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unidentified
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Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | |
| And then author Tim Bouvery discusses his book, Allies at War, How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World. | ||
| Also, author Robert Edsel on his book, Remember Us, American Sacrifice, Dutch Freedom, and a Forever Promise Forged in World War II. | ||
| Washington Journal is next. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| This is Washington Journal for Monday, May 26th. | ||
| It's Memorial Day, a day to honor and mourn the men and women of the U.S. military who died while fighting to protect and defend our country. | ||
| To start today's program, we're asking you, what does Memorial Day mean to you? | ||
| Here are the lines. | ||
| If you're in the Eastern or Central time zone, it's 202-748-8000. | ||
| Mountain or Pacific, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And if you are a member of the military or a military family, that includes veterans, those who are retired or active duty, you can call in at 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text your comments to 202-748-8003. | ||
| Be sure to include your name and city. | ||
| You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Good morning, and thank you for being with us on this Memorial Day. | ||
| We'll get to your calls in just a few minutes, but wanted to start with this from Axios, the headline, What does the meaning behind Memorial Day federal holiday? | ||
| It says that Memorial Day is about more than cookouts, travel, sales, and the unofficial kickoff to summer. | ||
| It says the federal holiday honors military personnel who lost their lives defending the country. | ||
| Says that Memorial Day is observed each year on the last Monday of May, which is May 26th. | ||
| That's today. | ||
| The holiday used to be held on May 30th annually until 1971. | ||
| It also notes the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day. | ||
| Veterans Day honors all who have served in the U.S. military and is considered a celebration of all veterans, living and dead. | ||
| Memorial Day is to recognize fallen military who have died in service. | ||
| Taking a look at the history, it says Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day and was recognized as early as the 1860s after the Civil War. | ||
| The history of Memorial Day is subject to a long-standing academic debate with dozens of cities in town claiming to be the holiday's birthplace. | ||
| After World War I, the focus of the holiday shifted to honor American soldiers who died in any war, not only the Civil War. | ||
| It also says that since Memorial Day is a solemn day to remember the fallen, the Wounded Warrior Project advises people to say, have a meaningful Memorial Day, not Happy Memorial Day. | ||
| The group says it's, quote, not appropriate to thank a service member for their service on this day, as it is a day to remember and honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice. | ||
| It was last week on the House floor that those talks of Memorial Day began during the opening session. | ||
| On Friday, the House Chaplain spoke about the importance of Memorial Day. | ||
| Here's that clip. | ||
|
unidentified
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Holy God, as we find ourselves looking forward to parades and picnics and pool openings this Memorial Day weekend, remind us that above all else, we are obliged to give the heroes of our country the honor of remembrance and sober reflection for their ultimate sacrifices. | |
| We lift our hearts in gratitude for those who chose to give their lives in the fight for right and freedom, for the integrity of this country, and for the preservation of its noble ideals. | ||
| May we never take for granted the countless sacrifices that were made to defend our liberties and uphold our democracy. | ||
| These noble men and women have stood firm. | ||
| In the face of war's alarms and exposed assaults of the adversary, they would not be moved. | ||
| May they rest knowing that they gave themselves fully to the work you, O Lord, set before them to accomplish. | ||
| Grant them peace and knowing that neither their labor nor their sacrifice was in vain. | ||
| We pray for those families, friends, and communities who sent their loved ones off to war and now lay flowers on a gravestone just to sustain the memory of the father, the mother, the son, the daughter, the loved one now taken from them. | ||
| In memory of our fallen and in the strength of your eternal name, we pray. | ||
| Amen. | ||
| We are starting today's program asking you, what does Memorial Day mean to you? | ||
| You can call in the lines again if you're Eastern or Central time zone. | ||
| It's 202-748-8000, Mountain or Pacific, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And if you are a member of the military or a member of a military family that includes veterans, retired, and those on active duty, you can call in at 202-748-8002. | ||
| We will start with Alfred in South Portland, Maine. | ||
| Good morning, Alfred. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Wow, I'm first. | ||
| What Memorial Day, excuse me, Memorial Day is really emotional for me because I do remember all those people who have fought in wars for our country and for the freedom that we're losing right now. | ||
