“One of them hit right in front of me. I was by myself. And it didn’t explode. It would have blew me to kingdom come.” (Video Interview, 22:34)

Leroy Mzhickteno

Leroy Mzhickteno [2005] War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Army Unit: Company E, 137th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division Service Location: San Francisco, California; Camp Rucker, Alabama; Camp Butner, North Carolina; New York; Liverpool, England; Normandy, Le Mans, Nancy, France Rank: Sergeant Place of Birth: KS

Leroy Mzhickteno, nicknamed Mickey, grew up on the Potawatomi Reservation in Kansas during the Depression. After graduating from high school, he joined the National Guard in 1939 to make money. He was still in the Guard on December 7, 1941, and was soon on fulltime active duty in the Army. His infantry regiment sailed from England to France shortly after D-Day, and they spent the rest of the war chasing the retreating Germans. He was wounded in the back by shell fragments during intense fighting. Patched up and sent back to his unit, he was put in charge of a group of replacements who were more interested in confiscating the food and wine in a village they captured than in pursuing the German Army.