May 30, 2022 - Bannon's War Room
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To fallen soldiers let us sing, where the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, of the United States of America. | |
| Brothers, let us bring to the mansions of the Lord. | ||
| No more weeping, no more tides. | ||
| No more weeping, no more tides. | ||
| Let us bring to the light. | ||
| Justify and embrace eternal light in the mansions of the Lord. | ||
| Where those fathers cry and those children speak, we shall stand and guard, though the ages speak. | ||
| Those who through the ages may be seen, the mansions of the Lord. | ||
| Welcome to the mansion of the Lord. | ||
| Welcome. | ||
| It's our Memorial Day special. | ||
| We do every year. | ||
| It is Monday, the 30th of May, Year of the Wolf 2022. | ||
| Honored to be joined here by Patrick K. O'Donnell, the combat historian, and of course the first part of the show with Captain Maureen Bannon. | ||
| And I want to thank Real America's Voice, John Frederick's Radio Network, everybody on the production team in Denver, and of course our production team for putting together this special. | ||
| Always our favorite special of the year, and I've got Patrick Kiyodaki to start. | ||
| First, you know, this is the most sacred of all of our civic occasions, civic holidays, and I want to make sure that in an appropriate way, appropriate manner, go through everything today, the scale of the American war dead, how many different cemeteries | ||
| We've had, obviously early in the week, Ben Harnwell, or last week, Ben Harnwell in Italy at the Sicilian, at the Sicily Rome and Italian Cemetery outside of, I think it's near Anzio Beach, just north of Anzio. | ||
| So we're going to get to all of that. | ||
| Patrick, thank you very much for doing this again this year. | ||
| I think this is our eighth, ninth year of doing this, did it on Breitbart Radio and then here on War Room with Muriel Mirka's voice. | ||
| So really, thank you so much for joining us here today. | ||
| Steve, it's always a deep honor to do this show in particular with you every year. | ||
| Yeah, as you know, Patrick always does our Christmas Day special where we do the fighting, the combat that people have had to head over the Christmas holidays. | ||
| We do a Fourth of July with Patrick, but this is always the one that means the most to us. | ||
| Let's talk about, obviously, on Memorial Day there's always a major ceremony throughout all of the military cemeteries in the country and, of course, overseas. | ||
| And obviously here at Arlington National Cemetery. | ||
| Walk the audience through, first off, I just want to make sure, this is not Veterans Day. | ||
| Sometimes, particularly in the modern world, people, you know, think it's thank you for your service, or, you know, obviously veterans come and participate at the cemeteries, at the ones that both the VA run in the Arlington National Cemetery, and I think the other one the U.S. | ||
| Army runs is over at the Sailors, the Soldiers and Sailors Home in D.C. | ||
| But it's not Veterans Day. | ||
| Veterans Day for us is in November, right? | ||
| It's Armistice Day. | ||
| That's something that we have the Veterans Day parades and all that. | ||
| This is to honor the war dead, and it's had a tradition in all societies, and particularly in the Judeo-Christian West. | ||
| Talk to us first, Patrick, let's spend a minute or two and just talk about the scale of what we're talking about when we talk about our war dead. | ||
| Steve, we have 1.3 million war dead. | ||
| From all of our wars, beginning with the American Revolution and moving forward. | ||
| The revolution itself, there was roughly 25,000 dead, and that's a low number by many accounts. | ||
| Is there were thousands that were on prison ships that were in some cases not counted. | ||
| Other prisoners of war that never came home. | ||
| There were countless deaths, thousands from the Mexican American War. | ||
| Wars in the West and then moving forward to the Civil War, the number that's typically put out is 650,000, but it's been revised upward to 750,000 dead. | ||
| The most, you know, disastrous war in our history is in terms of casualties. | ||
| That's kind of controversial, and it's 100,000. | ||
| Take a second and explain that, because for many years we were told it was 650,000, and now they've added through, I guess, records checks. | ||
| And I think it's principally around my beloved Commonwealth of Virginia. | ||
| I think it has something to do with Virginia. | ||
| And even at 650. | ||
| Patrick, the equivalent today would be what, 8 or 10 million people would die if you had a conflict that had that percentage? | ||
| It was an enormous amount or percentage of the population. | ||
| And I think the 750 is a low number, Steve, because it doesn't count all the civilian deaths, in many cases, that went along with the battles. | ||
| And there was a tremendous amount of disease. | ||
| For instance, my great, great uncle, Was one of the first casualties in Ohio and died of disease in 1861. | ||
| There's a tremendous amount of casualties in the American Civil War. | ||
