From the interview with Helen Virden of Marshall, WI conducted by Patience Rogge by phone from the Fort Worden History Center on May 27, 2008. Mrs. Virden , the widow of U.S. Army Sergeant Kenneth M. Virden, lived in NCO quarters at Fort Worden in the 1950’s. Here she recalls a tragic incident involving a family friend:

“We met a lot of nice people (at Fort Worden). There was one couple that we met there, he had been in a Japanese prison camp. He came home and his wife got pregnant. She went into to the hospital to have her baby and he was so excited. My husband and I were great friends with them. He called me up, my husband was working, and said she was going to have the baby. ‘So, Helen, come on up and have a drink with me.’ I said ‘Oh no, I can’t do that. I’ve got the kids.” He said, ‘Oh, come on.’ I said, ‘No, I can’t, I’m sorry. But next time I see you, we’ll have a drink.’  That night he went and had some drinks, went home and went to sleep on his couch with a cigarette. It caught fire and he died. It was so, so sad after all those years being in a Japanese prison camp. It was terrible.”