Title
Marvin Otto interview with Bill Feis and Jared Gledhill
Subject
World War, 1939-1945-Iowa-Oral histories
Description
Otto served as a private in the Air Force and recounts less than ideal conditions living in tents while undergoing training in Florida. When sent to England, he worked with ordnance, loading bombs onto airplanes. He smuggled home a photo of a B-17 airplane that was badly damaged.
Publisher
Buena Vista University
Date
12/17/2010
Rights
These oral histories are available for personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that a credit line reads: "Courtesy of Buena Vista University Archives, Storm Lake, IA." Prior permission from the BVU Archives is required for any commercial use.
Format
video/mp4
Language
English
Type
Moving Image
Identifier
Interviewer
Bill Feis, Jared Gledhill
Interviewee
Marvin Otto
Transcription
MARVIN OTTO
Bill Feis [00:00:00] Thank you for letting us come in and interview you. This is going to be the interviews part of the Buena Vista County Historical Society and Buena Vista University. We're going to use the-- your interview, we're going to put together-- we're going to compile all of these interviews.
Jerry Johnson [00:00:18] Try not talking with your hands.
Bill Feis [00:00:19] That's hard for me to do. I mean, we're all-- we're all teachers here. So I talk with my hands. How about I scoot over a little bit or I'll--
Marvin Otto [00:00:27] You don't want that out of there?
Bill Feis [00:00:28] Well, you know, I think I'll just sit this way, so.
Jerry Johnson [00:00:30] Well, you're not that far off, you-- just like when you start flaring your hands, you're-- [laughs]
Bill Feis [00:00:35] He's really the boss of this operation. [Laughter] But this is going to be part-- we're going to put all of these together and have a nice little hopefully some sort of a book for the-- for the county historical society of-- of veterans and interviews. And you're going to be the first one we do today. [Mr. Otto makes a face. Feis laughs] It'll be great. And we are also going to use these interviews for our students at the university to use in their study of history and the history of World War II. So you're going to become a historical--
Marvin Otto [00:01:10] Oh.
Bill Feis [00:01:15] Artifact. [laughs]
Marvin Otto [00:01:15] And I got to try to live through all that? [laughter]
Bill Feis [00:01:17] You'll be fine. You'll be fine. What we have is a camera-- is right here. Now, Jerry, correct me if I'm-- if I'm wrong-- that I'll be asking you questions, or Jared may ask you a question or two, and you can just answer looking at me and no need to look at the camera. But we'll be filming you all the time. Any time we have a question you don't want to answer, you just feel free not to answer it. And if you want us to shut the camera off at any time, you just let us know and we'll-- we'll do that. But we're just going to ask some pretty general questions. But before I get to that, I'd like to know when you were born and your age right now. Actually, I know your age, but if you tell me what-- what age?
Marvin Otto [00:02:01] October 27th, 1919.
Bill Feis [00:02:03] October 27.
Marvin Otto [00:02:05] Yup, 1919.
Bill Feis [00:02:07] And you're 91?
Marvin Otto [00:02:10] That's correct.
Bill Feis [00:02:10] That is correct. Well, we'll just go ahead and get started and I'll just state for the record officially right now, and I'll try to keep my hands in check. Probably need to sit on [laughs] my hands. I teach, and I use my hands. So today is December 7th, 2010, and we are interviewing Marvin Otto, who-- at his home. Mr. Otto is 91 years old and he was born October 27th, 1919. My name is Bill Feis, and I will be the interviewer along with Jared Gledhill and Jerry Johnson is running the camera. And we will start with the questions, if that's all right.
Marvin Otto [00:02:52] Well, I suppose I'll have to be. [laughs]
Bill Feis [00:02:54] Yeah, we got you here now, you don't have a choice. We'll start with before-- just a little bit before the war itself. Where were-- what were you doing before you entered the service?
Marvin Otto [00:03:09] Farm labor.
Bill Feis [00:03:10] Farm labor.
Marvin Otto [00:03:11] Yeah. And when-- when I left there, the people needed it-- a assistant, but I had a low draft number and I talked to a couple World War I men before and they suggested that I volunteer for-- for supply or anything like that to trucks driving for supply. Keep out of that foxhole and so on. And that's-- it worked. It worked out. You know, when I went to Sioux City for it, they didn't have no openings. That was-- it-- right-- not long after Pearl Harbor.
Bill Feis [00:03:57] So you-- you-- you volunteered?
Marvin Otto [00:03:59] Yeah. And then in March, then I got orders to report to-- I don't remember that, whether it was Sioux City or right directly to Des Moines, that I don't remember because I've traveled so many miles. Well [unintelligible] service then-- forget all that, because I just-- I've traveled the US-- all-- all corners and all everything and the pond and so on, so forth. [laughs]
Bill Feis [00:04:30] Well, where were you when you heard about Pearl Harbor? Where would-- do you remember the day and-- and where you were and what you were doing?
Marvin Otto [00:04:36] No, but I know I was working out about five miles south of town here.
Bill Feis [00:04:51] So you heard about it just as you were working. Did you-- you remember how you felt at all when that-- when you heard?
Marvin Otto [00:04:57] Not that I-- let's say, boy, I don't know. I got a low, low draft number. Eight,-eight-something, it was-- 868 or in that neighborhood anyhow. So the older World War I men and so on [unintelligible] a little touchy for you. For you. Cuz folks wouldn't-- younger brother come out, got outta school. No, eighth-- just eighth grade as far as we ever went. Never went to high school or college or anything else. Here I am today. [laughter]
Bill Feis [00:05:38] What branch of the service did you go into when you-- when you volunteered?
Marvin Otto [00:05:44] Oh, just as I am today, as a private.
Bill Feis [00:05:48] OK. In the Army, U.S. Army?
Marvin Otto [00:05:49] Air Force.
Bill Feis [00:05:50] Air Force.
Marvin Otto [00:05:51] Air Force.
Bill Feis [00:05:51] Okay. How did you feel going to the war? You volunteered. How did you feel about going-- knowing you were going to war?
Marvin Otto [00:06:01] Oh, I don't know. Just-- [unintelligible], I guess, or something [unintelligible]. I don't know why, I mean, I just-- like I have to or-- I couldn't-- I can't answer that with a right-- in the right way, I mean--
Jared Gledhill [00:06:16] I understand now.
Marvin Otto [00:06:22] I was-- went to Des Moines, and then a couple of days down there and pretty soon why, I was called at once to be shipped out again. And finally we asked the porter on the train where we was headin' for. Oh, Jefferson [unintelligible], Missouri. Well, where's that? He didn't know. What's the [unintelligible] Air Force, he said. I thought to myself, My God, this can't be. [laughter] From there down to Tallahassee, Florida. And tents. Sleeping in tents and marching. I started the hard way. Six of us in a [unintelligible] tent.
