Those at the Derby VFW Saturday experienced a night of history as World War II paratrooper Jake McNiece shared stores of fighting, life in the Army and mischief.

McNiece, the last living member of the “Dirty Dozen” and “Filthy Thirteen,” went in to the service back in 1942, earning $21 a month.

“You are looking at the biggest goof-off the Army ever saw,” McNiece said. “I stayed in there 3 1/2 years and never did make PFC.”

When he got out he was still a buck private.

That all changed during a ceremony McNiece attended 35 years later.

He was recognized for setting the military record for longest buck private. But after Gen. Singleton had reviewed his service records he promoted him to honorary colonel and as part of the promotion he was to be given the appropriate treatment as a colonel.

But, McNiece said, the general said after reading his history, he didn’t know if McNiece knew what “appropriate” meant.

“I imagine that you all are still paying taxes on what I tore up and I thank you for your patience,” he said, receiving a laugh from the audience.

McNiece served in the first group of American paratroopers who were trained and went on a mission.

“It was strictly a volunteer unit,” he said.

They were trying to get 1,000 people to volunteer to parachute out of a plane.

During the training, McNiece said they separated the men from the boys. Week two, they separated the fools from the idiots, and week three, they made the idiots into paratroopers.

His antics started way back during his training.

While in training, McNiece said he didn’t think he should go to Retreat because he thought it was silly, so he was reported as absent and unaccounted for.

McNiece told them he knows his privileges and Retreat violates his religion because he was a nature worshipper.

“The first sergeant kept him fooling with me for almost a week,” McNiece said. “I had to be careful, I almost convicted myself.”

He said he had to be careful he didn’t step on a spider or anything.

McNiece was told he was the first one in the miliary who ever supposed this religion even existed.

“He gave me a direct order to stand Retreat that evening and I stood Retreat,” he said.

But that was the last time.

That night McNiece and some fellow soldiers went into town to get a fifth of whiskey. They weren’t supposed to be there so they would get the whiskey and take it back and drink it. They did this three to four times.

“I said we’re never going to get drunk because we’re walking this off as fast as we’re drinking it,” he said.

They decided to stay and drink it, but the MPs showed up and two went out the front and two of them went out the back. The soldier McNiece was with ran into the MPs and they started hitting him with their night sticks, so McNiece grabbed the night sticks and starting hitting them. He then grabbed their 45s and shot out all the street lights.

Those antics landed him in the stockade until they made their 140-mile march the next week, although he said he didn’t have to stand Retreat anymore.

Another story was about the train he stole.

He had missed the bus back to their camp and saw a firefighter and policeman come into the diner and order a big lunch. They had left the train engine running with just a small fire to keep it warm.

He said he looked at it and decided it couldn’t be that hard to drive because it only went one direction. So he turned up the fire and jumped in.

The next day there were police at their camp looking for who had taken the train.

He said he had left it nearby nice and safe with a low fire and flares around it.

McNiece went on to talk about his jumps.

The average life for anyone making combat jumps was 1 1/2 jumps.

“I made four jumps,” he said.

During WWII there were two airborne units in Europe at that time, the 82nd and 101st.

“The 82nd wore an AA on their shoulder patch,” he said. “We said that meant almost airborne.”

Of course the 101st were the Screamin’ Eagles, and the 82nd called them the pukin’ buzzards, he recalled.

His first jump was in Normandy.

“In Normandy we were going to jump in at midnight before they hit the beach and cut off communications and highways,” McNiece said.

“They made what they call an acceptable estimated loss,” he said.

That loss was 50 percent.

“We fought for 36 days in Normandy and accomplished every mission they assigned us,” he said.

Of course their loss estimate was off. They actually lost 70 percent.

He said after that they were so short of men, they drove along in a truck trying to recruit people. They told those on the boats if they wanted to transfer all they had to do was step off of the boat and they would take care of the paperwork.

“They thought it would take a year to train them, but we had them ready in 30 days,” he said and laughed.

On Sept. 17 they jumped into Holland for a six-day mission.

The 101st secured their objective in 36 hours, while it took the 82nd the six days.

“We fought in there for 78 long days without an re-supply or change of clothes,” he said.

When they would jump they would take three meals with them in the pockets of their cargo pants. After that, they were supposed to live off of the land.

They again lost 70 percent of their men on this mission.

From there they pulled back to France and McNiece got a 72 hour pass.

“I didn’t think that was quite long enough, so I took 10 more days,” he said.

When he got back, he was placed under arrest quarters until they could figure out what to do with him.

They asked if he wanted to volunteer for parachute pathfinder duty, which is estimated to lose 80 to 90 percent.

“For all purposes it looked like the war was over,” McNiece said. “I said I’ll give that a try.”

He figured there would be lots of women, whiskey and good Air Force food where they were going.

Before the night was over, he had five more men and one lieutenant volunteer.

“I made a big mistake,” he said.

Two weeks later the Battle of The Bulge started.

They loaded the 101st into trucks and drove them into the city of Bastone and told them not to retreat an inch. The Germans needed control of the city so they could get supplies to their troops already beyond that point.

McNiece took 20 men and jumped in on Dec. 23.

“They were down to about eight rounds of ammunition in the guns,” he said.

“I was the first man down.”

There were C-47 planes circling over France waiting to see if he could get a signal to them to guide them in through the fog and snow.

“I got a signal to them and by 12 o’clock noon they were dropping supplies in,” he said.

When they got back, the colonel found out only one out of the 20 had been killed and wanted all of them out of that unit, but they insisted that McNiece stay.

He made his fourth jump on Friday, Feb. 13.

“I threw my food away and kept my Copenhagen,” he said. “All through the night we were in water from ankle deep all the way to over our heads.”

The next morning he was hit and it blinded him for a while.

Once he calmed down, he went to get his Copenhagen, which was packaged in cardboard boxes. All he found in his pockets was seaweed and mud.

“Well then the war took on a personal issue to me,” he said.

“War really and truly is hell, but if you adopt the right attitude it can be a fun thing.”

When they got back after the war, the military tried to get them to stay and train other troops, but McNiece wanted out.

When it came time for the Army to pay them, he was told he might owe the Army money.

“Time in the stockade or AWOL is bad time as opposed to good time,” he said. “When I was getting out they told me I may owe them money.”

But they decided to pay McNiece and let him out.

Up until five years ago, he had held an annual reunion for all of them that survived. He said most of the paratroopers went on to have pretty successful lives.

When asked how they got the name the Filthy Thirteen, McNiece said it was because they lived in five-man tents with dirt floors and very few facilities for sanitation.

“We weren’t very polished,” he said. “The only time we shaved or took a bath was when we went into town. We didn’t wash our clothes or salute officers.”

McNiece is now 88 years old and still remembers many things about the war.

“You have to fight a war for the best results,” he said.

One thing he is happy to say is that he never saw an American officer order an atrocity done.

McNiece recently spoke to a group going to Iraq.

He offered this advice to them: