9. Camp Jobs

Royal G. Jackson: Some of them actually did, though?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Well.

Royal G. Jackson: So there weren't any private vehicles except for the military officers on the base?

Edward Sekermestrovich: That's right. Ask the officers they had the fancy ones. But they would stay on the base maybe a month at a time, them officers, and then they would take a week off or something; one of them would stay and the other one would take a week off.

Royal G. Jackson: May have been some off the base but it wasn't common practice?

Edward Sekermestrovich: No, it wasn't common.

Royal G. Jackson: Most of the boys didn't have very much money, I assume? Or they wouldn't have been in the 3-C program?

Edward Sekermestrovich: That's right.

9. Camp Jobs

Royal G. Jackson: From what kind of background had most of those 3-C boys come -- from cities, or from farms, or what?

Edward Sekermestrovich: I'd say they were from cities. And some of them were farmers.

Royal G. Jackson: Kind of a mixture, then?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Yes. Just kids that couldn't get jobs some place else, and wanted to try it. Heck, we had a stone quarry out there, too. We used to dynamite just like the big boys do. We had a crew and it had just a fellow like me; he'd run the doggone dynamiting outfit.

Royal G. Jackson: Was that Bill Rhoads?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Yes. We'd just blow the rock quarry. We had a rock quarry.

Royal G. Jackson: Where was it located?

Edward Sekermestrovich: That was located at the Lewisburg and Mountain View Drive. You go north on Highland Way until you come to Lewisburg Avenue and then go down a block and a half, turn right, then turn left on Mountain View Drive one half mile on Mountain View and turn right into the quarry.

Royal G. Jackson: And that stone then was used for roads?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Roads, paths, and that's all that I know of; and around the camp.

Royal G. Jackson: Did you help do some of that blasting?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Yes, I went over there, if I didn't have nothing to do that day. I had to go to Portland to get my supplies -- see, you only had one day to get supplies and that was on Thursday. And if somebody got hurt in the vicinity of Alsea, or else Triangle Lake or Mill City, anytime one of them got hurt on the job or something like that, I'd have to go pick him up.

Royal G. Jackson: That's a pretty big area to cover.

Edward Sekermestrovich: And then I'd take him to the Vancouver Barracks.

Royal G. Jackson: In Portland?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Yes.

Royal G. Jackson: Now, why were you the one to do that?

Edward Sekermestrovich: I was hooked with the Army at last.

Royal G. Jackson: Toward the end of your commitment?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Yes. They put me on an ambulance, and I went to the Presidio and picked up a new one. I had two of them.

Royal G. Jackson: Presidio, California?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Yes. I drove it back home, right here to Corvallis.

Royal G. Jackson: So Camp Arboretum had its own ambulance?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Yes, we had our own ambulance.

Royal G. Jackson: Were there that many people that got hurt in the 3-C program?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Well, we took care of side camps, too; they called them side camps.

Royal G. Jackson: How was a side camp different from Camp Arboretum? Did it have a smaller population?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Well, they never said that the Alsea Camp was a side camp of ours; they just called it a side camp, and I don't know why. It was a different company altogether.

Royal G. Jackson: Did they have regular buildings like you did?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Just like we did, yes. They had offices just like we did, and they had mess halls just like we did. I've ate in them; I've slept there if I had to, when I was out of town. You just go into a supply place and check out a bed and you get to sleep there.

Royal G. Jackson: Then there were a lot of accidents that caused you to drive?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Well, that's on Forest Service land and Forest Service fires, too. Like we had the Smith River fire, I was out on that fire for two to three weeks, straight, before I came

Edward Sekermestrovich: back to camp. But they'd make the mess lines there and everything; I could sleep in it anytime. And then we had a fire, they called the Gooseneck; that was on the other side of Dallas. Well, that didn't last long; we done that in two to three days. The other fellows came up with trucks. I'd take the ambulance and sit by them unless -- if something happens in the meantime -- nobody's hurt there and a call comes from some place else.

Royal G. Jackson: How did you get the calls?

Edward Sekermestrovich: I don't know. We didn't have two way radio, but we got them. The officer always knew. They didn't have walkie-talkies and stuff they got today.

Royal G. Jackson: The officer would notify you that there was an accident somewhere?

Edward Sekermestrovich: A call, yes. And if the fellow was too bad, we could drop him off at any hospital here, but if he could last long enough to get to Vancouver Barracks, we'd take him there.

Royal G. Jackson: What was the typical kind of accident that you mostly dealt with?

Edward Sekermestrovich: When you cut your hand with an axe, or your foot, or something like that, or back trouble. We'd take them up there. Went on the fires the same way -- if he gets smoked or something like that we tried to take him to the closest town, and if the doctor figures he can go to Vancouver, he tells you, and we take him up.

Royal G. Jackson: Specifically, at Camp Arboretum, what kind of accidents were there that you remember?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Well, there were some freaky ones once in a while -- just accidents that just happen, and other people make them happen once in a while. But other than that it would be just like anyplace else; when you work in a factory it would be the same way.

Royal G. Jackson: The usual kind, though. Cut hands, cut foot.

Edward Sekermestrovich: Cut hands, and you'd cut your foot with an axe and you'd chop your shoe off and stuff like that.

Royal G. Jackson: How about the dynamite? Did anyone ever get blown up?

Edward Sekermestrovich: Never did get hurt. Nobody at all. Never got hit by a rock. Well, we broke some windows one day on a truck. [Laughter] Nobody got hurt. We never carried off dead or anything like that.