Bill Feis [00:07:11] Where did you do your-- your training? Where did they-- was that in Florida or was that--
Marvin Otto [00:07:17] Flor-- most of those of it was in Florida there. From then, then it went to Waycross, Georgia and Augusta, Georgia, and we was high enough up here, [turns and motions with his hands to show they were overlooking the trains] we-- troop trains was going by in front of us, coming from Camp Gordon. And we were alerted to go, but you know, didn't know when, really. So, they sent a bunch of us home to be home for Easter, but dad meet-- meets us in Storm Lake with a telegram [from] the night before. Report back immediately. We was going to be home for Easter. [laughter]
Jared Gledhill [00:07:56] Now, did you get to go by-- were you by yourself or was there a group of people from like Storm Lake, Alta--
Marvin Otto [00:08:02] No, I was alone from here. I was alone from here. And the fellow from Peterson and I came home together for-- "Gosh," he said, "According to that, I suppose I'll be ridin' the same train." We rode the train from back in to Chicago and drove out-- rode out. Got off in the morning cuz it laid over in Sioux City. And there was a second lieutenant got on somewheres right along the line, right shortly after we was on. And he said, "You boys are a little out of line, aren't ya?" "Well, you probably would be, too." "Why?" he said. "Why? We rode this train this morning, and we're going to-- supposed to be home for Easter tomor-- today. And we're on the road back to Chicago pert'near missed this train last night." "I think they had to put me on," he said. [laughs] And all summer long in tents down there. When it rained, the water came through the tent like that. [shows several inches high] So whatever we had on the floor, get up on the bunk. [laughter] I'm telling you. Pardon?
Jared Gledhill [00:09:22] What kind of training did they have you doing down in Florida?
Marvin Otto [00:09:25] Well, I kinda went through everything, and I wound up in the ordinance section. That's what the-- I went-- I went overseas in the ordinance section, and then they split 'er out there right in half. And we was supposed to have landed in-- in London, and we wound up in Scotland, and we was on a British--
Jared Gledhill [00:10:01] A British-based--
Marvin Otto [00:10:03] --boat. On a boat going over. No escort or nothing. There was 21,000 of us on that boat. I-- I had the bunk. 24 hours I did and 24 hours I didn't. You-- you stood guard duty, you know, 24 hours. That-- [laughter] that was my life [unintelligible] And [unintelligible] twice overseas because they had us set up an airfield and a bunch stayed right where we landed. And we had to set up two airfields before we got our-- our group. And I stayed there until, well, I'm lucky to be here today because it was-- a couple of us had to dig up sixteen (? sixty?) light bombs in the third month we was over there.
Bill Feis [00:10:53] Can you tell us more about that? I-- I-- I knew that you had-- that was part of your job. What was your exact job? And-- and tell-- can you tell us a bit about those experiences?
Marvin Otto [00:11:07] Keep track of the amount of bombs and ammunition and vehicles. All that kind of stuff. And work-- help-- help load bombs out.
Bill Feis [00:11:19] You put the bombs on the airplanes?
Marvin Otto [00:11:20] Yeah. And there was more than once that we [unintelligible] a crick along there, two and three deep. Cuz what they call-- I don't-- today when they-- don't hear much about them anymore. We called them buzz bombs.
Bill Feis [00:11:37] Yeah.
Marvin Otto [00:11:39] Might shut off a mile or two farther back, then [unintelligible] it might shut off goin' by ya'. You never know. Next time it shuts off [makes a raspberry sound] came right there. So, you didn't know, [unintelligible]? Oh, yeah, I was there on that same airfield for December [19]44. In March of '44, was when I took that rod out of the 500-pound bomb out of a plane that would hit over Berlin.
Bill Feis [00:12:15] Could you tell us more about that? I-- I knew you had a story that-- that went with this. Could you tell us more about that particular moment?
Marvin Otto [00:12:22] Well, all I know is, it was a B-17 that I was with. And they got hit right direct[ly] in the radio room. They'd lost their radio operator someplace over Berlin, but where? He didn't know. And they came all the way back with only two engines. The other two had got conked out. And circle around-- one of them went out yet. Now you only have one engine left and had that bomb stuck up in there, and the boys to the back burner froze to death because no heater, anything back there. And I don't know how they got the word to the turret operator. They said, turn the turret down because if we land on the tail wheel I'm afraid we'll crush in the middle because the whole works is gone. I-- I got pictures of that plane.
Bill Feis [00:13:27] You do?
Marvin Otto [00:13:31] Yeah. If you want to see it, why, I guess I can show 'em to you.
Bill Feis [00:13:33] Yeah, we can--
Marvin Otto [00:13:33] You know where they are? [talks to someone off-camera] Those pictures of the airplane?
Mrs. Otto [00:13:38] Yeah, I'll get 'em.
Bill Feis [00:13:40] I'd love to take a look at them when-- when-- maybe after we're-- we're done. I'd love to take a look.
Marvin Otto [00:13:46] I wasn't supposed to bring them home either. [Laughs] Smuggled some of that home. Oh, I tell you, I sat on pins and needles there for a while. Well, I had a toilet article kit. With handkerchiefs in it, clean handkerchiefs. A lot of 'em have never been used, you know, and I took one in one fold, and another in another fold, and boy, they took you out of your barracks to a building there. Everything went on-- on the floor. Films that anybody had not developed or-- [raspberry sound] you had to hand 'em out, claimed you'd get 'em when you got back home. Oh, I thought, boy, these pictures are against the law. But I got to try it. And it worked. He picked it up. Luckily, he didn't get a hold of it so that the fold-- the picture would fall out. He got a hold of several. Boy, I tell ya. And boys at the banquet always left some of their stuff buried in the bunk. They tore your bunk all apart. You'd come back and it was laying in a heap. Luck-- lucky we didn't have straw ticks [straw mattress] then because if they had an inspection and they didn't like the looks of the bunk got to be-- look a little-- a little wrinkled. They got a hold of it, boy, straw all over the floor. [laughs] A great life if you don't weaken. [laughs] Yup. I went over there in April of [19]43 and left there again in just before Christmas of '44. And-- no Christmas at home. I spent my Christmas and New Year in Santa Ana, California. Second-- second New Year's Day, I was put on a train to go to Carlsbad, New Mexico for training for the Southwest [South Pacific]. But then the war ended that summer, so. That's when we got dis-- discharged. So I covered a lot of miles in the United States. [laughs]
Bill Feis [00:15:59] You sure did.
