Los Banos Rotary Club History
R. Pernetti Tells Of Army Life In India

Rocco Pernetti, honorably discharged U.S. Army sergeant who returned home three weeks ago after serving with U.S. forces in India for some 28 months (long months, Pernetti claims) was guest speaker at the Rotary Club luncheon Tuesday noon, and gave a decidedly interesting resume of the country of India, its people and customs.

Referring to the China-India-Burma war theater as the “forgotten theater,” Pernetti said it was the feeling of all U.S. troops stationed there that they were the outfit that invariably got what was left over—if someone remembered to send it. Rocco displayed the familiar CBI shoulder patch worn by all U.S. troops stationed in that theater, and said it was designed primarily to distinguish U.S. from British troops.

Pernetti explained that there are some 400,000,000 people in India, most of whom are impoverished beyond all conception. Though fundamentally honest and normally industrious, the average wage of the working classes is less than 15c a day, which provides only a bare existence. The poorer people live in miserable, filthy mud huts, which generally was away during the rainy season.

There are three main classes in India: the Hindus, Moslema, and Pharisees, who speak eight basic languages with 162 separate dialects. Each of the main classes, Pernetti said, has its own religion, in which the people are sincere and exacting.

As to the weather, Pernetti explained that there are three seasons: the cold season, from November through February then four months of extremely hot weather, with temperatures up to 130 and 140 degrees; which is followed by the rainy season during which it rains from two to 14 hours a day. Pernetti recalled that at his base, 42 inches of rainfall were recorded during a three-day storm late August.

Pernetti also touched on India’s peculiar caste system, its 200 million cows which are sacred to the Hindus, the money system, and the schools—which are few and far between.

February 19, 1946

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