Brothers in Arms

When I decided to go in, I walked in and I says, "I want to join the army." So he says, "Well the only thing I have is a French regiment, which is the Regiment Trois-Rivières. It's a tank regiment." I said, "That's for me." Well it was a French regiment, I'm Jewish. I spoke French, and there was no animosity or anything like that. It was just you meeting new people. Pass judgement on them? I couldn't at that time because my friends were Italian origin, French origin, English origin, because I lived on Notre-Dame Street, near Guy(sp). And I didn't have many Jewish friends. So I just took it as a, an everyday occurrence. I've never had a problem with a French person. If they did we always had an understanding between us. And we never... I don't even remember any fights between the French and the English. We became, I wouldn't say a click, we became a unit within ourselves. Five men, which we lived together, slept together, ate together, and we acted together. And we became friends. You watch my back, I'll watch your back. We lost a few, when we joined the war. Out of the people that were with us, my buddies, I think we lost about three, but these were replaced. We couldn't get too friendly when, once the war, once we went into camp and then into training. You were friends, but not friends because we were told at that time, "You're in the army anything can happen. Don't take anything for granted."