Interview with Jasper Garner

Interview with Jasper Garner

The following is an excerpt from an interview with Jasper Garner:

"One of the things that happened while we were there was a PT flying boat. They were Navy Air Force people, and it got lost in a storm and crashed in Yachats. Only one person, the radio operator, survived. So a bunch of the fellows volunteered and went out looking for possible bodies. You may know the coast in that area is rather rugged, and the waves crash up against the rocks and sometimes they shoot way up. And one of the fellows from the camp was caught and taken into the ocean. Just across the street from Camp Angell there was a little shop that sold knickknacks. And we used to walk back by there and go down to the beach and go swimming. This one time we saw this little boy and we were talking to him. And he said,  'Did you hear about the fellow who drowned?' And I said yes. And he said, 'Well, he was a conchie, nobody cared.' I tried to write a piece based on that one time. He had been told by his parents that since he was a conscientious objector, nobody cared. Early on when we were there, we had a basketball team that played Waldport. We ended up beating them. But we were never invited back because it came out that we were conscientious objectors. We would go to Waldport sometimes. We’d get a ride in but we always had to walk back because it was after dark and there were not many people traveling."

 

--Taken from Siuslaw National Forest and Portland State University History Department. "Camp 56: An Oral History Project." p76-80.

For more of the interview see <http://www.ccrh.org/oral/co.pdf>