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Dr. E. W. Branyon’s Bio
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came. So I was an advanced freshman by December 7th when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. We were studying and a radio spewed it out. We didn’t know what it meant, only that it shook things up. We went back to
studying.
It was about the same when FDR died. We were playing softball in Tuscaloosa by Denny Chimes when a loudspeaker announced it. We kept playing. It didn’t impress me either way. You don’t get excited about big events when you’ve got something else you’re sup- posed to be doing.
At Alabama I mostly studied and took lots of labs. German was especially hard. My roommate would be dating and I’d be translat- ing German. He’d get an A and I’d get a C.
We had ROTC classes twice a week and on Wednesdays, a formal parade around Denny Chimes that was reviewed by the head knock- ers. Sometimes you’d be at attention so long in the hot summer in full dress uniform that guys started fainting. We learned basic military rules of warfare, famous battles, and important decisions of generals.
We practiced with a 6-inch diameter, 13- foot-long artillery gun, using tangents and co- tangents to measure how much powder to put in