| A devastating war that pitted brother against brother. | ||
| And then, you know, moving forward, there's the World War I, which was, there's 40 million people that died in that war in total. | ||
| America had about 116,000 deaths. | ||
| And moving forward, you have World War II, 407,000 dead. | ||
| Korea, roughly 36,000. | ||
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Vietnam, 58,000. | |
| You know, global war on terror. | ||
| 407,000 dead. | ||
| Korea, roughly 36,000. | ||
| Vietnam, 58,000. | ||
| You know, global war on terror. | ||
| Numbers there are, depending on where you count things, nearly 7,000. | ||
| Let me go back, because I know you've done, and we're gonna get into the Tomb of the Unknown and all the different, you've covered the revolution, you've covered, you've got World War I, World War II, obviously, Korea, amazing work. | ||
| Your work on the Revolution is incredible. | ||
| I want to just go back to World War I for a second. | ||
| When you say 116,000, that's what, roughly, I guess, a fourth of World War II, but the World War II, We calculate from Pearl Harbor, from our official date entry of 41, which is really the end of 41, the last couple of weeks of 1941, through August of 45, okay? | ||
| So if you say you're almost in 42, that's three and a half years, let's say, right? | ||
| Three years and nine months, ten months. | ||
| For 407,000, and that's a lot of men and women, World War I, correct me if I'm wrong, When Pershing and those guys, because they essentially quit after the American fighting force came and was so powerful, that's essentially from the summer of 18 to November. | ||
| The Americans just came in and got thrown into it. | ||
| I mean, 116,000 people in what is essentially months. | ||
| of combat. It was America tipped the scale and the Germans just collapsed and signed and agreed to an armistice on the 11th of November. But Patrick, that is pretty... | ||
| and as we get to the Tomb of the Unknown, it came from that. | ||
| I keep telling people, folks back in those days did not fondly remember World War I. They were shocked by World War I. Not just the flu that came afterwards, but they were shocked at the number of casualties, of the intensity of the war, of the mechanized nature of it, of the use of gas as a combined arms operation of the German army. | ||
| But you think about it, 116,000 people, as much as these other casualties in World War I. But in Vietnam, as horrific as Vietnam is, you're talking about 58,000 young men in Vietnam. | ||
| That was over what, 10 years? | ||
| 8, 9, 10 years, the official count? | ||
| This is over five months, essentially, of combat? | ||
| I don't think they started the combat until the summer of 18. | ||
| Am I wrong in that? | ||
| I mean, the intensity of World War I. | ||
| And the impact it had on not just the West, obviously in France, and it traumatized people, but even kind of traumatized the United States. | ||
| And we'll get into that about the Tomb of the Unknown and the whole concept of it. | ||
| But this is an extremely intense war with heavy artillery, Steve, gas that was used constantly, the machine gun, all of these things combined to make The battlefields were on absolute killing fields that were incredibly deadly. | ||
| In America, as you say, we start the war in April 1917. | ||
| There are, you know, isolated incidents here and there. | ||
| But America doesn't really, is not on the field in larger forces until May 1918, when we stop the great German drive on Paris. | ||
| And it's the first Alright, the second division with the attached 4th Marine Brigade at Belleau Wood and Chateau Thierry. | ||
| And then the third, the Rock of the Marne, that also plays a huge role. | ||
| And then moving forward, these battles are just massive in scale, Steve, and so is the killing. | ||
| The large offensive at the end of the war that breaks the back of the German Army at the Meuse-Argonne has over a million men. | ||
| It's still Our largest battle in American history. | ||
| Now, people don't understand that because we naturally always go back to the Civil War or to World War Two. | ||
| Those are the two that are most prominent in the in American memory. | ||
| You don't realize World War One. | ||
| And part of the reason is that even the films and everything done afterwards. | ||
| Remember, All Quiet in the Western Front is a book about the German army. | ||
| All of the things were about the air combat and the glamour of the flight. | ||
| The trenches in the West were so traumatic. | ||
| And think about it, from May, basically into May, to what, five months and a couple weeks? | ||
| Five and a half months? | ||
| 116,000 men. | ||
| It's pretty extraordinary, the slaughter pen. | ||
| In that, talk to us about Arlington. | ||
| Talk to us about Arlington National Cemetery. | ||
| Arlington begins... | ||
| At the battle, really around the time of the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, and this is in 1864, where the federal government seizes Robert E. Lee's estate at Arlington, and they start to bury war dead there, which now is 639 acres. | ||
