Shawn Ryan Show - #69 Don Graves - World War II Marine Survives Iwo Jima with Flamethrower, Grenades, and Pistol | SRS #69

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 a date which will live in infamy the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan....with confidence in our armed forces with the unbounding determination of our people we will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God." - Franklin D. Roosevelt These were the words that would change the course of history forever. These words would also give way to the Battle of Iwo Jima, one of the most costly campaigns of World War II. Of the 7,000 killed and nearly 20,000 wounded, Don Graves, a Marine would survive amongst them. Graves shouldered one of the most feared responsibilities in the Marine Corps–wielding a flamethrower in the caves and pill boxes that littered the island. In this episode, Graves recounts his experience in those 36 days of fighting and lends his perspective on where the country is headed now. Graves, now 98 years of age, has a wise view and a wealth of knowledge to share with the American people. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://hvmn.com - USE CODE "SHAWN" https://helixsleep.com/srs https://1stphorm.com/srs https://ziprecruiter.com/srs https://betterhelp.com/shawn Don Graves Links: Foundation - https://airpowerfoundation.org Support Veterans - https://roll-call.org Gary Sinise Foundation - https://www.garysinisefoundation.org Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, this episode is one for the history books. We have a World War II Marine Corps veteran on the show. He served in Irohjima as a flamethrower. Flamethrower's in Irohjima had a four minute life expectancy, and this man is the only surviving flamethrower that served in Irohjima. His name is Don Graves. He's 98 years old, grew up in the Great Depression. His experienced a lot of America's times

and gives us great perspective of what it was like growing up back then in the greatest generation known to America versus today, which is pretty eye opening. Don gave me an artifact. Many of you know the studio here is full of artifacts from all of our guests in my personal service. This is a sword that Japanese commanders used to carry and they would use it to commit suicide if they were going to be captured by an enemy combatants or if they knew they were going to be killed. This will be framed and on display in the studio for everyone to see starting to turn into a museum here at SRS. Ladies and gentlemen, I see a lot of you out there pulling our content, making your own content. We made it super easy for you. There's a link

below. It's got hundreds of reels. Take them, monetize them, make money off of them, put it on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, wherever you want. Make money off of it. All we ask is that you give credit to the Sean Ryan show and tag us or link our show in the description. Head over to Apple and Spotify. Please leave us a review. Tell us how we're doing.

That really helps the show Like comment and subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven't already Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to say thank you For all of the support that you give us and all the love we hear at S.R.S. Love you too without further ado, please welcome Don graves to the Sean Ryan show. And one last thing, I want to give a huge shout out to the Air Power Foundation who made this interview possible at Don Graves. Without them, none of this would have happened. Thank you so much. Don Graves, welcome to the show. Thank you. It is an honor to have a World War II veteran

sitting in this studio across from me today. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for that compliment. So yeah, yeah, it's a real, it is, it's a real honor. I wanna give you a quick introduction here. So corporal Don Graves, your husband, you've been married for 72 years, 98 years old, your father, a pastor, Christian, singer, and you were a flame thrower at the Battle of Iwo Jima,

World War II in the United States Marine Corps. Couple of facts for the audience. Flame Thrower was the most dangerous job in the Marine Corps. Life expectancy in battle was four minutes, 92% casualty rate during EWOGEMA. Graves, you are the only flamethrower from your unit to survive and walk off of that island. Your unit began with 335 Marines and only 18 left the island of Iwo Jima. No officers from your unit survived. That's great. That's amazing.

I'm just humbled to get your testimony on what happened that day. But first, everybody that comes on gets a gift. I got you a couple gifts. There you go. All right. You can have a look see what's in there. That's me. That's right. Some good stuff in there. A couple of covers for you. Some good stuff in there. Oh.

A couple of covers for you. Vigilante Elite. That's right. Ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, I love these things. What is it? That's all the same. Nope, there's another one.

Oh, is it? There you go. That's the good stuff. Vigilance Elite gummy bears. Holy bait! That's... Holy bait! Perfect!

Perfect! Another cap? Go look at that. Yep. Yep. There it is, the Sean... No wonder he wanted me to look through the mat like this. And another... Just a couple more gummy bears.

Oh my goodness. That's right. It's just a little something to remember our experience. I know. I'd like to get one of these bags. Yeah. I'll give you a couple more. Oh my God.

Oh boy. This is real nice. I can't. I want to really use. Good. Oh boy, this is real nice. I can't, I'm gonna really use black. You know why it's black? Why's that? Sansa V was you, my black volcanic ash.

Really? Oh, black. Thank you. You're really good. You're welcome. And I got you one other thing just for one warrior to another I got for you a coin thank Oh. Man, thank you. Oh, that's a good one. Heraphone foundation.

That's a nice one. I don't have this. That is a naval special warfare coin from the represents all the seal teams. My thought you should have it. That's a beautiful one. Thank you. This is beautiful too.

I'll put this one by 350. All right, thank you. All right, down. So I'd like to get into the interview, but being 98 years old, you have experienced a lot in life. And you have experiences that not many people have been through. Like I know you grew up through the Great Depression and so I'd like to start with your childhood, what that was like growing up in the Great Depression and

then move into World War II, your old GEMA, and then we'll move into what it was like coming home after war at that time period and we'll get into what you were doing afterwards when you became a minister and then people will talk a little where the country's headed and then we'll end it. All right. Sound good. Very good.

All right, so where did you grow up? Well I was born in Detroit, Michigan. 1925, I came up through the end of the big crash and went into the Great Depression. And President Roosevelt was our president, and thank the Lord, he got in when we had that because he settled, he got us out of it. Nobody had anything. Gas was ten cents a gallon for your car. My mother used to put fifty cents in and we'd ride around a little bit. I asked his, would chip in some money, would have an old car, and we'd chip in, well, dimes, knuckles, whatever we had.

We'd pull up in front of a pump and they'd pump your gas for you and the wiper wouldn't you own everything. You got everything for that dime. Oh wow. And we'd pull up and say, he said, how much gas do you need there young fellas? I said, put 50 cents in. He'd look at us. No, that's 50 cents.

That's five gallons. Five gallons of gas. We could last all day on that. So, you know, it was hard, but things were cheap. How old were you when the correct depression hit? The great depression? Well, I think it ended in 31. So it had been, I think it ended around 1931. So I was born in 25, so I was just a little taut I think it ended around 19th or so. Six years old.

I was born in 25, so I was just a little tot going through that. I can remember a Christmas. I wanted a trache. There were two boys and two girls. Not that early, but we told her we were two boys and two girls. I had a brother. There was two-year, 18 months younger than me. And we had to share an old-used tric that my mother got out of a trade shop.

We really? We brought it home to us, yeah. And we would fight over that bike every time. My mother took it away and hit it the street and that stopped the fighting. But we lived in a cottage. My grandma and grandpa lived on a farm and they were on commodity. We were all on commodities, welfare or whatever you want to call it. And that kept them going on the farm. And you know, it was hard to sell because nobody had any money. Money just wasn't there.

And so we lived in the cottage all year round. And you know, cottages back then on a lake were made of panel, wall paper, no insulation and the wintertime, oh, and you're used to get a sea dome in the zeroes, you know, then we had a pop bellies store of a big one and we would get that going with wood. We would not have got wood and we put that going with wood when we got hot enough, we would put the coal in there, we got coal in there and then that would burn all day. And my job

was to make sure that that fire didn't go all all night. If it went out, I had a price to pay for my dad. What was that? He'd give us a good beating. Yeah. Yeah. He didn't make words with it.

He was a mean father. He was. I never had a good father, a wonderful mother. My father was a heavy drinker. He, I don't know. He, I, he never had a trade, but he, well, he did have a trade. He was a rougher. And you know, rougher's drink, mason's in a carpet, they all drank. And I don't know why, whether it was the material they were using, the nails or whatever it was,

but they'd always leave the job and go into a barn and drink, and then not finish the day. When I was a little boy, I went for my dad and carried shingles up a ladder. Can you imagine? The sea was they'd drop over your shoulder. I'd carry about two or three of them, and he would take a pack of, pack of a bundle up there. Well, so we all had to pitch in and work. And we lived on fish, we lived on wild game, rabbits, fesset, quail.

We hunted all the time, all year around. And the game wouldn't never set a thing because he knew we were on, the depression was on. Nobody had any money. They would be able to pay a fine if they were fine. So I mean, but those were good years because we stood together, we loved one another, and we fought together. We just kept things going.

Well, the depression lifted and we moved in Detroit. My dad started getting some ruffing contracts. The sad problem is that he just spent money and he didn't come to the family. So we still struck quite a bit. You know, the depression boys never had good clothes and that's why we never went to church because we were ashamed to go into a church. Oh man. And that has a little bearing on my life when I hit the beach at Iwo Jima, which I'll mention. Well, we went to school. I wasn't a good student. I didn't particularly like school. And you know, it's strange.

I hated math. I could, I hated math. And if you don't do math, you don't do well at all because you've got to have math. And I just didn't like doing it. I had a tough time. So they held me back a grade. Then when I got in junior high school, that was a bummer. And when I got in the eighth grade, I was about 16 years old. And I remember the three of my two

buddies we grew up together in the neighborhood. And we had an old car that was sat in front of the house in Detroit. And we'd ready to go up, an old radio. We'd ready it up and we would listen to the big bands. And what were the big bands? Oh, the big band numbers. Oh, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, the brothers, two Irishmen fought all the time and we had Duke, El-Inton, he had a black band, great music, good music and there was so many. Then Ben Crosby, the gruner, he always was on a particular radio show.

We listened to him and my grandma bought his recordings on an old vitrola which you cranked and as a kid I spent time playing Bing Crosby and I go sit down and Bing would be hitting him he'd like to over the road there was no power I had to go and crank it up again. And that's what we had to do to listen to a recording. Kate Smith, the big lady, 200 pounds, great American woman. During the war, she introduced God bless America, Irving Berlin wrote it for her, and she introduced it. And it just went wildfire. Today nobody

sings it unless I have anything with me. They don't sing it. They don't know it. High school students do not know that song. It's a great song. It's another patriotic song. So my brother and I, we struggle through I sold newspapers Saturday evening post for a nickel. I got two cents A newspaper was three cents. I got a half a cent I Got a cent for every two papers I sold I Mean that's what we did, but you can buy stuff from what you had you could always always buy something. You've got something for your money, you know. And we just, and when we got to be teens, you know, we would go out to the lake and swim. We had a gang of us to get together in an old car. We'd go out to

the lake. My grandma's cottage. She'd let us use the cottage and we had a beautiful 90-foot drop off, sand beach, sand waiting, then you'd drop down. It was crystal clear. Loaded with bass, loaded with walleye pike on perch and crappies. We lived on that stuff. Today I love fish. I love fish. I do.

I love fish. I do. I love fish. I do. I love seafood. Yeah. Well, anyway, we were healthy kids. It's strange, isn't it? We didn't have a lot of stuff kids have today, but we were healthier. We went through a lot. We had all the diseases, even before they had all the shots. And it was strange, you know, we used to walk

home for school and we'd notice a black Ford coupe. Well, when you saw a black Ford coupe, that was a nurse. And it was in front of your house. She was in the waiting to give the shots. Oh, man, we don't want to we want to skip good out of there, but we're nobody had to go in there. So in we go, and she's here they are, my brother would come in, I had two sisters, all of us, roll your sleeve up, was that a one-bed shot? Oh my God, we, literally those days we were afraid of all that stuff. Well, they gave us shots, and then she left and went too bad.

Our arms were sore, but we went through all of that. We didn't have any particular thing to keep the pain away, but we were healthy kids. We didn't see the doctor a lot. We did have trouble with our teeth and my mother. She was a great cook and a great baker. She had a bakeme during the depression. I can remember, and Detroit, on the west side, she, we needed a place to live.

So there was a, like a store. And in the back, there was everything you needed, it was everything we were to live with. But in the front, it was sort of like a everything we could live with. But in the front, it was sort of like a, you could put a, they had a couple of columns in there, you could put a bakery in. And we put a big shade, a drape across that. We lived behind that.

