FHS Oral History Project – Louis “Lou” Boria Junior

Description:

Louis “Lou” Boria Jr. was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1927. A child of Puerto Rican parents, he recalled the contentious racial climate growing up in Brooklyn during the 1930s and early 1940s. He vividly remembered the racially charged statements he received as an adolescent, particularly “F— Puerto Rican this, F— Puerto Rico that,” and how that largely influenced his identity and his decision to join the Marine Corps underage in 1943. Boria served as a rifleman in a Marine Corps platoon throughout World War II, making his first landing at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. In addition to briefly describing his combat experiences, Boria shared stories outside of combat, particularly the racial dynamics between him as a Puerto Rican and his other white and Black military men. During his time in the Pacific Theater, Boria suffered a concussion from incoming mortars while covering shotgun for a Forward Observer. Boria continued his military service through the Korean War, recollecting his combat experience in Kimpo and Seoul and how he trained and mentored a group of Puerto Ricans initially unwilling to do their jobs. Boria withstood another injury in Korea when mortars sent him back about ten feet from where he stood as he radioed in the coordinates of the incoming mortars. A two-time Purple Heart recipient, Boria retired from the Marine Corps in 1957. He explained the various jobs he held during his post-military career, emphasizing how his Puerto Rican ethnic identity influenced such experiences. In 1991, Boria moved to Central Florida in which he outlined his reasons at the end of the conversation. Additionally, he explained how he and others founded the church that currently resides on Welch Road in Apopka, Florida.

 

Transcription:

00;00;05 - 00;00;25

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: This is Sebastian Garcia interviewing Louis “Lou” Boria Junior on March 28th, 2025, at Mr. Bora’s residence in Apopka, Florida for the Florida Historical Society Oral History Project. To start off, can you please share where and when you were born?

 

00;00;25 - 00;00;37

LOU BORIA: I was born in Brooklyn, New York on March 22nd, 1927, in Cumberland Hospital in Brooklyn.

 

00;00;37 - 00;00;42

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Can you tell me about your childhood growing up in Brooklyn?

 

00;00;48 - 00;06;07

LOU BORIA: The younger years, it was fine, but we lived in the areas, you know, Brooklyn back in those days, in the 30s and 40s, you had a lot of Europeans. Nobody spoke English—only the kids on the street. And so that 90% of the time, and most of them had their own areas to shop and everything like the Italians had their own shopping areas, and the Irish, and the Germans—the Germans were really something, they even had a parade. The Nazi boons. Yeah. But, you know, like I said, it was that kind of environment. There was prejudices, but it wasn’t, color—black or white. It was mostly Europeans the type of prejudice. And they won't bother you and things like that. But the younger years, it was mixed in pretty good.

 

My dad had taken off. He had been in the Navy. But my father joined the Navy in Puerto Rico when he was 18. And so he made a couple of trips to Europe and when he came back, he wound up having pneumonia, and he actually pulled into the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and they put him in a hospital there. And the war ended. And that's how he sent for my mom, they got married, but he never settled down. So he went back to Puerto Rico, and my mom stayed with us. So my mom more or less raised us. Like I said, everybody had their own church and stores. We were in Spanish—they called it La Primera Iglesia Baptista de Habla Espanol [The First Spanish-Speaking Baptist Church]. So we grew up in that atmosphere.

 

Once you got to thirteen, fourteen, things start to change. That's when you start getting into that “F Puerto Rico this” “F Puerto Rican that” and gang fighting. We used to have the Red Hook swimming pool and there were no Puerto Ricans there. One day, one of the girls, my sister's friends were down there and that guys manhandled them in the water and stuff like that. So it got back to us, and we found out about it, we went over there and tore the place. I mean, really tore it up. But that was the kind of atmosphere at the time. In fact, we lived in a little apartment building, and it had a front end apartment and a hallway and another apartment in the back, and we lived in the front apartment. And this girl, she was Greek, and we were in the same class. So one day we met in the hallway, and we were talking, and her father walked up and said something about Puerto Ricans [and] slapped her. I mean, really rolled her out on the floor. “Don't talk to Puerto Ricans.” So, it was kind of sad, but that was the kind of atmosphere at fourteen, fifteen years old. We grew up on welfare and in fact my mother's favorite saying to us as we were growing up, she said Ese cuerpo que tú tiene se lo pertenece al el gobierno Americano [That body you have belongs to the American government]. So she was very patriotic about it. And, like I said, when you're fourteen, growing up and being at home relief, there’s no money. I used to shine shoes and then this barber in the neighborhood set the chair and my shoeshine box. And I used to run errands and clean up but, but I had a spot to shine shoes.

 

00;06;07 - 00;06;11

ALICE BORIA: You picked up coal on the side of the road and wood for the furnace.

 

00;06;11 - 00;06;12

LOU BORIA: To do what?

 

00;06;12 - 00;06;14

ALICE BORIA: You picked up coal on the side of the road and…

 

00;06;14 - 00;08;04

LOU BORIA: Oh, yeah. After school, I had a wagon. I used to go to this place they called Scripps Pharmaceutical. They used all these wood boxes, and I’d go there, and I picked it up, broke it up and put it in my wagon. And we lived in front of, in fact, the back of the apartment faced the Brooklyn Bridge. And they used to have bins they used to store coal. So I used to climb over the walls and get the bag full of coal and get back into the house, but like I said, the finances were…in fact, I was telling a story not too long ago. My mom used to us to this Jewish guy [who] had a basement [with] shoes. But this guy used to get the shoes from different stores, but the stores give you a sample—one shoe. So my mom used to go there, and the Jewish guy used to max the shoes the best he could, you know, and he tied them together for $0.17—you get a pair of shoes, you know. So maybe Atomic Hand in one shoe and the Flag Brothers on the other, but it was a pair of shoes. So when I tell my story,  I tell them about how great this country is that I used to wear $0.17 pair of shoes, and now I drive a Cadillac. What a big difference this country makes, if you want to make it.

 

00;08;04 - 00;08;10

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Right. Absolutely. How many siblings did you have?

 

00;08;10 - 00;08;13

LOU BORIA: It was four of us, two girls and my brother.

 

00;08;13 - 00;08;15

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: You were the youngest, oldest?

 

00;08;15 - 00;08;40

LOU BORIA: No, I was the second. Yeah. My sister Betty was the oldest. I was the second, and my brother Rick and my sister Anna was the last one. Like I said, the father used to make trips every time he came, I wound up having another brother or sister.

 

00;08;40 - 00;08;44

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: What type of education did you have?

 

00;08;44 - 00;11;19

LOU BORIA: Not much. I went to high school, but when I went in the Marines, I dropped out. I was sixteen years old. I tried to get my mother to sign for me. I took her to the marine recruiter, and I thought I get over being that she wasn't a fluent English, but, she knew, so she wouldn’t signed. But I always talked to a friend about it, wanting to go in. “Why don’t you go to the draft board and tell them you're eighteen years old.” So I did that. That's how I got into the Marines. I went to the physical and, at that time, you take the physical and then you classified, you know, like 1A or 4F, if you were rejected. But anyway, I passed and then they called you in for induction. So you get there, they lined you up, and then they have all the service reps, and they tell how many of the guys that they [need]. So, “I need twelve for the Navy.” They pointed to me and told me “you are in the Navy.” I said, “No, no, I ain't going to the Navy.” And I want to make a point about that. The apartment that I lived in was about five blocks from the Navy Yard. So all day long, all you saw was the Navy guys, you know, nice guys, bad guys, drunks and so I always had the impression of watching the Marines MPs, you know, real sharp. And so I never forget that that's what I wanted to be. So anyway, when I [heard] the recruiter guy said, “You're in the Navy.” I told him, “No, I ain’t going to no Navy.” The guy said, “You go where we tell you, now get over there.” I said, “I ain't going to no Navy! So we arguing back and forth and next thing you know, the cops are there. And I said, “Look, I didn't say I am not going to the service. I said, I don't want to go to the Navy.” “Where do you want to serve?” I want the Marines. And I said that and all of the sudden a Marine PFC walking by [said] “He’s mine!” So that's how I got into the Marines.

 

00;11;19 - 00;11;34;

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: And you mentioned how your mom had that saying of el cuerpo tuyo es para el Gobierno Americano [Your body is for the American government]. So where do you think that came from, that patriotic sense?

 

00;11;35 - 00;15;58

LOU BORIA: She was, during the war [with] the radios and, you know, all the guys getting drafted…. She didn't have much educational time, but she was a really good, smart, tough lady. Actually, at the time, all that we had was all the members of the church, like the elderly, the teachers in the class, and they were more or less the kind of the men that dominated my life. Like I said, my father took off. I never remember my father being around. But these guys were great. And it was funny thing, one of them this guy name was, Pissarro and then the other guy was Angel. Angel was blue eyed, blond, Puerto Rican, and but Pissarro was Black and these two guys, they were like brothers. This guy Pissarro was my Sunday school teacher. When I got in the Marines, guys asking you how things were back home, I remember I said, “Did you ever hear of a guy fighting in a church—have a fight in a church? Well I did!”

