you really knew your stuff, too. It's. Well.
CORNELL: I served on a gun crew for one for one year. Yeah, and then I transferred to the mess section. And I became a cook.
BLUMENBERG: Well, that's important too.
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: Well, how did you adjust when you. When you were sent out to Fort Lewis in Washington? You've been living in small town Wisconsin, and all of a sudden you end up in Fort Lewis. How did you adjust to that military life?
CORNELL: It was a day to day operation. You you just adjusted to it. When we first got there, we, were issued, some new clothing, equipment for making a bed, some rain gear and, all of the accouterments of a regular soldier. And we had for about all but. Over two weeks. We had daily classes in military science, you know. And then we sat down one day and, you know, in a theater. And then an officer got up and explained where all of our support ships were likely to be. You know, so we knew what we had in support for what we were going to do. And we were given CPR training, which was, toxic gas training. We all wore gas masks for training. You know, we had that strapped to our like when we were out in the field. We had a gas mask over with us all the time. Do we want to see our training? We went to, a blank building with no just windows and a door and nothing inside. And, they generated tear gas inside this room, and each one of us had to go in and, pull off your gas mask in state rank and serial number, name, rank and serial number. And then, you know, put the gas mask back on and exit it. And we were on one, infantry training exercise where we were going through CPR training and, and the picture in my yearbook, I have a picture of myself halfway across this rope swing, across the gully. And just as I got about halfway across there, the training officer threw a tear gas grenade down the bottom of that trench. And so there I was, with one hand over the rope and the other hand getting my gas mask out.
BLUMENBERG: Yeah. And how did you fare with that?
CORNELL: Yeah, we took care of that.
BLUMENBERG: So you adapted pretty well then, and just took it one day at a time, and, you eventually made your own food. So you like the food that you prepared?
CORNELL: We had two chefs of cooks and cook. 24 on, 24 off. Yeah, we cook three meals, you know, breakfast, dinner and supper.
BLUMENBERG: And, of course, you were living in barracks or living.
CORNELL: In a barracks right next door to the mess hall, and we cooked on, coal fired stoves. We didn't have modern equipment. We had an electric fryer, and we had some gas fired, water water heaters for for water. But other than that, cooking was on, the old cast iron, ranges that we had in the barracks and World War two. The area that we were training in was basically used for some National Guard training at one time, in World War two, but it was an active duty base as well as, you know.
BLUMENBERG: And it's still in operation today.
CORNELL: It's still it's still there, you know, it's still there.
BLUMENBERG: Army still using it, that's for sure. Well, you were in Fort Lewis then, until August of 62, 262. And then what? What happened to you after that?
CORNELL: Well, when I got home, from Washington, I was still in the National Guard, and, it was very difficult to get a job. You know, if you were in the guard ins with some people, some companies, you know, they took a dim view of hiring guardsmen because they had a lot of gold for two weeks every summer. Right. And the company that I worked for when I was going through high school and then first year of college, they were very tolerant of that. And when I got back from Washington, there was a job posting for, Bakery Apprentice. So I signed up for the bakery apprentice job, and, I was hired as a bakery, apprenticed in 1962.
BLUMENBERG: And you had some background with, preparing meals with.
CORNELL: Yes. Yes, that's that's what got my foot in the door as. Yeah, as a bakery products.
BLUMENBERG: Okay. And that was.
CORNELL: Consumers co-op and all.
BLUMENBERG: Clear in. All clear.
CORNELL: Oh, yeah.
BLUMENBERG: Okay, then that was, 18, 1962. And you're a bakery apprentice. And then how did that carry forth.
CORNELL: That carried forth and till, I took over as mess sergeant and I advanced to the mess sergeant position, and that's where I retired from on my discharge. I was Sergeant E-6.
BLUMENBERG: And I saw that E-6 and that was in 1965.
