class="smcap">Voebel. Oh, about 6 or 8 blocks away, I would say.

Mr. Jenner. Is it normal for students going to Beauregard Junior High School to then enroll in Warren Easton?

Mr. Voebel. Yes; that's normally right.

Mr. Jenner. That's the regular progression?

Mr. Voebel. Right.

Mr. Jenner. Did you know that Lee attended Warren Easton?

Mr. Voebel. No; to tell the truth, I lost complete contact with him after I left Beauregard. I might have seen him once or twice during that summer.

Mr. Jenner. Were you a grade up on him, or were you in the same grade, or what?

Mr. Voebel. I don't remember. Let's see—no; I think we were in the same grade, I think we were.

Mr. Jenner. When you left Beauregard, where did you go to high school?

Mr. Voebel. I went to Fortier.

Mr. Jenner. Any reason?

Mr. Voebel. Well, Fortier has an ROTC system.

Mr. Jenner. That's why you went over there?

Mr. Voebel. To get in the ROTC; yes, sir.

Mr. Jenner. Are you a service man?

Mr. Voebel. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. In what branch?

Mr. Voebel. Army.

Mr. Jenner. Did some other boys pal around with you and Lee?

Mr. Voebel. Not that I can remember. You see, the only relationship we had after this fight I told you about, was when I would be downtown and stop in, and we would play pool or play darts, but I don't remember participating in any events with Lee at school. For example, I don't remember having played ball or anything with Lee, so probably our gym periods were different.

I used to go straight home after school, and I think he did too, so there was no buddying around on either of our parts at school. I had a lot of friends and many acquaintances, but I don't think Lee did.

Mr. Jenner. You don't think Lee did?

Mr. Voebel. No, sir.

Mr. Jenner. Do you have a recollection or conception of any ridicule accorded him when he first turned up at Beauregard?

Mr. Voebel. Yes; I think there was something. Always when someone comes in new, they are supposed to belong to something like a gang or clique, and if you didn't, then you had to prove yourself. It's just like the old story they tell about the Irish Channel, about how anybody new moving in there had to prove himself or fight the leader in the community before they accepted him.

Mr. Jenner. Tell me some more about the Irish Channel, and how that compares to the Beauregard situation when you were attending there.

Mr. Voebel. Well, it may be different now, but I know in my day when you went to Beauregard, if you didn't belong to a gang or something, you had to prove yourself. You had to fight somebody.

Now, the Irish Channel is a part of town around Magazine Street, oh, maybe the 3000 block, generally around Magazine and Louisiana Avenue, I think, in that section, and it was pretty well known that any time a stranger or someone new moved in the neighborhood, he had to face something like that. The whole neighborhood had gangs, and unless he joined one of them someone would have to fight something, and it was the same at Beauregard. Of course, it was all, you know, children and adolescent things.

Mr. Jenner. And it was your impression that Lee had that social force, whatever it was; is that right?

Mr. Voebel. Yes, sir; he met it head on.

Mr. Jenner. He was inclined to meet it head on and not back up?

Mr. Voebel. Right. He wouldn't take anything. I used to try to avoid it as much as possible, until you just couldn't avoid it any more. I think a few of the boys at the time got a wrong impression of me. They thought I was just a fat kid, and I wouldn't do anything, and I used to take a little pushing around, and another thing, they would always be in gangs. Now, if you got them alone, you could whip them, but they would hang around in bunches.

In fact, I had an incident like that happen to me over at that school where this boy marked me out. He said he didn't like the way I looked, so he just kept talking and trying to force me into an incident, and finally he got it. I beat the dickens out of him, and it was after school, almost the same way this happened to Lee.

Word got around at the school what I had done, and a whole gang of people met me after school one day, but I was lucky enough to talk myself out of it. Now, when they passed the post on Lee, he was inclined to fight back, but I had sense enough to know that you can't fight a whole gang, so I talked myself out of it. This gang came over to my house and piled out of automobiles and started joshing and using all kinds of vulgar language to try to get me to come out, and my uncle ran them off, and after that I didn't have any more trouble. You just had to prove yourself to gain the respect of those gangs.

Mr. Jenner. They didn't attack you any more?

Mr. Voebel. No.

Mr. Jenner. Would you say that the course of conduct of Lee Oswald was normal, having in mind the problems he was facing?

Mr. Voebel. Yes, except that he didn't make friends.

Mr. Jenner. He did not?

Mr. Voebel. No; he was not inclined to make friends.

Mr. Jenner. But you don't know why he was so disinclined?

Mr. Voebel. Well, let's just put it this way; he didn't make friends. It was just that people and things just didn't interest him generally. He was just living in his own world, let's say.

Mr. Jenner. But you did have some measure of common interest that you told me about?

Mr. Voebel. I guess you are trying to get at the gun. Is that what you have in mind?

Mr. Jenner. Well, I am not going to say what I'm trying to get at.

Mr. Voebel. Well, I know Lee seemed to have an interest in guns.

Mr. Jenner. And these were regular weapons, not toys?

Mr. Voebel. That's right, military weapons. My uncle started a collection while he was in the service, and he brought back a few foreign military weapons.

Mr. Jenner. Was that World War I?

Mr. Voebel. World War II.

Mr. Jenner. Your uncle?

Mr. Voebel. That's right, my uncle.

Mr. Jenner. And you also would say that you had an interest in guns; is that right?

Mr. Voebel. Yes, I was interested in guns. In fact, we had guns around the house all the time. We were always interested in them, my uncle and I, and I learned to shoot a pistol when I was about, oh, 7 years old, you see.

Mr. Jenner. Did Lee share your enthusiasm for collecting weapons?

Mr. Voebel. Oh, no; I don't think I even told Lee about how I felt about