 

We used to have Sunday school, but the church we had was in a storefront, and so they had it divided. And in the back they had been put a wall up, and that was where they held Sunday school class for the youth. So, I think I was about fifteen at the time, and we had some real beautiful girls in the class, you know, I used to love the girls in those days with gloves and dresses and really they dressed up real nice. And so I was sitting—we had like four rows of chairs—in the third row and the pastor’s son was sitting behind me and takes a straight pin, puts it in front of his shoe, and jams it into to my butt. Oh, man, I got up. I [started] pounding on this guy. All the girls are screaming, so you can imagine what it was like the people in the front of the church, everybody come running back that and Pissarro, he grabs all of me, pulls me and tells me, “You sit down,” and the other guy the pastor’s son took him outside. So I'm sitting there and I'm saying to myself, “When I get home, my mom is going to skin me.” I’m really worried about my mom. So Pissarro takes me to my mom. And he tells my mom, “If you put your hands on him, I won't talk to you anymore. He deserves a medal.” So I got away. But that really was something else. The church at the time, the people were very attached, very Christian, you know what I mean? And today it's not the same as it was in those days, so there’s no respect. And to fight in a church, I mean, that was something really. But this guy really deserved a pounding ready. He wanted to—because I was talking to the girls. Anyway, I had blood all over my underclothes. But it was something.

 

00;15;59 - 00;16;08

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: I'm assuming your mom in that patriotic-ness. But what else inspired you to join the service?

 

00;16;09 - 00;16;53

LOU BORIA: Well, the fact that lot of the guys in the neighborhood were drafted or volunteering in, mostly all leaving. So it was kind of saying goodbye all the time to these guys. And like I said, watching those Marines was really I mean, these guys were really sharp with the MP, and they had a white helmet, a liner with the Marine emblem on it. I mean dressed really sharp. I was very impressed with the Marines.

 

00;16;53 - 00;16;56

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: What was basic training like?

 

00;16;56 - 00;17;21

LOU BORIA: Oof. Do I have to talk about that? We take that bus, they usually show, you know, and it is always the spot when you get off the bus with the shoes that you stand there.

 

00;17;21 - 00;17;23

ALICE BORIA: The yellow shoes they have on the—

 

00;17;23 - 00;26;39

LOU BORIA: Yeah. So calling the role. So when he gets to my name and calls Boria—and anybody that went in the Marines that was drafted, his serial number started with a nine, so I had been drafted, although I was only sixteen—so he sees the number and he walks up to me and with his finger, he jammed it in my chest. “You couldn't volunteer so this means…” “You couldn’t volunteer? You had to be drafted into my fucking Marine Corps? You fucking draftee.” And this and that. I mean, that guy from day one, he didn't let up. Never physical, just with the finger. And I mean really, really tough. Very tough.

 

And one of the worst parts about the time that I went into the Marine Corps, I went to boot camp in September. So I spent Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, all three of those holidays, you know, really family days [especially] back in those days. Thanksgiving Day was—as poor as we were, we always had a turkey. And all the members of the church got together. And it was really great. And Christmas. We go to church for Christmas Eve, maybe about 637. They had a big program going. And then after the end of the service, everybody would get a present. So that was really, like I said, it was so different in those days with religion than what it is today.

 

Parris Island at that time they had segregation in the Marine Corps. But [as a] Puerto Rican everybody thought I was Indian because my complexion so mostly all the guys that I was with were all from the Midwest and I was so—that these guys talked to me, they come to me, we  hanged, and as we progressed that camaraderie was outstanding. I was a different person within a couple of months’ time of boot camp. I felt that I could do this, that I belonged. And we were all striving to be the best, especially with these white guys in the platoon. Constantly, they sitting around me. “Where you from?” I had a guy from West Virginia who had the top bunk, and we talking about the apartment, how’s city living and things like that. And we have a bathroom in the hall, and then two apartments and in the center was the bathroom. And each apartment had a door to the [bathroom], so whenever you went in, you would put the latch on, you know, to finish and make sure you take the latch off. And we had a bathroom. So this guy said, “You mean you use this poop inside the house?” I said, “We had a bathroom.” [He replied], “What the hell is a bathroom!? “The toilet bowl like I got here.” “You mean you did that inside the house!?” The guy couldn't believe it, [even] toilet paper. “Toilet paper? What the hell you talking about toilet paper?” They used the corncobs. They had baskets with corncobs and that's how they used to clean themselves.

 

They had service on Sundays. So I was a Baptist and he [West Virginiaian guy] happened to be a Baptist. So we go to church together and he was singing the hymn, and I just automatically started singing in Spanish. “Poder, poder [Power, Power]”  And this guy is staring at me! When got back to the barracks, he tells all the guys “This guy speaks two languages! He speaks two languages!” It was really something else. But there was great guys.

 

So finally graduation time comes, and you got twelve weeks of boot camp. And like I said, I mean, it's boot camp. I will tell you a funny story first. In the Marine Corps, you don't graduate unless you swim. You got to swim the length of the pool, up and back. And if you don't, every evening, the non-swimmers would fall out in front of the barracks and wait for a platoon to come by and fall into ranks, and they marched them. But when you were the non-swimmer, he comes with a platoon and starts from where the barracks start. So anyway, this drill instructor brings him up, picks up the guys and when picked him up, you bend over, grab your ankles and you repeat after me, “quack, quack. I'm a duck. Quack.” He said, “I don't hear you. Louder!” And as you can imagine now he picks up four guys here, five guys there and by the time he gets to the last barracks, they might be about ten, fourteen, fifteen or maybe twenty guys. And everybody's screaming out loud, “Quack, quack I'm a duck.” But this is holding your ankles. So imagine how uncomfortable that is, but the guys the first guys all the way up, until the—but it  was funny as hell. Hanging outside you can hear them. “Quack quack.” But that was fun.

 

And then graduation day. That's the first time you ever put on a uniform. The rest of the times were always dungarees. I think week six, week seven, they take you to the tailor shop for the outfit, each guy gets a measured uniform. And then the day before graduation, you pick the uniform off and put it on and everybody “Wow. Look at the Marine.” So anyway, you get all that and you go to the graduation day parade. So you pass a review, then you get back to the barracks, everybody's packed and we're all hugging each other and getting ready. They drive you to the train station. So we're all in that process. All of sudden we hear, “Boria, get your ass out here!” Oh, everybody stopped, and they were all looking at me. And everyone thought, “they are not going to let this guy graduate.”  So I go running outside, and he said, “Stand at ease” and sticks his hand out and he shook my hand. I mean, I don't know how I didn't pass out that this guy shakes my hand, and he told me, “You're going to be a good Marine, but you learn how to control your temper. Now get the fuck out of here.” I go running back to the barracks and tears were running from my face. I was so overwhelmed by what he said. All the guys come running over “Chief, chief,” they used to call me chief because they thought I was an Indian. They were all crowded around me, and I said, “He shook my hand!” The guys were like “What!?” “He shook my hand!” And then, I told them what he said, and they couldn't believe it. I thought I was like getting a Congressional Medal of Honor, that he picked me like that and shook my hand. That was a great feeling. And I was a Marine. I wasn't a “fucking Puerto Rican” anymore.

 

00;26;39 - 00;26;46

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Exactly. So talk to me about post-graduation. Where were you sent off to?

 

00;26;46 - 00;26;47

LOU BORIA: What?

 

00;26;47 - 00;26;50

ALICE BORIA: Right after you graduated from boot camp, what happened?

 

00;26;50 - 00;27;21

LOU BORIA: I went to Camp Lejeune. From Parris Island, South Carolina you go to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. You get a basic combat infantry. But [it depends] some of the guys got assigned into the artillery and mortars. I ended up in an infantry platoon. So you go there for a couple of months. I got there in January of…

 

00;27;21 - 00;27;23

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: ’44?

 

00;27;23 - 00;30;52

LOU BORIA: Yeah. 1944. I think it was three months or so. And then they put us aboard ship and we went through the Panama Canal into the South Pacific area. There was one in Honolulu that had a big base there, and then from there, they assign you to different divisions. They sent me to this island, Hilo, Hawaii, and we took our training there. And the base was named after that the Tarawa, the island that was a real big battle, a lot of Marines were killed there. And, yeah, I take the training. I was with the 52nd Replacement Drafted in 1944. And then I got assigned. And from there we trained, got aboard ship. I don't know if anybody in this audience listening to this knows what it's like to be on a troopship in the Pacific, and in those times, remember, there is no just thing as air conditioning. So, most of these ships had a big drum and the ship sailed into that wind. It was like a big funnel and all that air went down below decks. The Pacific during the morning, by 10:00, it is a 102, 103 [degrees] and you're on metal ships. So the decks were like a frying pan. I mean, it was miserable. And you could only get saltwater showers, and it was tough. We were fifty-two consecutive days on a troopship. It was horrible. You hit storms. You had bathrooms. And now imagine the ship is flipping over and all that stuff [feces and urine] all over the deck. And who goes to clean it? We do. And you go down below deck and you got five story five guy [sections] in like a canvas racks. So when a guy gets in that canvas [inaudible] weight. So that scraping your nose, guys get sick and throwing up all over, right on top of each other. And the smell is, oh, it is horrible. Fifty-two consecutive days on a troopship. I think that's one of the worst—today, the guys fly out in helicopter, but in those days it was tough.