That's how we lived. And she was so bakery and sell cakes. The only problem is my dad would tap the tail. He would open the tail up and take money and go up. He'd be drunk. Oh man. He'd just irresponsible. And last boys we've worked.

When I was 10 years old, I will never forget it. My two buddies were coming down the sidewalk and there were the one of their dads worked for the Detroit City Railway. He always had a job. Always street car was busted. Always had a job. So he always had money in his pocket. And he shared it. We all shared. And so they came by and they said, Hey, Don, you got what to go to the movie with a Saturday? And I said, I'm going to you money. He's all you need is a dime. Get in. I said, I'd have a dime. Wait, maybe I'll ask my mom. Things were a little bit better than I walked in and never forget. Ma, can I have a dime? She's what he wanted a dime for.

I want to go see a movie. Ken made her favorite cowboy that's going to be on. She said, you want a dime? I said, yes ma'am. Go earn it. I don't have it. I don't know what we're going to have for supper, but we'll have something. She always managed to have something.

And you know, she said that to me. And I went out and my two buddies says, I will each give you a knuckle, let's go. And I never forgot what she said. So I went to work. After school, I did everything I could. I shovel snow in front of stores. I'd ask my father to clean the. They'd give me 35 40 cents like that

Maybe a 50 cents 25 and I always had money in my pocket and you always have friends when you have money in your pocket All your buddies come around So I became quite independent like that. I worked. I have worked since I was 10 years old. And I'm paying a little bit for it right now, but the ministry, that was mental stress, you know. But the other work I did, it was decorating. I climbed ladders, hung wall paper, refinished wood and take furniture.

I did it all in the line of decorating and a refurbishing. And that was hard work. And now my legs are paying for it. I believe that's what it is. Really, yeah. Because I never injured my legs. Yeah, but they say you'll still pay a price.

I remember coming home from the war. I sat in the front room, my dad was reading a paper and I said, you know, or dad, I'm really lucky. He said, why? I said, I went through four years of war and I came home. There's not a thing wrong with me. He said, give it a little time yet. He was in the first world war. He said, when you get older, you're going to find out, you're going to pay. What did your dad do in the First World War? In the First World, he was in the Marines. He was in the Marine Corps at PI Paris Island. I was at Diego Hollywood and they got that swine flu swept in there and killed a lot of them. Really? They didn't have it and then to take for it.

And he got it. And he did have a problem continuously. He didn't keep them from working, but it would hit him every now and then. You'd come back on them, but a lot of them died. So he couldn't go aboard ship. They wouldn't put them on a ship. So they just let them do whatever they could keep busy doing. You know, well, the war ended. They only laughed. They only fought in it for a year. It ended. Ali came home and went back to Rufflin and doing that type of work. But those

fellows, his brother worked with them and both of them would go out and get drunk and never work on the job. It was irresponsible, but their father was no good. I met my grandpa once or twice, heavy drinker. It was passed down down the line. You know, during the great depression, people drank. They made their own stuff because, you know, it was a prohibition, was on. In below the cottage, my brother and I would open up

the doors and we'd crawl under those houses. That's what they threw, they stuffed everything under the houses. So we opened the trap doors out and we crawled in there. We had rattlesnakes here, initially in Detroit, outside of the city. And the short rattlesnakes, so we have to be very careful. I found these big like a jack and a crank handle. You know, what is this thing? So I took it out and I brought it around the house. My mother was in there, he was gone. I said, my what is where did you get that? I said under the port you put that back in there

You don't need to know what that is They kept bottles with it They made their own booze wine and they made liquor What kind of liquor was going on? What kind of liquor I have no idea, but I mean, so prohibition is water or whatever, but it ain't like you get over here. So prohibition was going on at that time. Prohibition was going on, and then Roosevelt got in, and Roosevelt said to his vice president, President, I feel like a glass of beer and boom, that opened it up. And believe it or not, they didn't drink as much when the prohibition was lifted.

You tell a person, you can't do that, you can't try and do it. We're all like that. There was a lady of ours, she was a wealthy woman, and when I was in the ministry, she helped us out a lot. She practically bought a house from me. She was just such a wonderful old, emium woman. She had a lot of money, and she shared. And you know, she would be painting in the park. She's that paint and everything up. And she'd command she's, how are you fellows doing? And I said, do

you want one don't look at Mary? Don't touch them because it's wet and she'd go to the wall. Oh, oh, tell them not to do it and they'll do it Especially children Yeah, well, I don't know if I told you enough going up as a child What was what was school like back then? What kind of stuff were you learning in school school was very strict? You didn't mind it, but I mean You know I go and speak in a lot of high schools and join your high schools. They hang around the halls and horse around and we never did that.

You didn't do that. You went to your classroom. I mean, there were hall monitors. I don't see them anymore, but hall monitors, there were students that were advanced. And they would tell you, go to your room. They could order us in our room. It was strict, yet you didn't mind the strictness

because it was the system that you got used to, you know, exactly what to do. Our teachers were older women, never young women, and they were spinsters. They never got married. They were dedicated to their profession. They were our second mother. I can remember several of us kids become sick, we throw up. She cleaned that up. The janitor had one job, that's to keep the boil over on the wintertime, but if they have anything to say, she had to clean that up. I mean, that's what they did.

And every morning we marched out of school around the flagpole and pledged allegiance. After school. No, no, in the morning after school started. And on Thursday, the president, he had a program that he talked to children, Roosevelt did. And they had that on during school. Really?

Oh yeah, we listened to it. You listened to the president. What would he talk about? What kind of stuff would he talk about? If you're a business owner and you're hiring right now, you're also dealing with economic uncertainty. Now is the time more than any other time that you need to hire the right people

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And when you get there, if you order $75 or more worth of product, guess what? You're getting free shipping, but you're only getting that. If you go to firstform.com slash SRS, that's one STPH, oh, R M slash SRS, ladies and gentlemen, this is a real American company that aligns with all the values that America stands for. Check them out. Education, how we could be a president, I mean, it was really good. Now, this is in junior high school, in senior high, you know, I'll never forget it because I can remember him talking. Do you know that every Saturday night in Detroit, President Roosevelt, all over the country,

but for us in Detroit, see the comics came out Saturday night. The white section came out Sunday morning. So we obviously get the comics, we lay them out on the floor, well the president would come on. All right, children, lay your out on the floor, well the president would come on. All right children, lay your comics on the floor because we're going to find out what happened to Lil Labner. And then begging you jigs, did their daughter ever get married, well let's find out. It was so interesting. It was so good. My mother was sent here and listen.

How long was it just Roosevelt that would speak to the kids? Or did this go on through every presidency up to a certain point? Did it was it just Roosevelt that spoke to the kids? Or did it continue on after Roosevelt? Oh, no, no. That was Roosevelt. That was strictly Roosevelt. OK. Harry Truman got in. Things changed. He knew we had a war. No, no, that was Roosevelt said that was strictly Roosevelt. Okay.

Harry Truman got in things changed in the way of war, you know, Roosevelt guys out of the war. You know, the day we loaded up and took off from it, we'll back to Pearl Harbor, we got the speaker of Son of a- now here are this, the old man is dead. We say, old man, President Roosevelt died this morning with a cerebral hemorrhage. Harry Truman will become the vice president or the president. We say, well, who's Harry Truman? We never heard of Harry Truman. Roosevelt never used his vice president much like they use them. No, you know.

But Harry did a good job. Yeah. It was a mule skitter. Did you guys learn a lot about American history and school? Oh, we loved history. We had American history. Detroit has the Detroit fort at Maconaw. It's between Canada and Michigan. That fort is still there and tourists go in there all the time. And they play over the speaker a battle between them and the Indians. It's interesting. Families love it.

We had the Mohegan's. There was a story written and it became a movie. Last of the Mohegan's. I was saying that. Yep. Last of the Mohegan's. So Detroit had a lot of good history. Well, the father's is the place of Ford Motor. Henry Motor, he did a lot for the city. He and Roosevelt got together and started bad boys at trade school. And most of it in those days was Tool and Die. Things changed automation. Tool and Die went out. What was punishment like in school? Pardon? What was punishment? Punishment? There was discipline dealt with for the teacher handled minor discipline. If it was any

further than that, she called for the vice principal. And the vice principal would come down. And if he had to single one or two out, he said, after school, in my office. We'd say yes, sir. And we went into his office. He would talk punishment. The principal, old man-cater, ready for retirement, would use a razor-stab on your hand. Bam! Bam! And he'd watch your face. And the best seeing you could do was start crying, because he stopped then. And the women were working right around the desk and all that they hated it. You can see them once their face. Well, old man Carter died.

And Mr. Long, the vice president, took over. He called me in the office one day. He lived two blocks from us. I used to deliver him newspapers. He said, Donald, I want to show you something. He reached in a drawer. The president's day. You know, he picked it out.

You see, you remember this? Yes, sir. I'll never forget it. He said, throw it in the ash-gatherer for me. You're the last one that was strapped with that. He never, he never resorted into physical punishment. He humiliated you with talk. He impressed you. You went home thinking.

No. You didn't go home, Rubber. Those were good days. Yes. Yes, we got tired of school and yes, we waited for summer vacation to come and then we all had to go to work. Couldn't lay around. We all had to go to work. I saw news. I was a Western Union boy in Detroit. I delivered telegrams all over Detroit downtown section, some for the Detroit Tagers. I had interesting people. I knew every business building downtown. People would say, Donald, I have to go pay a bill and that where was the four-billion? You take what you call it to work and you jump over on what you call it and it's about two blocks down on the left. You can't miss it. What kind of stuff did you like to do for fun back then? For fun? Yeah. I like fishing. Yeah. I

like organized softball. But I like fishing and honey. That's what I love fishing. Yeah. I like organized softball. But I like fishing and honey. That's what I love to do. Really? What kind of fish? Huh? What kind of fish? Cropies, grubgills, perch, bass,

when we troll, deep troll, for a pike. And I'm talking about pike, like that, two and a half feet long, right? I like the good size northern pike. A lot of bone, but delicious meat. Friday in Michigan, it's that way in Wisconsin. I don't know if it's that way around here or not. You don't solve. But every Friday was fish night. It just was fish night. Yeah. And everybody loved to go off and fish. I'd say to my wife, Dave Friday, the kids would be gone. I want to go for fish. Yeah, let's go down the golf club and eat fish there Friday night fish What would you hunt? Huh? What kind of animal would you hunt? I love rabbit my mother could roast rap. Oh, she was good with rabbit Yeah, I love birds

Gross gross or delicious very delicate Yeah, dear It's also delicious, very delicate. Yeah. Dear? Venison, I like a good venison steak with pancakes. Really? Oh, that goes good. Maple syrup.

It goes good. Yeah. I went dear hunting up North with my dad. 14 years old. Never forget it. There was a cousin of mine there. 14, same as me. We hunted together. They put us on a stand and we had slugs in a shotgun. They had rifles. They went around, drove them, torches. And then when they come at us, they would either fire

at them or tell us where, which way they went. Because when they came at us, they veered off, we go that way. So, they wanted to know why we didn't take a shot. We couldn't kill him. We couldn't do it. We were young. It would stand there and look at you. How could you kill something like that? Yeah.

Unless you were starving or hungry, we couldn't do it. We couldn't come. Is you're not even going to use your guns anymore when we get back, leave them. What kind of rifles were you, isn't it? Do you remember what kind of rifles you were using? We were in chesters. Yeah. Remington.

Remington. 12 gauge, yeah. Remington. Remington. 12 gauge, 16. You know, they claimed I'm on birds. The best weapon was a 20 gauge. Straight ahead, you know. Probably that's still a small star. A small star? Yeah. Like a bullet.

Excuse me. A round. Yeah. Yeah, like a bullet Excuse me around Couldn't do that in the Marine Corps round How many rounds hit him three of them got him in the leg? What What got your interest in the military party what what got your interest in the military my dad was in the Marine Corps in the military. What got your interest in the military? My dad was in the Marine Corps in the First World War. He never talked much about it, but I knew he was in, and we'd ask him questions, and

he reluctantly answered us. He was not a discussionist type person at all. No, I don't know how to go like that. He had something as childhood, just a mess. What was your question? I asked you what got your interest in joining the Marine Corps? What got your interest in joining the Marine Corps? To win the Corps. Two actors, Paddle Brian, Jimmy Cagney. Both of them played a lot of Marines.

