Oral History Interview of Charles Lakin

[Pat Holscher]

I haven't read this in depth, but the parts of it I have are interesting. This is the transcript of an interview of a Charles Lakin. It covers a variety of topics, several of which are of interest to this group.

Lakin, whose father was in the cattle business, attended the New Mexico Military Academy prior to WWII. He later attended the Universitiy of Arizona, and participated in a college ROTC program which included a horse cavalry unit. Upon being inducted into the service in WWII he was sent to Ft. Riley. According to Lakin, he received a late unit assignment as he chose to go out with his girlfriend and reported a couple of days after his associates for induction, the result being that most of the people he know at UA went to Europe, but he ended up in the Pacific.

Lakin was in the 115th Cav. Rgt which, based upon the other material I've seen on the 115th, was well after the original Guardsmen had been cadred out. By the time he was in it the unit no longer had horses, but it was still patrolling the coast in Califoria. The unit was cadred out again while he was in it, and he was sent to the Mars Task Force, after volunteer for LRP duty.

Lakin is clearly pretty opinionated, and it makes for an interesting read on a variety of topics, not all of which are military, but which are interesting.

This is a pdf file which requires Adobe to read:

http://cals.arizona.edu/alumni/oralhistory/CLakin.PDF



Pat