Irving Locker was born November 8, 1924 in St. Paul, Minnesota.  His family moved to New Jersey when he was quite young, so that is where he grew up, the youngest in a large family.  Irving’s father was a shoemaker, so he didn’t bring home much money, and Irving remembers that the family struggled to make ends meet.  The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor happened during Irving’s senior year in high school, so upon graduation he and the other boys were drafted into the army.  George ended up going into an anti aircraft battalion, and he was sent to England and then to France via Utah Beach.  Once on the beach Irving and his men set up their 90 mm guns and protected the area from potential Luftwaffe attacks, a pattern that continued as they crossed France and took part in the Battle of the Bulge.  As the end of the war drew closer, Irving and his men crossed into Germany, and it was there they came upon one of the Nazi camps at Gardelegen, where they witnessed firsthand the horrors that the Nazis had perpetrated against the Jews.  Irving was able to use his knowledge of Yiddish to speak to the prisoners they liberated – and to question the German soldiers they took prisoner at different points.  Irving’s war finished not long after this, and he thanked God as he learned to do in that year of combat.  He and the men of his generation went home and found their way in the postwar civilian world.  Irving Locker was interviewed over zoom by Scott Masters and Zach Dunn in January 2025.