 

00;30;52 - 00;30;57

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Once you were in the Pacific, what missions were you involved in?

 

00;30;57 - 00;31;17

LOU BORIA: Well, the first place we went to was Guam. But we got to Guam towards the end of the fighting on the islands, so it was almost secure. Maybe one or two patrols were looking for the Japs. But then—

 

00;31;17 - 00;31;17

ALICE BORIA: What was that like?

 

00;31;18 - 00;34;47

LOU BORIA: That was in Guam in 1944. There was no such thing as stores. I mean these people that were there had been—after the Japs had invaded, I think that they were prisoners of the Japanese for five or six years. And then when we liberated it, mostly they didn't have any place. So the Seabees built homes for these people. They were all in the tent area, so it was all restricted—you could not go in there. So you didn't have anything to do, like you had no radio. None of that stuff. We would get a ride, and hitchhike on Sunday and go to Seabees base. And the Seabees had ice machines, they had ice cream, [and] food freezing. The Seabees did all this themselves. One of the Seabees was from Brooklyn. So we got together and talking. He said, “You’re a Marine? Come on in.” He takes me to the kitchen and [I saw] a pot with water and peel potatoes. [The] Seabees said “Come here, let me show you. This is what you guys should have, the laundry tubs.” So they put sandpaper glued inside the tub and they dumped the potatoes in there. In five minutes, the potatoes are all peeled. [I said] “Oh, look at this!” But the chief of the Navy said, “Here come these raggedy ass Marines.” It was a Navy base, [though] thirty, forty Marines were there. I loved getting the job from the Seabees. That and hopefully you get a letter.

 

[I] had to wait one or two months to get a letter, especially on the islands. And then all of sudden you were transferred, so by then you get there letter here, you're already transferred. So now you got to wait until that letter gets to you wherever you're at. So sometimes you only get maybe three or four letters at one time, but then you won't get no mail again for about two, three months. And it was really bad for guys young. You had nothing to do. I mean, how could you play athletics with 102 and 103 temperature. It is horrible. So the only thing [you could do] was swimming. How many times [would] you go swimming [though]? You're surrounded. The island is all water and coconut trees. That's it. You read books or you write letters.

 

00;34;47 - 00;34;51

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: What was your specific role within your unit?

 

00;34;51 - 00;39;35

LOU BORIA: I was a rifleman in the platoon. Mostly all you do is train. There was amphibious training and there was walks. If the island is short, you maybe make it two trips around. If it's a big island, like Guam, Guam was a big island, you go for ten miles, fall out, take a break and you march back ten miles. So you usually do 20 miles one day walking and back. But that's the kind of thing in the infantry and different tactics in schools and the different weapons and how to throw a hand grenades and bayonets and all that kind of stuff, all that training. And mostly walking. And then like I said, with the bunch of guys and it was great, the feeling, the camaraderie it's beyond, I mean, in the Marine Corps that's excelled. They excel in that. Everybody, the drill instructions [were] really tough, I mean, really tough guys, but they were sharp I mean, really, you look at them, you just hesitate and all the time in boot camp, you do not talk to these guys, you ask permission to talk to them.

 

One day, we were coming out of the mess hall. You have your plates of food, your knife, fork, spoon. So when you finish eating, as you walk out, there is three drums with hot boiling water. So you dip them in there and then you rinse them out, you [then] get back to the barracks, you’re supposed to wipe them down. You got to the rifle range for I think once a week or two weeks I can't remember exactly. But all the time you’re there, you go to the rifle range, you learn how to fire, and you got to qualify. If you don't qualify them, they put you back and make you go through the whole week again. I qualified. The only ‘free time’ that you have is where are you going to go to eat, you know, during the day you’re busy in the classes and drilling. They bring you to the barracks about 11:30. So from 11:30 to 12:30, they give you time to march out the mess hall and you walk back. So I’m with another guy who happened to be from Brooklyn, so we obviously hung out together. We finished washing the—and as we started to walk out, there's a captain standing there. So we lit up a cigarette and all of sudden I looked up and it was this captain, and I saluted him. So he reached over, took the cigarette [and] tossed it, stepped on it, and he wanted my name. So I get back to the barracks. He told the sergeant that I had salute an—"you saluted an officer with a cigarette in your mouth?” I mean everybody [went] “Ooh…” I said, “I think they might hang me.” I was terrorized. He told me, “Go get your bucket, toothbrush, and a towel and report back to me.” I go running, come back, I'm standing. He brings me outside [and] puts a ladder. “Wash the leaves on the tree” with the toothbrush and dry it out. That's the kind of punishment. But you got to go do it—wash the leaves on the tree. I learned how not to salute an officer.

 

00;39;35 - 00;39;40

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Talk to me about the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

 

00;39;40 - 00;49;09

LOU BORIA: Oh. Well. I’ll tell you what. I haven't got to back myself up. I'll tell you preparing prior to it. Like I said, we were fifty consecutive days on a board ship. I mean, [I was] really, really miserable. Now you got to pack and go over the side of the ship. I got to tell you about right before that.

 

The crew of the ship was the merchant Marines. So they happened to be a Spanish guy from Spain. So one of my platoon guys, we're talking to this guy, and he spoke Spanish. “Oh, we have a guy that [speaks] Spanish,” so you know, they came and got me to talk to this guy. So when I go over to the guy, and he tells me, “Tu eres muy preto pa se Espanol” “[You are too dark-skinned to be Spanish]” I looked at him and I said, “You know, tu eres un [inaudible].” I said, “Bruto, ellos te dice que yo [Brute, they tell you that I] speak Spanish, so soy [I am] Spanish y tu eres [and you are] speak Spanish, no que eres Espanol y que yo soy de Puerto Rico [not that you are Spaniard and that I am Puerto Rican].” By this time, I go in and [punching sound], I lay into this guy. So all of my guys jump on me “Wait, what’s going on? Take it easy. Take it easy.” So then I told them what he had said. [And] nobody ever talk to that guy anymore.

 

So now we have to get ready for the invasion. So they throw these nets over the side of ship [that] you got to climb. The deck was about two or three stories high. So you climbed down that net and, you know, we were in the middle of the ocean. The boats are bobbing up and down sideways. And so you got to get down [and] time it when the boat comes up. to let move. And are you might be next to the last one. Now you're worried that that ship is going to smash your feet. All right. So as the next boat comes up, you let go and drop into the boat. So just everybody comes off. So as I get up to the top, I put my foot over the side. I started to climb. [The Spaniard] stood by the side. So he hollered at me, “Vaya con Dios [Go with God].” So, I looked at him and [Boria emoted thank you].

 

So anyway, then you climb down in. When these boats get filled up, they take off, and another boat comes in. So you might have maybe six boats to the wave. It might be third wave fourth wave to go in. So when you go in, you get in a circle and [all you smell] is diesel. It's really strong. And now you imagine on the flat boat one behind the other, there's no keel to cut through, so that boat in front of you is flat and he's making ripples. And this thing is hitting. This was a flat. So every time [Boria made splash sounds], water comes running over. So you're back there [getting] soaking wet. In about five minutes time, you’re soaked right through the skin. Everything. And we just circle around for half an hour, an hour, depends on the boats before you if they hit any on the beach. They don't send you in, you got to wait. The legs are clearing on a beach, so you might be circling for half an hour, an hour. And by this time everybody is seasick. Have you ever been seasick? It's horrible. And now everybody's throwing up on top of each other. So you got forty something guys on a boat and everybody's puking. Everybody. I mean, including me. You puke. So now, guys, are just miserable just sitting there and the boat is loaded with puke and the water that's coming over the sides. And then you go into the beach.

 

I can only go as far as to tell you [that] the Filipinos were outstanding. [The] Filipino guerillas, they did some job in the area. We landed in Dulag, [which] was the name at the time, the section on the beach that we landed. We came in and they dropped the ramp. And all these guys were puking, and you got to pick them up, [making] sure he grabbed his rifle, you push them out to get out. I was indecisive, but by that time I grabbed my [rifle] and just headed to the beach. All of sudden, [I looked] up and there was a mob of Filipino women and kids “Americano! Americano!” They're hugging and kissing you. Sticking booze in your mouth, and the kids grabbing you by the legs. I'm paralyzed. I can't move it. Our guys “Get off the beach! Get off the beach!” I'm trying to drag—but that was some welcome. What a thrill that was, that people like that, you know, hollering at you, “Americano! Americano!”

 

But if you want to know more about Leyte, there's a book out there. They call it The Battle of Leyte Gulf and that was Navy. The Japanese fleet was circling around to get behind the landing. They wanted to cut us off, have the troops on and—that battle lasted seventy-two hours. You got to read that. Our Navy wiped out the Japs in that encounter. But we lost over 3000 Navy guys. I don't know how many ships were sunk by the Japanese, but we did the same to them. But now we're ashore. And for all these seventy-two hours, you hear this battle going on, and, you know, if Navy loses, you're dead meat. Because the Japs are going to come in front of you and behind you. So you were kind of ready. They kept moving us from one side to another. But, you know, I anticipated Japs are going to come. But thank God that our Navy wiped them out. And I always think about at the time, “I ain't got no fucking Navy,” and the Navy guys were the ones that saved our asses. If it hadn't been for them, it would have been worse than they did in the Philippines with the baton death march. It would have been worse.

 

He [General Douglas MacArthur] got ready to make this big operation, you know, take us with the Navy, everybody, Air Force—so he laid out the plans. [Chester W.] Nimitz was the commander of all the Pacific [and he] was an admiral. So MacArthur told him that he ain’t taking no Marines. “I don't want to take no Marines. I want this to be all Army.” So Nimitz told him “You got this far on the back of the Marines. You are taking Marines. We get aboard ship one day out to sea. They call us up on deck, and they are reading orders. We had the marine dungaree jacket [which] has a pocket [that] says USMC and a Marine emblem. He made us cut that off because he didn't want nobody to see that we were Marines, and all our trucks that said USMC, [they] painted over it. I don't know where one of our officers found a four by eight sheet and he puts, “With the grace of God and a few Marines, MacArthur returns to the Philippines.” MacArthur found out about it, and he wanted to court martial that officer for doing [that]. There was this newspaper called “Stars and Stripes,” and they went to MacArthur and told him, “If you court martial that guy, then we are going to put in the paper what you did making the Marines cut their pockets off.” So he backed off.

 

00;49;10 - 00;49;15

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Wow. And you are a two time Purple Heart recipient?

 

00;49;15 - 00;52;58

LOU BORIA: I was wounded. When we landed, we had officers there, and they saw how bad the situation might be, whether you might need some help from the artillery or mortar fire. So they're always behind you. The infantry always up front. So, they put me to be shotgun. They call it shotgun, you’re the guy with the officer. So you with him, you carry his gear while he's with binoculars, making adjustments. So we got into a counter. The Japs and our Marines fighting shooting at each other. So we were in the middle and the next thing I woke up, I was on the beach on a stretcher putting me on a hospital ship. [I had] a concussion that knocked me out and so that put me on board the ship.

 

I tell this story. The nurse was behind a desk, and I come up, she goes, “Oh, you stink.” She tells others “Take this guy, take him, and get him a shower. Stay with him.” They brought me in, I got a shower. I slept for two days, maybe even three. “Let him stay, when he gets hungry, he’ll wake up.” But what a pleasure that was, [having] white sheets, being able to take a bath. Who knows how long I had been without—onboard ship, it was saltwater. And that's horrible. Nobody thinks about this, but once you get off the ship, that boat is speeding to get to the beach. But when they get close to the beach, they reverse the engines [as] it is supposed to ease in. And so when they reverse the engines, all the sand comes up. So when you get out, all that gets into your body, into your crotch area. So your boots now you're walking a day or two without—and by time you take your socks off is full of blood because the sands gets in between your toes. It's like sandpaper, every time you walking and in your crotch area. There's no place you're going to go to wash up or put creams on. There's no such thing. So the clothes you have on, you might have [them] on for another two or three days before you get pulled off the lines and sent back—if.  If it gets a real bad combat, there might be another two or three more days. So that's one of the worst parts about combat, going in and getting bathed in salt. Imagine you get that rubbing and the salt in the water gets in there and the pain that you have and your toes, your feet, you got socks. You got a pack on your back that's soaked wet. When you go to size, everything is wet. So now you got to put, if you're lucky enough to have socks, to be able to put [them] on.

 

00;52;59 - 00;53;05

ALICE BORIA: Did you talk about taking the bodies off the ship? Did you talk about taking the bodies off the ship at Leyte?

 

00;53;05 - 00;57;24

LOU BORIA:  After we landed the next morning, the sergeant tells me “Get in that Jeep. Go now to the beach get some ammo and rations, you know, food.” So I got into the Jeep and got back. When I got down to the beach, this major—they call him the big beach master, he controls everything—said, “I need you two guys.” I said, “We got to get back.” [He said], “What outfit you in?” So I tell him, and he [responded], “There no Marines here!” I said, “I wish it was so, but we are here.” He was shocked to hear that there were Marines. They thought it was all Army guys. “I'll take care of that, but I need you two guys.” So they put us on a boat of one of the boats—I don't know, have you ever seen a battleship? The big four gun—a monster of a ship. And I'm in a little small boats! The boat pull up alongside, and it looks bigger than the Empire State Building. I was in awe. I just couldn't believe this was a ship that you can battle with. So they had a kamikaze. Those ships, all the decks were wood, so the impact that could hit [on] wood down below and blow up and kill I don’t know how many guys.

 

So now the ship can't go back out to sea to bury the dead. So there’s three days, the bodies are on deck wrapped up in stretchers. So they got to get the bodies off because the stench is horrible. So we picked up the stretcher day, and as you pick up, all the blood is soaked into the wood—pieces of bundle of black gauze, I mean, pieces of bodies. What a horrible—I was seventeen at the time. What a shock to see that those are American guys. So we took seventeen bodies off, pieces of bodies. That was tough in the mind. But anyway. The hospital ship took us to an island, New Caledonia. We stayed in a hospital there for a couple of months. And then they sent me back to Guam. And I was only there [for] a couple of weeks, and I bumped into the doctor that had taken care of me when I got wounded. He said, “What are you doing here?” I said, “I was in New Caledonia. They sent me here.” And he said, “No. When you are wounded, you can’t go back into the combat area. Go pack your stuff up and come back here.” So I went back [and] packed whatever the heck [I had], and he called the mode of transport to take me to the airport. They put me on board a cargo plane to go to Hawaii and they put me in a hospital in Hawaii and from Hawaii they sent me back to the States. And I was back at Camp Lejeune in 1946. And the war ended. So then I went home.

 

00;57;24 - 00;57;31

ALICE BORIA: When did they make the sign that said from MacArthur about the Marines? When did they make the sign on the plywood?

 

00;57;31 - 00;57;32

LOU BORIA: Oh, I told him—

 

00;57;32 - 00;57;41

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Yeah, he already told me that. So what was it like returning home?

 

00;57;41 - 01;01;23

LOU BORIA: You know, really exciting. You know, all the guys are getting out. You meeting guys that you have not seen in years. One of our guys that got hit really bad, he never recovered, I mean, this guy used to walk up and down the block, walk to the corner, walk back hours, hours every day. Rain. Shine. Snow. But he wouldn't recognize and talk to nobody and was in really bad shape. But like I said, I got back with the guys. At that time, they had what they call the 5220 club—[with] Social Security, you got $20 a week for 52 weeks. So everybody, you join the 52 club. So we used to hang out. Everybody's thinking about settling down. And they did. I met this lady, and she's pregnant, so we got to get married and that was in 1948. I had a son. So I start settling down and all of a sudden, I get the telegram, “You report back to duty.” Korea. You got to go back.

 

And that was hard. You know, now you got a son. Looking to set your family and all of sudden you get back, and you know what is coming on, you know what's happened. You have been there already. So I remember when I got on board [the] ship, and they gave [me] a boat crew number. I was in boat crew number two. They called “boat crew number two up on deck.” In the meantime, you stay down on the ship. And all this firing is going. And you’re going crazy down there trying to think what is going on. So anyway, you climb over the side of the ship, and you think everybody has gone crazy, shooting and firing guns. All of sudden, someone [gets me] and said, “Where the fuck are you going?” So I said, “C’mon sergeant, move move!” I looked up at him and just kept moving. But that was not such a smooth landing.

 

There is no sense in me trying to tell you what it was like because it is just—you just can’t…I can’t put it together. But it was not fun.

 

01;01;23 - 01;01;27

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: And how many—

 

01;01;27 - 01;01;29

LOU BORIA: Then, we got wounded again.

 

01;01;29 - 01;01;31

ALICE BORIA: Yeah. Tell him the time you were on—

 

01;01;32 - 01;03;27

LOU BORIA: Yeah, yeah. When we landed, my platoon was assigned to clear Kimpo. Kimpo was the airport in Korea, but they had been bombing blasted. So we were about maybe a hundred yards away and a stench—the smell of dead body is horrible. Guys were puking. So the Sergeant Major told me to take your platoon and go in there and clear it out. Make sure that there is no live people in there. It was horrible. The stench. All my guys—even me—we were all throwing up. So we finally got back, heading to Kimpo. They were going into Seoul, so we had to make a landing and got to take over the city of Seoul. That was another horrible—I mean guys are shooting at you from all of the apartment buildings like a maybe 5 or 6 stories high. And you got to in and run [through] these civilians, kids and women, I mean, just horrible. Everybody screaming and carrying on. And the worst part about it is that you can't talk to these people [because of] the language. So no matter what you're saying to them, you know, they don’t understand you. So the only thing you got to do was push them and shove them, get them out of the way. You know, I mean, slap them down. And they were hollering. And you really got to force them, slam them, or bayonet rifle. But [we] tried to protect their families, but they didn’t, we don't know that, you know, but it was really horrible.

 

01;03;27 - 01;03;30

ALICE BORIA: And the Japanese mixed in with them.

 

01;03;30 - 01;03;33

LOU BORIA: There wasn't the Japs. This was in Korea.

 

01;03;33 - 01;03;37

ALICE BORIA: During the war—

 

01;03;37 - 01;08;34

LOU BORIA: No, they're in the building. But the civilians paid the consequences. You can't stop because you ain't got that time. “Stop messing with that, somebody's gonna blow your head off.” From Seoul, we got on trucks and headed to Uijeongbu, [which] was the next town. So by this time, when we landed, they put us on a seventy two hour, so no sleep, nothing, you just seventy two hours, [taking] Kimpo, Seoul, and heading out. So when we got to Uijeongbu, our seventy two hours were up, so they have our relief, so they turn the trucks around and send other guys, and we come back to the rest area. So we get in their trucks and everybody’s [Boria emoted exhaustion]. So I sat back, and all the guys lay on the floor—out. All of sudden you hear “voomp, voomp,” the mortars, they dropped around. So the truck stop and we all bail out of the trucks and head for a ditch. So we were in the ditch and the mortars dropped all around. All of sudden I look, and I see there's a tank coming on the road. I ran behind the tank, and they have radio, and I said “Tank, this is infantry,” I give him—“about ten o’clock. About ten o’clock.” From where [the tank] faced, ten o’clock was more or less were we though the mortars came from. They opened fire on the tank, and I was behind the tank. The concussion must have picked me up and thrown me about ten feet. So when I landed—I was [knocked] out—the guys ran out, dragged me into the ditch. But when we got to Seoul, the medics flew me to Japan. I was in a hospital in Japan within three hours or four. I stayed in the hospital for a couple of months, then they sent me back to a replacement center. All the guys who got out of hospital went back, and they tried to get you back to your outfit, whatever outfit you were in.

 

So anyway, I am in this area, and it was Thanksgiving. November 1950. They said everybody outside for formation. So we all went outside and lined up, “Attention to orders. Any Marine that's been wounded twice is not to be sent into combat. So if you are one, report to the first sergeant office after formation.” I think it was five of us. “You guys are not going to go back into combat, we are going to send you to the Philippines.” Now this is back in Korean War, Philippines when I was there was 1944. And this is 1950. So we got aboard a ship, a Navy destroyer. It was horrible. We got so seasick. So anyway, we were one day out at sea, all of sudden up on the radio, “Attention on deck! Attention on deck! First Marine Division is in a trap.” Something like 50,000 Chinamen have the Marines in a trap. The ship turned around and took us back to Japan. So we stayed on the dock for a couple of days. All of sudden this luxury liner pulls up, put us on and sends us back to the States, Treasure Island. So I got home on Christmas Eve 1950. It was so unbelievable a trip like that. You saw the pictures [on Boria’s wall], I got called August the 6th. [I] landed in Incheon on September the 16th—not even thirty days. No training, no nothing, just right back in. Put your rifle—

 

01;08;34 - 01;08;40

ALICE BORIA: They were training guys off the back of the ship to fire their guns.

 

01;08;40 - 01;11;00

LOU BORIA:  Yeah, we had kids who never had fired a rifle. And some of these kids [reserves] just joined and when they got called, they were included in, and they never even had a rifle in their hand. So when we were onboard ship, guys who were World War Two Vets, like myself, showed them how to load it and fire. A guy didn't even know how to pull off the pin on a grenade. That was scary. A grenade has like a spoon. And it has a pin. You pull the pin out and then the spoon flies up like that [and] it ignites, so you only got seconds to throw the grenade before it blows up. So the kids [Boria emoted fear], “Give me! Get back there. Sit down. Make sure the spoon is in your hand. You pull the pin, that ain't going to go off—[ALICE: As long as you hold the spoon up]. But when you pull the pin you only got three seconds. So you could hold the grenade in your hand before you pull the pin. But once you pull that pin, you got three seconds. And it's not an open field. It's all jungle. So if you're going to throw that, you might hit a tree that bounces back. So you got to watch where you throw. But in the excitement of the war, people getting killed, screaming, carrying. That is why I say, you can’t—how could you sit in front of a group of people and tell them stories? You can't…because it's so horrible. Guys are screaming. You look over, the guy's got blood shooting out of his mouth, and his face half gone and, it's a horrible situation. Very bad. So that was my whole stories.

 

01;11;00 - 01;11;12

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: I'm curious how different or similar was your combat experience from World War Two [and] Korea?

 

01;11;12 - 01;12;55

LOU BORIA: The one thing that I can experience was that Korea was cold. We landed in September. By that time, it starts to get cold. So during the day, it would be sixty, seventy, eighty [degrees]. But at night you freeze—it was really cold. But in World War Two, you did not have that. The Philippines does not have that winter. But in Korea they have it. I was fortunate enough that I did not get there because I got wounded, but the guys that went in were ten and fifteen degrees below zero. You know what that's like? It's unbelievable. And these guys are fighting these chinks. And they were able to get out of the trap. They fought their way out of the trap. The Marines were unbelievable. If you ever get a chance, you get this book they call The Frozen Chosen. Read that book. And the outfit that I was in, they were completely wiped out. The chinks overran them. And when they overrun you, I mean, dead, wounded, they shoot everybody.

 

01;12;55 - 01;12;59

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: When did you retire from the service?

 

01;12;59 - 01;18;39

LOU BORIA: 1957. When I came back, they sent me to Camp Lejeune. And would you believe I get to Camp Lejeune, and this was funny, and it wasn't funny: I wound up with a platoon of Puerto Rican Marines. During World War Two, they never drafted into the Marines. In Korea, they drafted. So I got forty-two, forty-four, Marines and twenty-five were Puerto Rican. And these guys were drafted, so they have no love for the Marine Corps. So when I came in, I reported to Sergeant Major. So he takes me into the company commander introduces me to the—but before we go in, he looked at me [and asked], “Where you from?” I said, “I am from Brooklyn.” He said, “You tan.” I said, “No, I am Puerto Rican.” [He exclaimed], “What!?” He dragged me to the company commander. “This guy is Puerto Rican.” He said, “You do not know the problems we have. We got twenty five guys in the platoon. Their sergeant is in a hospital, a nervous breakdown. I just hope you can handle it.” I said, “I don’t know. I was born in Brooklyn. I mean, I know Spanish from the house, in the church and things like that, but, I mean, I'm not fluent.” But anyway, I took over that platoon and all you hear all day long was “No comprehendo. No comprehendo. [I don’t understand. I don’t understand.]” You got to do this— “No comprehendo.” So I said, okay. I got the platoon and marched them out from behind to barracks. I told all the guys, “Just the Puerto Ricans, stay here. The rest of you, dismissed.” And I sat there with them. They thought I was Italian, and when I started to speak Spanish, they were all like “El es Boricua! El es Boricua! [He is Puerto Rican! He is Puerto Rican]” So I told them, “You got to stop this shit.” You're going to make it horrible for me, and I'm going to make it horrible for you because they expect me to do it. So if you don't shape up, I'll put you in a brig. The first thing we're going to do is we're going to back up to the barracks, because all these guys pick one corner and they all [Boria mimicked drumming and music he witnessed] That shit's going to stop. You, down this end, white guy, together. So I separated them. And that was like if I had sentenced them to death. I told them, “That's the way it's going to be, and that’s the way it is going to stay. So do not come and give me any bullshit about it.” The next thing I got the commander put an order up on the bulletin board “No Spanish speaking during working hours.” “Let me tell you something,” I said, I used to sit with them, “you're going to Korea. When you get there, you get up on the lines, you just holler out no comprehendo and then they won't shoot you. Now, if you believe that, what are you going to do? You have got to get with the program. Because that guy that's in a foxhole with you, if you don't, otherwise he has to blow your fucking head off. So if you want to make it back, you better get with it.”

 

In the Marine Corps, when you finish bootcamp, you get ten day leave. But with the Puerto Rican guys, they couldn't do that because they [needed] tickets to fly to Puerto Rico and then fly back. So I told them, “We're going to send you back to Camp Lejeune. You go for infantry training. At the end of that, we're going to go to Vegas on maneuvers. So when we go to Vegas on maneuvers, we give you guys your ten day leave. Not all of you at one time.” I was a sergeant then, and they said, “Make a list of the Puerto Rican guys so we can [try] to get ten guys at a time to go.” And so I gave him the list and the company commander tells the first sergeant “Put Boria’s name on there, he gets ten day leave too. He deserves it.” So I have never been to Puerto Rico, so I just got ten days leave so that I was able to contact my father. He meet me on the ship that pulled into San Juan, and I spent ten days. He took me around to meet all the family. And it was a great time.

 

01;18;39 - 01;18;45

ALICE BORIA: You had a guy that got chickenpox that didn't get to go?

 

01;18;45 - 01;23;56

LOU BORIA: Oh, yeah. This guy [Alice] remembers all my stories. He gets the measles. So now they put him in a sickbay. You got to keep him away from the rest of the guys. So it took two days to get to Vegas. The Navy guy told him, “You are not going to get your ten-day leave. You got the measles, and you got to keep you away from the guys and they will take you back to the States.” Montañez. That’s the guy’s name. So the guy runs out of the sickbay, runs downstairs, gets a bayonet and he's threatening all the NCOs. I'm up on deck and all of sudden I hear, “Sergeant Boria report to your compartment immediately!” So I go running downstairs and there's this guy with a bayonet, and this officer captain, and he's got his .45 pointed at him to drop his bayonet. And he’s cursing and carrying on—he went berserk. So I walked up to him, and tell him “Que carajo te pasa a ti? Tu esta loco? [What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you crazy?]” So he’s telling me what’s going, and I said, “You stupid son of a bitch. This is the base! We come off the ship, you stay behind because you have measles. Now the sickbay opens up, they take you and put you in sickbay here until your measles are over and then you get your ten days!” Finally, after all that I got him to understand. Now, he’s crying [and] breaks down, so they take him and bring him back up. Now the captain wants to court martial him [for] challenging an officer. We go up on deck and I said, “This guy really is not a bad guy, but they got this thing, and they didn't get boot leave. And they're all counting on this, you know, getting this boot leave. He’s not really fluent, so he’s not really understanding what they're saying. But they told him that they're going to take him back. So I wish that you think over this.” [The officer responded], “I will let you know later.” He was really arrogant. I tried the best I can, so I go back and I tell him, “You know what? Now you don't have to worry about ten days. What you got to worry about is how many years they're going to send you to prison for threatening an officer with a bayonet, which you did, and you have all those people down there know that you did.” Now he's really gone berserk. He's on the floor. So the doctor came in to give him a shot to snuck him out and they put him in a bunk. Then the company commander called me on deck, and we talked for a while. I said, “You know that Montañez, he's not really a bad guy. He just lost it because they are counting on these ten days.” Later that morning, he called me and told me “He's going to be okay. Don’t worry about it.” So that was a real nice feeling.

 

These guys turned out to be really good. I drilled them up and back and then I had them [do] a drill call “count off,” [where] we count off as we are marching and I would get them right in front of the barracks, and they counted off and marching, “Hey! Look at those Puerto Ricans, they are really stepping out!” But it was a great feeling to see that, get him really counting off.

 

01;23;56 - 01;24;02

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Especially for you that you started out, you know, in a similar position now you're leading—

 

01;24;02 - 01;27;46

LOU BORIA: Oh, it was horrible. Every place you went, “that fucking Puerto Rican,” and they would get together and you can't blame them, you know, they have nobody else. So they all got together, carrying on with their guitars and maracas. That's what they knew.

 

In the town of Jacksonville, North Carolina, you couldn't go to the restaurants. And you know with Puerto Ricans, there's white guys and there's black guys. So the white guys do not want to leave the white guys behind, so they wouldn't go into town because nobody would accept them in town because they couldn’t speak English. So it was tough. It was tough for them. But we worked.

 

One of the guys that was there was named Rivera. And he was born in Puerto Rico, but his family came to New York when he was three or four years old. So he grew up in the Bronx. And then the family decided to go back to Puerto Rico. So they went back. So he was living in Puerto Rico. And he got drafted. The guy who speaks English, fluent. He was six foot something, big guy. He directed and also gave advice. So my brother was in the same company as me, but he was a machine gun platoon, and I was in a rifle platoon. But my brother was only a PFC [Private First Class] and I was a sergeant. So sergeant’s privilege, you walk, you don't stand at lines at the chow. [They] have a table for sergeants only. So my brother, he cannot come over to sit with me in the mess hall cause he's a PFC and I'm a sergeant. So we always waited [for each other], he went outside and waited for me, and then we talked for a while. This guy, Rivera, he came over and [asked for a seat in Spanish]. I turned my head away and kept eating. A sergeant who sat there said “He ain’t talking to me! This is a sergeant table! He wants to talk me, [go] outside and wait out there.” So he got the message. So then I told him, “You pull that shit one more one time on me, you're going to be [inaudible]. I ain’t going to the company commander. I'll take it out on you. So you want to think you're badass with that? Let’s find out.” But he calmed down and a couple of the guys went after him. They told him, “Hey, no hay una persona aquí que es más decente pa nosotros que el sargento [There is not a person here who is more decent to us than the sergeant], so cool it.” But they graduated—they did great.

 

What the hell is this guy's name? It's so hard to remember way back then, but there was one guy who I think was five foot one and black as you could be. I mean, black. [He] might as well have been black in Puerto Rico, you know what I mean?

 

01;27;46 - 01;27;57

ALICE BORIA: That kind of threw the white guys off, they didn't understand because he wasn't that dark.

 

01;27;57 - 01;27;58

LOU BORIA: Well, like I said, see, in Puerto Rico, the thing is that the white people, the Spaniards were so tough and rough on the [indigenous] people in Puerto Rico. So that 90% all took off for the hills. They didn't have any servants. So what they did, they brought Africans to Puerto Rico. So [over] the years, you got Blacks in Puerto Rico like now. But during World War Two, a Puerto Rican was considered white. I had three guys that I knew, black guys, that were put with white guys, although they had volunteered to put them with the Black guys because the white guys didn't want to talk to them. But because he was Puerto Rican, they put up with the white guys.

 

01;29;00 - 01;29;05

ALICE BORIA: What about the Montford Marines?

 

01;29;05 - 01;29;06

LOU BORIA: Huh?

 

01;29;06 - 01;29;08

ALICE BORIA: What happened with the Montford Marines?

 

01;29;08 - 01;29;14

LOU BORIA: They went through boot camp and everything.

 

01;29;14 - 01;29;16

ALICE BORIA: But explain what that is.

 

01;29;16 - 01;30;47

LOU BORIA: At Camp Lejeune, the white guys went to Munford Point and the Black guys. But they were trained drilled and everything by blacks. So one day you had a couple of guys from Chicago and Brooklyn. So they weren't used to that kind of treatment. They started edging guys on. So they grabbed the rifle, but they had no ammo. So they want to fight. So they called back to the base where I was at, guys all got rifles and bayonets, put them on trucks and took us over there. So they lined us all up and telling the Blacks to turn the rifles down and to walk out each one. So it took about twenty minutes. Somebody had the lock where the ammo was. If they had gotten ammo, it would have been a slaughter. But after that I think it was in 1950 that Truman integrated all the troops [Truman integrated the Armed Forces in 1948].

 

01;30;47 - 01;30;52

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: And that was one of the last things you did in the service leading those Puerto Ricans.

 

01;30;52 - 01;30;52

LOU BORIA: Yeah.

 

01;30;52 - 01;30;55

ALICE BORIA: You trained school troops, which were Korean officers.

 

01;30;55 - 01;32;34

LOU BORIA: From Camp Lejeune, I got transferred to Quantico, Virginia, and they had Korean officers come to training. So I wounded up what they call schools troops. We were thirty something guys on a platoon, and every time these Koreans go out, we would go with them, you know, simulate. We made a beachhead landing at night, you know, and they were the enemy. We were the aggressors. So we hit the beach. It was about 3:00 in the morning, and we hit the beach, real quiet, so all of sudden, this Korean grabbed my rifle. So I'm a yanking with him. So he said “You’re my prisoner! You're my prisoner!” [I said], “I’d fuck you up.” And I gave this guy a shot on his chest. He went back, I could hear, oh, moaning. I mean, I took off, I said, that's all I needed was to get back to the base. You know, if you get taken prisoner or anything like that, they hold you overnight and in some instances the guy that takes you prisoner gets your boots. So, I mean, I'm a World War Two Korean veteran and I am gonna let a fucking Korean take me prison? I said, shit. So when I got back, I tell this story and everybody, everybody [said], “you must have craved his chest in.” I said, “He messed around with the wrong guy.”

 

01;32;35 - 01;32;36

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Yeah he did.

 

01;32;36 - 01;32;40

LOU BORIA: He could have asked somebody to be a prisoner. Not me.

 

01;32;40 - 01;32;46

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Once you retired, did you return to Brooklyn, or [did] you live somewhere else?

 

01;32;46 - 01;37;17

LOU BORIA: No, I went back [to Brooklyn]. I got a job. Like I said, I don't have a high school diploma. And at the time now everybody and his brother is a veteran. You're in New York, you got millions of people. And maybe three or four million [of these] guys are veterans. So as a veteran you got five points preference in any government jobs, so the city [including] police, fire, and sanitation department and a transit authority all came under New York City. So if you wanted a job there, you got to take a test. If you pass the test, then you add on the five points. But you got to pass the test. You can only use it after you pass the test. I met a guy, I was driving a truck, and I pull up, and of all sudden this guy, “Oh, Louie, Louie!” screaming at me. “I thought you was in the Marines.” I talked to him about it, what had happened, and everything else. So I said, “I'm looking for a job. I'm driving this truck. I got 150 a week, but I got to drive six days a week.” [He responded], “Why don’t you go to Squibb?” This place is a pharmaceutical. He said, “They're hiring a bunch of people there.” So I parked the truck. I went to Squibb, and I filled out the application. The interviewer said, “I can't give you this. The only opening I have right now is for porters and my conscious bothers me that guy like you, World War Two and Korea [Veteran] to offer you [this] job.” So I tell her, “What's the pay?” And she said, “I think 850, forty hours.” I said, “I'm driving this truck six days for 150. I’ll take the job.” She said, “No, no, no, you go home. Think about it. And come back in the morning if you want.” So I came back.

 

That week I started working overtime Saturday. So instead of 150, I was making a 175. But [there were] levels from one to fifteen. So within a couple of years I went up to level thirteen working. So I was making good money. Then they came out with penicillin. Now we're working seven days a week. So I was making real good money. I put a down payment on a house. Then they come along and say that the factory is moving to Jersey. So I could always drive, you know, he said “No, you start at the bottom. They have a different union. So you got to start at the bottom and work your way up.” It is your turn to go to the city. I got applications for police, fire, sanitation and transit. And each application you have to pay $25. So I filled all the applications, and mailed them in. And I sat and waited. The company called me in and told me this coming April, you're going to get laid off. You got seven weeks pay coming. We are going to give it, and then you get laid off. When I got home that night, I got a letter from the Transit Authority to come for induction to get the job. So I went down, took the test, [and] I passed. I got laid off Friday, Monday morning I started working for the Transit Authority. So I worked for one year as a conductor on the trains.

 

01;37;17 - 01;37;20

ALICE BORIA: And what happened on the trains? What happened on the trains?

 

01;37;20 - 01;38;07

LOU BORIA: The conductor gets up and he looks up and down, opens the doors, closes the doors. And [there were] these wise-asses, and this one guy was an old guy, he stood by the pole when the train pulled in. He was reading the paper. So I look up and down, and I close the doors and as I close the doors and the trains starts to move, this guy rolled the paper up, and wham! Slammed me over the head with the newspaper. The kids ran up. “Mister! Mister!” “Yeah?” And they spat right in [my] face.

 

01;38;07 - 01;38;18

ALICE BORIA: They would tear the cushions off of the seats and throw them off the windows and some weird stuff.

 

01;38;18 - 01;40;19

LOU BORIA: It was horrible. The job was horrible. So I called the sanitation department. And all of these were tests. I took the test. 40,000 guys took the test for sanitation. 40,000. Now I'm forty two, forty three years old something like that and these guys are all twenty year olds because it was open for everybody, so that's how they wound up with 40,000. So I took the test. I took the test and [after I took] the physical, and the physical told you where you winded up on the job, whether you made it in or out. So you got to pass the physical. So I took all the weights, the bench and sit ups and passed everything. The last one, I got to broad jump six feet and there's a guy there with the camera. He said, “If you make, you will be on a front page in the newspaper.” I tried three times, and I just could not make it to six feet. So I wound up number three on the list.

 

DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion]. What is it? Trump knocked it off. If you were black—

 

01;40;20 - 01;40;21

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Yeah. DEI.

 

01;40;21 - 01;47;37

LOU BORIA: So that allowed so many guys to get it, but I didn't want no part of that shit. If I can’t make it, then I don’t. So anyway, I told everybody, my friends, and people. “Basurero? [Garbage man?] You are going to pick up garbage? You’re a veteran.” So I told them, “Yeah, I will pick up the garbage. That's what I'm going to do. Five weeks’ vacation a year. Tell me what jobs you know of that you could get five weeks’ vacation a year.” Unlimited sick leave. Medical benefits for your wife, your kids, everything. Dental for your wife and kids. And you get I think it was $400 every year for uniform allowances and the sanitation department is paramilitary. So they have officers. So you could take the test and become an officer.

 

I went to work in the Bronx picking up garbage. I think I put three years picking up garbage there. I took the test [to become an officer]. I passed. In the Marine Corps, I was a sergeant. Now, I am a lieutenant. The same color uniform. Marine green. So now I'm an officer and no more picking up garbage. Now I'm the supervisor. I worked like that for a couple of more years. I took the test again and became a captain. So now I retired as a captain. I got a nice pension.

 

One day they had a big problem up in the Bronx. Usually they got three guys on a truck working and in the section we were in was the Puerto Rican area. So one of the guys was dating a girl, Puerto Rican girl there. So anyway, they met through the times he picked up the garbage and he was talking. So I don't know [what he said, but] he said something to her, and she slapped him. So he slapped her back. She went up, and told her brother and they got a gang that came down, and the guy's got in a cab and he left the truck. They set the truck on fire. When the police came, sanitation, the firemen, they threw bottles and everything. So the firemen pull back and told me, “If you don't, that truck just burn right in the middle of the street.” So finally, the firemen put the fire out. But now they had to open up the back tail of the truck, and all that garbage had spilled into the street, and the stench [as well]. The commanding officer called and said, “Boria is Puerto Rican. Look, you don't have to go. But if you go, you can go in and talk to the people, see what you can do.” [I replied], “Yeah. Okay. I’ll go.” I went over there, and you know, it was “Hey, motherfucker.” I got to tell you what “They know you did it and your friends. They know that. They know your name and where you live. They got everything. That truck is worth something like seven, eight hundred thousand dollars. And they know you did it. And I'm not here for that. I don’t give a f—. My job is if I can get that truck out of here. I don't want no problems from you or your friends with the fire department. So I am going to wait for you guys to say it is okay and I'll get the truck out. And if they say no, then you're in trouble because sooner or later they're gonna come and get you. Even if they have to arrest everybody or what are they gotta do here.”

 

So anyway, he talked with his guys a little bit, and I made a point. I said, “You say no, I go back, I tell him no and I'm free. But they got to get that truck out of here. So they're going to get the cops to come down here, and they come to the house and arrest you. And if you [flee] you are going to get a couple of people shot, you are going to get a couple people hurt, but they're going to arrest you. You're going to go. They're going to take you in.” So anyway, he decided to take the chance. So I got the truck out. And we had sweepers and flusher machines. I really did a nice job cleaning the place all up. So they guy in charge sent a letter downtown, complimenting what I had done. So the commission said, “I want to meet that guy.” So they told me to get dressed, put [my] job uniform. They don't have to tell me how to—I have been in the Marines—I know how to wear a uniform. So, I mean, I was top. So when I went down there, I got on the elevator, a middle aged guy got on the elevator with me. “Wow, I never seen an officer look as sharp as you do.” So he asked me questions, “I was in the Marines.” “Oh!” We started to talk. The doors open, he said, “Come on, come with me.” I said, “No, no, no, I got to go to the commissioner's office on the fifth floor.” He said, “Come with me.” So he pulled me up. “Who's that? He's the deputy commissioner!” So he got all the information from me. “He was a Marine?” I said, “In World War Two and Korea.” He said, “You were wounded, you got two purple hearts?” I said, “Yeah.” “You're Puerto Rican?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “You speak Spanish?” I said “Oh, I mean, I don't speak the cleanest Spanish, but I could get it on.” He said, “Monday morning you report here, you are going to do public relations with me.” So for three years that's what I did. Just go to meetings. Different Puerto Rican offices and then I retired. Then I met this lady [Boria pointed to Alice, his second wife]. But my [first] wife, we were married [for] sixty-three years and then she got Alzheimer's. So she has been gone now for twelve years, now.

 

01;47;37 - 01;47;38

ALICE BORIA: Twelve, thirteen years now.

 

01;47;38 - 01;48;05

LOU BORIA: She died in 2013. I met her [Alice] in the church. [Alice] came to my fiftieth wedding anniversary. Her husband came too because we go to the same church. So we have known each other for over thirty years.

 

01;48;05 - 01;48;11

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: What drew you to live in Apopka, Central Florida? And what year?

 

01;48;11 - 01;48;13

ALICE BORIA: When did you retire and move to Florida?

 

01;48;13 - 01;48;19

LOU BORIA: I came down in 1991.

 

01;48;19 - 01;48;22

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: And what drew you about Florida, you just wanted to live here for your retirement?

 

01;48;22 - 01;48;27

LOU BORIA: Yeah. So I was retired, I worked for the…

 

01;48;27 - 01;48;30

ALICE BORIA: You wanted to get away from the cold weather up north.

 

01;48;30 - 01;48;32

LOU BORIA: What was the school?

 

01;48;32 - 01;48;35

ALICE BORIA: Seminole County schools, Lake Brantley.

 

01;48;3 - 01;50;31

LOU BORIA: I worked for Lake Brantley for a while. You know, just to have something to do. I was bored. I don't golf. I don’t do that shit. Then the wife got sick, so I had to quit the job, stay home, take care of her. So that's how I wound up meeting her [Alice]. I had a house and sold the house. And we came here. So her parents owned this, and they had passed away. So it needed a lot of work. So we did. We fix it all up with new floors and a new kitchen. So we're here, it has been a great nice move. I won her [Alice] at the church. We had five old ladies. I told them, “to qualify you have to have your own teeth and you had to be able to jump rope.” So she had her own teeth, and she beat the other old ladies. And I tell that story to all the people, how I won her at the church. She was born and raised in Florida. So we went on a honeymoon. So we have a coffee pot at the church and everybody gets around there. So, the ladies, “Louie, how did you everything go?” I said, “I hate to tell you this, but, you know, she's a redneck, and she chews tobacco. She walks around the house with a tin cup, spitting and we get in the car, and she rolls and spits out the window and all the juice goes on the hood of the car.” So the ladies went, “Really, Lou? Really?” All of sudden, she walked up from behind and said—

 

01;50;31 - 01;50;33

ALICE BORIA: What's he telling you now?