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: And then you were honorably discharged. Honorably discharged in after after you got back to Wisconsin, did you have any connection with the folks that you, served with at Fort Lewis? I mean, it was your group that went from Wisconsin out there, but did you maintain connections after you were discharged?
CORNELL: No, we still had, our own, our own company that we went that we went to Washington with. And the second one, when we got home, we still had the basic nucleus of the company that went out there. Oh, okay. Our, first sergeant was a police officer. And the city hall clear name is Don Lawson. And we had all our gunnery sergeants were there yet when we got back, and it wasn't too long. All or maybe up to. About a year before we before I discharged from the guard that we transition from artillery to, the infantry support unit.
BLUMENBERG: No. Do you still have of any contact with folks? Are you surplus?
CORNELL: I haven't. Contact was only 1 or 2 that I. That I knew we had a reunion here. Oh, maybe. Five years ago. And, our unit was all together. Since then, two of our gunnery sergeants and their wives are buried at Veterans Memorial Cemetery. And, I've seen some of the other obituaries of, some of the older sergeants that were there, have passed away, but, I haven't had contact with my it was my first cook that I had with me. I haven't had contact with him since he, moved away to Minneapolis.
BLUMENBERG: Yeah. It's hard to keep up.
CORNELL: It's hard to keep up. You know, these scattered around.
BLUMENBERG: And people have busy lives.
CORNELL: And busy lives. Yeah. One of the, one of the, gentlemen that, was, in, radio section. He could fix and repair radios and whatever. He, bought a TV repair business, an old player, and I've seen him a couple times. And some of the guys that came back are divorced and remarried and.
BLUMENBERG: You know, life, life goes on.
CORNELL: Was on. Yeah. Right.
BLUMENBERG: Well tell me you, you were in on clear. But here we are in Hayward, Wisconsin and I, I like and this is your history. So I'd like to find out how you how did you end up in Hayward?
CORNELL: Well. I always thought about opening a bakery of my own. Or opening a bakery for a company that had never had a full scratch bakery and, and came in the paper that, Marketplace Foods was looking for a bakery manager. And my wife said, well, that's only a. Ten cent stamp at that time, I believe. So I filled out my resume and sent my resume to Rice Lake, to the to the gentleman who was in charge of hiring. And in the mail came a job application.
BLUMENBERG: There you go.
CORNELL: So I filled out the job application, and then the next letter I got was an offer for an interview in in Rice Lake. And this was in December. And, so we sat down and went over things and whatever, and he said, well, we have some testing for you to complete. And he says, I'll, I'll let you know. And, next thing I knew, I got a phone call. I want to see you and, and Rice Lake and such and such a day in December, just before Christmas. So I was in Rice Lake, the week before Christmas for interviewing to accept the job. So, we got back home and, they after New Year's and New Year's Day Monday, I was in here for life and I'm looking for a house.
BLUMENBERG: So here you are in the middle of winter.
CORNELL: Middle of winter?
BLUMENBERG: Yeah.
CORNELL: And, at that time, housing was not the greatest. You know, this was 1996, and, there were anything that was decent was out of our price range. So I called the gentleman and I said, what a lot of decline you have to decline your offer. But I say that, you know, the job change is going to be the same as what I'm doing. But I says housing up there is just unreal, you know, for what my wife wanted. She says, I don't have a problem movie, but I want to live in town.
BLUMENBERG: You know.
CORNELL: So I declined the offer. I got home one afternoon after visiting a friend of mine in Oklahoma, and she says. You have to call, Rice Lake. And, so I call my in the helo and he said, well received or declined. But since then, the company has put another $100 a week in your, then you're under another $100 in your pay. Pay? Check. So we'd like to have you. How long do I have to decide? He said you have until Wednesday. So wife says, well, looks like they want you, so let's go for it. So she supported me 100%. And in this endeavor up here. Right? So in March of 1996, we moved into our house in Hayward. No, I, I went to work, up here, and I out of 30 days to sell my house and all. Claire. And, the company treated me very fairly and treated me very well. I have no regrets about the company. And they put me up in, in a motel for 30 days to sell my house. So at that point, I had a place to live while we were selling our house. Getting our house packed up and ready to go.
