From the interview with Noris H. Christensen of Lakeview, OR conducted by John Clise by phone from the Fort Worden History Center on December 14,2004. Mr. Christensen served in the 369th EBSR Company C from December 1950 to December 1952 at Fort Worden and Rochefort, France. Here he recalls some of the people he knew at Fort Worden:

“Colonel Applegate was a little short pudgy fellow. Colonel Spaur was small too. Both of them were fairly short, but they were very good, great guys. We usually went out to the parade ground right in front of the barracks to do these calisthenics by company. One evening there was a notice on the bulletin board that all the companies were to fall out on the parade ground at 6:00 o’clock in the morning for exercise. Well, we all fell out and Colonel Applegate, who must have been in his 60’s then, said, ‘Now look, fellows, we’re going to run laps around this parade ground until the last man is going. I’m going to lead you.’ We all laughed. He was the last man to drop out.

He was in good shape, but he laughed about that. They were the type of people, Colonel Spaur and Colonel Applegate both, that if you’d be walking down the sidewalk after reveille or retreat and go into the buildings, they would come up and shake your hand.

…One fellow who was put in my platoon was an Indian from Montana named BJC. In just a few days I noticed he was having problems, so I tried to talk to him. It seemed like everybody in Montana knew he was in the Army. They were writing him letters and calling him, wanting him to send them money because they thought that since he was a soldier he had all kinds of money. That worked on him so bad that he just finally lost it. We had to send him down to Madigan Army Hospital in Tacoma and the last I heard was that they had him in the psychiatric ward. That’s the only sad thing that I can remember of any of the men I had under me.”