Marvin Otto [00:15:59] Driv-- driving, all that truck-- all that beers, to boot, why--
Bill Feis [00:16:04] So, when you served in-- in England at the airfield, you-- you loaded bombs and did all those things during the bombing campaign over Germany and all the bombings [crosstalk]--
Marvin Otto [00:16:13] Yeah.
Bill Feis [00:16:16] And did-- did you know about when the D-Day landings were going to be? You were there when that--
Marvin Otto [00:16:23] I was right there when that-- they had landing-- officers and all was out loading bombs because we couldn't keep up with them. A lot of guys couldn't believe that either, but I got proof for that. And I had a buddy from Kansas. And the last time I saw him was on the train on Missouri, see? He was from Topeka. Lo and behold, the second day I was down to Carlsbad, who do I run in[to]? But him and his wife. But you see the married guys were sent to Santa Monica, to California, and the single guys, which I was one of them, Santa Ana. And he got down there a couple days before I did. And we were together there until the war ended and he had observed enough-- guy-- out in the-- in the bomb [unintelligible] area, there was nothing but little hundred-pound bombs filled with ga-- sand, gravel. But I was supposed to sit in the shack with him right by the gate rather than being out with the boys. And I said, "That ain't my way of livin'." No. But I had [unintelligible] at that time. He said, "I worked hard for [unintelligible]." I said, "I don't give a darn." That's just, somehow or other, that's the way I felt. I didn't stay. They wouldn't get up in the morning. They wouldn't need-- fall out or anything because they stayed in town. And they wouldn't fall out. I stayed in the barracks. "You goin' for breakfast in the morning?" "Yup." "Get me up." And lo and behold, it was cleaning the barracks, boy. You ask the boys, once they was all there. One Sunday, he says, Tomorrow we gotta load a practice [unintelligible] is coming in. All right. You be sure and get plenty of help. "Aw," I said, "don't worry about it." I said, "I'll get it done." We had two loads, [unintelligible] so had to leave some of 'em behind. He asked about it the next morning. "Yeah," I said, "all you gotta do is work a little, boys," I said, "to get some cooperation." He went-- to finish that story-- of going inland. They had me busted. My buddy was sitting on the captain's desk. And, "Well," the captain said, "the way it sounds we're going to have to have him busted" but he said, "Turn around. Get general order number so-and-so and read paragraph number so-and-so and see what that says." He states that right on the captain's desk, turned and told the captain to turn-- now, that's-- well, I tell ya, a tech ready like I did-- That's a lot of nerve, ya know? [laughs] "And when it comes time to get the paper signed to get out, get released, I won't sign it." "Give it here. I'll sign it." And he said, "I told [unintelligible] right then and there" and I'm leaving in a couple of weeks too. "I ain't gonna sign the paper." "I don't care. I'll sign it myself," he said. That's-- that's how we got out. So I can say I've really covered a lot of miles of the US.
Bill Feis [00:20:10] Yes, you did.
Marvin Otto [00:20:10] South of Florida all the way up the East Coast all the way throughout the West Coast.
Bill Feis [00:20:15] Well, and you almost got to go to the Pacific, too.
Marvin Otto [00:20:17] Well, that's what [unintelligible] sent us home for.
Bill Feis [00:20:20] When did you-- when did you or how did you feel when you found out that you would be maybe heading to the Pacific, too. How did that-- when you heard the news, what was your reaction?
Marvin Otto [00:20:31] I don't know. You just got to go. I guess. I don't know.
Bill Feis [00:20:35] What was the reaction then when you heard that the war was over, that-- that it had ended?
Marvin Otto [00:20:42] We knew we'd be going home pretty-- sometime pretty soon then, not quite-- not quite as soon as we expected. You see, this was in the summer when it ended and I got released October 1st already. So you see that there wasn't much time in between there. But this master sergeant out there got orders to go overseas. Oh, God, was he sick. And then, of course, [unintelligible] he claimed all this and that. He didn't do nothing. Finally told him, "You didn't do nothing." I think that's what made him mad, too yet. You're going to have me busted, but I said, "I don't care. I'm going home pretty soon anyhow." And then the fellow from Akron I bet I worked with DeKalb for ten years or better and stopped at Akron for dinner. Got pumpin' in gas over there. And that's when they had the old pumps yet, when you had to fill 'em up. Fillin' this lady's car, she was standing there, and I hollered at him was it all right to park there. Yup. He took another look. He shut the pump off and he come over. "Hi, Otto!" You remember my last name-- we slept side by side here in the States. We got overseas, why then, we got broke-- broken. We never saw one another again. And all-- in all them years. I don't know. . .
Bill Feis [00:22:20] You had a lot of experiences. [chuckles]
Marvin Otto [00:22:24] I suppose, yeah. Something-- something like that.
Bill Feis [00:22:28] Well, of all-- of all the things you did during the war, what-- what-- what are you most proud of? That-- that in your service-- what're you most proud of? Or what do you think of that makes you proudest?
Marvin Otto [00:22:42] Well, I suppose to be alive. Like, digging up them 16 bombs already in the third month I was over there, then taking that 500-pound bomb out. The plane looks like hell, in plain words.
Bill Feis [00:23:00] So you had to go in and defuse the bomb so that it wouldn't-- so when you were dealing with it, it could have exploded.
Marvin Otto [00:23:07] Now, I don't know what-- what I was doing out around and this captain said, "Well," he said, "hey, Otto." "Yeah?" "Come here. We've got-- we got work to do. It's what we got-- I'll tell you on-- on the way." And he wouldn't-- he wouldn't tell me. So, OK. He was out in our neighborhood when we dug up the 16 that time. And then here he was now to-- takin' this bomb out of that plane. So they didn't back away from anything. I mean, but why should they pick on me with half a dozen other guys right there? "Hey, Otto, we-- we got a job to do," he said. God, I thought, and he wouldn't tell me anything until we got there. There's a plane, there's the streets and everything else that landed on-- on the runway with one engine, one flat tire, one bay door gone. Well, the picture will tell you the big story.
Bill Feis [00:24:14] Yeah. Wow.
Marvin Otto [00:24:14] And I wasn't supposed to have them neither, but I got them. Thank goodness.
Bill Feis [00:24:20] Well, when you came home after the war, what did you do?
Marvin Otto [00:24:26] Oh, that fall I helped pick corn by hand at home. And the next year I went to work for farm labor again. Until I got married then in '47. So I started farmin' and put in ten years of that and that didn't agree so-- I gotta try something else. A boss asked me, "Do you know anything about truck driving?" "Well," I said, "my brother and I moved all of our belongings from here up there." "I guess you know a little bit about being on the truck, on the road." Bang, here I was. I was on the truck, 27 years of it, a lot of my health.
Bill Feis [00:25:22] Is there-- is there anything else that you'd like to ask us or to say? Or is there something we didn't ask you that--
Marvin Otto [00:25:35] I don't know. I think I've rambled on long enough. [laughs].
Bill Feis [00:25:37] Tremendously interesting. I-- I-- because if you had anything else to say, we're-- we're here to listen.
Marvin Otto [00:25:43] Well, I know they had a write-up in the paper [unintelligible, due to static in the recording] --about the job. Well, what else can you do? Because they [pause] investigated all your letters and everything, so you had to be careful what you send or anything else. [unintelligible] They didn't like the--
Mrs. Otto [00:26:20] I didn't get on there, so.
Marvin Otto [00:26:20] Huh?
Mrs. Otto [00:26:20] I said I tried not to get on the thing, so--
Marvin Otto [00:26:24] Oh, you can have them-- we were just discussing-- Just as well show em' the pictures now.
Bill Feis [00:26:41] Oh, my.
Marvin Otto [00:26:42] The-- the write-up is the bottom-- is on the bottom of each one of 'em.
Bill Feis [00:26:51] You weren't kidding. [Otto makes a raspberry sound.] That plane is--
Marvin Otto [00:26:57] It had it. [laughs]
Bill Feis [00:26:57] Wow.
Marvin Otto [00:27:02] And landed with-- with one end in the shape's it's in and--
Jared Gledhill [00:27:11] [Unintelligible] that one, just really says a lot--
Marvin Otto [00:27:13] That hole was big enough for three of us to hang their head out--
Bill Feis [00:27:15] Is that right?
Marvin Otto [00:27:16] Easy. Real easy.
Bill Feis [00:27:18] Wow. That-- that is-- that's amazing. That's amazing that plane made it back at all.
Marvin Otto [00:27:27] Well, that's the truth. And it's amazing if they ever got it landed with only one engine and one good tire. Yeah, it was all flattened.
Bill Feis [00:27:37] Did you-- did you see the pilot afterwards? Was he-- [chuckles]
Marvin Otto [00:27:41] I don't know.
Bill Feis [00:27:43] I just wondered if he was-- after that, I'm not sure I'd want to get back in a plane again. I'm sure he did, though.
Marvin Otto [00:27:50] I know what he said one morning. "I hate like hell to make this trip." He said, "I'd give anything for a plane that something'd go wrong, we'd have to come back." He said, "We got to bomb my grandparents' home town today," he said.
Bill Feis [00:28:10] Oh.
Marvin Otto [00:28:11] That'd be pretty hard to do, wouldn't it?
Bill Feis [00:28:14] Is that right?
Marvin Otto [00:28:15] No, it's-- the wording I got.
Bill Feis [00:28:21] That's very interesting. So he actually went up in a plane and knew he was going to be bombing the hometown of his grandparents.
Marvin Otto [00:28:29] Yeah, they-- they told us. And then after they'd made that trip and one morning, he said-- or that morning before the bombing [was] to take place. He said, "I'd do anything to have something go wrong [so that] I'd have to come back," he said. And when they-- when they came back that's the shape they brought-- they come back in [unintelligible].
Jared Gledhill [00:28:56] I see this one picture of you gettin' an award. Is that for defus-- defusing the bomb in the plane or is that-- do you remember what this one's--
Marvin Otto [00:29:05] Yeah, that-- that un's for taking the-- the bomb out and everything. Now, that's the colonel of the airport on our airfield there.
Jared Gledhill [00:29:14] Okay.
Bill Feis [00:29:20] What-- what did they award you with for doing that? What--
Marvin Otto [00:29:25] I got the soldier medal for that thing-- job there. That big write-up was in the paper, too. And then they write back wanna know what's going on. Just part of my job. Well, you can't-- you couldn't write anything else. I was lucky to get 'em home, that's all I can say is-- [chuckles] Something-- somebody was with along with me. Grab in there and get a hold of a couple different bunches of handkerchiefs that they was folded in. Darn picture didn't fall out of one of 'em, at least.
Bill Feis [00:30:01] It was meant to be that you were to bring them home.
Marvin Otto [00:30:03] I guess so. [chuckles]
Bill Feis [00:30:06] Well, we're sure glad that you got 'em home because those are-- those tell a story, I'll-- I'll say.
Marvin Otto [00:30:13] Well, I said, I think the day of my funeral it ought to be laid out. Cuz I got a cousin that had-- his funeral was a couple years ago, showed pictures of him picking corn, ya know, by hand. I thought this should be as important as that hand corn pickin', wouldn't it? [laughter]
Bill Feis [00:30:32] I'd say so.
Marvin Otto [00:30:38] So, I'm gonna put a tape-- tape 'em on a cardboard to save them because being held, they love to get ripped open, tore up--
Bill Feis [00:30:50] Yeah. Yeah. They're in very good shape.
Marvin Otto [00:30:53] All these years, that's for sure.
Bill Feis [00:30:56] Yeah, very good shape.
Marvin Otto [00:30:56] [unintelligible] every time.
Bill Feis [00:30:57] Yeah. Yeah.
Jared Gledhill [00:31:04] Thank you for letting us come-- come ask you some questions and being able to tell your story. It's, you know, it's been really-- it's been really nice to be able to hear it.
Marvin Otto [00:31:15] That's-- that's the only thing-- the only way I can tell you-- what just actually happened. Like I say, I really hit the whole country from here right on down the floor, then back up the East Coast, overseas, then clear across to California down and back up to--
Jared Gledhill [00:31:35] Too bad they didn't have frequent rider miles back then. [laughter]
Bill Feis [00:31:39] Well, you did-- you did a remarkable job. I-- I was-- I'm so pleased to-- that you shared that with us and that you shared it for our students and for people in the-- in the county who can watch the interview and-- and hear you tell that remarkable story all over again. So we thank you for that. And I-- I think for-- for the university, thank you especially for our students now, and in the future, who will benefit from what you've just told us. We really appreciate that.
Marvin Otto [00:32:10] I just told you the way it happened, that's all.
Bill Feis [00:32:12] Well, and for you and your wife letting us come into your home, we-- we kind of invaded. [laughs]
Marvin Otto [00:32:17] Well--
Bill Feis [00:32:17] But we appreciate it.