| 639 acres. There's roughly 400,000 Americans and their their dependents that are buried in Arlington. I want to make sure people know it was done in 1864 when the war of attrition part of this The Overland Campaign, I mean, they had run out of options in this whole thing of Democratic generals or this thing with McClellan that they were trying to get a negotiated solution. | ||
| By 1864, Gettysburg had been along in the past, people say Gettysburg, the termination of the war, well hey, in 1864 they bring Grant back and it's going to be a war of attrition. | ||
| And the bitterness. | ||
| It was anger and all that, but by the time you get to 1864, there's a different mentality about the war. | ||
| Because they realize you're going to have to literally destroy the Confederacy now. | ||
| The Tecumseh Sherman's plan is correct. The bitterness... | ||
| It's total war against the population. | ||
| Total war. Total war. | ||
| Correct me if I'm wrong, Lee married into the family, the land itself is actually part of the Washington, the Custis family, the General Washington. | ||
| It is essentially tied to General Washington's, from the Custis family, right? | ||
| He married a Custis who was, so it's really, it's Lee's, but essentially it is really, the land is essentially General Washington's and his wife, Custis, that predominant Virginia family. | ||
| Okay, short commercial break. | ||
| We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | ||
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We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | |
| We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | ||
| We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | ||
| We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | ||
| We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | ||
| We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | ||
| We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | ||
| We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | ||
| We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | ||
| We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | ||
| We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | ||
| We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | ||
| We're in return with our Memorial Day special in just a minute. | ||
| It's Memorial Day, our annual Memorial Day special. | ||
| We'll go do the hot dogs and the hamburgers later this afternoon. | ||
| It's the first day of summer, traditionally the start of the summer holiday, but the most sacred day in the American calendar for at least the civic society. | ||
| Patrick, I think there's 150 cemeteries or different types of plots, military cemeteries, in I think 42 of the 50 states. | ||
| And I believe the American Battlefield Commission manages another, I think, 30 or 40 overseas, including 21 in Europe. | ||
| And then you've got, obviously, the huge facility outside of Manila and different ones throughout the Pacific. | ||
| Talk to us about Arlington. | ||
| Arlington's become kind of, it's the equivalent of how D-Day, or how World War II commemorations have focused on D-Day. | ||
| Arlington has become the center of focus, you know, annually. | ||
| The President, or if he's not in the country, the Vice President will go and lay a wreath to the Tomb of the Unknown, give a talk, appropriate remarks, as we say, there. | ||
| Tell us about Arlington. | ||
| Arlington, really, Steve, is our most sacred cemetery. | ||
| It's where, as you mentioned, the President typically goes at least once or twice a year, Memorial Day and Veterans Day, to honor the dead from Memorial Day, but also all veterans for Veterans Day. | ||
| And it's here that Arlington also has arguably our most sacred monument, which is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. | ||
| Which begins as shortly after World War I to honor all veterans that died in that war and all wars. | ||
| Talk to us about the, well, I'll tell you what, let's turn to Captain Bannon. | ||
| You've got, I think it's six or seven direct, you're descended from six or seven on both your mother's and your father's side. | ||
| Relatives are buried in Arlington. | ||
| Can you walk me through that? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| I have six direct relatives, both on your side of the family and on my mom's side of the family. | ||
| On your side, I have James Jack, Charles E. Jack, and Charles E. Jack's wife, Catherine A. Jack, that are all buried in Arlington. | ||
| And then on my mom's side, I have John L. McKinnon, his wife, Ruby B. McKinnon, and their son, John McKinnon Jr. | ||
| So Colonel McKinnon was with Army Colonel, he was with MacArthur, I think, in the Philippines prior to World War II. | ||
| He's what we call from the old army, and they're buried there. | ||
| And of course, my great-grandfather, your great-great-grandfather, was with the 1st Maine Cavalry. | ||
| He was a sergeant in the 1st Maine Cavalry. | ||
| His brother, actually, who entered, volunteered for the 1st Maine Cavalry right in the first call-up after, in 1861. | ||
| Uh, actually fought at, uh, was at Gettysburg, uh, and actually died. | ||