Tough sergeants. I just like the Marine Corps. I like the uniform. We were all honest by saying, you gotta admit, it was the uniform that really entrusted us. It's still us. We paid a heavy price. Heavy price. We went into book camp.

The first thing we heard there were a bunch of kids at our office. We went through, you'll be sorry! Yeah! Yeah! But I love the car. We fought good. We were Americans. This is one thing that the car appreciated when we went in to sign up. Why are you signing up on the Marine Corps? You realize that we're the first to fight? We said, yes, sir.

Well, why do you want to come in the Marine Corps? Because I know they fight, and we want to fight the enemy. We want to fight Japanese. That's just the way we felt. Was that... We learned that. We learned that in school also. A lot of patriotism back then. Yes.

And the movie went to war. Yep. Hollywood was good in those days. It's a much a trash now. Trash. What was the media like? Media? Yeah, the news. Were they very... I think, I think, in all fairness, I have never experienced anything in my life until now, these past years. The last of what I was used to was with Donald Trump. I haven't seen it since. Brace my heart.

I love my country. People are distorted. Their minds are all goofed up. They don't know what to do. And that's because the schools are a total blame, with our high school kids today. I'll be very honest in Frank and I know what I'm talking about because I've spoken high schools. Can you imagine a high school dropout going to a college university and talking to students, the Baptist Theological Seminary, I wouldn't

spoke to twice in Dallas. And they know that I did not finish school. Why? What's the difference? What happened? I think that we learned something that was deep rooted in our country, that they don't get today. No.

And Hollywood is not making good wholesome movies about our country. I we learned a lot of history from Hollywood, how he started out. Our electricity, everything. The first mirror in an operating room, Thomas Edison put a mirror up and it deflected the light directly, directly right on the wound where they were working. But it was done by reflection. He thought of that.

We saw all of the Thomas Edison movies, very educated. Ali's underground bell, the electricity, how that wall bash Indiana is the place where they lit the first lights. That town was still there, and those lamps are still there in the streets. Really? My son had a home there for a couple of years, and I went there quite a few times. Did Americans get along back then? I Think that we got along good with because you know we had praids we had praids all the time and I I thank my dad for doing it, but you know young boys forget and

When the parade when the flags would come by and the parade would be sitting duck, get up on your feet, the flag is coming. Now, can you imagine my father spending more loyalty to the flag that he did his family? But that's what he was. That's what he was trained. He was a Marine. So we would stand in our home. When Roosevelt spoke, we stood up in our home. When Roosevelt spoke, we stood up in our home.

Wow. That's the way it was some different times. Lot of respect. We had parades. Do you know that all the car industry, the big factories in Detroit, do you know that all the car industry, the big factories in Detroit? Do you know that the 4th or July, they all had company pictures and families, members and families that worked there

were invited to the picnic? Everybody went there. The parks were jammed full all over the city of Detroit. They paid for everything. That's gone. There's nothing like that anymore. After the war, it ended. All over the city of Detroit, they paid for everything. That's gone. There's nothing like that anymore. After the war, it ended. It stopped. So that lost a real relationship, a touch there.

There was a bomb there. Yeah. We've lost that. Boy Scouts. I was a boy Scouts. I've speak to Boy Scouts I was a boy scout. I've speak to boy scouts Up a roll and rock they had boy scout sir. It was a patriotic day and I spoke and They were standing around with their hands in the apartment One kid had his turktail hanging out

And I said to the scout mess is the scout mess to there and he raised his hand would you mind bringing the boys said to the sculpt master, is the sculpt master there? And he raised his hand. Would you mind bringing the boys up to the front? And he said, sure, and he got them all together. They all came up the front. They thought they were going to be recognized. And I said, would you boys turn around and face the audience? They turn around face the audience. And I said, young men, do you realize that you are the future of America? Do you realize that maybe someday you will have to take our place when it comes to battle? Look at you now. You've got your hands in your pocket, your shirt's hanging out. Look at you now. You've got your hands in your pocket, your shirts hanging out. Look at your socks. Straighten up. Get in good shape there. And do you help people cross the street?

We did. If you saw a woman with bags of groceries and rams, would you help her or do we do let her go out right by you? I out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and out and go out and go out and out and go out and go out and out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out and go out We got a problem and the school is to blame for it. Yeah, I don't deserve it. The school had more of us than our own mothers and they didn't use it. And they're not using it today and we're losing good teachers because they're not going to teach that junk. Trash has nothing to do with our country. trash has nothing to do with our country. And another thing is one thing we have to learn

I speak to a lot of our young men that have lost their arms and legs. They can never say they had victory. They can never say they had victory. They can never say they won the battle. It's still going on. They've been doing it for 2,000 years for crying out loud. They've been fighting Israel. It's not going to stop. That's all they know.

We had no business going in there. And we sent our employees in there because, oh, we're America. We're going to help the world. The world doesn't help us. We're on our own. So you ask a question like that and I reach way out that far ahead. Well, I appreciate the fact that you do. But we've got to look at this.

We need to know what's, we've got to realize what's happening. We've got to get back to being a patriotic country. We've got to protect our nation. We've got to see that gate slam shut on the border. Run the first, run those understand, run them back over on the Mexican side. Shut that gate up and lock it up forever. I think it's gonna happen. I think so too. It's gonna happen real quick. I think you're right.

That may sound like harsh words, but I love this country. We better start. I was in France, Normandy. We spent some time in Normandy, three veterans. We were invited there for a big celebration. One of the first things I saw when we drove into the yard of a home while they were going to keep us for four or five days. I saw the American flag flying right next to a French flag, and I saw it everywhere all over that part of France.

Schools, buildings, American and French flags together. I didn't know that. I never really liked the French. I didn't like that. I never really liked the French. I didn't like the way they fought. I didn't like the way they stood back when things were happening. I just never liked it. I had a lesson to learn. Those people loved their country.

They went through battle hell. They have memorials, and they're not going to erase them. I was told that they they've got memorials. They have stains on walls where they had firing squads during the First World War. I never liked that. Well let me tell you something. If anyone goes to France and goes to Normandy and goes a few miles out of Normandy, they will see a little church chapel that is over a hundred years old on a river side. It is called the Church of the Bloodstain Puse. We don't know what that meant, so we were invited in. We didn't know what that meant. So we were invited in.

It's a history. St. Paddy was in it. Really? He went there. And we couldn't understand what this blood stain was. So she took us on a tour and showed us the benches. There are blood all over the benches. Stain dry. From the Second World War. showed us the benches, though our blood all over the benches stained dry from the second

world war. The Germans took that town over and they fought from inside of that chapel. And we beat him and drove him out of town, but our boys got hit. And they set a hospital up inside the church, but hadn't done it, they couldn't quite get it all done. And the boys were sitting in the pews waiting to be taken care of, and there was blood all over the place. It's still there. Introducing Rich Valdez, America at Night, the podcast. Welcome to the conversation, Familia. A perfect blend of news and entertainment, interviews and insights.

It's really just an expose on how messed up things are. America's nighttime town hall whenever you want. It's a huge problem that deserves a lot more attention. Rich Valdes, America at night, follow the podcast, wherever you listen. podcast wherever you listen. My dear friend Kelly was with us. She knows she's seen it. Or did you not? I don't think she did. That was some other place. We went to iron. I got to iron to. So let's get let's get back to What got you interested in joining the military.

How? What got you into joining the military? When did, how old were you on World War II started? Oh, when the war started? Sixteen years old. Sixteen years old. Sixteen, yes. And I can never, I'll never forget what really stimulated me.

It was the 8th of December, one day after Pearl Harbor. And it was cold, 8 degrees below in Detroit. And we were sitting in an old car listening to the big bands over on old radio we hooked up and we were wrapped up in a blanket We had caps and jackets on but we wanted to listen to the big bands, you know and Our parents really didn't particularly like it so here we could listen to it and then all of a sudden the announcer comes on He said ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt this broadcast. The President of the United States will address the nation. And An came Roosevelt, our hero.

He led us through the war. And we beat the enemy. And this is what he said. Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, United States of America, was suddenly in the liberately attacked by a naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. I interpret the world of Congress and of the people. We shall gain triumph and victory, so help us God." As soon as that was over with, I said to my two buddies,

I said to my two buddies, I said, tomorrow morning, I'm skipping school. I'm going down and join the Marine Corps. And they said, you can't, you gotta be 17 years old. And they have to have your mother, your mother and dad's signature. Well, I can get them both. I only got six months to go. I'm going down and get the paper.

So I got up in the morning and I had two sisters and a brother. I said, don't tell anything to mom. I'm going down to the Marine Corps office this morning. So I took off. I ran down town. So, Gunny Sergeant in the door, we met me. He said, young man, what can I do for you? I said, I want to join up.

He said, hold on to you. I said, 16. He said, I can't take you, you've got to be 17. When will you be 17? I said in six months, tell you what I'll do. If you want to do this, I will give you a piece of paper. You take that paper, your mother and father, and when you're 17, you have them sign to bring it back and we'll do it best. You want to do that?

Yes sir. He said go. And out the door I went, down the stairway, ran all the way home as best I could, ran through the back door, but I forgot I skipped school. And my mother was there baking. And she said, what are you doing home? And I realized I skipped school. And I said, ma, I skipped school and went down the Marine Corps office and I got papers and when I'm 17, I'm going to go in the Marine Corps. No, you're not. You're going to stay in school. You're not going to, you know, I went through this already. One more. I'm not going through this again. So forget it.

Throw it away. I went the front in the dining room and went in the buffet, opened the drawer, texted under some papers, shut the drawer. Six months later it was May 3rd. We had a small party. My dad was there. And I knew I had no problem with him. So I went, got that piece of paper, all. I didn't have a pen. I said, Dad, sign this. Well, you, he said, what is it? I'm going in the Marine Corps. Get me a pen. He webbed the pen and he said, he's a very signed this. She's, I'm not signing that. She went through that same thing. I went through this before I'm not going to go again. He said, if you're a limit talk to him, it does listen to me. The boy walked out of school. He's doing our jobs. He'll probably turn out to be a bum. And I went like this

to my mother. She's giving me the paper. And she signed it. They both had a sign and went out there doing a round all the way down to the top, saw the sergeant again. What is that? He said, you got it? I said, I have. Here it is. He said, good.

Now he said, well, tell you something. See that door over there? Yes, sir. You're going to go in that door and meet a Navy doctor. I said, yes, sir. You're going to go in that door and meet a Navy doctor. I said, yes, sir. He said, he's going to check you over from the top of your head to the tip of your toes. You ain't never going to forget it. Do you want to do that?

I said, yes, sir. He says, go. I went in, knocked on the door. I said, come on in. Walk the door. And he did. He checked me from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. And I ain't never going to forget it.

And I haven't forgotten it yet. That was it. That was the start. Well, he said, I'll call you in two weeks. And your mother and father bring you the train station. We'll go to San Diego. And you'll go eight weeks of boot camp. How many 16 year olds were signing up back then? Or 17 years? Well a lot of them tried it but they could. They had to have your birth certificate and the birth

certificate done a lie. There it is. So they had to be 17. You hear about them getting sneaking in the army. That was a lot easier, but you could never do it in the Marine Corps. Really? Now there's no way you're gonna get away with it. They're not gonna take that liability. They just didn't think they had to, you know?

Yeah. But a lot of people join in back then. A lot of people join in the armed forces. It was, when you boot camp in San Diego, the Marine Corps base. That parade ground, where we trained, was so packed full of protumes of young kids. It was amazing. we didn't hit. We went right around one another. The DIs were good. They yelled command of everything we had to do. Left to Blake, right to Blake, left to him.

We never went into one another. They couldn't, in fact, they stopped taking them in until we could get them out of there. You know, graduate. To room power, the actor was in there, one pretend behind me. Glenn Ford was in there. Eddie Albert from Green Acres was in there. Really?

Yes, we had people in there from Hollywood. Hollywood went to war. Everybody was joining. The Duke, John Wayne, tried to go in the corps. The Duke, John Wayne, tried to go in the corps. And the officer said to him, he says, Duke, he said, take care of your family at home. You're 40 years old. He says, go home and take care of your boys and make movies so we can learn something.

We learned from Hollywood. They had some good military movies. They really did. It's exaggerated junk today. There is one I highly recommend, letters from evil. That is a classic. If you want to know how the Japanese really felt about fighting out Iwo Jima, see that movie. They were lied to. They were told by the politicians that they were on a holy war. And that meant they would never surrender. They would always fight to the death. But all of a sudden the

soldiers start surrendering. They got word that they were lied to. That's what it was all about. Well, what was your training like in the Marine Corps? The Marine Corps were very severe training. Our DIs were, I don't know what's going on now, I can't speak up for it now, but our DIs were, they had a lot of time in the corps, they were, they were salt, they had been in Philippines, they, they had really been around and they were stiff. I mean, when you had rifle inspection in the morning, every morning. Port Arms, unload weapon, pull the bold warper. He would combine and grab that out of your hand and flip it around his hand, look through the barrel and that.

He'd find something wrong. What is this? I looked at it and I thought, I thought, sure, I cleaned it. I said, sir, that's dirt. Wipe it right on my face, just like that. Clean it off and clean your weapon. I want everything clean and that weapon tomorrow. I mean, that's the way it was.

No, we never left home before. I mean, that would bring tears to rise. I mean, we thought we felt beat down on the ground, but it made men out of us. When, show me a fortune that will go through the Marine Corps. Training, basic, and walk downtown on Liberty. He doesn't slouch around with his hands in his pocket. He's marching.

We walked like we were doing cadence everywhere we went. My daughter told me she's one to him in Dallas. She said, I was waiting to go aboard the plane. And we were about three or four of us waiting. A young man came up and he had a suitcase. He said it down on the ground, on the floor. And he was standing there. and he was looking around. He said, he's young, Philip, can I ask you a question? He said, yes, ma'am. Are you a married?

Yes, ma'am. She said, I thought so. You can see it. You can tell it when he walks down the street if he cares or all. Yeah. I'll bet. What else did they train you to do in boot camp? Excuse me?

What else did they train you to do in boot camp? It was a matter of... Well, you know your calisthenics, your marching and all that. That is to uniform right, parades, ceremonials, you have to learn and know that. The rest of it was combat train. One of the first things we did, we had bayonets and we had rifles and we fixed bayonets. And he had each one of us come up, and they had a dummy there.

And he said, there's a Japanese soldier coming at you there, what are you going to do with that rifle? And we would trust that blade in. But we'd just poke it. And he'd stop, grab it out of your hand, shove you back and say, you're dead. It just like that. Now, you can imagine talking to seven general kids that way. I mean, first time they left home, but we needed it. We're going to face the enemy.

I mean, and these guys, they've had it drilled in their head too because a lot of them never saw any action yet, you know, too young. But he told, he showed, now I want to show you something and he took a rifle with his bayonet. And he showed us what you do. If you can't get it up, pull the trigger. It'll come out. That's what you learn. So you went to Delta Company's second battalion, 28th Marine's fifth Marine Division.

Correct. Yeah. Brand new division. Who's brand new with that title? Paul Spir ahead division in Roosevelt for one of that division, specific for one thing which we never knew till one day off the island, Iwo Jima. Really? Absolutely.

We did not know. But I knew one thing after I saw evil. We didn't know it at the time. But we always invaded a no or a hill. If you've been out in San Clement, many Ion. Yes, I have. We invaded that island. Really? Yes. And there was a like a volcano on our channel. And we would approach that and I'd use fire and everything. I mean, that's what we trained on that island. That's what it was used for. Wow.

I trained on that island. But it didn't, we didn't understand. It didn't mean anything to us. Yeah. But here we're standing there looking at Mount Sir Abache and I said, my gosh, now I know what the heck we were doing. So you went from San Diego and then you went to New Zealand. Yeah, that first time over where we went to New Zealand to train because New Zealand opened up its doors.

They have a great vast of desert because they have a lot of cattle sheep. And it was just like California. It's only 200 square miles, you know, but they let us do that there. And so otherwise it would be Hawaii. In New Zealand. Yes, New Zealand. Did you know you were going to Uwo Jima when you went to New Zealand? Did we know we were going to New Zealand?

You never know where you're going to go. That's never go. Never, that's never brought up. You just go. Do you know we left San Diego, arrived at New Zealand 21 days later. Zig-zag, seven knots, just like that, slow. That's slow, but that was because of submarines. You don't run a straight line.

You zig-zag. So when we went from Island to D't die, and they took a long time. Did you see any engagements from submarines? Did you see any engagements? No, we never did. And you know, I had a… I had a seller who was standing alongside the line. And I said, it's scary. We don't have any protection. He says,

show you do. And I said, where? He said, guns, we got that. But I mean out there. He said, we got don't worry. We got plenty of protection if we need it. Well, something happened. I don't know what it was, we got it near the equator. And all of a sudden I heard, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, a destroyer pulled right up alongside of us. And then they stayed for a while, and then veered off, gone, never saw him. As you look across the ocean, the waves, you can't see them anymore.

You can't see them until they're on you. So you do have protection. Okay. They're not going to send a convoy over there without protection. So you were going to Island X. What is Island X? Excuse me? What is Island X?

I don't know. Was that a code word for New Zealand or was that a code word for Ewojima? No, we never used a code word for Ewojima. Okay, no. No, I don't know where, if that... I don't... We knew all the islands, they were named, you know, because we weren't heading for an invasion

yet, but we left, we packed up and left nosin' it, we were ready for combat, but our job was to knock out tanks. And on the islands, tanks didn't do very well. We went down in the mud, and so they used them for artillery. So how were we going to make up by going in there? We had have tracks, and that wouldn't work. So they broke us up. They felt we weren't needed.

We went back to the States and formed the Fifth Marine Division. Okay, so that's when we formed the Fifth Division. So you went to New Zealand first. Yeah, the first one was Annie Tank Battalion. Okay. Yeah. So I went on two tours. And then the next time we were ready,

we went to New Zealand and we stayed there and trained for a while, then loaded up and got around Honolulu, went out through the channel, on our way to Saipan, got off of that and loaded LSDs, which had six... Fibius tractors down below. That was going to take us to combat. And we took off for two weeks, and one morning we woke up at five o'clock in the morning with banging away and Arab planes flying, and we were right in a battle.

And about two miles away was Montserrat Bacci. And we saw that mountain, we could see it. And the Navy and the Arab horse hammered that thing. It was a cloud of smoke all over the place. I read that thing, it was a cloud of smoke all over the place. Before we get there, when did you become a flame thrower? I was issued a flame tour to begin with in the fifth division because that's what we were going to train for. My job was to cost to knock up pilles, fortifications. Burn them out.

What is the flame thrower carry in combat? Five gallons of fuel oil gasoline, mixture, a lot of fire, no napalms. Napalms are jelly and it throws chunks like that and burns We didn't use that the tanks use that okay, and they get shoot it way out How far did your did you carry a side arm at all or I carried a 45 because couldn't carry your rifle Because that gun is about that long yeah Yeah, what about how far how much distance could you get with a flat door how far would it go? Because that gun is about that long. Yeah. Yeah. What about how far, how much distance could you get with a flat door? How far would it go? Yeah.

I would say with a straight shot full force, you could probably get 65, 70 feet. Wow, that's a whole yeah. But it wouldn't be as effective if you burst in the entrances, you know, because you're going into an open cave. There's always an entrance, you know, and you're both firing there. Just a couple of bursts like that.

You have six to seven bursts, that's all you've got. If you held the turgoback in 15 seconds, you're empty. That's it. That quick. That quick. So you have to learn to, that's it. You got about five or six like that,

five gallons gone. Wow, how many? Two and a half and this tank, two and a half and that tank, the pressure tank was in the middle. Yeah. So there's three tanks. Well, it's three cylinders. Okay.

Yeah. That metal one was reinforced steel and the other tanks were close to it. The only thing that I would think of is if they shot me from the back and around hip between the tanks it would get right through in my back. But if it hit those they were oval so it would probably ricochet off. Interesting. Let's talk about the gourmet breakfasts, the morning of the invasion.

The gourmet breakfasts. We got up in the morning and they had show on top side, they brought it up because the amphibious tractors were down there. We had to live on that thing for two weeks. On top on a blanket, that was it. We had to leave the blankets there when we got off. And all of a sudden, you know, we see a JAPC in one of our planes fight, overhead. We'd see that. And then the shells from the warship, the battleships and that, you could hear them,

shush, shush, shush, like that, and then we'd watch where it would hit. Well, anyway, they brought the chow up, and we had steak and eggs. I never had a steak in the Marine Corps. I had a lot of eggs, but not a steak. So we're standing there eating that, makeshift tables. And I said to this kid next to him, he said, hey buddy, I said, what's with the steak and eggs? He said, Graves, think about it. What did he do with context before they execute them? That's the kind of human we had going into battle. It's crazy. But that's where we were until we got in it. And it was reality. And I'll never forget we passed by a transport and the neighbors rup in the bow waiting for us to go by, you know

They'd have a cup of coffee and they'd say Give it to them their marine give it to them they would nice give me a clap now. I go Today, did they give you a mission brief before you won in? Give us what a mission brief Did they oh yes, we had briefing what did they tell you they said if you can take a prisoner taking we don't know a thing about this island We know it's eight square miles. We have an estimate of 22,000 Japanese soldiers on it 22,000 Yes, how many Marines were going in that would be 20 65,000 three divisions there's 20,000 in a division about 20 40 60 so 60 thousand Marines to 22,000 Japanese and the original. Can you imagine on eight square miles? No.

But you see they fought underground and then came up, fire went back down into the ground. So they weren't actually fighting on top side, you know. Why did we want to invade Iwo Jima? Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima lie in the way, the path of side pan or beef or B 52 Yeah, B 52 or the bombers. Yeah, that she too is with her Excuse me B 29's

The B 29's were there and they were direct flights there to Chilquay old dropped their bombs and had to get back to side pan the the corsairs direct flights there to Chilquo, dropped their bombs and had to get back to Psypam. The Corsairs from Psypam could not travel that far. They ran out of fuel. So they wanted to have that island for a place to land in case they were hit. And also the P-51 would meet them, take them there, and take them all the way back to Saipan. They traveled that far. Okay. The P-51s. So Roosevelt designed this. That was his idea. And I thought it was a good news. It was a costly thing, but when it was all over, we saved 29,000 Air Force personnel in some of our planes.

Wow. What was the mission brief when they told you? What did they tell us? What did they tell us? What did they tell us? Number one, if you can take a prisoner of taking, if you can't, you kill him. That was just primary. That was it because what could they tell us? They tried to talk about the aero strips that were fortified, but they really didn't know. I mean, they was just a lot of guesswork. So I think that we were surprised and awful lot as we fought on that island.

We were surprised. So you landed? They had a 500, they had a camp penalty, and I don't know if it's still there, they had a decamped panel in it. I don't know if it's still there. They had it all in front of our display, but they had it made something like a 500 MP rocket. And when it lost, it went like that, and you could see it. You could see it, and it would drop and blow up.

It was a rugged thing. It could only go short, but it could go all over the eight square miles. And that was the thing that we tried to find. We could never find it. Well, what happened was we were told that we were going to see, I'm going too fast because we had left Surabachi going gone to Hill 362 way. We lost our battalion there. And my job the next morning was to turn my frame tour in, grab demolition, and another

man and I, we went up and we fixed the shape charts to drop that top in because that's where they were firing out of on our bound battalion. And when we reached the top, I counted roughly 50 Japanese dead soldiers on top of that island. And we had to crawl over them to get to the mouth of the cave. And we set that thing off and it billed with fire, just billed inside. And then it was over. That seemed to stop them, but they went to the north.

They just went underground to the north. That's what they did. Well, Don, let's start at the very beginning. So you landed, you arrived at EuroGym on the USS Missoula, correct? Yes. landed on D-Day, the third wave onto the beach. February 19th, eight o'clock in the morning. And the mission was to secure Mount Sura Bachi.