Marvin Otto [00:32:20] Had I known it-- this was going to be done in Storm Lake, I-- it would have given me a little time to find somebody. I mean, when you can't drive--
Bill Feis [00:32:31] We were happy to come to your home. We were happy to come to your home. If that was more convenient for you, that-- that was our pleasure.
Marvin Otto [00:32:37] Well, it's a--
Jared Gledhill [00:32:41] It's our pleasure to be here. It really is.
Marvin Otto [00:32:44] Satisfying, as far as I'm concerned.
Bill Feis [00:00:00] Thank you for letting us come in and interview you. This is going to be the interviews part of the Buena Vista County Historical Society and Buena Vista University. We're going to use the-- your interview, we're going to put together-- we're going to compile all of these interviews.
Jerry Johnson [00:00:18] Try not talking with your hands.
Bill Feis [00:00:19] That's hard for me to do. I mean, we're all-- we're all teachers here. So I talk with my hands. How about I scoot over a little bit or I'll--
Marvin Otto [00:00:27] You don't want that out of there?
Bill Feis [00:00:28] Well, you know, I think I'll just sit this way, so.
Jerry Johnson [00:00:30] Well, you're not that far off, you-- just like when you start flaring your hands, you're-- [laughs]
Bill Feis [00:00:35] He's really the boss of this operation. [Laughter] But this is going to be part-- we're going to put all of these together and have a nice little hopefully some sort of a book for the-- for the county historical society of-- of veterans and interviews. And you're going to be the first one we do today. [Mr. Otto makes a face. Feis laughs] It'll be great. And we are also going to use these interviews for our students at the university to use in their study of history and the history of World War II. So you're going to become a historical--
Marvin Otto [00:01:10] Oh.
Bill Feis [00:01:15] Artifact. [laughs]
Marvin Otto [00:01:15] And I got to try to live through all that? [laughter]
Bill Feis [00:01:17] You'll be fine. You'll be fine. What we have is a camera-- is right here. Now, Jerry, correct me if I'm-- if I'm wrong-- that I'll be asking you questions, or Jared may ask you a question or two, and you can just answer looking at me and no need to look at the camera. But we'll be filming you all the time. Any time we have a question you don't want to answer, you just feel free not to answer it. And if you want us to shut the camera off at any time, you just let us know and we'll-- we'll do that. But we're just going to ask some pretty general questions. But before I get to that, I'd like to know when you were born and your age right now. Actually, I know your age, but if you tell me what-- what age?
Marvin Otto [00:02:01] October 27th, 1919.
Bill Feis [00:02:03] October 27.
Marvin Otto [00:02:05] Yup, 1919.
Bill Feis [00:02:07] And you're 91?
Marvin Otto [00:02:10] That's correct.
Bill Feis [00:02:10] That is correct. Well, we'll just go ahead and get started and I'll just state for the record officially right now, and I'll try to keep my hands in check. Probably need to sit on [laughs] my hands. I teach, and I use my hands. So today is December 7th, 2010, and we are interviewing Marvin Otto, who-- at his home. Mr. Otto is 91 years old and he was born October 27th, 1919. My name is Bill Feis, and I will be the interviewer along with Jared Gledhill and Jerry Johnson is running the camera. And we will start with the questions, if that's all right.
Marvin Otto [00:02:52] Well, I suppose I'll have to be. [laughs]
Bill Feis [00:02:54] Yeah, we got you here now, you don't have a choice. We'll start with before-- just a little bit before the war itself. Where were-- what were you doing before you entered the service?
Marvin Otto [00:03:09] Farm labor.
Bill Feis [00:03:10] Farm labor.
Marvin Otto [00:03:11] Yeah. And when-- when I left there, the people needed it-- a assistant, but I had a low draft number and I talked to a couple World War I men before and they suggested that I volunteer for-- for supply or anything like that to trucks driving for supply. Keep out of that foxhole and so on. And that's-- it worked. It worked out. You know, when I went to Sioux City for it, they didn't have no openings. That was-- it-- right-- not long after Pearl Harbor.
Bill Feis [00:03:57] So you-- you-- you volunteered?
Marvin Otto [00:03:59] Yeah. And then in March, then I got orders to report to-- I don't remember that, whether it was Sioux City or right directly to Des Moines, that I don't remember because I've traveled so many miles. Well [unintelligible] service then-- forget all that, because I just-- I've traveled the US-- all-- all corners and all everything and the pond and so on, so forth. [laughs]
Bill Feis [00:04:30] Well, where were you when you heard about Pearl Harbor? Where would-- do you remember the day and-- and where you were and what you were doing?
Marvin Otto [00:04:36] No, but I know I was working out about five miles south of town here.
Bill Feis [00:04:51] So you heard about it just as you were working. Did you-- you remember how you felt at all when that-- when you heard?
Marvin Otto [00:04:57] Not that I-- let's say, boy, I don't know. I got a low, low draft number. Eight,-eight-something, it was-- 868 or in that neighborhood anyhow. So the older World War I men and so on [unintelligible] a little touchy for you. For you. Cuz folks wouldn't-- younger brother come out, got outta school. No, eighth-- just eighth grade as far as we ever went. Never went to high school or college or anything else. Here I am today. [laughter]
Bill Feis [00:05:38] What branch of the service did you go into when you-- when you volunteered?
Marvin Otto [00:05:44] Oh, just as I am today, as a private.
Bill Feis [00:05:48] OK. In the Army, U.S. Army?
Marvin Otto [00:05:49] Air Force.
Bill Feis [00:05:50] Air Force.
Marvin Otto [00:05:51] Air Force.
Bill Feis [00:05:51] Okay. How did you feel going to the war? You volunteered. How did you feel about going-- knowing you were going to war?
Marvin Otto [00:06:01] Oh, I don't know. Just-- [unintelligible], I guess, or something [unintelligible]. I don't know why, I mean, I just-- like I have to or-- I couldn't-- I can't answer that with a right-- in the right way, I mean--
Jared Gledhill [00:06:16] I understand now.
Marvin Otto [00:06:22] I was-- went to Des Moines, and then a couple of days down there and pretty soon why, I was called at once to be shipped out again. And finally we asked the porter on the train where we was headin' for. Oh, Jefferson [unintelligible], Missouri. Well, where's that? He didn't know. What's the [unintelligible] Air Force, he said. I thought to myself, My God, this can't be. [laughter] From there down to Tallahassee, Florida. And tents. Sleeping in tents and marching. I started the hard way. Six of us in a [unintelligible] tent.