| And all I could think right now is that all our heroes and loved ones who have died in wars to protect our democracy and our country must be turning in their graves at what we're experiencing right now. | ||
| Unfortunately, we have to have to go through three more Memorial Days in this situation. | ||
| And I don't know what we're going to be remembering next year. | ||
| It's very scary. | ||
| I just hope that we make it through this and that all those men and women haven't died in vain for our freedom, which we're losing right now. | ||
| I guess that's about it. | ||
| That was Alfred in Maine Thomas in Maryland. | ||
| Good morning, Thomas. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I'm now 78 years old, and I was in the process of going some research on some of our classmates that had died during Vietnam. | ||
| And I came upon a name called Russell E. Millbury. | ||
| Now, I didn't know much from Union Bridge, Maryland. | ||
| I didn't know much about my grandmother on my mother's side was a Millbury from Union Bridge. | ||
| And our Family Reunion is now on Union Bridge every year. | ||
| And it's called the Diary, Millbury Family Reunion. | ||
| And I didn't know Russell. | ||
| I found out he died six weeks after he got to Vietnam and two days after his 20th birthday. | ||
| And all of a sudden, it's something that came up to me, and it really hit hard because although my brother and brother-in-law both spent over 25 years in the military, and both of them got out of Vietnam got out directly after they got out of Vietnam and they couldn't retire, I never knew I had a family member that died in Vietnam. | ||
| And it hurts. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thomas, what do you do now to honor that family member? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, it's just a thing. | |
| I've never visited his grave. | ||
| And like I said, he was born, he's buried in Union Bridge. | ||
| And I never knew that he was, I never knew that much about my mother's side of the family, my grandmother's side of the family, until we had always had a diary reunion. | ||
| In the mid-70s, we had it to Millbury side. | ||
| And that's how I found out about him. | ||
| Well, I found out about him when I was looking into my high school classmates that had passed away. | ||
| And I found him merely by accident. | ||
| That was Thomas in Maryland. | ||
| It was on the House floor last week that members of the House spoke about the significance of Memorial Day. | ||
| Here's a clip from Representative Ben Klein, Republican of Virginia, speaking on the issue. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, on this Memorial Day, we do more than remember, we honor the men and women who gave everything for this nation. | ||
| We remember the fallen, those still missing in action, those lost at sea, and the thousands who now rest beneath our flag, having paid the ultimate price for our freedom. | ||
| These heroes answered the call to defend liberty, knowing it could cost them their lives. | ||
| Because of them, we live in a country where freedom still rings and the American dream endures. | ||
|
unidentified
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Their sacrifice is not just a chapter in our history, it is the foundation of our republic. | |
| We are duty-bound to remember them, to honor them, and to ensure that their service is never forgotten. | ||
|
unidentified
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May God bless the memory of our fallen warriors, and may He continue to bless the United States of America and all who wear the uniform in its defense. | |
| Members of Congress, also posting on social media, this is from last week, Congressman Zach Nunn, Republican of Iowa, tweeting this: This Memorial Day we serve together. | ||
| I joined the bipartisan vets this morning to wash the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, honoring the 58,000-plus Americans who gave their lives in service. | ||
| And this from Congressman Don Davis, also with bipartisan vets, saying that he cleaned the Vietnam Veteran Wall Memorial ahead of Memorial Day. | ||
| We are standing united in service to honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country. | ||
| For those who have served, we honor and remember our fallen. | ||
| Let's hear from Paul in Victorville, California. | ||
| Line for Veterans. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning, Paul. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, thank you for taking my call. | |
| Can you hear me? | ||
| Yes, I can, Paul. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, I told the call screen, I was, if you can believe it, I was a missile commander under Reagan. | |
| I commanded the nuclear weapons during the 80s. | ||
| So I did my small part, hopefully, to have the Soviet Union collapse then. | ||
| And I just want people to realize how bad some of the men are in other parts of the world. | ||
| And that first caller kind of got to me. | ||
| He got kind of emotional because the country is in trouble. | ||
| And I remember when I was in there, they showed us the satellites. | ||
| That's when it was still the Soviet Union, the film. | ||
| And they came in there to the Afghan village, and they just killed everybody, except the little boys with the blonde hair. | ||
| And they took them back to Russia. | ||
| And I don't know if you ever dropped a light bulb on the floor and the watches shatter, but that's what a military-grade weapon does to a little kid's head. | ||