Yes. The mission was supposed to last two weeks and land up lasting six weeks. Japanese had underground bunkers called pillboxes. You were a flame thrower. Let's just step by step from the brief to loading up the insertion on the beach. What was it like on the insertion to to the beach. I had two men one on my left and one on my right We were pretty well much alone. We didn't wait for anybody else. We just kept doing our job Bellwing firing what we thought they might be in then we move along where they shoot that you before it well before you landed This is this is where the two men come in also if they come run now a lot of them around firing come running out

Bang bang we drop them They would they would kill them right there if they will come up with their hands up on that then we would call We would call for support. They'd send a bunch of people up there and grab them but It was it was a different kind of fight. We'd never fought like that on an island before. So, and it was him who was all volcanic. So, they had to tunnel in everywhere they went and it was solid and hard, you know, to get in and stay in. they lived in it. They lived in there for two years before we came. So the idea was to black them up if we could,

and the only way we could do it was to close it in. Now the engineer has followed us. We would do our best to get them out. And then when we left, they come along, blow the thing in. Dynamite. Can you describe how long it took you to get from the beach to the tunnels to the pool boxes? It took from the top of the beach was 575 feet to Mount Surabachi. We got there the third day. Wow, third day. They come at us at night time, but during the day they threw everything they had

on us because they're right down. They can look at it and they can see us. That's why my skipper, when he took around right, bad place, he crawled up behind that rock and they couldn't get him. And he lit up a cigarette and that was it until we found him. What did he say? Yeah. When we reached the base finally, we had a hand-flaked with hand grenades, but they were throwing them down on us, but we couldn't throw up. Now normally we can grab, if we're fast, and we'll grab

that hand grain, we'll sort right back at him. Their own, their own, and it'll get him. But we couldn't do it. We couldn't throw him uphill. That's quite a long way up there. So what we did is we secured the base, blew up, blew him out of there, did everything move. We got him out of there. They went down in the cave and went down below Montserrat Bacchi. Some of them came up to the top there and then our patrol that went up with this flag that my battalion commander gave them to put up they killed a few of them up there anyway. Yeah. Were there planes? Can you describe the scene a little bit? Were there was there planes above where there?

How much? They did not come because they'd be hitting us, you know. So it was all man. Oh, we gave them where they were going. We're we're mopping up Surah Baqshir right now. It won't be coming on to us. So they did not come. So it was just around. When they let them come, we So it was just, well, we were in the first place.

We didn't want them to come because we were all over that place. They had a battalion of men. Well, I'll tell you when we left Surabachi, we didn't have a battalion. And when we got to Hill 362A, that was a bloody thing. It just hammered the daylights out of us. I almost cried. I was off to the side with the friends of... If they get me, I'm chopped liver.

That's all there is to it. They got my squad leader. They tortured him. They found his body. So I took over the squad, then I lost the squad. So, I mean, it was just a bloody, confused, bad, we didn't know what to really expect. Because nobody knew anything about the island.

It was kept sacred. How many friends did you have, Dye there? How many? How many friends did you have, Dye there? How many friends did you have, Dye there? I had a kid, an awful carabu, with his name. We went to school together in Detroit. We went to school together and he was a rifleman. He was killed on Hill 362A. I had about three or four good buddies there that were killed. We lost our officers. Not them came out of there. So we fought to the North Indian.

By the time we got to the North Indian, we held it right there because we had them down by the water. We had about a week to go, because we knew we wouldn't be five or six weeks yet. So we had about a week to go and we would have it all done. And they would command us at night and then go hunker back down on the beach by the water. They can go swim. Our ships, our boats, would take them off, pick them off, or they could command us and eventually be wiped them off. Because we killed like 2,300 every night at a bonsai charge. I think we were fortunate. I don't know in my battalion

of anybody that really got killed by a bonsai charge list, it was hand grenades. But bodily, they did not get to us. And that's what we were really afraid of being at for you. We didn't want that to happen. But we were ready if we had to, you know, but that never happened. Because we could kill them before they got right to us. Yeah. How long did it take for you to see the first Marine killed in action when you didn't quite get the question? How long did it take for you to see the first Marine killed in action at EWO GMO?

Not long at all. When I hit the beach, I lay face down. I had these two boys with me. We were scared to death. John Bassalon, Medal of Honor, Guadalcanel, the first one. He was killed right to a right. Never got up. Three kids ahead of me were already dead. There were bodies laying all over the beach

and we had to crawl over those bodies to move to the top. But it was hard getting to the top because nobody could get off the thing. Every time you'd get up to move and run and when we got it, they had it all. They plowed up the volcanic ash loose, a two and a half, three feet of it. And it would sink right up here, right up to your cap, and then you had to get your leg up. Well, I had a flamethrower on. Well, by the time I reached the top, I lost my two buddies. They weren't with me anymore. So I went the first night of that battle. I was alone in a hole, so it was a mess. It was really a mess, a disaster.

That's the problem I'm going on these days. I don't know anything about it. You don't know what to expect. When is the first time you fired your flamethrower in battle? First time on the way to Surah Bachi. Yeah. I put a little burn my way right through to the base and by that time I was the only one left in my outfit. They were wounded or killed. Can you describe the first time you used the flame throw and down? When I reached the base, they were, you know, it was funny.

They had, it's all cleared out now, but they had big boulders placed there. And so the interest of the cave was, to the mountain was behind them and this protected them. So they were in between, but you can see their hair, their head moving back and forth. You can see it, and we couldn't get them. Very mind-yellow graves. Come on over here, and I walked over and had my flamethrower and my back.

See if you can get, my can't get them. So he held the gun on my gun, flamethrower, and I took the bar, and I'm firing away, and I'm chipping the rock right at the guy's head. It would hit the top of the rock, but we couldn't get him. And then he'd move over him, we'd try, that one on, on, on, on, on. So fire, what we do is we call for air power.

And our marine planes came in, and they scraped the daylight side of that thing. Well, they did kill a few, but a few of them went right back in the caves. But we wanted to get that done before dark. We had to get that thing wiped out before dark. That was a bad place to be. The problem is, they came out at night in Fought. That was the generals we were doing things. Hunkardar and Turin the day let them have their fun and then hit them at night.

But they paid a price for it every night. We were ready. How would they fight you at night? How was the fight at night? Scary, screaming, yelling. I had one Japanese with a bag on his side, hand grenades. All he was doing was he was drunk around Saki. They had Saki in the caves like crazy.

He didn't drink. I mean anything to keep going, you know, and they had drugs and I mean talking and mummums of self one came at us with that bag of hangarings started throwing them one lob down in the hole and Normally if you if you grab it you can throw it back at him But just no way in the world we could get that hand grenade. I picked it, tossed it up, hit the top of the bank and rolled back in. I said, out, hey grenade.

We all cleared the whole one fellow. He was a married man, one of the bereave place was, his one foot stayed in and it went off and his foot off was hanging by his skin. And man, we screamed for stretcher bear, stretcher bear, where they find him, brought a stretcher bear, he over to us. And we got him on there, but his foot was hanging off, you know, on the side. He didn't know it, I don't say anything about it, but I broke down crying, I lost it.

If only he could have pulled both legs out of there. And he says, don't worry about it, Don, I'm going home and he did. Yeah. Harry, Harry nights. Sounds like it. Then we get up and the morning have gone and count them. Yeah. Make sure You know, make sure they're dead. Not a good job. And you know, they were just like us young teenagers, 20s, young, young ones. Only young men can fight wars. We learn that. Older men can fight wars. We learn that. Older men cannot fight wars.

Their minds different. We were brainwashed. For good. God is home. God has killed. Yeah. That's war. And you've got to be trained to go in.

You have to be trained. What did it feel like to engage the enemy for the first time? First time in combat? Yeah. A lot of screaming and yelling. At both sides, it's just a lot of screaming and yelling, you know. But there was freight as we are, but it was either that or they'd be shot. No surrender until later. An Okinawa now they surrendered. Did you...

Can you describe what it was like to shoot the flame-thorough? Was it bursts? Was it one long? Not a body? Sweet. You know, at first, if the fire was just on their back, like, they would run. They just... I suppose they were out of their minds, but they would run and of course our life, and would pick them off. It's just a tormented, it hangs. Of course it sticks

on your clothes first and then burns. Then you know it's going right through the clothes in your body. Some surrendered head, you know, some surrendered head, faces burned, oh, some of the body, and they didn't wear, it was hot on there during the day, and they wear these little briefs, or I don't, I call them diapers. It was a word for them, I don't know, but it was what I call them diapers.

And they would, they would be coming out, running out of the caves with those diapers. It was hot on those, it was smelly, terrible on those caves. Like they were full, we had to spray them prisoners. We, we, we fumigated them. It was terrible. Spray them. We were already spread like wildfire, put them in a compound, never touched them. When you would shoot somebody with a flame throw, how long would they be on fire?

When you would shoot somebody with a flame throw, how long would they be on fire? How long would the fire last? Yes. Like I say, if you're going to do burst, what you should, throw a burst, see what happened, nothing to another burst, then move on. But you wouldn't pull the trigger back until you emptied it because you only got 15, 16 seconds. You're out.

Yeah. You're gone. Yeah. You're gone. But if you do it in bursts, you've got about five or six shots. That's not much, but when you stop to think one shot could do a lot of damage. Yeah.

How many people could you in golf and flanks? It's because they're all in a cave. You don't know. You hear a lot of yelling. They yell all the time. They try and scare you with yelling. They scream and yell at you when they come at you.

So you know, it all sounds the same. I don't know what the engineer has found, whether they were all burned up or not. We don't know. But you have to move, you can't stand there, you move. Don, let's talk about some foxhole stories. So I heard that we have very similar saying, no atheists are apostles. That's right. Can you describe that? If a person, we've had kids, and I think every war has them, we've had kids say, I'm

looking out for myself if I get killed, it's my fault, that's the end of it. Some of them say, I'm going to hope God will help me get through this battle. No atheists and foxholes, I've seen them yelling scream and help, oh God, help me. I've heard it all time and time again. And they won't tell you, but they'll pray. You could see their praying, but they will never tell you. And you don't bother them. When you know a man might be praying, you leave him alone. You never say a thing to him. You don't question him. But that started on Guadalajanel, noists and foxholes really and it spread to every other battles I use that expression several times a battle

What's that I said I've used that expression several times a battle, but you made a deal with God I made a deal with God. I made a deal with God. I made a pledge. I broke the pledge. But God understood the whole situation. When I hit the beach, I was terrified. I had my face right down on the sand. I was so scared. Everything. The screaming and the yelling. I just said, Lord, I don't know much about you at all. I know you exist. I know you are. And if you could help me and get me all this, I don't know, serve you the rest of my life. And I got a hunch that there were a lot of kids on that beach praying to. Where else would you go? What would you do? Well, to make it real short, he got me off that

afternoon in six weeks. He never really got me until nine years later. That was nine years after the war. I had something happen to me that I felt so ashamed. We were on the north anything. You don't see anything at all. At two o'clock in the morning, that's what happened. When you can't, you're fighting sleep. That's when they start blowing horns and bells. They were all screaming and yelling. They're coming at you. And you do your best. You want to make every shot count. And yes, a few of us would get it,

but we would just kill them. Knock them all down, lay them down. Well, what happened? We stayed in that hole that night, or that night. And the next morning, there was three of us. We made it, got through it. And I got word that I was to be looking for snipers. So I got up and I took my glasses and they were all like my elbows and I'm looking

around. I couldn't see. I think it was all quiet. Couldn't spot a thing. Was there about 15 minutes and I dropped back down. And I said, I said, there's nothing going on out there. So I phoned in and I told them, no snipers. They said, keep looking because they know where we're at. They're shooting

us back up here. I said, ten four. By the way, he said, you've got a kid coming for your replacement. I said, we can use him. And so if I had a kid yelled over the whole, who's graves? And I said, I am, come out in here and he jumped in the hole. And he said, what do you want me to do? And I said, sit and we'll be there a lot of do later on tonight. I said, well, I got to be looking. And he said, great, he's giving me the glasses on, look. I said, no, you get yourself killed. One of my buddies says, give me your glasses. That's what he's here for. I threw the glasses, and he got up and we're shooting the breeze. He's up here looking, then all of a sudden,

he fell back. His helmet rolled off between my feet. When it stopped, I looked down in the helmet, I was shocked, all three of us were just stunned. We didn't expect that. That's a neighbor thought that was me. He was ready for me. And there was a little, a young, a beautiful girl sitting in a chair, and on her lap was

a baby. I lost it. I got up and screamed and yelled and shook my fist in the air and say, Cursey, wujima, Curse God for letting that kid take my place. I didn't understand. And yet days before it was praying for help. Well, we phoned in and told them what happened. We got into another hole. And same story until the end and all of a sudden nothing was happening. They were down there by the water and it was either come at us and die or go in the water

and be shot in the water. Either way, we don't know what happened but we were released by the third division, 18 of us walked on to the cemetery. Let's take a quick break. Yeah. Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes, and leave the Sean Ryan show review. We read every review that comes through, and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. Alright, Don. So we're going to start to wrap up your time in Evojima, and I just got a couple of stories that I heard you talk

about last night at dinner that I'd like to expound upon. Well, let's talk about making hot chocolate and foxholes. Hot chocolate. Every put, if I'm speaking eventually, someone's gonna say, don't you have any interesting stories? And some say, Tell the hot chocolate. I don't like the hot chocolate, but I'll do it. It's sitting waiting, nothing happened at all day.