| He volunteered on Dahlgren's Raid and, uh, and was killed in the original gunfight. | ||
| Dahlgren's Raid was a raid to kind of go down and free the, uh, prisoners at Libby Prison, at least it was supposed to be. | ||
| That's the mission, the stated mission. | ||
| They found papers on Dahlgren, who is a son of an admiral in the Union Navy. | ||
| They found papers on him, his body, because he was killed in the attack also, that the papers that said his orders, his real orders, at least what the papers said, the Union always denied this, said that his mission was not, that was a fake, it was a head fake to go to Libby prison, he was supposed to go to actually the Capitol and either capture or kill Jefferson Davis. | ||
| And this started, there's a whole school of thought. | ||
| a book called Come Retribution by a couple of authors that said this started the entire Dahlgren's Raid, started the entire fight between the two intelligence services of the North and the South that eventually led to the assassination of President Lincoln. | ||
| That Booth and these guys had all worked with the Confederate intelligence apparatus and they had attempted a number of assassination attempts on President Lincoln and eventually got him at Ford's Theater right after the war had, the combat had ended. | ||
| But that was Dahlgren's Raid so you have your great-great-grandfather and your great-great-uncle, both Civil War for the 1st Maine Cavalry. | ||
| Arlington is a very special place for our family, is it not, Captain Bannon? | ||
| It is, and I encourage the audience to visit Arlington Cemetery. | ||
| It's a very somber, sombering, humbling experience visiting there, being among all those that risked their lives for this country, to include their dependents. | ||
| You know, it's Section 60 in Arlington today is where the Global War on Terror, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the deceased from those have come back. | ||
| How many, you're the class of 2000, you're 2010 from the Academy? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| How many KIA, how many Killed in Actions are your classmates? | ||
| I have four classmates that were KIA, three that graduated, and one That was actually sent out into the Army Mentorship Program prior to graduation, which means that they would deploy with a unit and then have to reapply to come back to the Academy due to some academic issues. | ||
| And that classmate of mine was in-country in Afghanistan and was killed in action prior to finishing his application to come back to the Academy. | ||
| People don't realize this. | ||
| How many academy grads, female academy grads, since the Global War on Terror since 9-11? | ||
| Do you remember? | ||
| I counted it up one time. | ||
| How many academy grads are KIA, female? | ||
| I believe it's eight KIA as of today. | ||
| I mean, that's pretty... think about that for a second. | ||
| You can go back to the Revolution, the Civil War, and World War I, you know, no females, and then you get... World War II, I'm not sure, but you get to Vietnam, I think you've got a couple of nurses, and then you've got now, in this modern war, what, eight just from the Academy, KIA? | ||
| Those are officers, right? | ||
| So, amazing. | ||
| Let's start... I tell you what, let's go back, Patrick, let's go back and talk about The commemoration of the war dead. | ||
| This goes back to the very beginning of our civilization, right? | ||
| The great Pericles' oration for the war dead of Athens is probably next to Lincoln's second inaugural address, the greatest speech, political speech, But you can go back to every ancient society, and you read the Iliad, or you read any of the great epic poems. | ||
| You read the epic poems of the Norsemen. | ||
| Whatever civilization, particularly in the Judeo-Christian West, or even the pagan societies before Christianity, honoring the war dead is almost at the apex of a society. | ||
| It defines a society, particularly a warrior society. | ||
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Does it not, Patrick K. O'Donnell? | |
| Absolutely. | ||
| America is a country made by war, Steve. | ||
| From our beginning in the American Revolution, moving forward. | ||
| And it's a solemn aspect of our society in America. | ||
| And that is certainly what was, you know, the story of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is an interesting one after World War I. Because, you know, as you mentioned, this is an incredibly Um, destructive war where killing was on a mass scale and heavy artillery pulverized individuals. | ||
| And there were at the end of the war, over 3000 Americans that were unaccounted for. | ||
| And it was initially great Britain that decided to have a, or I'm sorry, France that decided to have a tomb of the unknown soldier. | ||
| And it was followed by great Britain and initially. | ||
| Let me go to France, because the Tomb of the Unknown is right there at the Arc de Triomphe, right? | ||
| I mean, it's right in the heart of Paris. | ||
| It's where every major evolution, in fact, that circle, they put it in the heart, not even in a cemetery. | ||