Bill Feis [00:07:11] Where did you do your-- your training? Where did they-- was that in Florida or was that--
Marvin Otto [00:07:17] Flor-- most of those of it was in Florida there. From then, then it went to Waycross, Georgia and Augusta, Georgia, and we was high enough up here, [turns and motions with his hands to show they were overlooking the trains] we-- troop trains was going by in front of us, coming from Camp Gordon. And we were alerted to go, but you know, didn't know when, really. So, they sent a bunch of us home to be home for Easter, but dad meet-- meets us in Storm Lake with a telegram [from] the night before. Report back immediately. We was going to be home for Easter. [laughter]
Jared Gledhill [00:07:56] Now, did you get to go by-- were you by yourself or was there a group of people from like Storm Lake, Alta--
Marvin Otto [00:08:02] No, I was alone from here. I was alone from here. And the fellow from Peterson and I came home together for-- "Gosh," he said, "According to that, I suppose I'll be ridin' the same train." We rode the train from back in to Chicago and drove out-- rode out. Got off in the morning cuz it laid over in Sioux City. And there was a second lieutenant got on somewheres right along the line, right shortly after we was on. And he said, "You boys are a little out of line, aren't ya?" "Well, you probably would be, too." "Why?" he said. "Why? We rode this train this morning, and we're going to-- supposed to be home for Easter tomor-- today. And we're on the road back to Chicago pert'near missed this train last night." "I think they had to put me on," he said. [laughs] And all summer long in tents down there. When it rained, the water came through the tent like that. [shows several inches high] So whatever we had on the floor, get up on the bunk. [laughter] I'm telling you. Pardon?
Jared Gledhill [00:09:22] What kind of training did they have you doing down in Florida?
Marvin Otto [00:09:25] Well, I kinda went through everything, and I wound up in the ordinance section. That's what the-- I went-- I went overseas in the ordinance section, and then they split 'er out there right in half. And we was supposed to have landed in-- in London, and we wound up in Scotland, and we was on a British--
Jared Gledhill [00:10:01] A British-based--
Marvin Otto [00:10:03] --boat. On a boat going over. No escort or nothing. There was 21,000 of us on that boat. I-- I had the bunk. 24 hours I did and 24 hours I didn't. You-- you stood guard duty, you know, 24 hours. That-- [laughter] that was my life [unintelligible] And [unintelligible] twice overseas because they had us set up an airfield and a bunch stayed right where we landed. And we had to set up two airfields before we got our-- our group. And I stayed there until, well, I'm lucky to be here today because it was-- a couple of us had to dig up sixteen (? sixty?) light bombs in the third month we was over there.
Bill Feis [00:10:53] Can you tell us more about that? I-- I-- I knew that you had-- that was part of your job. What was your exact job? And-- and tell-- can you tell us a bit about those experiences?
Marvin Otto [00:11:07] Keep track of the amount of bombs and ammunition and vehicles. All that kind of stuff. And work-- help-- help load bombs out.
Bill Feis [00:11:19] You put the bombs on the airplanes?
Marvin Otto [00:11:20] Yeah. And there was more than once that we [unintelligible] a crick along there, two and three deep. Cuz what they call-- I don't-- today when they-- don't hear much about them anymore. We called them buzz bombs.
Bill Feis [00:11:37] Yeah.
Marvin Otto [00:11:39] Might shut off a mile or two farther back, then [unintelligible] it might shut off goin' by ya'. You never know. Next time it shuts off [makes a raspberry sound] came right there. So, you didn't know, [unintelligible]? Oh, yeah, I was there on that same airfield for December [19]44. In March of '44, was when I took that rod out of the 500-pound bomb out of a plane that would hit over Berlin.
Bill Feis [00:12:15] Could you tell us more about that? I-- I knew you had a story that-- that went with this. Could you tell us more about that particular moment?
Marvin Otto [00:12:22] Well, all I know is, it was a B-17 that I was with. And they got hit right direct[ly] in the radio room. They'd lost their radio operator someplace over Berlin, but where? He didn't know. And they came all the way back with only two engines. The other two had got conked out. And circle around-- one of them went out yet. Now you only have one engine left and had that bomb stuck up in there, and the boys to the back burner froze to death because no heater, anything back there. And I don't know how they got the word to the turret operator. They said, turn the turret down because if we land on the tail wheel I'm afraid we'll crush in the middle because the whole works is gone. I-- I got pictures of that plane.
Bill Feis [00:13:27] You do?
Marvin Otto [00:13:31] Yeah. If you want to see it, why, I guess I can show 'em to you.
Bill Feis [00:13:33] Yeah, we can--
Marvin Otto [00:13:33] You know where they are? [talks to someone off-camera] Those pictures of the airplane?
Mrs. Otto [00:13:38] Yeah, I'll get 'em.
Bill Feis [00:13:40] I'd love to take a look at them when-- when-- maybe after we're-- we're done. I'd love to take a look.
Marvin Otto [00:13:46] I wasn't supposed to bring them home either. [Laughs] Smuggled some of that home. Oh, I tell you, I sat on pins and needles there for a while. Well, I had a toilet article kit. With handkerchiefs in it, clean handkerchiefs. A lot of 'em have never been used, you know, and I took one in one fold, and another in another fold, and boy, they took you out of your barracks to a building there. Everything went on-- on the floor. Films that anybody had not developed or-- [raspberry sound] you had to hand 'em out, claimed you'd get 'em when you got back home. Oh, I thought, boy, these pictures are against the law. But I got to try it. And it worked. He picked it up. Luckily, he didn't get a hold of it so that the fold-- the picture would fall out. He got a hold of several. Boy, I tell ya. And boys at the banquet always left some of their stuff buried in the bunk. They tore your bunk all apart. You'd come back and it was laying in a heap. Luck-- lucky we didn't have straw ticks [straw mattress] then because if they had an inspection and they didn't like the looks of the bunk got to be-- look a little-- a little wrinkled. They got a hold of it, boy, straw all over the floor. [laughs] A great life if you don't weaken. [laughs] Yup. I went over there in April of [19]43 and left there again in just before Christmas of '44. And-- no Christmas at home. I spent my Christmas and New Year in Santa Ana, California. Second-- second New Year's Day, I was put on a train to go to Carlsbad, New Mexico for training for the Southwest [South Pacific]. But then the war ended that summer, so. That's when we got dis-- discharged. So I covered a lot of miles in the United States. [laughs]
Bill Feis [00:15:59] You sure did.
Marvin Otto [00:15:59] Driv-- driving, all that truck-- all that beers, to boot, why--
Bill Feis [00:16:04] So, when you served in-- in England at the airfield, you-- you loaded bombs and did all those things during the bombing campaign over Germany and all the bombings [crosstalk]--
Marvin Otto [00:16:13] Yeah.