I said, I feel like hot chocolate. The other two guys says, People are making an effort for three of us. So we have ration bar, chocolate bars when they drop off ration, you know. And we dice up that D bar, do you ever see one? The D bar.

I have a chocolate bar. There's a combat bar. Bittersweet. And we've chopped it all up, put, we've got our canteen water in there. I've been to put a good batch and let some demolitionary, beautiful, nice blue fire. And if we sat and shot the breeze, watching, keeping our eyes open,

looking around, all of a sudden, you get smelly. It smells good. Then all of a sudden I heard a voice, Hey, Marine, very good chocolate, you'll bring chocolate here. I said, if you want chocolate, you come and get it. Oh no, you bring hair. Did they come and get it? They don't line me laughing.

Then they'd say, we'll say it down to us to hang with him, and get your own darn chocolate bar out. Don, how long did it take you to fill up a or to heat up a glass of hot chocolate being a flamethrower? It did by 2020, it was 20 minutes to a half hour. Oh, okay.

All right. So we're getting close to towards the end of the battle here. And there is a famous photograph of some Marines lifting a flag up on Ero Gimo. Yeah. Can you go into that a little bit? That flag going up, that was never that was never in the program. That was never planned out. Not as far as we were concerned on the end of, we didn't know about putting the flag up. It just was never discussed. What happened was my battalion commander Chandler Johnson, a board ship on a transport going to Saipan from Hawaii

He stayed up and up with the skipper of the ship and When we were getting ready to embark why he said Currently, he said take this flag. He said and Give it to give it see if he gets someone to put it up from there. I'd like to see that flag go up wherever he can put it up. And so John said, okay, I'll do that. He was, I like my battalion commander. He knew me real well.

We got along real good. He put me in the break three times. Sounds like a hell of a guy. It's a born nation I came in late from liberty. Well, anyway, he gave that to Harold Shryer, Lieutenant Shryer, that led the patrol up. He just gathered some guys together, and when they got up there, they shot a few Japanese up. They had a little skirmish up there, but they beat them. And then they... It's like I said last night, that was drain pipe, that that flight was put on.

People don't know that. They had no pole for a flight. We didn't know anything about a flag going up on the mountain. So they found this drain pipe and they put it together. And the Japanese used it to get rain water down in the cave bureau because they couldn't remake their water. They couldn't purify it like we did. We purified our water. So we always had plenty of it. It didn't taste too good, but it was pure. And so they got the flag all rigged up and we're, we're, we're, we're, we're through the fight, so we're walking right to the top.

And when we get up to the crest and stand there, from here, look, here to that wall, there it goes up. Man, it was a shock. And everybody saw that flag go up out in the bay, all those ships out there. Let go in the air with tracers and rockets. And our boys and we're on the North Fight with the Earth's trip while we're doing a surrogate. They started opening up with tracers. It was just like a spectacle.

In few related to Japanese Japanese they fought twice as hard We put our flag on Japanese soil for the first time in history Yep, how far were you from that flag? Well from here that picture on the wall about 20 feet Yeah, 10 20 feet. No, 20 feet. That's incredible Would that feel like? Just within a few feet. They always do that. They exaggerate. I'd say about that distance right there. What was the conversation like as the flag was going up? Nothing quiet. Dead signs. They just backed off like this. What if you've seen the picture you'll see when they get, when they raise it, whether they're going like this. But it was a shock to all of us. But boy, when it went up and

waived. Oh gosh, it was a glorious, open sight. It was. We conquered that island, cost, cost. and cost, cost. I would want to, eight years later, I went up there. We rode up this time, around the back, they got a rope put up. And we stood there. There's two flag poles, beautiful poles, bronze top, and the first pole is a Japanese flag, and this pole is the ball. No flag. We looked at that. I think there were two or three of us that fought up there. And we said, this makes me sick. And the gal that brought us said,

fell us, not to worry. She got under a big duffel bag and pulled out a flag. It was about five or six feet long. We opened that flag and held it up and everybody took pictures of it. We put the flag back up there. Good. That was the end of that. Was that, did that signify the end of the end of that battle when the flag went up the first time? It was overall

surreble. Well, it was over on the mountain. That was the finish of the mountain. We still had the north to go. Yeah. Just a couple more things. I heard a story about you singing God Bless America. Yeah. And the Japanese wanted you to sing it again. We were in the North end again.

And we were sitting in the hole. They said, Graves, give us a song. And I said, You know, I'm going to do something I bet you guys forget about. And I said, what's that? God bless them. No, we heard that. So sing it. So I sang it. And when I got done

There again I heard a voice and you may America but really Betty good sing you sing again and I said no more singing. He said okay Because we were afraid they might want to sink in where we were at By singing mm-hmm, so I didn't repeat it. You didn't want to give up your location. No, not a bit. One last thing, your skipper Richard Allen was wounded bleeding. You got shot, correct? What's that?

Your skipper Richard Allen. Yes, sir. My skipper, yeah. He was shot. Yeah, going up to, sir. My skipper. Yeah, he was shot Yeah, going up to going towards surabachi was it's at the veer was this at the very beginning? Yeah, the very beginning soon as they got off the beach Capra now and was energy headache. They pair to upper

They broke them up couldn't use him And he he came to me, he came, my company commander, but he waved his arms, even when we maneuvered, he would wave his arm. Get that patrol go. It's all the way, well they're looking at him, I'm surprised, I told him one time we were training, Skipper, you're going to get hit because you're really even your arms are on. And he's not on. I've done that before. Well, that guy up on Sir Abachi Shure took him and hit him right in the clutch. Oh, man, right in the clutch. And he was bleeding. I said, Skipper, you can't lose much more blood. We got to get you down on the beach. Get out of here. Get up there.

Oh, he was mad. You know, sir, we're going to drag you down on the partial. I didn't go because I had my friends over, but a few of the guys did and they got him. They got him down and then came back. I don't know what happened, but 45 years later, I saw him and we had a great time together. It was in San Antonio, we had a reunion, 45th reunion. He came 45 years later. 45 years later we had a reunion.

We don't have many more, we don't have enough men to have one. That's all going. But I was so glad to see him. And you know, I couldn't believe that he went through that. He said he was fine. But just what, two years later, he died of cancer. Oh, man. Yes. Cancer is said in. In this year good we'd have followed him to hell and back That's what we thought about him Did you have any questions for him when you saw him 45 years later? Pardon did you have any questions for him when you saw him 45 years later? We should think you know it. Yeah

Did you happen to ask him why he made you a flame Thor? One of the smallest guys in the year. I did not ask him. I said, why did you put that flame Thor on my back, Skipper? He said, Graves, you're here, aren't you? Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

I know what he meant. Sure. Ha! Ha! Ha! Well, Don, your unit started with 335 Marines and left with only 18 from Erogema. In my company. You were the only surviving flame floor from the unit.

You didn't sleep, brush your teeth, change your socks for six weeks. I, I, I, when we got back, I started training again with the new men. I taught the flamethrower. I was the only one that taught the flamethrower. I couldn't get these kids to pick it. They wouldn't put it on. For some reason or other, the lieutenants were standing right there, the paton leaders, and they wouldn't say anything.

So there's something about it that you can't force a man to use something like that. He has to want to do it. Because they banded that, you know, they called that gas, same as gas in that. Yeah, I know they did. Banded, you know. In fact, I was actually going gonna bring that up in the interview. If do you know what they would do to a guy like me if I used a flame thrower in combat today?

What? I'd probably be in prison. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's crazy how things have changed, isn't it? But, you have a quote, is the greatest generation we thought that battle so Americans would not be speaking German

and Japanese today. Absolutely. You bet. We said that too. We'll be running around kids having Japanese language who are Americans. So what was it like? You left Erojima, come back home to the US. Wasn't the same. It wasn't. It's never the same. It is never the same. Even when I come home after

the war, it was totally different. I don't know what there was about it. We've seen movies on that where men return home. He just can't settle in. He doesn't speak their language anymore. They say, I don't know what he's talking about. Our convictions are different. I think that we were affected by, we were brainwashed. And that's what you have to be if you're going to face the enemy.

You get so much training, you should know this, that it trains your mind of thinking. You yield to him. That's the way it is. Kill or be killed. Do everything you care to kill him or he'll kill you. That's the way it is. Kaila be killed. Do everything you care to kill them or he'll kill you. That's training. And that's what training is supposed to do. You're different. It is that you don't love your family. It's just that they don't sympathize with you. If you expect to get a little pity from your family, forget about it.

You would think you would get it. Well, the war was over. Everybody's going back to work now. You're getting rid of war assembly. Did that bother you? Not really. Not really. Well, down a lot of veterans today have problems readjusting back into civilian life. How did you, what were your struggles adjusting back into civilian life back then? I have to tell you this.

This post-traumatic stress. Yes, stress. We never had that. I don't—every now and then, at least four of us were getting the other that fought from Detroit. We made it back. Some were replacements. And we never had that. We got together and talked all the marines stuff over again, we had it over again.

We couldn't have just because we were thinking different. Our lives were dead. You know, they had four years of us. And they brainwashed us. My husband made it. Everything was Marine Corps. Our talk was all Marine talk. I still use it.

And another Marine will understand what you're talking about, too, you know, with some of the stuff you really bring up. They know what you're saying. You'll never forget it. It's a brainwashed, but it's gotta be that's training, trained to kill the enemy. Hay them. It's got to be that's training, train to kill the enemy. Hate him.

And so you carry that stuff with you, but I will say this. I guess I had a couple of nightmarries after I was home for a week or two. My mother said that she had to wake me up. And I said, you did? She said, yeah, you're moaning and groaning and yelling. And then she said, who's such and such? Why are you asked that? Because you were moaning as a name out.

I said, what was the name? And then I knew who she was talking about. So I might have been doing that, you know, yeah. But it didn't last long. That's all we had. But you just have to calm down and adjust to people. These are different people. They're your people, your family.

The Marine Corps had you for four years. Did they have a lot of questions for you? No. They were afraid to ask questions. What about your father? No, my dad didn't say much. Was he proud of you? When he was drinking, he'd sit down.

My brother was in the Navy. He got a little after me. And we'd talk more of stuff when he was drinking. Sober, you wouldn't tell. You wouldn't carry a conversation. I could never understand him. My brother went right after him and died. What do you mean? Alcohol, tobacco, all that stuff. He just went right at it. My youngest boy started smoking, got on a weed's dope. Alcohol. Everybody loved that guy.

He just ruled his life. Die. They just ruled his life. Die. That was your brother? He went in the army for two years and they can't him up because they got in a fist like drunk and the bus of his splint. Who was us? My son.

