American Valor Quarterly Issue 11 - Fall 2014 | Page 12

Mr. Mack said, “If you want to go to
college, these are the three schools we
would prefer. So on the way home you
can stop at Duke, and we’ll talk to your
dad.” So that’s what we did. I’m glad I
went to college instead of turning pro.
It was the right way to go, and I think
that’s reflected today. You see a lot of
prospects now going to university for a
year or two before they sign a contract.
Coach Galloway was a good coach.
He was easy and approachable.
Presbyterian College was small and a
great place to go to school. The people
were kind of like home folks. It’s good
when you feel completely comfortable
with the people you went to school
with. I was on the club the year I was
there. There were several of us who
were potential major league players.
It was a good school with a good
program. We played maybe 15-18 games
a year because the emphasis was on
football and basketball. Baseball was
kind of a second tier sport.
Of course in early ’44, I went
overseas. Once the war broke out,
I knew I was going. It was just a
question of when. That wasn’t from a
draft perspective, but a family history
standpoint. My family had served in
WWI and the Civil War. One side
of my family had also fought in the
Revolutionary War. I think most of
us wanted to just get in and get it over
with, especially after Dec. 7. Before
[Pearl Harbor], you weren’t overly
concerned with the war; it was like a
12

BEFORE HEADING OVERSEAS,
LOU BRISSIE PLAYED
BASEBALL AT THE ARMY’S
CAMP CROFT, WHERE HE LED
HIS TEAM TO A 27-4-1 RECORD.

balloon overhead.
We heard what the older folks said.
Then, like now, there were a lot of
opinions. The country as a whole,
especially the leaders, had become
isolationists. They did not want to get
into another war in Europe. Those were
strong feelings. The young folks saw
it and knew it was out there, but didn’t
think it would come about as quickly as
it did. At that age you don’t think that
far out into the future.
I enlisted in December of 1942
and was assigned to Camp Croft near
Spartanburg, S.C. It was a surprise to
me to wait to go over to Europe for
so long. Normally, where I trained, if
someone was going into a different
specialty like armor, they would take
a basic training related to armor. But
we were trained as infantry. Some
fellows with particular backgrounds
were selected for different jobs. One
guy from Louisiana, fluent in French,
moved to intelligence side after almost
a full training cycle. Other fellows had
truck backgrounds and would also get
moved out.

I also played Army ball in ’43, but I
continued pitching in the mill leagues.
The teams were allowed two players
that did not work for the company
to be on the team. They referred to
them as outsiders. That’s how I was
able to keep pitching in those leagues.
The Army ball at Camp Croft had
mixed levels of competition. We had a
couple of people who were high level,
like Ray Flanigan who had played for
Baltimore, and an outfielder for the
White Sox, Billy Hitchcock, who played
for the Greenville air base and was
within our area. Then you had a lot
of fellows like me who were amateurs
and college players. It was a mixture of
real experience and young guys, which
helped me develop my game. But most
of us were 18-to-20 years old. We loved
the game and just wanted to play.
Normally after 17 weeks of training,
you would go overseas. But I was
selected to work with a special group as
cadre with what they called the battle
course. It was a training area for village
fighting, demonstrating high explosives,
and quick fire courses. I worked there a
number of months, and I just felt that it
was time to get on with it. I got myself
a transfer in the spring of ’44. I talked
with technical sergeant Joe Brien, who
became a lifelong friend, and told him
that I wanted to move on. He talked to
some folks and got that arranged.
The fighting conditions in Italy were
rough. It was mountainous with rain
and deep mud. The farther up the
peninsula you got, the colder it became.
It was impossible to move much during
the winter months. We were stalled at
Cassino till the spring of ’44. Once we
got to the rolling hills from Rome to
Florence, going up into the Apennine
Mountains, it was high and difficult
terrain. I arrived in Italy with the lines
just south of Florence. It was in late
September that we started to drive
through the Apennines, about 125
miles. We were almost within sight of
Po Valley before we were stopped for
the winter line in November.
Our division faced constant fire from
AMERICAN VALOR QUARTERLY