Leland J. Kennedy Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

A: It was Eisenhower. And that was the same day we were supposed to have seen
Churchill. But . . .
Q: You don't know whether it was or not?
A: That's right. So I wouldn't know. Rut - you mentioned - I called that fellow I know,
and I said, "They got the 1374th Engineers down as being in Belgium." Didn't you say that
they were in the Belgium? Did you say that yesterday?
Q: I say you were credited with the Belgian campaign.
A: Well he tells me - and he was a grade higher than me and he was - he might have
been out of the headquarters. We were assigned to what they called the Bastard
Battalion. I mean there was - I don't know how many companies. The pipeline companies
made up the battalion, but he said that some of those people did get to there. Towards
the end of the war they had replacements and some of the fellows that - 1374th Engineers
increased his personnel as TO I guess. And he said some of those fellows, if he remembers
right, did go into Belgium. I know I didn't get to Belgium. I know that. He didn't think
he did, but he didn't remember.
Q: Well of course you could have been supporting the campaigns in Belgium back further
on the pipeline sort of thing.
A: Yes, sure.
Q: Alright sir, one thing - it seems rather unusual to serve on a city council while you
were in service. Was there any objection to your staying?
A: No there wasn't any objection. I think we talked about that maybe the first day we met,
or the first - under the GI bill of rights, you didn't have to resign.
Q: Oh?
A: And I didn't resign. That's all. Geltz resigned, but I said, "No one asked me to, and
no one forced me." They didn't force me. I said, "The way I interpreted the GI hill of
rights, I didn't have to resign, and resign I did not." I wasn't going to do that, that's
all. And I needed - I don't know how to say this - our stipend was $12.50 a meeting
and we met twice a month and they sent my mother my check every month.
Q: Oh is that right?
A: My mother was a widow and she was glad to get it, but no, there wasn't any complaints
about it. If there was, we never heard anything. And I told my mom, "Just as long as
they send it, take it." Of course when I was home on that summer of 1945, I went to meetings,
but no one ever said anything to me about it, and no one ever said anything after 1
got back, but just - I guess the world was - I don't know how to say it, they were very
benevolent, or very charitable at that time down there with the city council. Rut no one said
a word.
But the GI bill of rights specifically said that if you were a member of a parliamentary body
or something like that, you did not have to resign. And I did not resign, that's all. There
was never - oh I'm sure there were some complaints, naturally, but not to me or not to
- specifically oficial complaints - to the council, and no one wrote a lctter or anything. If
they did, I don't know it, and I was never told it.
Q: And the council didn't say anything.