Today, Texas Land Commissioner and Veterans Land Board (VLB) Chairwoman Dawn Buckingham, M.D., is proud to introduce the next installment of the series highlighting the VLB's Voices of Veterans oral history program. This week, we highlight the service of Sergeant Gerald Counts who served in the United States Army during World War II.
Counts was born in Bridgeport, Texas, during the Great Depression. When he was drafted, Counts said he knew he would be going to war, "Everybody was having to go, you know. I knew my time would come." He went to basic training in California and volunteered to go to "jump school," where he became a paratrooper with the C Company of the 506th in the 101st Airborne.
"It was only four weeks long, but it was a tough four weeks. It scared the dickens out of me. I guess it did everybody. I'd never been up close to an airplane. Most of us hadn't, you know, never rode in one. I was just as scared on the last jump as I was on the first. I'm sure everybody was. They'd make like they wasn't, but you know a man in his right mind don't walk out of an airplane."
Counts discussed his experience during the Invasion of Normandy. He remembered how the men were scattered and had to regroup after parachuting into D-Day and the anxiety surrounding the coming invasion.
"There had been rumors there was going to be an invasion. Everybody was kind of worried about it, scared kind of and all, but we thought we were tough. You know, they tell you how tough you was. Kids will believe it. We were all kids, most of us 19, 20 years old."
He was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge and became a Prisoner of War (POW). The POWs were held in a large building with no restrooms and only straw to sleep on. "Everybody had dysentery. They fed you [what] we called grass soup. I don't know what it was. A can full of that every day."
Counts remembered that hearing the Americans and British bombing nearby gave him hope that he and the other men would be rescued. After he was liberated, Counts recalled that all the men were covered in lice, unbathed, and dangerously thin.
"We had lice. We all had lice on us. Most of us hadn't had a haircut and [were] pretty wooly lookin'. Pretty dirty. We had on the same clothes we had on when we was captured, you see. We stunk. As a matter of fact, I weighed 110 pounds the first time I weighed. I lost 40 pounds; I was just skin and bones. All of us were."
Counts was nourished back to health at "Camp Lucky Strike" in Le Havre, France and returned to America by ship. He said he "was glad to get home" to Texas and later reenlisted with the U.S. Army.
To listen to Sergeant Gerald Counts tell his story, click the button below:
Veterans can email VoicesofVeterans@glo.texas.gov to tell their stories. Please note that the Veteran must be a resident of Texas at the time of their interview.
Voices of Veterans is a state agency's first Veteran oral history program. It records the stories of Texas Veterans through their time in service and after returning home from combat.
The VLB records interviews with veterans over the phone or in person. Their interviews are then permanently archived in the Office of Veterans Records at the GLO, where they join the historical documents of other Texas heroes such as Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William Barret Travis.
Veterans' interviews are also available to researchers, historians, genealogists, and the public. These precious records inspire future generations and remind us of our Veterans' sacrifices.
To listen to the over 500 archived stories of Veterans documented through the GLO's Voices of Veterans oral history program, click the button below: