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May 29, 2023 - Bannon's War Room
48:14
Episode 2767: WarRoom Memorial Day Special Cont.
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steve bannon
17:50
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patrick k odonnel
00:10
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unidentified
To fallen soldiers let us sing, where the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Okay, welcome back.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Memorial Day 2022.
We have our guest, Patrick O'Donnell, of course, my wingman, Captain Abandon.
We're discussing the writings of Patrick O'Donnell, and particularly in back of the high civic religion of Memorial Day, because it's not Veterans Day, and it's not just a day for opening the summer beach house or the backyard barbecues, all that. That's all part of Americana, and obviously A huge part of this, but it's also to honor the war dead.
Patrick, I want to go back.
Before we start, I want to continue on with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the unknowns and the ceremony that took place to start this off.
But for the audience, their personal histories.
There's so many people in this audience that don't realize that the uncles or even sometimes the aunts that had part of the war effort.
If you really started to do your own research about your own family, you would be shocked.
You'll be shocked and surprised, pleasantly surprised, to find the contributions they made, not just to the war effort, but oftentimes those that actually died in defense of their country.
unidentified
Patrick? Absolutely, Steve.
I'm not going to plug it.
I'm a fan of Ancestry.com in the sense that it's an incredible tool that allows you to burrow into your own genealogy.
Believe it or not, I'm a historian, but I've been reluctant to burrow into my own past for some personal reasons, but found out that I've got relatives that were at Lexington and Concord and came to America in 1619.
So it's an incredible window into the past, and for people to explore it, it's worth it.
Because we have so many fake heroes today, right?
Yes. That are constantly in, you know, that are on TV and everything else, but in reality there's so many true heroes that are just in your own family, in many cases, or in other people's families.
It did some incredible, extraordinary things.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Yeah. If you look back, even go back to the films of World War II, and you think of the roles Gregory Peck played, like in 12 O'Clock High, or Jimmy Stewart played, or even a famous and incredible film, if you haven't seen it, They were expendable, which I think is one of John Ford's greatest films.
It's John Wayne as really you've never seen, not a swaggering flying leathernecks, but really he and Robert Montgomery about the PT boats of the early days of the attack of Pearl Harbor in the Philippines, of all those Units that knew they were going to just have to get crushed, right? They would not be there for a victory.
They were going to be there at the beginning wave of being overwhelmed.
But you see that in later the movie Rambo.
The power of your books, and I think the power of your series, is that these heroes...
are everyday Americans.
And they're not Rambo.
And they're certainly not these comic book characters today.
And this is one of the things I'm all, you know, I see these Viking movies and all these movies and people running around.
And that's just not, that's not what, that's not what it was about.
If you go and read Patrick O'Donnell's or all the other ones, you'll see that these are everyday Americans, ordinary people stepping up and doing extraordinary stuff, and clearly heroes with incredible amount of courage.
And particularly, you're thrown into the cauldron of World War I. Remember, France did the first Tomb of the Unknown.
I think France lost, was it, 4 million?
unidentified
I mean, the trenches, the French- It's an incredible number, Steve.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Incredible. It broke France.
That's why France really cratered in World War II. It broke them.
Not the Napoleonic Wars were bad enough, but World War I, it was a slaughter pen for the French.
It was a slaughter pen for the British.
This is why, you know, the first day of the psalm, this is why the British were always so hesitant to start a second front in the West and have D-Day.
Church and all those guys talked about it all the time.
They couldn't, they were, they were, this is why Dunkirk, they were one big battle slaughter like that.
It went to being checked out of the war.
The British population just wouldn't take it.
The trauma of these countries from the Victorian era to what the slaughter pens of the Western Front were traumatic in America.
This is why World War I, when people came home, was not finally remembered.
And remember, we talked about this in the show.
Last week from Geneva with with Noor Bin Laden and Jack Posobiec where she was in front of the League of Nations.
It was the American people basically stood up to Roosevelt.
These guys said we don't want any more involvement with this Europe.
We don't want to we don't want to be a part of it.
We don't want any League of Nations.
This was traumatic for us.
And in that, this whole movement to have the Tomb of the Unknown and this whole fight about bringing our boys back, but the cost of it and what was going to happen, and then the unknown itself.
What happened when the remains got here and were in the Capitol?
Pick the story up then and walk us through the ceremony, the very first ceremony, and how the spot was chosen at Arlington Narrow Cemetery, which is the finest view of Washington is where the Tomb of the Unknown is today.
unidentified
Absolutely. The remains of the unknown are escorted by the body bearers, the men that are in the Unknowns, the book that I wrote, who are the most decorated heroes of World War I. And it's first brought to the Capitol Rotunda, where it lies in state.
And this ceremony is a who's who of America.
And the world that shows up.
All the world leaders come.
All the people in American society are there.
And it's a healing moment, too, to heal the wounds of even the American West.
And the person that is one of the final participants in the ceremony is an American Indian chief from the Plains, Chief Plenty Clues.
But you have the NAACP there, you have kind of all walks of American society.
Initially, they planned to invite every Medal of Honor recipient from the Civil War forward.
Many came on their own dime, but they were going to pay for them to show up and be part of the ceremony.
So this is an incredible event.
It's in the rotunda for a day.
On the 11th, which corresponds with the end of World War I, a caisson, which was used to bring the remains of President Lincoln, was used to bring the casket forward.
It goes across the bridge.
into Arlington from Washington, D.C. And there's an incredible but solemn parade, which has these decorated heroes that are actually the body bearers that are carrying the casket on the side of the caisson.
And you have behind it medals recipients such as Alvin York and others, as well as General Pershing, who instead of wearing all of his medals only wears one simple medal, which is the victory medal from World War I. And he marches with the other.
He can ride a horse, but he does, and he marches.
We have the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the President also behind the caisson, and they go to Arlington.
From there, they have a very solemn ceremony.
There's some speakers. President of the United States.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Hang on one second.
I just want people to understand this.
From the Capitol, when they bring the remains down after laying in state and put it on the caisson, the caisson goes down past the Lincoln Memorial and then over the bridge, what is called Memorial Bridge, probably the most beautiful bridge in Washoe, one of the most beautiful bridges in America.
Are you saying the Chief Justice Pershing and the President actually followed the caisson on foot?
unidentified
Many of these men did, yes.
They followed the caisson through the procession and then came to Washington, or to Arlington itself.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
That is not a short walk.
Particularly in semi-formal attire, that is something.
So they actually marched in back or walked in back in honor of the unknown soldier in back of the caisson.
unidentified
That's sort of the humbleness of the event as well, instead of watching.
Some of these men could have rode, but they walk, and they make their way there.
And President Harding delivers the first, it's effectively a radio address to the nation.
And they use a telephone system to provide a radio address.
It's the first of its kind, a national broadcast.
And President Harding's words echo across the country of what he relays there and the significance of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
And as the ceremony goes on, they place the highest decorations on the casket.
The Medal of Honor is placed there.
Distinguished Service Cross and others.
And then foreign countries around the world place their highest medals on the casket itself.
And as the ceremony moves forward, one of the final individuals is Chief Plenty-Clues that places his His war hammer on top of the casket, as well as bonnet, and says some special words.
And Plenty Clothes is a very interesting demonstration, symbolic, to have him there.
And it's important because we had been fighting with Native Americans for decades, centuries.
And this is a way of healing and incorporating Native Americans into, which they fought very bravely.
One of the body bearers in the story is a full Native American that was a combat engineer that captured scores of Germans at the Battle of San Mahal.
And this is a sense of healing, and there's many other Elements to the Tomb of the Unknown which provide a level of healing across the country and bring people together.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
When did they come up with a concept that with the old guard, the old guard, I want you to spend a few minutes on that, the old guard, but the 24 hour day, no matter if it's a hurricane or if it's a blizzard, 24 hours a day of a armed guard marching back and forth quietly in a highly stylized ceremony that goes on constantly.
unidentified
What happens is the The tomb is not guarded initially, Steve.
And for many years, the general public can come as they want to the tomb.
But it was desecrated.
People would have picnics on the tomb.
They vandalize the tomb.
And then several years after its inception, the old guard comes in as a 24-7 You know, every day of the year, guard of the tomb.
For those that haven't been to it, it's probably one of the most extraordinary ceremonies in America, is the walk and the guarding of the tomb, where these sentinels are there every day.
One of the great honors that I had was I was made an honorary member and given a number.
For the tomb guard, because for the book of the unknowns, which I was deeply honored by, and they also incorporated some of the history that I brought out in the book, which was unknown at the time, I uncovered.
So it was a deep honor.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
I think you're right. If you ever get to Washington, D.C., it is one of the most solemn occasions.
You can go every day of the week, I think, and see the changing of the guard and all that.
At the Tomb of the Unknown. Okay, short commercial break and we're going to have Patrick K. O'Donnell, Captain Maureen Bannon, they're going to join us on the other side here on a Memorial Day special.
I want to thank everybody, particularly Real America's Voice.
This broadcast is going to replay today.
Normally, we're at 5 to 6.
It's going to go from 4 to 6.
We're going to replay both hours of this so you can get it in the afternoon also if you've missed the first part of this.
Okay. Short break.
Patrick O'Donnell, combat historian.
Captain Maureen Bannon from West Point, 101st Airborne.
Do you want to sing on the other side?
unidentified
Sing to the light, justifying and embracing.
Fallen soldiers, let us see, Where no rockets fly nor bullets swing.
Unbroken brothers, let us be.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Thank you for joining us for our Memorial Day special, something we do annually.
I think, I don't know, eighth or ninth year doing this, with Patrick K. O'Donnell.
Captain Bannon, the old guard, one of the most revered units.
Patrick, remind me, wasn't the old guard, it's attached back, it's actually tied back, I guess, theoretically back to Washington's guard back at Valley Forge.
Is that where the concept comes from?
unidentified
Well, the unit itself goes back to the Revolutionary War.
It's not a direct tie.
To Washington's Guard, per se.
In The Indispensables, I bring out the story of the lifeguard or the commander-in-chief's guard.
But they do go back to the Revolutionary War.
And it's an extraordinary unit that has an incredible tradition.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
For folks at home that are not associated with the Army, a lot of people don't remember or don't know, the Army's actually older than the country.
The Continental Army is 1770, correct?
That's correct. Which became the U.S. Army, is actually 1775.
unidentified
It's a year older. As is the Navy, too, by the way.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Both were born in 1775.
unidentified
The Army were pretty tough hombres.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Yes, yes. And my beloved Navy, it was a collection.
unidentified
We might also add, if we get into it, is Washington's Navy was also, in some ways, the Army's Navy, which predates and is the precursor to the U.S. Navy.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Yes, Navy is. And the Army still has its own approach to the Navy.
unidentified
They might not like that, but it's the truth. No, no.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Our founding Navy was a collection of freebooters and quasi-pirates as the Royal Navy was by Francis Drake and all the buccaneers and freebooters that formed that.
Captain Bannon, the Old Guard, anybody in your class, have anybody that's been in the unit commanders or been with the Old Guard?
unidentified
I do. None of my classmates have been.
In the old guard commanding, however, I do have a friend that was a commander in the old guard.
Like the Ranger Regiment, you have to be selected to the old guard.
It's not just a unit you can get orders to.
It's a very prestigious unit to be a part of, so you have to be selected for it.
And the regiment's mission is to conduct memorial affairs to honor fallen comrades, ceremonies, and act on behalf of the United States Army.
And they also do dignified transfers at Dover Airfield.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Yes. I think Tom Cotton might have been part of the old guard.
Patrick, do you know that? I think Tom Cotton...
unidentified
That's correct, yeah. He wrote a fine book about the tomb as well.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Yeah, yeah.
No, very important.
Tell me about, I want to go back, General Pershing, I don't even know if you know this, but on your mom's side, or your grandmother's side of the family, her father, the hers side, my grandfather,
her father, his brother, actually served with blackjack Pershing on the Mexican border in the in the border dispute that the expeditionary force that went in after Pancho Villa after Pancho Villa came and shot up.
I think it was Columbus, New Mexico and they sent an expeditionary force is when Pershing really became known to the American people.
They sent an expeditionary force actually into Mexico to sort that out.
But your great great uncle In this case, your great uncle actually was with Pershing, who was such a renowned figure.
To Pershing, I want to get back to these body bearers.
How did Pershing, how are they selected?
Because this was like... Pershing had a certain way he looked at the world about fighting men, right?
He had a certain way he ran that army.
Correct me if I'm wrong, I think it was MacArthur, as a colonel and maybe a brigadier general, I think MacArthur was awarded three, four, five silver stars from the time they got to World War I. He took them all the way down to Metz.
Where the war basically ended before they breached, they crossed the river there.
But he had a certain way of running.
This is why he was so renowned.
He had a certain way of leading that army.
He had a certain way that he wanted people to conduct themselves in combat.
He was a taskmaster.
In fact, there's this controversy now about getting General Grant, I think his fifth star, And Pershing, I think, had the fifth star as General Washington did.
But tell me about the people that he selected, the body bearers.
unidentified
The heart of The Unknowns, the book that I wrote, is the body bearers.
And it's the story of World War I through their eyes, Steve.
This book is not just a story about the ceremony of the Tomb of the Unknown soldier.
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
It's about these body bearers, and it's a combat history of World War I through their eyes that General Pershing himself selected each one of these men.
unidentified
They're bona fide heroes.
They are, in some cases, the most decorated of their service branch Medal of Honor recipients or Distinguished Service Cross recipients.
And it's variegated.
It's not just the Army.
It's the Navy.
The first story and the opening story in this book begins on the high seas in the Bay of Biscay with James Delaney, who is on a merchant ship, and he is what is known as an armed guard.
And their role is to protect the ship from U-boats.
The U-boat brings America into the war.
Unrestricted warfare is raging, and they are sinking Allied ships left and right.
And it's General, it's President Wilson and March 1917, before we enter the war, that we decide to arm commercial ships with Navy crews and Navy guns to defend themselves.
And it's Delaney that's on one of these boats.
And if you've ever seen the movie Das Boat, this is a mirror of that, but it's an American version.
And how this occurs is an incredible story that I unearthed in the unknowns.
Delany is on the ship and everything is moving along nicely.
They're bringing some cargo to Spain and suddenly a U-boat appears off in the distance.
The boat quickly submerges, it dives, it goes into battle stations and it fires a torpedo.
And the ship is able to, it misses the ship.
And for U-boats, torpedoes are extremely a valuable commodity.
They only have about 8 to 12 of them.
So they're not going to blow them unless it's economical.
And they size up this merchant ship and they don't think it's armed.
So they surface the U-boat and they keep a distance, a wise distance.
They're out of their shell range, but the U-boat has Some fairly large guns on it.
And they start to hammer this ship, or at least fire at it.
And most of these rounds miss.
And this is where James Delaney goes into action with his crew.
And they man their own guns, three-inch guns, and they start to fire at the U-boat.
And it's a cat-and-mouse running battle between the U-boat and this steamer, which is trying to flee the U-boat.
But believe it or not, when the U-boat's on the surface, It's actually relatively fast.
And this goes on for hours.
And they literally fire over 200 rounds.
And the U-boat finally starts to make their rounds hit.
And they hit near the engine room.
And Delaney's men are bleeding from their ears because of the concussions from the guns.
And it's at that point the captain of the boat says that we need to surrender.
And Delaney insists that they keep firing, but they're running out of ammo.
And they surrender the boat, and a boarding party from the U-boat comes aboard, and they take the men prisoner.
And they also, they lay charges in the boat itself.
And before they do that, the U-boat's crew is starving.
They literally seize all the fresh food that they can.
And they even take soap because their life on board a U-boat, if you ever saw a DAS boat, is a grinding experience.
There's grease. There is sweat from the sea.
Everything is pouring in on these U-boats.
It's a very dark and tough existence.
And they take these Americans prisoner, about eight of them, including Delaney and the captain, and they experience what it's like.
Life, what life is like in a U-boat.
It's the only Americans that actually get to experience that as the captors.
They're prisoners of these Germans.
And the prisoner is, the captain is amazing.
He speaks perfect English and he talks to Delaney and he interrogates him.
Delaney lies through his teeth about things so he doesn't reveal any kind of operational details.
But they gain a level of respect between the two crews because of the shared experience that they endure.
They go through depth-charge attacks.
They encounter what's known as a Q-ship, a British ship that is disguised as a merchant ship.
But as soon as the U-boat surfaces, hidden deck guns finally reveal themselves.
And they start to pepper the U-boat, which they quickly dive through.
They go through a minefield.
It's all the stuff of the movie.
It's an extraordinary story.
And Delaney somehow has to survive all this, which he does, and a prisoner of war camp for over a year.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Wow. One of the body bearers of the first Unknown Soldier.
Let's take a short break.
We're going to return. Patrick O'Donnell, Captain Aurene Bannon.
Yours truly, Stephen K. Bannon.
