Grover left Salt Lake and went to Camp Roberts, California. This is where he had basic training. In basic training he learned how to use rifles, grenades, and grenade launchers. The other big thing that he learned in basic training was discipline!!! He was at Camp Roberts for 15 weeks. In his G.I. barracks they had inspections every week. Basic training killed almost two percent of the soldiers. In basic they had to crawl under wires with a full pack on. One of the dangers was all  of the rattle-snakes around those wires. One night all of the soldiers in Grover's group had to march 50 miles and it took from midnight to 10 a.m. The thing that made marching so bad was that Grover's shoes didn't fit. So after marching a while his feet became severely blistered. Instead of scrubbing the floor like they were supposed to they would just turn on the water and let it run all over the floor.

When Grover left Camp Roberts, thought he was going to Germany to fight, but they went to Fort Mead, Maryland. He left Fort Mead and went to Fort Louis, Washington. He left Fort Louis and went to Fort Loton, stayed there ten days and went to Honolulu, Hawaii. While he was in Fort Loton they made a law that you couldn't see combat until you were 19. While he was on his way to Hawaii the water purifier went out and they didn't have much water to drink. Eventually they fixed the water purifier.

While in Hawaii he ran an anti-aircraft gun emplacement. Each gun had 10-12 people running the gun. One person had to set the height of the gun. Another had to turn the gun from side to side. The way they would know how high the airplane was from height finder. The anti-aircraft gun had dueled tires on it and had to be pulled by a huge cat that weighed 80 tons. All around the gun they had to dig foxholes. The men had to be able to raise gun and be ready to move in 15 minutes. They hardly ever directly hit the airplanes, but the exploding shells usually sent shrapnel into the planes. 

In the army it wasn't always pure seriousness. They had a lot of fun. The first night in basic somebody short sheeted Grover's bed. A while later the people that were involved said that he was no fun to short sheet, because he didn't complain like all of  the others did. In the barracks all of the beds were lined up and they would bounce from bed to bed.

The soldiers in Hawaii read the Stars and Stripes. It was a weekly newspaper. They read about the Japanese surrendering. There was only one problem - they had to stay in Hawaii for a while.  They went back to the U.S. on a cruiser that only had 500 people on it. It took five days to get back to the U.S. from Hawaii and it took seven days to get there. Grover always tried to get a bunk as high as he could because of the seasick people that would throw-up over the edge of their bunks. 

Grover had a friend from Gunnison that went in the army with him. They had been friends since sixth grade. They stayed together for quite a while. They were separated when his friend applied for O.C.S.  Grover had another friend from Walnut Tree, California. They stayed in touch for quite a while after the war. Grover had many friends that served with him that were from Sanpete County.

Grover said," I wouldn't take a million dollars to take it back, but I wouldn't pay a nickel to do it over again."