BLUMENBERG: Yeah, that busy, busy time.
CORNELL: Busy time and company moved me up here. And in March, we moved into our house. Up here.
BLUMENBERG: And here you are 20 some years later.
CORNELL: And here we are 20 years later. And I managed the bakery there for almost ten years. And then I took an early, Social security. And my wife needed some care at home. And, you know, and, she had a couple of needs replaced, and that took some time. So I worked part time after I left the management from the bakery, I did a lot of the pastry work, and I got set up for the for the daily baking and so on and so forth.
BLUMENBERG: They kept your hand, hands and hands.
CORNELL: In it for, for quite a while later, you know.
BLUMENBERG: When's the last time you baked?
CORNELL: Last time I baked was. This Thursday.
BLUMENBERG: Oh, really? I was going to say you can take over here this Thursday.
CORNELL: The, activity coordinator here, and we will do the little Mennonite ladies decorates cake with me here. We baked, green tomato pies for dessert today.
BLUMENBERG: Wow. I wonder if they have any left. I'm going to go try one.
CORNELL: Yeah. There was an experience for a lot of people because they had never heard of Green Day.
BLUMENBERG: I never did either. So.
CORNELL: Well, I went to the to the, dietician here, and I said, I have a I have a mission for you. I said, I need a recipe for green tomato pie. She said, I've never heard of it. I said, well, look in your resources and see if you have a recipe. Lo and behold, she came home, came down here, and she says, here I have two recipes for green tomato pie.
BLUMENBERG: Why don't you take your pick?
CORNELL: You take your pick. And, the activities here, they had a, vegetable garden out in the atrium. And, at the end of the growing season, we had a large amount of green tomatoes, and I says, well, make Green tomato by Bartlett. Heard of that either. But I says, I've got the recipes. And the Mennonite lady that, helps us out decorating and doing things on activity Day on Thursday, she had the recipe for the pie crust. So her and I made all of the pie crusts last Thursday. And then we put them in the freezer, and then we finished them off, this.
BLUMENBERG: Thursday. Yeah. Well.
CORNELL: So one of the residents here said I had never heard of green tomato pie. She said I had to try it. So he says I stuck my fork in. That was a little, a little, trepidation. And he said, I took a taste of it, and he says you could tell it from Apple. Oh. So he said, you guys did a fantastic job.
BLUMENBERG: Well that's good. I was figuring you're going to say a couple of years ago or whatever, and it turns out it was today. Yeah, yeah. Well, there's just a few more things I'd like to ask you, Ralph, and that. Is getting back to your time in the in the National Guard and your time at Fort Lewis. But can you think back and, and, tell me if any of your experiences there, were life lessons for you that that you carried forward in, in the rest of your, your career?
CORNELL: We had to learn how to as, as as first cops, which was, special e5 vibrating. You got to pay radio room of a staff sergeant e5. But you were based on a, a, position, right? So we had, first cook, second cook, and then we usually had 3 or 4 CPAs, and they're responsible for cleaning, doing dishes, cleaning the dining room, setting tables for the for the officers, and, so on and so forth. So you had to learn to manage people and you had to learn to, to live in a close knit group. That was the biggest thing. Right. You know, it was we live in and we, we lived in a room was the three of us in a room and we were sleeping early and at night and up in the morning early. And we had, responsibilities that we had to maintain, you know, rations for, we had a T&E of 91 or 92 people. And, we had to draw rations. We drew rations, you know, on a daily basis, or every two days, we would get rations from, headquarters company would ration breakdown, would get potatoes, canned goods, perishable meats and so on and so forth. And, then we'd have to break them down and according to meals. So not a.