Bill Feis [00:16:16] And did-- did you know about when the D-Day landings were going to be? You were there when that--
Marvin Otto [00:16:23] I was right there when that-- they had landing-- officers and all was out loading bombs because we couldn't keep up with them. A lot of guys couldn't believe that either, but I got proof for that. And I had a buddy from Kansas. And the last time I saw him was on the train on Missouri, see? He was from Topeka. Lo and behold, the second day I was down to Carlsbad, who do I run in[to]? But him and his wife. But you see the married guys were sent to Santa Monica, to California, and the single guys, which I was one of them, Santa Ana. And he got down there a couple days before I did. And we were together there until the war ended and he had observed enough-- guy-- out in the-- in the bomb [unintelligible] area, there was nothing but little hundred-pound bombs filled with ga-- sand, gravel. But I was supposed to sit in the shack with him right by the gate rather than being out with the boys. And I said, "That ain't my way of livin'." No. But I had [unintelligible] at that time. He said, "I worked hard for [unintelligible]." I said, "I don't give a darn." That's just, somehow or other, that's the way I felt. I didn't stay. They wouldn't get up in the morning. They wouldn't need-- fall out or anything because they stayed in town. And they wouldn't fall out. I stayed in the barracks. "You goin' for breakfast in the morning?" "Yup." "Get me up." And lo and behold, it was cleaning the barracks, boy. You ask the boys, once they was all there. One Sunday, he says, Tomorrow we gotta load a practice [unintelligible] is coming in. All right. You be sure and get plenty of help. "Aw," I said, "don't worry about it." I said, "I'll get it done." We had two loads, [unintelligible] so had to leave some of 'em behind. He asked about it the next morning. "Yeah," I said, "all you gotta do is work a little, boys," I said, "to get some cooperation." He went-- to finish that story-- of going inland. They had me busted. My buddy was sitting on the captain's desk. And, "Well," the captain said, "the way it sounds we're going to have to have him busted" but he said, "Turn around. Get general order number so-and-so and read paragraph number so-and-so and see what that says." He states that right on the captain's desk, turned and told the captain to turn-- now, that's-- well, I tell ya, a tech ready like I did-- That's a lot of nerve, ya know? [laughs] "And when it comes time to get the paper signed to get out, get released, I won't sign it." "Give it here. I'll sign it." And he said, "I told [unintelligible] right then and there" and I'm leaving in a couple of weeks too. "I ain't gonna sign the paper." "I don't care. I'll sign it myself," he said. That's-- that's how we got out. So I can say I've really covered a lot of miles of the US.
Bill Feis [00:20:10] Yes, you did.
Marvin Otto [00:20:10] South of Florida all the way up the East Coast all the way throughout the West Coast.
Bill Feis [00:20:15] Well, and you almost got to go to the Pacific, too.
Marvin Otto [00:20:17] Well, that's what [unintelligible] sent us home for.
Bill Feis [00:20:20] When did you-- when did you or how did you feel when you found out that you would be maybe heading to the Pacific, too. How did that-- when you heard the news, what was your reaction?
Marvin Otto [00:20:31] I don't know. You just got to go. I guess. I don't know.
Bill Feis [00:20:35] What was the reaction then when you heard that the war was over, that-- that it had ended?
Marvin Otto [00:20:42] We knew we'd be going home pretty-- sometime pretty soon then, not quite-- not quite as soon as we expected. You see, this was in the summer when it ended and I got released October 1st already. So you see that there wasn't much time in between there. But this master sergeant out there got orders to go overseas. Oh, God, was he sick. And then, of course, [unintelligible] he claimed all this and that. He didn't do nothing. Finally told him, "You didn't do nothing." I think that's what made him mad, too yet. You're going to have me busted, but I said, "I don't care. I'm going home pretty soon anyhow." And then the fellow from Akron I bet I worked with DeKalb for ten years or better and stopped at Akron for dinner. Got pumpin' in gas over there. And that's when they had the old pumps yet, when you had to fill 'em up. Fillin' this lady's car, she was standing there, and I hollered at him was it all right to park there. Yup. He took another look. He shut the pump off and he come over. "Hi, Otto!" You remember my last name-- we slept side by side here in the States. We got overseas, why then, we got broke-- broken. We never saw one another again. And all-- in all them years. I don't know. . .
Bill Feis [00:22:20] You had a lot of experiences. [chuckles]
Marvin Otto [00:22:24] I suppose, yeah. Something-- something like that.
Bill Feis [00:22:28] Well, of all-- of all the things you did during the war, what-- what-- what are you most proud of? That-- that in your service-- what're you most proud of? Or what do you think of that makes you proudest?
Marvin Otto [00:22:42] Well, I suppose to be alive. Like, digging up them 16 bombs already in the third month I was over there, then taking that 500-pound bomb out. The plane looks like hell, in plain words.
Bill Feis [00:23:00] So you had to go in and defuse the bomb so that it wouldn't-- so when you were dealing with it, it could have exploded.
Marvin Otto [00:23:07] Now, I don't know what-- what I was doing out around and this captain said, "Well," he said, "hey, Otto." "Yeah?" "Come here. We've got-- we got work to do. It's what we got-- I'll tell you on-- on the way." And he wouldn't-- he wouldn't tell me. So, OK. He was out in our neighborhood when we dug up the 16 that time. And then here he was now to-- takin' this bomb out of that plane. So they didn't back away from anything. I mean, but why should they pick on me with half a dozen other guys right there? "Hey, Otto, we-- we got a job to do," he said. God, I thought, and he wouldn't tell me anything until we got there. There's a plane, there's the streets and everything else that landed on-- on the runway with one engine, one flat tire, one bay door gone. Well, the picture will tell you the big story.
Bill Feis [00:24:14] Yeah. Wow.
Marvin Otto [00:24:14] And I wasn't supposed to have them neither, but I got them. Thank goodness.
Bill Feis [00:24:20] Well, when you came home after the war, what did you do?
Marvin Otto [00:24:26] Oh, that fall I helped pick corn by hand at home. And the next year I went to work for farm labor again. Until I got married then in '47. So I started farmin' and put in ten years of that and that didn't agree so-- I gotta try something else. A boss asked me, "Do you know anything about truck driving?" "Well," I said, "my brother and I moved all of our belongings from here up there." "I guess you know a little bit about being on the truck, on the road." Bang, here I was. I was on the truck, 27 years of it, a lot of my health.
Bill Feis [00:25:22] Is there-- is there anything else that you'd like to ask us or to say? Or is there something we didn't ask you that--
Marvin Otto [00:25:35] I don't know. I think I've rambled on long enough. [laughs].