 

01;50;33 - 01;50;44

LOU BORIA: “What are you telling these ladies now!?” But it was funny. Yeah. We get along great, been together for nine years now.

 

01;50;44 - 01;50;47

ALICE BORIA: Nine years in August.

 

01;50;47 - 01;50;55

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: And you were one of the founding members of the church you attend, correct? Talk to me about that.

 

01;50;55 - 01;51;59

LOU BORIA: The mailman in the area was a member of First Baptist in Apopka. So we're talking about, as he said, “Why don’t you come to our church.” He said, “Come Wednesday night, they have dinner and a service.” I think our dinner was for $5 or something like that. So we don't have a church. So I said okay. So we went. So we had the dinner and went to service. All of a sudden they wanted to get rid of the pastor and this and that. So I told her, “Oh, come on, let's get the hell out. these people are crazy.” So we walked out. As we walked out, another couple [left], and we [introduced each other]. And we told them about the mailman. What was his name again?

 

01;51;59 - 01;52;00

ALICE BORIA: Jerry Floyd.

 

01;52;00 - 01;52;28

LOU BORIA: Yeah, Jerry. I told [the couple] that Ford invited us. They said, “Why don’t you give us your number?” He said, “We are looking maybe to start something.” I said, okay. A couple of weeks later, they called us. They're going to have a meeting. Do you think you could come? So we got about fourteen, fifteen people. The pastor was going to resign. He was going to come with us. So we did that. Then we got a storefront.

 

01;52;28 - 01;52;30

ALICE BORIA: We met [at] homes.

 

01;52;30 - 01;52;35

LOU BORIA: So her parents came, and she came, and we started to church together. So we have been—

 

01;52;35 - 01;52;37

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: And what year was a.

 

01;52;37 - 01;52;45

ALICE BORIA: Oh gosh, [individual name] was what? Recently turned 24. He was a baby. It was just twenty five years ago.

 

01;52;45 - 01;52;46

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: So like 2000.

 

01;52;46 - 01;52;53

ALICE BORIA: Yeah, about 2000 we started church because he was one of the first babies in the church.

 

01;52;53 - 01;53;02

LOU BORIA: Like I said, we had the fiftieth wedding in 2003, and we were at the church already.

 

01;53;02 - 01;53;05

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: So it had to before, yeah.

 

01;53;05 - 01;53;12

LOU BORIA: So she came with her husband to the…

 

01;53;12 - 01;53;19

ALICE BORIA: We got a nice building on a beautiful piece of property on Welch Road, and everything is paid off. The church is debt free.

 

01;53;19 - 01;53;20

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Wow, nice.

 

01;53;21 - 01;53;38

ALICE BORIA: We got a nice group of people there. The pastor that we had retired, his wife had cancer, and his son is our pastor now, but, Brother Don is still there, so that's good. We still see them a lot.

 

01;53;38 - 01;53;57

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: And lastly how has World War Two and Korean War memory changed since those conflicts have ended from your perspective? Like when people talk about those conflicts, how has [that] changed since the past eighty years?

 

01;53;57 - 01;56;01

LOU BORIA: Like I said, years ago when I first got out back in ’57, my wife and I talked about getting a high school diploma at least. So I went to school for a couple of nights and took the test, and I got the diploma. In those days, it was the right after World War Two. And, now all the guys, the sons of these refugees that had come from Europe, now their sons are Americans. The Italian-American guys that went to Italy were killing their cousins. You know, and the Irish and the Germans. So that when they came back, it was different. Now, you were in a platoon, and the guys from New York was the Irish guys that you didn't talk to because he was Irish and he didn't talk to you because you're Italian, so now all of a sudden you were together and you found out that you were Americans—forget that bullshit about being Italians or whatever, and that was the way it was in New York. Each group had their own neighborhoods, their own stores, their own churches. But after the war, the guys broke away from that. “You can't keep doing that, mom. You can't keep doing that, dad.” So then [we] integrated. When that guy wrote that book, the best American citizens? He wrote a book…

 

01;56;01 - 01;56;03

ALICE BORIA: I cannot recall.

 

01;56;03 - 01;56;15

LOU BORIA: What the heck was that guy's name? The best of Americans citizens or something like that. He wrote a book about it.

 

01;56;15 - 01;56;26

ALICE BORIA: There is still Little Havana and there is still sections, but there's more sections that are—

 

01;56;26 - 01;56;32

LOU BORIA: Dominated over. The only people were done was the Mafia. They became big.

 

01;56;32 - 01;56;32

ALICE BORIA: Yeah.

 

01;56;32 - 01;56;50

LOU BORIA: At the time. But then as time went by, as less and less because, you know, now there's sons want to do better than to be a gangster, you know, so that the times have changed—

 

01;56;50 - 01;56;56

ALICE BORIA: That's what I meant, the more into the suburbs today broke some of that apart.

 

01;56;56 - 02;04;23

LOU BORIA: So that opened the door for a lot of people, especially guys who were veterans. One time in New York, you could get five veterans for a nickel. Everybody was a veteran. But, like I said, I was very fortunate—that's not the word I use. I use blessed. I have been blessed that God has been good to me. I mean, really blessed with all the things that happened with the wars and raising my kids. In fact, one of my sons is a Doctor of Divinity. He has a big church in New Hampshire. I was able to get the job and progress. As I said, I had seventeen cent shoes and now I drive a Cadillac. So I have been great. And like I said, I was a Marine. They got me out of a “fucking Puerto Rican” to a Marine.

 

I had an incident that happened. During the Korean War, they had combat pay. In World War Two, [we] did not [receive] anything. I had enough money to put a down payment on a car. So I bought a Mercury, beautiful, white with red leather seats. It was great. And like I said, we lived on Atlantic Avenue and the streets had parking meters. So I used to go to visit my mom, and when I came down, I got a twenty five dollar ticket. So I don't know how many times that happened. I told my mom, “I can't park here anymore. I got to park in the street behind.” The street behind was Pacific Street, and all the Puerto Ricans that had come from Puerto Rico [that] they used to call them the Mighty Tigers [lived] back in that block. So I parked the car there and I walked over to my mom’s [place], all of sudden, I hear “Hey, hey, you, hey, hey!” So I walked [and thought], “This guy ain’t fucking talking to me.” I was in civilian clothes. So I kept walking. I am still in the Marines. This guy continued, “Hey! Hey!” All of sudden he drove his police car up on the sidewalk and cut me off. “I am calling you!” I said, “Who the fuck told you my name was ‘hey, you?’” I said, I am not gonna put up with this shit no more. “Oh, you speak English?” I [replied], “Oh, you speak English too? Oh, That's nice! You a wiseguy?” And he [tried] to grab me, and I twisted his arm. I said, “Don't play fucking game with me. Now, what's your problem?” He said, “Is that your car?” [I responded], “That's my car.” I gave the identification of the car. “It seems like you…” I said, “Hey! Seems? You're making a mistake. It is not ‘seems.’ I am. I am.” The sergeant in the police car got out and told the guy to take it easy, slow down. I gave him my ID card. “Oh, you're a Marine?” So the [other] guy almost shit his pants. “You a Marine?” “I am a Marine.” I explained how every time I parked my car when visiting my mom, I get sentences [fines]. He said, “Okay. Go. Go ahead.” But the other cop [wanted] to play freaking games. I told the sergeant, “This guy is going to get you killed. These guys go up on the roof and throw garbage cans at the cops from the roof. One of these days, this guy—because of his attitude—is danger for you.”

 

Like I said, you get guys like that, and then you guys get nice guys. If I'm gonna raise my family, my attitude [must] change. I can't battle this bullshit all the time. If that guy said something, shame on him. Although [when] I started a job, I traded the car, and I bought a brand new automobile at the time. So the guys in my section [told me], “Hey, you bought a new car!? You doing okay! Why don’t you bring it? We would like to see it.” So I brought the car in and then went out. I came back to the car, [and] they had smashed the driver's seat door—brand new car. Inside [I knew] that's prejudice because I'm Puerto Rican and [I knew] 90% of the Italian guys. So some guy wrote the guy's name, and he put it on my desk. So when I saw the name, I knew I had this guy. I had it all along. I figured he was the guy. But nobody would come out and tell me. So I sat there and said, “I'm going to get that fucking Guinea.” So I got a .45. I went looking for this guy one day. On the second day, I said, “I'm going to shoot that fucking Guinea for a door? For a door, I'm going to kill that guy? Go to jail. My family…” I went back to the house, and I never touched that gun again. Never. I think we got rid of it. My brother gave it to my brother or something. But I thought about that and said “Wow. If I had done that, that would have been the end of my family, the job.”

 

02;04;23 - 02;04;42

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Well, Mr. Boria, thank you so much—first of all—for your service to this country. We all appreciate it. And thank you for taking some time out of your day to speak with me and share your life story. I really appreciate it.

 

02;04;42 - 02;04;57

LOU BORIA: Thank you. It is good to see young blood doing things. Hopefully you could follow this up and someday you get behind a nice radio station, with news and...

 

02;04;57 - 02;04;58

SEBASTIAN GARCIA: Hopefully. Yeah.

 

02;04;59 - 02;05;02

LOU BORIA: Yeah. That’d be nice to see.