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Senior Correspondent

I‘m 97 now; I joined the army eighty years ago when I was 17. Because my father was in the Cavalry when he fought in the Spanish American War, I signed up for the Cavalry.

I wasn‘t in too long before my outfit, the 56th Brigade, was sent to East Texas to fight the Oil Wars. It seems the oil people there were pumping every barrel of oil they could as fast as they could. It didn‘t matter that it cost more for them to pump the oil than they could sell it for (as little as 8 cents a barrel). Everyone tried to outproduce the other. It was cutthroat competition.

Texas Governor Sterling set production limits but he was ignored. He called in the regular National Guard and the oil people ignored them, too. The governor swallowed his pride and his principles and called for federal help.

Some commission set production limits and President Hoover sent in the 56th Brigade. The 56th was a a tough outfit and though I was a recruit myself. There were a lot of veteran soldiers. Mostly we "patrolled" the oil fields just to be seen. It had been a kind of lawless place, but we wouldn‘t take any nonsense. And we didn‘t have any trouble.

I guess the governor was happy, and it was all over in about six months. We went back to our barracks at Fort Riley, Kansas. I spent the rest of my hitch there.

I liked Texas. When I got out of the army, I moved to Dallas.

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