From the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution Interview (1959)

...I was made a sergeant and I had a half a dozen men under me, and we were doing camouflage. And I was happy making the designs for camouflage before I was made a sergeant, but then when I was put in charge of these six and had to tell them what to do, then I wasn't a good sergeant at all. At one time we were supposed to paint some guns, and I didn't know anything about a gun any more than I know what's on Mars -- and by mistake we painted all the mechanisms and everything, and this was not to have been painted at all, you know, and when an officer discovered that did he . . . ? Then I had to tell these fellows to laboriously clean that all out, and I just hated to tell them.
Charles Burchfield, August 19, 1959

Excerpt from John D. Morse’s Tape-Recorded Interview with Charles E. Burchfield, 3574 Clinton Street, West Seneca, New York, August 19, 1959