Short break for a Memorial Day special.
unidentified
We'll be back in a moment. Let us sing.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Welcome back. That song is obviously Mansions of the Lord.
It was from, I think it was actually written for the Mel Gibson movie.
It played, I think it really became, obviously the movie was very big, but it came, I think known more broadly, it was the song that was sung at the end of President Reagan's There was a ceremony at Wash End National Cathedral when they removed the remains to head out to California.
It was incredibly moving.
One of the most beautiful renditions that we get is by the West Point Choir.
It's just incredible, incredible.
And they sing it in the chapel, the famous chapel at West Point, which is, when they call it a chapel, it's like a gothic cathedral.
Incredible church space.
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I want to go to Patrick. Patrick, a little press for time, but I want to finish.
A couple of the vignettes on the body bearers, and I want to tell everybody, it turns out the unknowns, because we've talked about this book and the episodes for many, many years, and of course your other combat histories, it's actually out in paperback for the first time, I believe, right?
unidentified
Is that the first time it's been in paperback? It's actually the Indispensables that just came out.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Oh, the Indispensables I know and love.
How did they go to Amazon and get the paperback edition of that?
unidentified
You can go to Amazon, or it's at the new paperback table at Barnes& Noble.
You can get it anywhere.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
We keep a stack of them here in the war room, so people come, we give it to them.
They always come back to me, and they absolutely love that.
Anything else about the Body Bears?
I want to talk about the Battle of Brooklyn for the Indispensables, because it's so powerful, and it shows you the sacrifice of ordinary Americans in an extraordinary situation.
unidentified
Absolutely. Um, I think I'll close with the unknowns on one of my, the body bearer that brought me to this book.
And I was, um, when I wrote the unknowns or the idea found me, all the, all the ideas in the books found me.
And that idea found me in the sense that I was the guide for the, um, fifth Marines.
Initially we went over to France.
I was with, uh, 3-1 Lima Company in Fallujah.
And that battalion commander then was the regimental commander, 1-5.
And he asked me to go to France with the 5th Marines and give a tour of the beaches of Normandy.
But when you're in France with the 5th Marines, you've got to go to Bellevue.
That's the most sacred place of the Marine Corps in many ways.
So I accompanied them there.
And we toured the battlefield.
And I was there with, you know, many of the men that I was in Fallujah with.
So that's a special thing to be able to go back in time to this incredibly significant battle with individuals that you had been in combat with.
And we went through the shell-torn fields of Bellowood to, you know, areas where they're still encased in the trees.
Literally, there are shells that are filled with mustard gas.
And there's shells that are the size of a car or a house that fell in that area.
And we went to an area called Hill 142, or I'm sorry, Hill Fort 142, which is an epic story, which is, it unfolds on June 6, 1918.
And this is when the Marines launched their attack on Bella Wood.
across fields of wheat into German machine guns.
And the main character in the book and the story, the first Medal of Honor recipient for the Marine Corps is Ernest A. Janssen.
And Janssen is urging his men with the 49th Company to move forward.
And they seize the hill against all odds.
And the small company, along with some other companies and some engineers, Take the hill across this field of wheat.
And, you know, doctrine in the German army is to immediately counterattack.
And they knew that that counterattack was coming and it was gonna be swift and deadly.
And they started to dig in some shallow foxholes.
And Jansen, you know, is urging his men to dig in, along with the officers in the unit.
And it's Jansen that literally saves Hill 142.
The Germans have six machine guns, light machine guns, that they're setting up.
And he sees it out of the corner of his eye and launches a one-man bayonet charge on those machine guns.
And bayonets many of the men and kills them.
And it saves the hill from being, you know, swept by machine gun fire.
And in the process, though, he's very heavily wounded, nearly almost mortally killed, wounded.
But his wounds are severe, but he's able to recover.
And he is selected by Pershing as the first body bearer.
But Jansen is a very interesting story.
He receives two Medals of Honor, the Army Medal of Honor and the Navy Medal of Honor.
At this time during World War I, two Medals of Honor were received if you served in the Marine Corps within an Army unit.
But Jansen's not only got two medals of honor, but he has two names.
And this is where it's quite interesting.
Before he joined the Marine Corps, he was with the United States Army.
And he went AWOL, suspected because of the girl or some sort of a situation.
And he changes his name and then joins the Marine Corps several years later.
And he's a model Marine.
Ernest A. Jansen is initially Charles Hoffman during that battle.
And it's all sorted out after he receives the Medal of Honor.
And he's also given this incredible opportunity to be the body bearer and tell a part of his story.
But the book is about his story, but it's a band of brothers on that 49th Company, which goes through the entire war.
And the toughest battles.
And there are places like Mont Blanc and others, and it's an incredible story.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
You get to learn the history of World War I. Give me a couple of minutes on the Battle of Brooklyn.
Remember, people talk about the Declaration, obviously the birth, the foundation of the country.
But what people also, a lot of people don't realize is that 90 days after the signing of the Declaration, the American army, as tiny as it is, is in a full scale with the biggest expeditionary force ever brought by the British Empire.
And I mean, they're bringing the hammer.
They want to kill this thing in the cradle.
In the Battle of Brooklyn, people don't realize in Brooklyn, the heart of Brooklyn was the first, I think, big battle after Boston, right?
unidentified
This is an absolutely massive battle.
And it's an inflection point, Steve, because it's here that all could have been lost.
And the battle unfolds on August 27th.
Interestingly enough, it begins in a watermelon patch.
We're the scouts for both armies.
The scouts of the British Army are probing our lines, which in today, it's a place called Greenwood Cemetery.
And for those that live in the New York area or Brooklyn area, there is tons of American history in plain sight.
Some of it is marked. Some of it is not.
Greenwood Cemetery, a place called the Red Lion Inn, is where this watermelon patch was.
The scouts from the British Army probe it.
Shots are fired.
And this is the opening of the battle, which involves a book called Washington's Immortals.
It involves the Marylanders and the Delaware line.
And they are rushed from their headquarters, which is in a stone house several miles back from Greenwood Cemetery.
They march in the dead of night.
around 4 or 5 a.m.
to a position around Greenwood Cemetery.
And it's here that the British conduct what's known as a demonstration.
They want to tie down these Marylanders and other continental units.
But what's happening is a massive flanking movement around Greenwood Cemetery is occurring where Cornwallis and other troops in the British Army are about to encircle the troops that are in Greenwood Cemetery.
And they're on a salient, basically, along with General Sullivan and others.
And it's successful.
And they're cut off.
And they realize, to their absolute horror, that they are being surrounded by the British.
And these Marylanders and Delaware troops and others have to literally fight their way back to the location of this stone house.
And it's there that they realize, to their horror, that thousands of Americans are about to be cut off and destroyed.
And it's, in many ways, the entire American army is about to be destroyed.
And here, the Marylanders launch a suicidal, in some ways, you know, they're very small in number, about 300, 400 troops total.
against a fixed position with Cornwalls near and around the Stone House.
And they march and fight with bayonets to attack that house.
But the reason why they're doing it is to buy time for the rest of the army to escape and also to tie down the wings of the army and to create a gap in the line, which they successfully do.
And the main character of my book, Mordecai Gist for Washington's Immortals, Launches attack after attack.
And we talk about Memorial Day.
Most of the men of the 400, of the Maryland 400, or Washington's Immortals, have never been accounted for.
They are buried, very likely, many of them are buried near and around the house where they fell.
Or they were prisoners of war by the British.
And they died on prison ships, and their bodies were cast overboard like bags of garbage.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
And look, this is the thing.
In downtown Brooklyn, you saw there's a plaque on one of the things.
They're buried. These heroes, the American Thermopylae, as you call it, these average Americans, right, the very beginning of our country, within 90 days of the sign of the Declaration, you hear everything about the Declaration, you don't...
unidentified
Their blood signs the Declaration of Independence, Steve.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Yes. Yes.
And they're buried in an unmarked grave.
They're buried in two places. An unmarked grave somewhere in Brooklyn, near where the Stone House is.
We kind of know approximately where it is.
Or, folks forget, were there 18,000 prisoners on the prison ships in Brooklyn?
unidentified
The numbers are very nebulous on this, but some say over 10,000 American prisoners, maybe upwards to 18, were captured by the British.
It's horrible. And they survived both ships.
Floating concentration camps.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Floating concentration camps and the bodies thrown overboard.
Okay. It's Memorial Day.
We're going to take a short break and we're going to be back to wrap things up here in the war room.
unidentified
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steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Okay, welcome back. I want to just make a tiny, our other relative was Chief Petty Officer Thomas Bernard Jack, who was the son of my great-grandfather.
And like I said, he fought in the Civil War, 1st Maine Cavalry, and his brother was at Dahlgren's Raid, in fact, died at Dahlgren's Raid, when they tried to cross the James River.
There was a gunfight up there, I think.
The first 12 of them got killed there, and Dahlgren got killed later in Mechanicsville, where they found the orders, supposedly secret orders, to seize the White House of the Confederacy and either capture the Cabinet, Jefferson Davis, or assassinating, which started off this whole chain of events that led to the assassination of President Lincoln later.
He was a chief petty officer, a radio man chief in the Navy in World War I and in World War II. In fact, there's a famous story.
He was on one of the ships that went up to, I think, the Augusta that Patrick O'Donnell, FDR, and I think Churchill met for the first time.
A big family legend of that.
Captain Bannon talks to us about Memorial Day, talks to us about what people should be doing.
unidentified
Thank you.
.
I highly encourage the audience, if you are near one of those national cemeteries in the United States, Puerto Rico or abroad, or any of the soldiers' lots, monuments, memorials or markers, I highly encourage you to get out there today and pay your respects.
Even if you can't get out there today, I encourage you to go visit them and pay your respects.
I also want the audience to remember that today is not the day to thank a veteran for their service.
Today is about those that paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms.
So I want the audience to keep that in mind while they're going throughout the day today.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Yes, and this will tee us up not just for Veterans Day but for wreaths across America where there's this whole movement to put wreaths on all the gravestones, the grave markers of the fallen and other veterans that have died in these military cemeteries.
We're going to replay this entire broadcast from 4 to 6 today.
Then at 6, we've got a special, we're kind of pivoting at the end of Memorial Day.
I've got Joe Allen and I are going to do an entire special on transhumanism to kind of kick off the week.
So please make sure you see the 6 o'clock show.
It's going to be very, very special.
Patrick K. O'Donnell, your research is amazing.
I know you're working on another big book.
So, Indispensables, Which is also an incredible book, is now out in paperback.
I want to go to the site.
I want to make sure everybody can get to all of your books.
When is your next book due?
unidentified
Probably about a year and a half, Steve.
I'm nearly finished with the book, and the editors like to spend a lot of time on it, even though they don't...
I mean, I turn in a book, and it's not heavily edited, but they like to take their time with it.
I'm extremely excited about that Civil War book.
It makes me wake up every morning and get excited because it's a story I've been working on for the last five years.
I can't get into all the details.
Wow. It has an incredible special operations aspect to it, and it's an untold story that I know that people will find very compelling.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
You've kind of gravitated over time to these elite units.
unidentified
That's been my thing.
Since the beginning, the last 30 years, many consider me to be the expert on American elite units beginning from the revolution forward, especially World War II. It's a passionate thing.
I think one of the themes in my book is how a single individual or a small group of individuals can shape or bend history.
And that's certainly the case with many of the books because they are touching upon, you know, great inflection points in history where a single person can change that, can change history, can change things.
And that's something that I think certainly holds true today.
We have destiny in our hands.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
We're able to change it. It is, and your book is all of these elite units, and obviously people have to step their game up.
They're ordinary Americans in these elite units.
That's the power of it, all the way from the Revolution all the way through, doing extraordinary things called upon by fate or destiny or their country.
It's just extraordinary. Patrick, real quickly, how do people get to your website?
unidentified
I'm at getter.com.
At Combat Historian, as well as Twitter.
Website is my name, patrickkodonnell.com.
The books are at Barnes& Noble, Amazon.
You can go anywhere, any bookstore, and pick them up.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
I want to thank you, sir, once again, for spending Memorial Day with us.
Thank you so much.
Honored, as always.
unidentified
It's an honor, Steve. Thank you.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Captain Bannon, your Getter handle, how do people on Twitter, how do people get to you?
unidentified
Everyone can find me on Getter at Maureen underscore Bannon, Twitter Maureen underscore Bannon, and on Instagram at RealMaureenBannon.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Okay. We're going to replay this entire broadcast on Real America's Voice, our producing and distribution partner.
We'll start at 4 p.m.
this afternoon. So if you didn't get a chance to watch the whole thing or have somebody else, thank you.
We're going to leave you with Mansions of the Lord.
Have a productive and fruitful Memorial Day.
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