BLUMENBERG: Lot of organizational skills.
CORNELL: And then. Yeah, yeah, I learned to cut up a lot of chicken, you know, and I learned to slice a lot of liver.
BLUMENBERG: But.
CORNELL: Well, I learned how to disguise liver more ways than you could say. You know, as I swore we had liver at least three days a week, three times a week, you know, in a week's time, right? Or whatever. Well, that might not have been that often, but it seemed like we had liver at least once a week, you know, for sure.
BLUMENBERG: Well, your time in, in active duty and you were kind of on high alert because of what was going on over in Germany.
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: Do you have any, feelings about war in general and based on your time there.
CORNELL: Or at the time, at the time that we were activated, the, we sat down in these training exercises and they said. That basically the way things were, the Berlin garrisons would be sacrificed by the Russians. You know, they would just overrun them. You know, they had so much the only total men and equipment, you know, that are and. It take time to reinforce that unit. That's like now with this. Confrontation with North Korea, with the U.S. and it's it's it's a given that any U.S. troops that are in South Korea are going to be sacrificed in limelight.
BLUMENBERG: You know.
CORNELL: You know, it's not mentioned publicly like that, but talking with other people that, you know, that's kind of the kind of the assumption that that I make that those people are going to be sacrificed, you know, along with thousands of North Korean civilians, which literally have been starved to death for the last end of that Korean conflict.
BLUMENBERG: You know, it's a bad, bad situation there.
CORNELL: Bad situation for the North Korean people, you know.
BLUMENBERG: Well, like I said before, this is your history. And. Do you mention, was it your niece that might get this video or was there any. This is also going in the Library of Congress, so I don't know how they're going to catalog this or what, and how the final endpoint of it will be. But do you have any any message that you'd leave for, future generations based on, on your life experience and your time in the military?
CORNELL: National Guard plays a big part in, in our country, national disasters, things that have been going on in, Puerto Rico and, and countries down there, one Air Force unit in the National Guard is stationed down south, and they are Air Force maintenance units. So they are responsible for flying supplies and taking them to the Puerto Rican people to survive. And, the National Guard is very well trained. You know, they're not they're not a bunch of of, guys that show up for drill, you know, just to play soldier, the National Guard, people are very well trained. They're very well respected. They. Or. The National Guard has been in. Two world wars, North Korea.
BLUMENBERG: And think of all the damn think of all the deployments in the last few years. Yes.
CORNELL: Yes. Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: For sure. Well, I guess with that, if there's. We talked about a lot of things. Is there anything else that you would like to discuss? I mean, basically based on your your experience or your history?
CORNELL: I basically pretty much enjoyed my experience in The Guard. It's after we converted over to a. Headquarters support company that things changed a little bit. At that point we were we were as far as our section went, we were not used to setting up and looking out of a field and not that we had done it, but hard old habits are hard to break. You know, I know, and we'd take equipment out to the field. We'd end up with all our equipment set on the spot where the kitchen was going to be, and then we'd have to set up a field tent and set up our equipment and and. Take care of feeding the troops. So it was a big transition there.
BLUMENBERG: Yeah. And that that was a challenge. Yeah.
CORNELL: Yeah. I think the worst two weeks I ever put in was at, Fort Ripley in Minnesota. I never put in a summer training session as bad as that one. Between the mosquitoes and the way, we were forced to operate, it was, different. Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: So that was that. Yeah. Those are things that you remember in a negative way. Yeah.
CORNELL: Yeah.
BLUMENBERG: Well, is there anything else in Ralph?
CORNELL: I think we caught a little covered. We did it.
BLUMENBERG: Well, then I guess we'll end the interview. I'll just say again, that's. Today is October 27th, 2017, and I am Tom Bloomberg doing a Veterans History Project interview with Ralph Cornell. And Ralph, I want to thank you for spending time with me and thank you for your service.
CORNELL: Well, thank you very much.
[Interview Ends]