Your son. Melius had the same oldest boy. Yeah. And after he got out, he went right at it. I'm sorry about that. I talked to people who knew that they were going to leave Maholam and telling them, you can't make him do it. You're just driving further.

You just can't. It's an unfortunate thing. Just hope that he'll grow out of it or what he didn't. I was in the ministry at the time when that happened. The preacher, my boy and Jail, I had to go talk to him, try and get him out. I went to court when they summoned them. They gave them three weeks in jail. The judge suspended the fine.

Here I am. I'm sitting here. The attorney said, we have this mother and father here with us today. The judge said, hello to the folks. I don't think the judges have, but people were looking at us and they should take care of your son, what the heck went around. Can't do anything about it. He picks this company. I always tell him, I've told my grandsons, don't follow anybody, pick your company, pick someone that you agree with, don't go following people around because they say it's a good thing to do. But everywhere you have, look at the Vietnam.

It's affected a lot of them. Jungle fighting. That's the last of the Jungle fighting. Desert, no. Yeah. Yes. Do you have any advice for the men and women coming home from war today? For the men and women coming home from war today. Do you have any advice for them?

You know, it would depend on what they've done, what they've seen, what they had to do, you know. So it's very difficult that way. And that fighting today is not the way we fought. And I've talked to these kids. I speak to them every day. They had no incentive to fight. They know what are we doing?

They'll still fight when we leave here. I mean, it's been going on for 2,000 years for him to say. Just read the Old Testament. Arabs, Arabian countries, trying to take one tribe over another. They don't get along. They never will. So it depends on what kind of a bell it is. China.

I'll tell you the next world is China. I can tell you right now. Flat right now. Something is going to happen. We might wake up some morning and find out what's going on because I know he's going to try something with that navy. They're bragging about that navy. And that air force, they don't have much of an air force.

We've got a nearer force. We've got a good one. I've got a major general. He's a buddy of mine. he's a crackerjack. He said, I can't tell you too much, but I will tell you this, we have got the air for us. Well, that's good to hear. So, what did you do when you got home for more? Pardon? What did you do when you got home from more? What did you do when you got home from more?

From the war? Yeah. Well, you have a few bucks, you know. My Michigan gave every veteran returning home $750 check and one on Butterkire. What kind of car? Only cost me twice as much. For $1,475 for a 1941 club coup fort with sold for $750. Brand new. They had a, more they stuck it to us.

I'm telling you. We all went on bot cars. We paid right through the nose. When did you start the ministry? That happened. Let's see. I can tell you it was May 15th, 1954. I was at a delegate meeting. I was converted there, my wife and I, and then I got back home and settled in again. I met five men from the Gideon's International, and they wanted me to become a Gideon, and I did. I became the state chaplain for Wisconsin for a couple of years, but after that, I really wanted to get into Bible teaching,

so I had an opportunity to take a church. I had five churches, and let's see, five churches, and I spent 29 years in the ministry, 32, who do in Christian work. Wow. I still speak in churches. Two weeks ago, I had one. You know, what did you speak about?

I speak about the Bible. I teach the Bible. I speak about what our lives should be from what it was, if that need be. Do you have a favorite verse? Huh? Do you have a favorite verse? Huh? Do you have a favorite verse? Absolutely. Name one seven. The Lord is good, stronghold the day of trouble, and He knows them, the trust

in Him. He knows what I was doing. All those nine years that He said to me, it's time. And I went through all of that. He was God's patient. One day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years has one day. He doesn't care. It doesn't have a clock. We have the clock. Did you struggle with alcohol at all when you got home? No, I never struggled with it, but I knew that the first time I got in alcohol, it was four, it was a question. I don't know, not really.

I was a party drinker. I'm still a party drinker. I don't drink two drinks as mine. It depends on who you're with. I may go to a third one, but two is my, that's my limit. I know what it can do. I've been there. You have seen my family. I've seen my sons. I see my aunt and uncles. So I mean when when when I go to meetings and that or something, they're going on, they will have a glass of wine. I like a high ball.

We'll have two drinks a piece of binkle, that's it. Where did you meet your wife? Where did you meet your wife? It was funny. My buddy, we grew up together, Alan Wells. He went off to Segoing, Marine, border battleship, South Dakota. He was on that during the war. I didn't know Chuck, my wife's brother.

He was a friend of Alan, but I didn't know him. But after the war, he, all of us, all three were in the corps. For some reason or the her brother was dismissed from the ring corps. I don't know why. I never did find out. He never talked about it. And so he had gone through boot camp and spent a few months in regular service and something happened. I don't know what it was. I never did find out. But Alan, he went through the last two and a half years

of the war. The both of them were younger than me. And so Chuck and I used to go out on Saturday night and go to dance as a roller skate. We do all that stuff together. He never told me he had a sister. So one day, come on with me. I got to go home and change clothes.

So I went with him. He had the car and I sat in the front room. And it incomes this girl 17 at the time. She'd come home from work at quit school. And I looked at her and she looked at me and all of a sudden she started rolling her eyes at me. She always did that, tried to get me, you know, try, talk me into things, you know, you know where my arm. It's nice to try.

You didn't tell me I had a cute sister. He says, you didn't ask. Has that video I have to ask? Don't you love your sister? Anyway, we dated, dated, dated, we got married. After five years, we finally started having children and we had a four in a row. Four in a row?

One, two, three, four. How many boys, how many girls? Two girls and two boys. Yep. But I suffered a lot for all those years. And when I say that, I don't, I'm not saying that she shouldn't have been pitted. And Phil, sorry for, I didn't know what was wrong

with that woman, but it was strange. We'd be packed up going on on vacation, we'd get out of town, she'd say, well, what are we doing? That's her going on vacation. I don't want to go home. I'll go home. Kids are starting to cry. I went through that for 72 years. Oh, wow. When she died, I don't even want to go, but she just fell apart. She had a lot of legwork, her heart trouble, all kinds of trouble. Her arteries were so cracked and so bad that it wasn't getting blood through.

It wasn't all cholesterol. And so when he did for bypass, he had to use her veins. He couldn't use the arteries. And so, you know, how much blood she got. So her pulse rate would drop, drop, drop. They put a monotron. That didn't work. He died. Well, I walked in the carat, the nursing home. I had her in for six months, they're nursing home, and they were working with her. I said, what's going on? She was done. She passed away this morning. She fell down. We were given her a shower, and she just passed out in the wheelchair. And we couldn't bring her to. I don't think her. She's not even pumping 40 on the pulse. Right.

And so she's not going to go through the night. So I said, well, she'd been wanting to go. And it was no good to lay in bed like that. Well, my kids, my daughter, us came and we sat. My son was working, my other boy. She about two o'clock. The next day she took her last breath, boom, I said, that's it, she's gone. I never understood then the nurse had done, can you come down to the station and want to talk to you. I said, sure. I walked down and she said, the doctor and I interviewed Rebecca.

We found out something. And did you know that she was bipolar? Alzheimer's. I said, no, I never, never thought about it. But that explains why these disruptions, you know, you make plans and then she changes them. She says, that's what they do. But she said, she definitely had bipolar.

I said, well, thanks for telling me, because that helps out a lot. I don't blame her for anything. I think of her when we did the good things, the good times, that was it. Poor girl, she just, and she had low self-esteem. My son got tug of from her. Low self-esteem.

She's right to kill herself several times. Oh man. She never went through with it though. I had a 22 caliber, beautiful pistol, holster, everything. I got it for 25 bucks. For Andrew, if they in those days, back in the 50s. I don't know what that cost. No, but anyway, I would not did a lot of squirrel hunt with it. I had a lot of fun with it. I kept that as a security in the

house. She came in the office with me. We managed a 60-unit herd housing project with seniors. That was after I left the ministry, just something to make money. I don't know if she had whatever spells again and she's done, sometimes you get me so bad, I want to find that gunner, shoot myself on the head. She went shopping, I went in, and got the gun out. I said, that's coming out of the apartment. I took it down to the office and hit it in the desk. Well then the elevator man came in and we got to talk. And he was a nice guy. We talked a little bit.

I told him I said, I had a little scare. And I said, I took it out of the apartment. I've got it in my desk right now. I'm afraid she might just go through with it. And an empty gun is no good. He said, you want to sell it? I sold it till for $25. We go to it to this day.

But I thought I had to. So I did. How long was your wife in the nursing home? Oh, six months. Six months? How often was the best? It was good that she was. Twice a day. And she couldn't notice. She didn't know who I was.

It was terrible. I walked and she, who are you? I said, I'm your husband. I don't have a husband. You get out of here. Next day, a community say she said, Hi, honey. It's crazy. You never knew what to expect, so that head nurse called me over one day, and she was right. She's done. Are you crazy? I said, Why? Why are you come in here twice? She doesn't even know what you're doing. Why don't you just come in once a day and see how she's doing?

You don't have to do this. All you do is feel sorry and bad, and you leave that way. And she was right. I developed high blood pressure. I've never had high blood pressure my entire life. I was sitting and I felt good. They were taking her test, her blood pressure. This is for things were very critical.

And I had never, I hadn't had a blood test for good over a year. So I said, would you mind taking my child? No, I'd like to. So she took my blood pressure. When she looked at it, she looked at me, she said, you need a doctor now, you're over 200. You need a doctor. Go now.

I said, but Sarri, they're not open. Go to the emergency. I went to the emergency, told them what I wanted, and then they sat me around for a while. Finally, they called me in, and they said, what's the problem? I told them, he said, what do you think? He said, finally he called me in and said, what's the problem? I told him, he said, what do you think he said, he said, do you ever have, I said, never had I blood pressure, never.

He said, what do you think might have done that? And I told him about my wife. He said, that'll do it. Lay down. We'll get that down. And they got it down. Gave me, he put me on the lace center probably one of the first little pink ones, little, it keeps it checked.

So I've been on them ever since, but VA puts you on blood pressure, when you're about 70, they put you on blood pressure pills. You ask them why, and they'll say, keep you from having a stroke. So I'm still on them. Love questions, beer. I have a good blood report.

This is the only problem right there, my legs. That's the only problem I have. Let's talk about the ministry a little bit. Is that the first thing that you did after war that you really liked to do? I said that over here. What? Let's talk about your ministry real quick. You did?

To ministry? 29 years of ministry with your wife. Yeah. And five churches, you opened, correct? I did. You opened five churches. I served five churches, yes, but I had seven years in the gospel, the rest of the commission and two son of Arizona. I taught with their pastor on that. I just kept working, you know.

Did you enjoy that a lot? I loved it. I loved it. Yeah. I really did. I don't have a home church in Texas because they're all mega churches, big, mega. There are some Bible churches, but it's not my style. It's not what we did. What's different today? They have entertainment. You want entertainment or church? I'm talking about Bible churches.

You'll get all the entertainment you want. Saying kids are up there in their knees, sticking out of their overalls, and they're just drumming away on the guitarist, and they're having a lot of fun. The girls are jiving with a microphone in their hand. And that's not what we're there for. We're there to germ the Bible. Witness to people. or they're determined to Bible witness to people. That's what it should be for. You want to be entertained? Go to a theater. That's the way I feel.

Do you still do it? I still do it, yep, whenever I can. I was asked to come to a Bible church up in Madison or a Madison, just in town north of me. And we had a banquet there, they had a family get together. So I spoke, saying, I had a good time. I still like to be with the people of God. I love the Lord. I'm not perfect, but then I'm so happy. The Bible people of God. You know, I love the Lord. I'm not perfect, but then I'm so happy the Bible says,

none perfect, no, not one. All have come short of the glory of God. Some people think they're good. They're no good. No, no, no, no, anybody else. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I got to say, I killed him. I had a man in my church, my first church. We became good friends. And he and his wife, they had four daughters, and girls will be girls,

since my boys will be boys. So we had to go away for a weekend and his wife said, let her have to stay with my girls. They'll enjoy one another and go ahead and go. So I did, when we came back, somehow this came up, I said, well, Charles told me that he and his wife never have a crossword. And she said, daddy, that's not true.

I was there. They fought. I never told them I knew. I said, no, wait a minute. What do you mean fought? Well, they were arguing. He told me they never had a crossword. He's a liar.