| That's the eternal flame that's right there. | ||
| That is in the heart of Europe's greatest city. | ||
| They want people to recognize and remember the sacrifices that were made by those individuals to make their country. | ||
| And they want it recognizable, and they want it visible to the public. | ||
| And after World War I, we did not have a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. | ||
| And initially, it was dismissed out of hand. | ||
| Peyton March, who was the Secretary of the Army at that time, Your Chief of Staff said no and said at Pershing they thought they could actually bring back those 3,000 Americans and identify all of them. | ||
| And then there was a movement to bring back all of the dead that were in France, in Europe, we also fought in Italy. | ||
| And that was an enormous undertaking. | ||
| There were tens of thousands of Americans. | ||
| I want to go through that. | ||
| This whole concept of having Americans buried on foreign soil was kind of alien. | ||
| At the time, that got to be a huge debate. | ||
| People should understand this. | ||
| When you go to the magnificent cemetery at Normandy, above the beaches, which is one of the most incredible places I've ever been. | ||
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Absolutely. | |
| Or you go to, in Manila, that massive and so solemn, so serene. | ||
| Or it's south of Rome, near Anzio, where Ben Harn was, gotten this great footage for us. | ||
| That's actually American soil. | ||
| It was a huge controversy. | ||
| I want to get into that next. | ||
| It was a huge controversy. | ||
| This concept of even having our soldiers, our honored dead, to be buried near the battlefields where they died. | ||
| There was a big movement. | ||
| They wanted everybody brought home. | ||
| They want everybody brought back to the United States of America. | ||
| Okay, we're going to take a short break. | ||
| Patrick K O'Donnell the finest combat historian of his generation and Captain Maureen Bannon are going to join me on the other side Music playing... | ||
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Welcome back. | |
| Our Memorial Day Special. | ||
| So Patrick K. O'Donnell, the trauma of World War I, all these casualties in a manner with this highly mechanized warfare, gas, the perfection of the machine gun, really combined arms for the first time, heavily entrenched, shocked America. | ||
| Let's talk about what happened afterwards in trying to even get the war dead back. | ||
| And this whole concept of the unknown soldier, even how it started, you know, in France and the United Kingdom, and of course, General Pershing, this, you know, you've had what, Washington, Jackson, but that would even a formal army, you know, Grant and Pershing, I guess General Marshall, though he wasn't a field commander. | ||
| Pershing considered probably in the top, General Lee, probably the top two or three generals he's ever had, but a shadow, a guy that just really dominated the entire army when he was there. | ||
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Absolutely. | |
| He was an incredible commander, a dominant force. | ||
| And also somebody that could deal with an alliance, which is something up until that point we haven't had, we had not had until, except for General Washington. | ||
| It's an incredible skill to have, to be able to work that and that finesse. | ||
| And also to follow Wilson's orders, which would be to keep the American Expeditionary Force separate and fighting on its own, so that we would not lose our identity as Americans. | ||
| And also the role of America would not be downplayed in these negotiations had we just put our troops in with the French or the British, they would have been cannon fodder. | ||
| Instead, we had a separate army that would be a decisive, play a decisive role in World War One. | ||
| But going back to the issue of all these Americans that were buried there, initially, they did not want to bring back those American boys that we had lost. | ||
| And it was a cost issue to basically disintern all of the bodies and then carefully bring them back in an honorable manner. | ||
| It was an enormous expense. | ||
| Eventually, Congress authorized it. | ||
| The removal of anybody that wanted their family members returned home. | ||
| And then there was the issue of the over 3,000 Americans that were still unknown and unaccounted Initially, the War Department claimed that they could identify those Americans, and that was a pipe dream. | ||
| And there was also... And this was at the very beginning of even DNA or any of that kind of testing? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| But they felt that they had the scientific expertise and medical expertise to actually identify everybody. | ||
| That was a going in bid, correct? | ||
| I think that was the surface argument. | ||
| But I think in reality, there was also cost that was associated with this that they didn't want to necessarily bear. | ||
| And what happens is an interesting movement, a grassroots movement springs up. | ||
| And our boys are brought home. | ||
| That's the first step. | ||
| And then a movement by a woman editor. | ||
| The delineator. | ||
| She has a paper in New York City. | ||
| It's very powerful. | ||
| And she started to write that we need a Tomb of the Unknown like France and Great Britain. | ||
| And this caught, you know, a lot of attention around the country. | ||
| And it was spearheaded in Congress by Congressman Hamilton Fish from New York. | ||
| And he had an extraordinary service record. | ||
| He was with the Harlem Hellfighters. | ||
| As a white officer that fought with a black unit. | ||
| And they were one of the most, they had some of the longest service in France. | ||
| These men were in France for over 190 days in combat. | ||
| And, you know, highly distinguished in many cases, but they had to fight against racism. | ||
| And they fought a lot of times with the French Army. | ||
| And there's some incredible stories of World War I heroes, Medal of Honor recipients that I document in The Unknowns in that book. | ||
| But Fish sees this Tomb of the Unknown as an opportunity to recognize his men who had sort of the short end of the stick in many cases, but also to recognize all Americans that had fought in World War I. And it gains a tremendous amount of ground. | ||
| And there's bipartisan support. | ||
| It moves forward in 1921. | ||
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Hang on a second. | |
| Who is the female editor? | ||
| She was a firebrand. | ||
| Her name is Marie Maloney. | ||
| She's sort of lost to history, but she's got an enormous story. | ||
| She runs a magazine called The Delineator. | ||
| She's a New Yorker. | ||
| Her husband is a publisher as well. | ||
| So she has quite a bit of clout, and she uses it for good to really foster this grassroots movement for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. | ||
| And in 1921, what happens then? | ||
| Actually, they get legislation passed? | ||
| They get legislation passed to fund the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and then the process begins. | ||
| And it's October of 1921. | ||
| And Gray's Registration Service with the U.S. | ||
| Army goes to France, and they go to several of the major cemeteries in France, which also correspond with the great battles that the American Expeditionary Force fought in. | ||
| They go to the Meuse-Argonne, which I mentioned earlier is the largest battle in American history, and also one of the bloodiest. | ||
| They go to Bella Wood, the cemetery outside of that. | ||
| They go to San Miguel and they take four individuals that they know are not identifiable. | ||
| They have no dog tags. | ||
| They have no identity disks. | ||
| They have no papers that identify them as soldiers. | ||
| They go through the bodies very carefully to make sure that there's no identifying features. | ||
| That can identify these individuals. | ||
| And then they bring these bodies back to France. | ||
| They drive to Shillong, France, and they place the bodies in state and kept flag-draped coffins in the City Hall at Shillong. | ||
| And then that night before is when the Tomb of the Unknown is selected. | ||
| And this is the final portion of my book. | ||
| The Unknowns. | ||
| It deals with not only the ceremony, but the man who selected it, but also the body bearers that actually brought him home, which are Pershing's most decorated heroes of the war. | ||
| And each one of those individuals was assigned to come up with, to tell a story of the American Expeditionary Force. | ||
| So walk us through the selection process when they got to the, I think it was in a town hall, and they kind of changed it up of what they thought they were going to do, how they selected it, and then how they passed that to actually this guard of honor, which the body bearers are really a guard of honor of the toughest of the tough, the bravest of the brave in Pershing's army. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
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And they were hand selected by General Pershing himself. | |
| But the night that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was selected for America is really an interesting story in and of itself. | ||
| There was a general officer that was selected to choose our unknown. | ||
| And it was the French that interceded and said that you need to use an enlisted man. | ||
| because they had done the bulk of the fighting to select the unknown soldier. | ||
| And it was here that the younger Edward Younger is selected. | ||
| He's one of the men that still remained in Europe at the time. | ||
| And he had some of the most distinguished combat experience of all the men that were there in Shillong at that time. | ||
| And he was just a doughboy. | ||
| But it was perfect. | ||
| It was quintessential in the sense that he'd been through all the major battles with the Second Division. | ||
| Which saw the toughest of the tough, Steve. | ||
| They were near Belleau Wood. | ||
| They had fought at the Great Counteroffensive later. | ||
| They were at Meuse, Argonne. | ||
| They were at some of the most difficult and bitter battles of the war. | ||
