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Willie Henderson Burt, a Black man, remembers growing up on a farm in Nash County, which grew cotton, tobacco, and corn, and raised animals like mules and hogs. He dropped out of school in sixth grade, but he did complete his GED some time later. When he was old enough, Burt volunteered for the army to be a heavy equipment mechanic. He completed his basic training in Fort Bragg, then did machinery training in Missouri, then worked as a dispatcher at Fort Dix, NJ. He went to Vietnam in 1968, where he did equipment work on a US army base. Although he remembers the attacks that occurred around him as scary, he discusses not wanting to leave Vietnam after a year, citing the many Vietnamese friends he made. Burt does not have strong feelings about integration in the army, and he says that no one in the army was treated particularly well. He ends the interview by talking briefly about his children, then discussing how he has applied some of his military skills to his job with the Department of Transportation.

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