That means he's not perfect. Yeah. Well, Tom, we had a, we had a lot of conversations last night at dinner and about the direction the country is going. Where last night, me? Yeah. at dinner and about the direction the country is going. Where last night? Yeah. Yeah.

Last night we had a lot of conversations about the direction of the country. You don't seem to approve where we're headed. You don't seem to approve where our country is headed. We're nowhere. We're nowhere. The people are nowhere. We're not together. We're in a mess. We're not together. We're the mess.

We're the mess. We have poor leadership. And those that say they're not that way are following along anyway to keep them arguing. Where did you see the country changed? When? When did I see a change? When did it start? Oh, for the worse.

I think that I saw this happen, say, around the 60s, right in and around the 60s. 50s were still good. 50s were pretty good. Bella Graham was going hot and heavy with his evangelism. With something happened, we started sticking our nose and another buddy else's business and killing our boys. Vietnam.

Vietnam, your name, I'm all Afghanistan, stay the heck up. We don't belong in that place. The Arabs will never get along with anybody. All they've ever did was throughout their generation with fight, fight, fight. They fought Israel, and God saved Israel. It's not going to stop. It's just bad.

We've got a man that sympathizes with all sorts of things that we would not agree with. He's the president of the Khranoag. He doesn't care. He blames Trump for everything he's going on now. He's an imbecile. Something's wrong with his head. That man is sick, and they should not let him remain president Democratic party up there ready kind of a decent like it used to be a good working man's party

Then they would have said you need a hospital. You cannot be president anymore. That's it They don't care. They don't love America anymore. They don't care. They don't love America anymore. They don't love America. Now the Republicans say they do, but they're cowards. Tourists, free, they've done their best to speak up. They gave up and they're not saying a word. What do you think it's going to take to fix the country?

To fix the country? Probably another battle? What kind of battle? Another war. Air, Navy, with China. Do you think that'll bring people together? You know, it depends just how the war goes. It just depends on how the war goes. We're a strange kind of people. We're free people. All we got to do is see other countries, travel around the world, even though we have a bunch of culprits leading the country. We're still free. By the way, guys, I'm telling you right now, we are losing our

democracy. We've lost being a republic. That's gone. We used to tell the government because we paid them. Now they tell us and we still pay them. You ever hear a thing like, you give me a job, but I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I know what you mean. We're in bad shape, and the schools aren't doing anything about it either, though they're running scared. We have no real f— and our veterans that have come from... and I don't blame them. These are political wars. These are not honorable wars. None of them ever want to affect them. Not... none of us have been one. Even Korea, we stopped at the... what do you call it? At the parallel, wherever it was. That's where it ended right there. They outnumbered us. Massive Chinese told us to get off the out of Maun son evacuation. Marines dropped their weapons for the first time in history. You got a board ship.

Ordered. ordered. We just don't keep our noses in our own affairs. We don't need any help if we could be the nation we once were. We know what fighting is. We've had to do it. Our history tells us that. We had it with the French, we had it with Britain. You know, do you think we'll ever get back to the... The generation was like in the 40s? I don't know, I sure hope so. I don't think I'll see it. I don't think I'll see it, not in the next five, six years. I don't think I'll see it. Not in the next five, six years.

A serious business. And we've got to be thinking about it in the schools. Aren't doing anything about it at all. They're confused. I get in there and the teachers, they're just putting their time in, collecting the money. What are they going to do? They went to college to learn to be a teacher. What are they going to do? Where are they going?

Let's wrap this up on a positive. Oh, let's wrap it up. What does it mean to you to be an American? What does it mean to me to... After everything you've seen, the 98 years old, you were born, you went through the Great Depression, you went through World War II, you've seen the country, I mean,

you have a hundred view, a hundred year view of the journey of this country. With everything you've experienced, what does it mean to you to be an American today? I don't say it was in vain. Some of the stuff we had to do. But probably the way we went about doing it, I don't see any help,

I don't see any changes, any real desire to change. We're too busy making money. We're too busy wanting material thing. When material crazy, we've got so much material thing, we don't know where to put us. They add it in the garage. Look at the garage. You go down our street where I live. Gratges are open. When they open them up, the car sits outside in the weather. The walls touch

the stuff that's in the garage. And they're still getting more. Do you know that people, I drove a school bus before I came this way. I had some time and I volunteered to run a bus for a few months. Did I ever get an education? Where kids really are. There's one boy, here's an example. He gets out on the morning. Good morning, buddy.

Ah, ah, uh, uh. Okay. I drive on. Evening, school's over. Solonpell, uh, all of the rules. Goes to the mailbox and gets the mail out. Which is up above the door and grabs the key and goes in the house. What does he do when he gets in that house?

There's nobody there. What does he do? Who knows? Can you understand why the suicide with teenagers today? Because Mahasana out there, She isn't at home anymore. Don't worry about her kids. You go to McDonald's. We'll go off for dinner with Saturday. I go to a restaurant. Saturday and Sunday, that place is packed. School out in the summertime, they carry bread, they bring, they have credit cards. High school kids, they use credit cards in that restaurant.

And we wonder why they're not thinking seriously of what our country is doing in war wars. Let it go on by, we're doing our wife. Long as they leave us alone, let's leave it, that's it. People don't like us. They believe we're greedy, conceded people. We've got too much. We've been too fortunate. I have no doubt about that. Do you know that you have the ability to Japan? I haven't. If you went there to get a good education, after the war, after everything calmed down and

the Bolsheviks were out of there, Japan started a new government. Democratic. They are more democratic than we are. Now all you've got to do is go to that country. I stopped off there for about five, six hours going to E. Wajima on a visit, just to the undertur. Well, they meet you at the, when you come into the airport, they meet you when you come into the airport. They have clerks, women dressed up beautiful in uniforms in the men, and they bow, and they shake your hand, and they lead you toward you, you want to go. That's the way they treat us. I was on that same trip, we're heading from California to Tokyo, 12 hours we lose the

day. Tired, laid for everything, bodies hurt, it was awful, cramped in. Loaded with families, it was break time in March, Japan, here, America, Zera, back and forth. There was a family sitting there, right over there. And there was one seat empty. And I thought, I wanted to get acquainted with them. I did it. So I got up and I had this cap on. I sat down next to the little girl and she smiled at me and I smiled at her and the mother leading forward.

The father was sleeping. The mother leading forward like that. She said, you? It will Chima. I said, yes ma'am. She turned like this and woke her husband up and he goes, oh, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what That's what he gave me. Great. We killed 22,000 just on Iwajima of their boys.

They called it more in us, but I mean, that's what we killed. Why would he have done that? I think he realized that they lied to the people and said they were on a holy war and they lost their boys on those islands. Because their own leaders lied to them. Well, the leaders got out and they turned like we were, democratic. And that's what they are now. They're more democratic than we are. No more will the group of people run that country? The people run that country. Do you think we can get back to that? We could have the people wanted to. It's our country.

We pay them their salary, we can fire them if we don't do it. No one will do it. If the bullies keep saying sit on or are bouncing on their head, you're going to sit on. Unless you say, well, you're going to bounce from on the head. But yeah. And I talk to a lot of people. A lot of people don't agree with me. They think that's starting wars. I think a lot of people do agree with the dog. They do. They don't want with me. They think that's starting wars. I think a lot of people do it with

the dog. They don't want to do it. Look at Russia right now. Putin doesn't scare me at all. He's got his hands. He doesn't know what to act to do. No. They're trying to arrest him. Now he's got his Bolsheviks fighting them. They got something going on in the country now. fighting them. They got something going on in the country now. Because he attacked them. And do you know that Biden just sent three thousand of our boys? Over there. Why? I'll tell you why because it's just like everything else, Afghanistan, you name it.

They're going to be in there and tangled in that thing. And we're going to pay a terrible price for it. I don't know what it's going to take. It's going to take the people. The people will have to run our country again. We have to put in onless God, very men to run our country like we used to have. That's what made us such a great nation. I see that's what you learned in school. And his kids don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what you're talking about.

I wish I could have seen those days. I hope my sons use them. I've got to her a country again. Bakes me hurt. Me too, Don. Me too. Ah, sit down. Take it and you don't get so dark, aren't you excited? Well, how about we end this with a message from you on what the American flag means to

you? on what the American flag means to you. You know, it's one thing for me to, and we did something like that. I don't normally do it because I'm not asked to do it. It's not that I don't want to. It's that I just want to work trouble in my hands, and maybe it's not the proper place. You know, what do I think about the country? What do you think should happen? La la la la la la. Don't talk about those things.

All you do is start problems. Republicans, Democrats, I spoke at our own role call and we had a great crowd and a couple got up over there and started walking out. I said, folks, are you leaving? We didn't come here to hear politics. I never talked about any politics. I talked to him again.

I got him straightened out. I just talked to politics. I said, sorry. I said, I said, I. I fell a certain, you're a sinner, you're a low voice. Don't let the door bang you when you went out. I said to him, why didn't you shout that off? He told me he wanted to live.

Oh, gosh. Oh, my God. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. Oh, gosh. Well, all I can do is do what I know I have to do and just wait and see what happens

and say, well, God, I did the best I could. Yeah. I don't go out and speak. And I didn't do it here tonight today just to hear him to be talking and to be heard. You know, a mad son and I general mad dog, mad son, mad son. He and I had a lot of good talks. We appeared at Marine Corps Ball and he was speaker and I was singer. Because I'm from the old corps. We were the new corps, but the old corps taught us.

Now I'm talking to the new corps. I'm the old corps. But we got along so darn good. He says, leather, he's not face young Marines. He says, no face young Marines. You can't talk to him. He won't listen to you. He had a pity party going on. But he's the one that told Donald Trump about me because that's why Donald Trump set me that, but that thought that was good. What did he send you? Huh? What did he send you? What did I tell you about it? No. Donald Trump sent me a birthday greeting. No, I got it right on my display. The male rang, or the door rang, and my daughter

went and got the mail, she said, hey, this isn't expressed mail from Washington, D.C. So I said, go ahead, open it up. So she opened it up. She said, oh my gosh, dad. What? She gave it to me. Here it was in a frame, a beautiful Washington He said, oh my gosh, Dad. What? She gave it to me.

Here it was in a frame, a beautiful Washington certified document. And Donald J. Trump cited, said, dear brother Graves. And he talked, it was beautiful. I got a copy on it in the car. I use it. Right away, I run and get a something to copy, you know, so I can show people. But the other ones on the wall. I thought that was nice to him.

But then I said to the kids, I said, Trump doesn't know me. Then I said, wait a minute, mad dog, secretary of defense. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha good friends. Well done. I just want to thank you for coming. Oh thanks for the invitation, right? Right, Kelly. Are you awake? You were sleeping. it was a real honor to have you sitting here and there's not a lot of you guys left from the greatest generation that this country has ever seen. The World War II veteran generation. And this just means the world to me. Thank you for being here.

No, it's my pleasure. We've enjoyed it a bit of it. And I chalk it down. There's another one of our good meetings. I hope to see you again. Yep. Yep. And Don, I know you're a singer. Do you want to end this with a certain song?

Huh? Do you want to end this with a certain song? Huh? Do you want to end this singing a certain song? Sure. Shall we do a God Bless America? Let's do it. Kelly, you're gonna sing with me? Yes, sir. All right, better.

I'll go back to him. I'm scold you. Big, thank you. Big spank you. and guide her through the night with the light from above, from the mountain to the prairie, to the ocean, Bless America, my home sweet home. God bless America, my home sweet home. I've added something that when I sing it. No, I just want to do it America America America America Beautiful beautiful God bless America. Yep. God bless you Oh! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Make a little sports analysis, pop culture, and great interviews, and you've got the

Rich Eyes and Show Podcasts. The jets are bracing themselves into doing hard knocks this year. Bracing themselves. Look, a coach is want to control the controllables. They don't want to have a camera crew in the building. You know, I know that they want to lie low. This is what happens when you go and swing for the fences and get out of Rogers. Are you kidding me?

The Rich Eyes and Show Podcast. Wherever you listen. The fence isn't getting out of Rogers. Are you kidding me? The Rich Eyes and Show Podcast. Wherever you listen.