| And he was combat wounded multiple times. | ||
| And really kind of a perfect choice in many ways. | ||
| And it was stunning for him to receive the honor. | ||
| He was very much taken back. | ||
| You didn't expect it. | ||
| And I found his original handwritten notes at the National Archives. | ||
| And he takes us back in time to that moment in France that morning where he's given a bouquet of white roses and told to select the unknown. | ||
| And he walks into the room and there's a dirge of music in the background. | ||
| And he carefully moves through the various flag draped coffins. | ||
| And he says in his handwritten notes that his hand literally moved as he placed the flowers on the casket. | ||
| After he had prayed, he had felt that that was a man that he had served in combat that had died, that he knew. | ||
| And placed the flowers on that unknown. | ||
| And that is our unknown soldier. | ||
| And it's brought back. | ||
| Quite an extraordinary story that the caisson goes through the streets of Shalom, moves by rail to Lahar, where the casket is placed on the great cruiser, the Olympia. | ||
| This is Admiral Dewey's flagship during the Spanish-American War. | ||
| And the cruiser, the casket itself is so large, That they have a hard time bringing it below decks. | ||
| So, isn't it an honor? | ||
| And also for the fact that they can't bring it below decks. | ||
| They keep it on deck flag-draped. | ||
| And the cruiser goes across, you know, makes it a voyage across the Atlantic. | ||
| And it's not smooth sailing. | ||
| They hit a massive storm. | ||
| And the Marine Guards on board the Olympia literally lashed themselves with ropes. | ||
| To the casket to prevent it from going overboard during these massive storms and gales. | ||
| But the Olympia makes it to Washington Navy Yard. | ||
| The remains of the dock are still there on the 9th of November, 1921. | ||
| And the casket is brought off the ship. | ||
| And it's the body bearers that are the portion of the unknowns, the book that I wrote. | ||
| That is the heart of the story. | ||
| And these men are given the honor of bringing the casket, the remains, first to the Capitol where it lies in state, and then to Arlington. | ||
| But they're symbolic in the sense that these are all enlisted men that are chosen, they're handpicked by General Pershing, because they had seen the toughest of the tough. | ||
| Most, many have the Medal of Honor, Or the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross. | ||
| And their stories are inter-service. | ||
| It's not just the Army. | ||
| It's the Marine Corps. | ||
| And it's the U.S. | ||
| Navy. | ||
| And it's different specializations within each. | ||
| It's the heavy artillery, for instance. | ||
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Which is known as the Coastal Artillery, the big guns, the rail guns. | |
| I tell you, hangover section, Patrick. | ||
| Captain Banner, Patrick K. O'Donnell is also going to join us on the other side of the break. | ||
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What defines the American spirit? | |
| Preserving life, liberty, and pursuing happiness. | ||
| Caring for the nation we call home. | ||
| And its people. | ||
| As patriots, it's our duty to drive the entrepreneurial spirit. | ||
| Pushing hard, reaching for success. | ||
| Sharing patriotism. | ||
| Because the American way of life is for all to live. | ||
| The flagship where freedom reigns. | ||
| Okay, welcome back. | ||
| you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye. | ||
| We're talking about Arlington National Cemetery. | ||
| The service today will be around the Tomb of the Unknown, which is very simply has known but to God. | ||
| Captain Bannon, give us the overview of the number of cemeteries here for our fallen and for veterans in the United States. | ||
| And then how many of the American Battlefield Commission, how many in throughout the rest of the world? | ||
| The Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration maintains 155 national cemeteries in 42 states and Puerto Rico, as well as 34 soldiers' lots and monument sites. | ||
| And then, as of today, there are 26 cemeteries and 32 memorials, monuments, and markers under the care of the American Battle Monument Commission. | ||
| And there are more than 140,000 U.S. | ||
| service men and Women entered at the cemeteries and more than 94,000 MIA or lost or buried at sea. | ||
| Well, the 94,000 includes, I think it's 40,000 of the 8th, the famous 8th Air Force over the Nazi Germany in Europe. | ||
| Never recovered the airmen, just incredible sacrifice. | ||
| I want to also say, because we're not going to get to all of the different books he writes, and every time we come on we try to feature a couple of them. | ||
| We're really doing the unknowns today and hopefully we'll get to maybe one or two others in the second hour. | ||
| But here's the reason Patrick has done, I think, is separates himself out and reason these books have gotten such a, I don't want to call it a cult following, but such a strong following. | ||
| Level of research you see here on this about the unknowns Patrick goes to the archives. | ||
| It's all archival work or Interviews he's done. | ||
| He's done thousands of interviews with with actual before like the greatest generation passed away and it takes Patrick what is it an average of four? | ||
| You've got a couple of books working every one time but it's essentially four or five years from the idea the gestation of that your research and Actually the writing it takes you at four or five years to complete a book That's right, Steve. | ||
| All the books that I've written have found me in one way or another. | ||
| Either I'm walking down a road and I find an old rusted sign or I, you know, I'm talking to somebody and the idea comes to me and then it's from there. | ||
| These are all hand-done books. | ||
| I do all the research. | ||
| I do all the writing, everything. | ||
| I walk the battlefields I spend years in the archives to find the primary sources. | ||
| As you said, I've written seven books on World War II. | ||
| I've interviewed over 4,000 World War II veterans from the elite units, the 82nd Airborne, 101st, Rangers, Paramarines, OSS. | ||
| This is my passion and specialty. | ||
| I've been trying to preserve and share American history since I graduated from college in 1992. | ||
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Hold it. | |
| So for oral histories, I just want people to understand this. | ||
| So 92, what, 30, 40 years you've been doing this. | ||
| Um, and you have 4,000 interviews and you've got the notes and the recordings of those. | ||
| You essentially have an oral history of some of these elite units. | ||
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Do you not? | |
| I do. | ||
| I probably have the largest archive in the world. | ||
| And it's not only, it's video, it's audio, and it's also electronic. | ||
| I kind of, at the beginning of the internet, I created the Drop Zone Virtual Museum, which was the first oral history project for World War II. | ||
| This is back in like mid to early 90s. | ||
| And I was, I created a community of World War II veterans. | ||
| So I was gathering their e-histories, as I call them, their histories through email. | ||
| And, uh, yeah, we, I was capturing the elite airborne units, the 11th Airborne 503 Parachute Infantry Regiment. | ||
| Um, just these were my friends. | ||
| I, I, I it's my daughter grew up having like all these uncles from World War II. | ||
| And it's, it's an amazing thing to have the legends of D-Day. | ||
| Go to your birthday parties and things and have, you know, people that were true American heroes that you can call a friend and that really changed the world. | ||
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And, you know, at the same time, just regular people. | |
| These are just regular ordinary Americans in everyday life, correct? | ||
| With the most extraordinary fighting men maybe in the world history, as far as their sacrifice for others, but just just if you met them, they were just that they were they were your next door neighbor, correct? | ||
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That's right. | |
| And that's what one of the things that I've always wanted to do with the books that I've written is to sort of inspire other people To look into your own family, to capture the stories of the individuals in your family, to capture your personal history and record it. | ||
| It's incredible. | ||
| It's an incredible piece of American history. | ||
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It's often largely unknown or forgotten. | |
| Okay, I tell you what, we're going to take a break here to start the second hour. | ||
| We're going to continue with Patrick K. O'Donnell. | ||
| Patrick, what's the site they go to, your personal site, to get to all your writings? | ||
| During the Iraq War, wrote an amazing book about Fallujah. | ||
| I think the best eyewitness account of the Battle of Fallujah, which is one of the toughest battles in Marine Corps history, as the Marines will tell you. | ||
| And it's extraordinary. | ||
| Patrick, there's not one book you can't pick up on his. | ||
| That you won't be mesmerized and you're going to want to read them all. | ||
| That's the thing. | ||
| And now he's gone through all the way from the revolution all the way up to the Iraq conflict. | ||
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And it's just, you know... The book you mentioned about Fallujah is called We Were One. | |
| And that is a book that's on the Commandant's reading list. | ||
| It's required reading. | ||
| And that is the platoon that I was in. | ||
| Embedded in Fallujah. | ||
| I fought with those Marines house to house. | ||
| Pulled out a Marine. | ||
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That was in a firefight with Chechens. | |
| They almost killed me. | ||
| It was a, um, it's one thing to write about military history. | ||
| It's another to experience it. | ||
| And that's... Patrick, hang on. | ||
| Hang on one second. | ||
| We're taking a short break. |
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