(This is the second in a three-part series on stories by World War II veterans. Today, Caroline Barrios and Arnold Maier recount their experiences.)

Caroline Barrios, 85, points to a framed certificate in her sunny room at the Baptist Home in Bismarck. The staff has acknowledged her military service in World War II with this certificate of appreciation. That pleases her.

A Mandan girl, Caroline and a friend were working at Sweetheart Bakery in 1942 when they enlisted in the Navy because, well, they were tired of working in the bakery and besides, they thought it would be fun. She didn't tell her parents until after she'd enlisted.

When she did tell them, Caroline's father exclaimed, "What did you do that for?" she remembered, with a smile. Then - he was an Army guy, she said - added, "Why didn't you join a good outfit?"

She remembers training at Hunter College in New York, and doing a lot of marching to and from the barracks. "It was fun," she said.

Shipped out, "I was in Seattle for one day," she said, "then we went to Astoria, Ore., to the Naval Station there."

Caroline worked as a switchboard operator there. Recreation was reading, walking, and the occasional dining out at a supper club.

She'd joined up for three years. Every six months, when she was allowed leave, she'd take the train home to Man-dan. She was a bit homesick, she said.

But then she met "Barry" Barrios, a radioman who would come and visit her in her switchboard cubby. Barry was from New Orleans, and he was a lot of fun, she said.

They knew each other three or four months before they got married. When they were discharged, they moved back to Louisiana for eight years, where Barry worked as a longshoreman, she said. It was really hard work, and Barry finally said, "For two cents I'd move back to Mandan." And so they did, she said.

There Barry worked at a bank, at the employment office and at the agricultural field station south of town, she said. Barry and Caroline had eight children, two boys, six girls - "two and a half-dozen," she quipped. Those were good years, she said.

But Barry died of a heart attack when their youngest child, Larry, was still quite young, she said. After that, she worked at various places in Mandan, including George's Bakery and, for 20 years, the American Legion.

Some of the details of those early years have been lost to time, but what stays in her memory is the fun.

"I call them the best years of my life," she said.

Arnold Maier: "Time to go"

The first thing Arnold Maier says is that he will talk about the war years, but only if the questions don't go too deep.

What he can share is catalogued in a thick binder. Newspaper clippings, photos, a war timeline with yellow high-lighter marking where he was in the big picture.

In the entry of his Bismarck home a purple satin jacket hangs on a hook, a patch marking it as a souvenir of the 2004 dedication of the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., which he attended as a member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart.

The study wall in his and his wife, Evelyn's, home is covered with plaques of appreciation for his service with the American Legion, the VFW, the AMVETS, the DAV.

* * *

All during the war, Maier kept a little box camera in one back pocket and a zippered leather case in the other.

With the box camera, he took the pictures he's preserved in his plastic-coated binder: Black and white photos of himself, his buddies. Doing laundry in a bucket. Men getting haircuts in camp. The two jaunty Italian lads who picked up the soldiers' laundry. Here's the outfit at Anzio which got the Combat Infantry Badge. Here's the dugout he lived in for six weeks there. The Colosseum. The Leaning Tower of Pisa. The Italian family at Monte Cassino who had him and three other soldiers over for Christmas dinner.

He can't recall what was served at that Christmas dinner. But the family had a radio in the corner and what he's never forgotten is that Armed Forces Radio that day just happened to be playing Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas."

And if there was anything he could make happen, he would like to see those Italian lads one more time.

The worn black leather case has his name in gold and the date of presentation. Unzipped, black elastic bands hold in place a Soldiers' Testament on one side, a prayer book on the other.

Both went with him everywhere. The camera is gone, traded in; the Testament and prayer book remain.

* * *

Maier, 89, was raised north of New Salem and drafted on Oct. 21, 1941. Maier, then 22, remembers that he was hauling bundles during threshing when his dad told him it was time to go, so Arnold went home and cleaned up. As his dad took him to Center, they passed Hannover, where Evelyn lived; Arnold remembers seeing her looking out the window as they passed.

He was stationed with the Army's 1st Armored Division at Fort Knox when Pearl Harbor was attacked. After train-ing in Northern Ireland and orientation in England, Maier became part of the Allied invasion of North Africa.

Among the memories he will share: His job as a Jeep driver in Tunisia. Bullets scratching up in front of the vehicle from strafing. Driving through three minefields and making it safely. He said a prayer and the Lord guided him through, he said.

Watching Mount Vesuvius erupt. The Kasserine Pass. How it rained and rained and rained and he got stuck in a muddy tank track.

Getting wounded in Italy, strafed by a German plane, just days before the war was over.

Six weeks on a freighter, then home to Mandan by train. He remembers his family taking him for lunch at the Bean-ery, but for the life of him, can't recall the moment of reunion, whether they hugged, or just said hello, or what.

His parents never asked him about anything, he said, shaking his head. Not at all.

When he got back, Evelyn said, "He didn't want to talk at all."

Sometimes a memory does return, he said, and then he turns his head into his pillow.

(Reach reporter Karen Herzog at 250-8267 or karen.herzog@bismarcktribune.com)