<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0d2k4y_1FBBwxBG00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0d2k4y_1FBBwxBG00" width="760" height="569" ></figure>“They ate it, drank it, slept it, and talked it,” said local resident and long-time lawyer Vern Herzog. He was talking about the prevailing mindset of the adults around him as he grew up in Pocatello during World War II.Herzog and his family lived on 13th Street in Pocatello when the U.S. was drawn into war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.“I distinctly remember that,” said Herzog. “I was playing by the canal that went near our house and I heard one of the neighbors come out and say that she heard on the radio that Japan had attacked and bombed Pearl Harbor. It was exciting, because my parents got excited, and the whole neighborhood got excited.”At least, that was the way Herzog saw things as 8-year-old boy. The excitement was, of course, not the excitement of happiness and joy, but of anger and apprehension.The news of the Pearl Harbor attack caused a stir in Pocatello, just as it did in every city across the nation.“The neighborhood got geared up to a mentality of war,” Herzog said.This aspect of WWII, that had the ordinary citizen working for victory on the home front just as the soldier worked for victory on the battlefront, is what Herzog remembers most about growing up during WWII.“The citizens were involved,” he said, as he described how they lived, ate, and slept following the news of the war. “My wife, Margaret, said that her family had a huge piece of paper up on the wall, and they would mark on the paper the cities and battles, and keep track of things like D-Day,” he said.Herzog’s family experienced the rationing of food and various goods, as did every other family in Pocatello.“There was rationing of sugar, coffee, cheese, butter, and rubber tires and shoes and gas. I remember that vividly,” he said.“I was in charge of my block for collecting certain items that were considered valuable,” recounted Herzog, “things like metals, copper wire, and aluminum foil. I remember the Defense Stamps too. It was like collecting the green S &amp; H stamps. You would put the stamps in a book, and then you could turn it in for a 25-dollar war bond.”“I remember having a great family experience when we bought or rented a parcel of land with some other folks for our Victory Garden,” he said. The Herzog’s Victory Garden was north of town and Herzog remembers having to go out and work in the garden, pulling weeds.“I was the chief weeder,” he joked, “and I learned that I didn’t want to be a farmer.”Herzog also remembers the sometimes negative treatment doled out to members of the Japanese community that were living in Pocatello. Although they had nothing to do with the attack, he felt that they were ostracized to some extent. “People felt anger that they had let the Japanese sneak up on us at Pearl Harbor, and I realized that the Japanese kids we were going to school with paid a heavy price for that, even though they had no more to do with it than I did,” he recalled.Herzog’s own family was not immune to a few critical statements made in the heat of the anxieties of wartime.“Guess it was because of our German name,” speculated Herzog, “but it bothered my dad to no end because he was a real patriot.”Herzog’s father served as an air raid warden for his block in Pocatello.“We had a blackout area in our basement,” said Herzog. “I remember that people would come along, and check whether or not they could see any light coming out of the basement.”There were also mock air raid practices, complete with sirens.“It was really exciting for someone about 10 years old,” he recalled. “I didn’t understand the impact of the war, in the sense of the loss of life involved.”He also remembers seeing the black-and-white newsreels at the movies theaters that kept moviegoers updated on the progress of the war.“I would look at those planes flying, and they were dropping bombs and parachuters were jumping out of the planes, and it was exciting,” he said. “It seemed like such an adventure then.”Herzog was born Salt Lake City on 1933, but has now lived in Pocatello for 76 years.“My parents moved here when I was three years old,” he said. “They opened up a gas business, starting a distributorship in Southeast Idaho for Sinclair.”Herzog graduated from Pocatello High School, and then went on to Idaho State College (now Idaho State University.) After a short stretch in the Army, he earned his law degree from the University of Idaho in Moscow. Along the way he played a lot of football for his schools.“You’ve heard of dads that never miss a game?” he asked. “Well, my dad never missed a practice.”Herzog started out practicing in criminal defense, but after several years switched to civil law, working with several firms and partners. Herzog’s own firm, Herzog &amp; Associates, has been a well-known feature of the legal landscape in the Pocatello area since 1972.Over the years, Herzog has enjoyed numerous hobbies and pastimes, but one particular leisure pursuit has been more like a passion.“I’ve always had a fascination for guns,” he said. “I grew up around guns, and being a boy, it just was interesting to me.” Ever since he received his first gun as a 12-year old, a 12-gauge shotgun, he has pursued that fascination with enthusiasm. “I even started reloading my own shotgun shells,” he joked.He still has the rifle with which he trained as a sniper at Ft. Benning, Georgia, in preparation for service in Korea. But Herzog’s stint in the military proved to be quite brief. He entered the Army in 1955 after graduating from Idaho State College and receiving a commission through their ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) program. However, when it became known to his ranking officer that he required special alterations to his Army-issued boots because of a football injury to his foot, Herzog was given a medical discharge.“They said I would have to sign a paper that said my injury was not military-related, and I said that I’d sign anything they wanted,” he laughed. “I wanted to go to law school.”He served in the Army for not quite a year, but that time only solidified his love affair with firearms of all sorts, acquiring some and selling others. Herzog demonstrated the use of his Ft. Benning rifle.“This part can take your finger off,” he said, and he showed how to load the weapon, as the cover of the chamber snapped back with a loud and incredibly forceful snap, that behooves the user to keep his fingers out of the way.“That’s why you see so many old Army shooters with missing fingers,” he said with a chuckle.Herzog showed off his two favorite WWII weapons in his collection, one for each side of the WWII conflict. His Thompson .45 caliber sub machine gun is a beautiful piece of workmanship with its rich wood stock. It was a reliable weapon favored for it’s high volume of automatic fire.The German Mauser Maschinenpistole 40 sub-machinegun was the Thompson’s counterpart during WWII, used extensively by German troopers, paratroopers, and tank crews.Herzog also retains several small trophies he found out in the open desert near what used to be the Pocatello Army Air Base.“My dad and I used to go out hunting on the reservation,” Herzog explained. “When the fighters would finish a practice training run, practicing their strafing, they would dump their ammo before landing at the base. They also had a spur railroad track, with machine guns mounted on flat cars,” he said. “In the early mornings when I would be sleeping out with my friends, you would hear those machine guns firing into the hills.”“I hunted with my dad, and found these ammo rounds when I was about 12,” Herzog said. “These are 50-caliber armor piercing machine gun rounds.”Herzog held up several of these rounds that he picked up as a boy, now crusted and caked with dirt and rust, some still retaining the rotting webbing with which they were held together as they were fed into the machine gun.“Every fifth round was a tracer round filled with magnesium,” he explained, as he showed one clean and shiny bullet, with a red tip. Tracer bullets help the marksman see trace the path of his ammunition as he fires.From the M3 Greasegun, to the Heckler &amp; Koch 91, Herzog appreciated them all for their power and workmanship. He says it is just a boy thing.“I think it’s just because I am a boy,” he laughed. And for this Pocatello boy, the attraction to firearms and fast-firing weapons was simply automatic.</div></body>

Block Source: Idaho State Journal

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“They ate it, drank it, slept it, and talked it,” said local resident and long-time lawyer Vern Herzog. He was talking about the prevailing mindset of the adults around him as he grew up in Pocatello during World War II. Herzog and his family lived on 13th Street in...

Growing up during the war

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“They ate it, drank it, slept it, and talked it,” said local resident and long-time lawyer Vern Herzog. He was talking about the prevailing mindset of the 

Growing up during the war

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