Mr. Powers. At this particular period of time, now, you're starting to get into, say, the rank association that people of higher rank associate with people of lower rank at this particular period of time, you do see it more coming in the group relationship and this was brought about by my becoming a corporal, and I wasn't assigned some of the tasks that the privates, first class, and privates were assigned, and I recall I didn't have to do anything going over, and there were some duties assigned naturally, and with him as an individual, I can remember that he taught me how to play chess going over, and he was quite a proficient chess player, and, well, let's not say he was not real proficient; he used to beat me, and it wouldn't take too much proficiency to beat me. And he would sit and play, and we would maybe play—usually we played 1 game a day, and sometimes we would play 4 to 8 hours, playing chess.
Mr. Jenner. Four?
Mr. Powers. Four to eight hours playing chess. And I got to a point where I beat him once in a while, and it would irritate him a little bit that someone beat him, but not to a point where he would get violent or anything of this nature, but he was real happy and pleased when he would win.
And again looking back at this, it gives me some impressions about him. He was real happy to win, like he was accomplishing something in his life.
And he used to read quite a bit. I remember we got these paperbacks, and there was some good literature in these, and he would swap books back and forth, and he would never be reading any of the shoot-em-up westerns or anything like that. Normally, it would be a good type of literature; and the one that I recall was "Leaves of Grass," by Walt Whitman. And he had it for a period of time, and I would want to read it for myself, and as it came about, he did let me have it. I think I still have the book.
Mr. Jenner. Do you recall the titles of any other books that he read?
Mr. Powers. Oh, I'm not saying that he read them, but the reason that I recall these titles is because I still have most of these paperbacks that I kept quite a few of these, and they were the "Age of Reason," and "Age of Enlightenment," and whether he read these or not, I'm not sure. But I think there is something on the "Greatest President of the United States," and democracy, and books of that nature.
Mr. Jenner. Where did you obtain these books?
Mr. Powers. They were given to the troops—I'll use that for a lack of a better term—periodically throughout the voyage going over, where they got them, I don't know. I think they probably just picked them up and it was standard procedure, I assume.
Mr. Jenner. They were books that were distributed through the Marines?