Bill Feis [00:25:37] Tremendously interesting. I-- I-- because if you had anything else to say, we're-- we're here to listen.
Marvin Otto [00:25:43] Well, I know they had a write-up in the paper [unintelligible, due to static in the recording] --about the job. Well, what else can you do? Because they [pause] investigated all your letters and everything, so you had to be careful what you send or anything else. [unintelligible] They didn't like the--
Mrs. Otto [00:26:20] I didn't get on there, so.
Marvin Otto [00:26:20] Huh?
Mrs. Otto [00:26:20] I said I tried not to get on the thing, so--
Marvin Otto [00:26:24] Oh, you can have them-- we were just discussing-- Just as well show em' the pictures now.
Bill Feis [00:26:41] Oh, my.
Marvin Otto [00:26:42] The-- the write-up is the bottom-- is on the bottom of each one of 'em.
Bill Feis [00:26:51] You weren't kidding. [Otto makes a raspberry sound.] That plane is--
Marvin Otto [00:26:57] It had it. [laughs]
Bill Feis [00:26:57] Wow.
Marvin Otto [00:27:02] And landed with-- with one end in the shape's it's in and--
Jared Gledhill [00:27:11] [Unintelligible] that one, just really says a lot--
Marvin Otto [00:27:13] That hole was big enough for three of us to hang their head out--
Bill Feis [00:27:15] Is that right?
Marvin Otto [00:27:16] Easy. Real easy.
Bill Feis [00:27:18] Wow. That-- that is-- that's amazing. That's amazing that plane made it back at all.
Marvin Otto [00:27:27] Well, that's the truth. And it's amazing if they ever got it landed with only one engine and one good tire. Yeah, it was all flattened.
Bill Feis [00:27:37] Did you-- did you see the pilot afterwards? Was he-- [chuckles]
Marvin Otto [00:27:41] I don't know.
Bill Feis [00:27:43] I just wondered if he was-- after that, I'm not sure I'd want to get back in a plane again. I'm sure he did, though.
Marvin Otto [00:27:50] I know what he said one morning. "I hate like hell to make this trip." He said, "I'd give anything for a plane that something'd go wrong, we'd have to come back." He said, "We got to bomb my grandparents' home town today," he said.
Bill Feis [00:28:10] Oh.
Marvin Otto [00:28:11] That'd be pretty hard to do, wouldn't it?
Bill Feis [00:28:14] Is that right?
Marvin Otto [00:28:15] No, it's-- the wording I got.
Bill Feis [00:28:21] That's very interesting. So he actually went up in a plane and knew he was going to be bombing the hometown of his grandparents.
Marvin Otto [00:28:29] Yeah, they-- they told us. And then after they'd made that trip and one morning, he said-- or that morning before the bombing [was] to take place. He said, "I'd do anything to have something go wrong [so that] I'd have to come back," he said. And when they-- when they came back that's the shape they brought-- they come back in [unintelligible].
Jared Gledhill [00:28:56] I see this one picture of you gettin' an award. Is that for defus-- defusing the bomb in the plane or is that-- do you remember what this one's--
Marvin Otto [00:29:05] Yeah, that-- that un's for taking the-- the bomb out and everything. Now, that's the colonel of the airport on our airfield there.
Jared Gledhill [00:29:14] Okay.
Bill Feis [00:29:20] What-- what did they award you with for doing that? What--
Marvin Otto [00:29:25] I got the soldier medal for that thing-- job there. That big write-up was in the paper, too. And then they write back wanna know what's going on. Just part of my job. Well, you can't-- you couldn't write anything else. I was lucky to get 'em home, that's all I can say is-- [chuckles] Something-- somebody was with along with me. Grab in there and get a hold of a couple different bunches of handkerchiefs that they was folded in. Darn picture didn't fall out of one of 'em, at least.
Bill Feis [00:30:01] It was meant to be that you were to bring them home.
Marvin Otto [00:30:03] I guess so. [chuckles]
Bill Feis [00:30:06] Well, we're sure glad that you got 'em home because those are-- those tell a story, I'll-- I'll say.
Marvin Otto [00:30:13] Well, I said, I think the day of my funeral it ought to be laid out. Cuz I got a cousin that had-- his funeral was a couple years ago, showed pictures of him picking corn, ya know, by hand. I thought this should be as important as that hand corn pickin', wouldn't it? [laughter]
Bill Feis [00:30:32] I'd say so.
Marvin Otto [00:30:38] So, I'm gonna put a tape-- tape 'em on a cardboard to save them because being held, they love to get ripped open, tore up--
Bill Feis [00:30:50] Yeah. Yeah. They're in very good shape.
Marvin Otto [00:30:53] All these years, that's for sure.
Bill Feis [00:30:56] Yeah, very good shape.
Marvin Otto [00:30:56] [unintelligible] every time.
Bill Feis [00:30:57] Yeah. Yeah.
Jared Gledhill [00:31:04] Thank you for letting us come-- come ask you some questions and being able to tell your story. It's, you know, it's been really-- it's been really nice to be able to hear it.
Marvin Otto [00:31:15] That's-- that's the only thing-- the only way I can tell you-- what just actually happened. Like I say, I really hit the whole country from here right on down the floor, then back up the East Coast, overseas, then clear across to California down and back up to--
Jared Gledhill [00:31:35] Too bad they didn't have frequent rider miles back then. [laughter]
Bill Feis [00:31:39] Well, you did-- you did a remarkable job. I-- I was-- I'm so pleased to-- that you shared that with us and that you shared it for our students and for people in the-- in the county who can watch the interview and-- and hear you tell that remarkable story all over again. So we thank you for that. And I-- I think for-- for the university, thank you especially for our students now, and in the future, who will benefit from what you've just told us. We really appreciate that.
Marvin Otto [00:32:10] I just told you the way it happened, that's all.
Bill Feis [00:32:12] Well, and for you and your wife letting us come into your home, we-- we kind of invaded. [laughs]
Marvin Otto [00:32:17] Well--
Bill Feis [00:32:17] But we appreciate it.
Marvin Otto [00:32:20] Had I known it-- this was going to be done in Storm Lake, I-- it would have given me a little time to find somebody. I mean, when you can't drive--
Bill Feis [00:32:31] We were happy to come to your home. We were happy to come to your home. If that was more convenient for you, that-- that was our pleasure.
Marvin Otto [00:32:37] Well, it's a--
Jared Gledhill [00:32:41] It's our pleasure to be here. It really is.
Marvin Otto [00:32:44] Satisfying, as far as I'm concerned.
Original Format
DVCAM
Duration
0:32:48
Bit Rate/Frequency
80 kbps