| And I don't mean to be dramatic, but I think our country's in trouble. | ||
| And I feel bad for the boys, most of all. | ||
| Seems like you women are smarter anyhow. | ||
| You seem like you're doing a little bit better going to college. | ||
| And the boys are just in. | ||
| And one last thing for the black boys. | ||
| If you want some inspiration, look up a man called Leroy Alfred Johnston. | ||
| This was a great man, a black man during World War I, who got the highest French medal for saving many lives, many French lives. | ||
| And when he came back, first of all, he couldn't even use the toilet with the white people. | ||
| And then to put the cherry on the cake, he went out fishing with his brothers and they murdered him. | ||
| They beat him to death. | ||
| And these are the great men that built this country. | ||
| So thank you very much. | ||
| I better go. | ||
| That's Paul in California. | ||
| Oliver, also in California and Oji. | ||
| Good morning, Oliver. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Yeah, that first caller, that really broke my heart. | ||
| And so if he's still listening, man, I'm sorry. | ||
| And I also feel the same. | ||
| I feel like we're in a lot of trouble. | ||
| And it's a scary time. | ||
| But I thought I'd call and mention my grandfather, who was an officer or pilot in the Naval Air Force, fought in the South Pacific. | ||
| Amazing guy in World War II. | ||
| And, you know, I've had these kind of talks with my Japanese and German friends who we love and respect each other and thinking about our grandparents who were just murdering each other as fast as they could. | ||
| And, you know, in a matter of a few generations, here we are. | ||
| And so a little word of hope that there can be reconciliation and peace. | ||
| And but yeah, I'm really worried that what's happening in our country and what I see is that it's an absolute betrayal, total betrayal of everything these guys fought for. | ||
| And they fought the fascist dictators. | ||
| And we got one right here. | ||
| And, you know, for old Donnie Bonespurs to get up in front of all those young soldiers and talk about blood and guts and valor, when he got his deferment and avoided going to war himself, he was happy to let everybody do the fighting and dying. | ||
| And I think he's an absolute coward. | ||
| And I think that he's enriching himself. | ||
| And, you know, he's got Paula White talking in tongues, telling him God's on his side. | ||
| So I hope we can all get together and really come to our senses and get this guy out of here as soon as possible. | ||
| So thanks, C-SPAN. | ||
| Thank you, Brian Lamb. | ||
| And happy Memorial Day, everyone. | ||
| That was Oliver in California, Rick in Ira, Iowa, Lion for veterans. | ||
| Good morning, Rick. | ||
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unidentified
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Hey, good morning. | |
| For me, I guess it's a day of just reflection. | ||
| I remember years ago, my supervisor took me to an American cemetery in Luxembourg. | ||
| A bit over 5,000 soldiers are buried there along with General Patton. | ||
| And boy, what a somber experience, you know, to walk through there and see all the graves. | ||
| Just, yeah, I don't, I wish I had a good way to explain that, but I can't. | ||
| But I can't forget it. | ||
| I remember it, and I'm thankful for all those folks also. | ||
| For me, I just say a prayer that all the folks who've lost loved ones during these wars and conflicts would be comforted, you know, by the Lord. | ||
| And that, you know, they got big holes in their hearts this weekend, and I just pray that the Lord would be able to fill those. | ||
| He's probably the only one who can. | ||
| The other thing is, I pray the nation would just take a moment to remember their sacrifice and that our leaders would do all they could not to get us into any more wars or conflicts, but if they have to, that they'd be a just one and that everybody could get behind them. | ||
| And then lastly, I would just pray that, you know, when we send those warfighters in, that they'd have a clear objective, that they'd get competent leaders, and that we provide them all the means necessary to quickly win the fight. | ||
| I guess that's my thoughts. | ||
| Rick, when did you serve in the military? | ||
| What branch? | ||
|
unidentified
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I was in the Air Force, and it would have been from, I served about 24 years from 80 to 90, or no, 2004. | |
| And was over in Germany, what is it, Korea, stateside, Al-Kaharsh, Saudi Arabia. | ||
| So a lot of different places, but I never had to serve outside the fence. | ||
| As these folks that, like I said, that I was just when I went to Luxembourg and saw them, I never had to go through that. | ||
| And it's just incredible that they could do that. | ||
| It's, yeah. | ||
| Rick, we want to let you know that we have a guest coming up later in the program who will be talking about his new book that looks at an overseas military cemetery there in the Netherlands. | ||
| That might be something that you're interested in. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, it would be. | |
| That's another, I've been through there, so I'll make sure to take a peek at that. | ||
| Appreciate that. | ||
| Let's hear from Brian in Colorado Springs, Line for Veterans. | ||
| Good morning, Brian. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well, Brian. | ||
|
unidentified
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I just want to say, like, today is a great day for everybody to, most people have a day off. | |
| So if you could go down, take 20 minutes, a half hour of your day. | ||
| Every town has usually some kind of local war memorial or something by their VFW or their city hall. | ||
| And just to take, you know, 20 minutes, half hour, go down and say thank you. | ||
| That's really what Memorial Day is all about. | ||
| And I hope people take that opportunity to do it. | ||
| That was Brian in Colorado. | ||
| And Brian mentioning the commemorations and observances that are happening across the country today. | ||
| If you were to go on to the Veterans Association or the Veterans Administration website, you'll be able to find a list of those observances and see if there's one close to you. | ||
| We have been showing you live shots of the World War II Memorial here in Washington, D.C. this morning. | ||
| It's one location that will be holding observances today. | ||
| There's another happening on the mall on the National Mall today. | ||
| This is from the Washington Times. | ||
| It says that the headline is Poppies and Patriotism. | ||
| And it says, one side of the 133-foot-long exhibit set up near the base of the Lincoln Memorial tells the stories of decades of American soldiers killed in action around the globe. | ||
| The other side is a blazing red wall of 600,000 poppies, the flowers forever linked by the World War I poem in Flanders Fields to those who have died fighting for freedom. | ||
| The somber display, which features thousands of distinctive red flowers pressed against protective panes of glass, is known as the Poppy Wall of Honor, the visually stunning tribute to America's war dead returned to the National Mall over Memorial Day weekend to honor the sacrifices of military men and women. | ||
| It goes on to say that displaying a red poppy to honor its to honor war dead is a tradition long associated with the British. | ||
| It can be traced back to the creation of the poem written by Canadian Army Dr. John McRae when he saw a field of poppies churned up by fighting and shelling on the Western Front in 1915. | ||
| The article also says the first national observance and Memorial Day, then called Decoration Day, was May 30th, 1868 to honor Union soldiers killed during the Civil War after two World Wars broadened its scope to honor all U.S. war dead. | ||
| Congress in 1968 changed its observance to the last Monday in May in 1971. | ||
| The name was standardized as Memorial Day. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Let's hear from Ronald, Covington, Texas. | ||
| Good morning, Ronald. | ||
| Or I'm sorry, Covington, Tennessee. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I don't have any good feelings about today. | ||
| My great-great-grandfather was one of the Tuskegee Institute studies, syphilis studies that gave him syphilis after he came back from overseas and didn't treat him. | ||
| He ended up dying and also passed it on to his wife. | ||
| And, you know, he fought in the U.S. military. | ||
| That's what he got for fighting. | ||
| And I just have bad feelings about any person of color going into the military. | ||
| Also, I just feel that no person of color had bad experiences going into the military. | ||
| And, you know, they should just, you know, it's up to them. | ||
| But I just pray that in the future, you know, that people be treated better in the military. | ||
| Also, you know, we swear allegiance to the flag, swear allegiance to the country. | ||
| And even the Bible says you shouldn't swear to nothing but God. | ||
| So, you know, even though I forgive the country for doing what they did to my great-grandfather, I refuse to pledge allegiance to anything but God. | ||
| And now that I know it's a sin to pledge allegiance to anything, but I don't do it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Ronald in Tennessee. | ||
| Becky, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Good morning, Becky. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| When I think about Memorial Day, I automatically think about my grandmother. | ||
| I'm 71, so she's been gone for a while. | ||
| But her youngest son was 17 or 18 years old when he boarded a submarine in, I believe, San Diego, somewhere in California. | ||
| And on his first trip out into the ocean, someone sunk the submarine he was on. | ||
| It was a USS snook. | ||
| There's been a book written about it, but they've never found the sub. | ||
| And I often think, as a mother myself, how did my grandmother go to sleep every night knowing that her youngest son is lying in the bottom of the sea of Japan and they never found him? | ||
| And it just, it breaks my heart. | ||
| And I think about my mom losing her youngest brother. | ||
| My mom had polio as a child. | ||
| And so much that's happening with this current administration makes me reflect that how sad it would be for my mom and dad who my dad was in the military and what they would think about what was happening to this country. | ||
| And with Kennedy talking about getting rid of vaccinations, my mother had us first in line to get polio vaccines. | ||
| She lived her whole life with one leg shorter than the other and could never wear regular shoes because she had polio. | ||
| So it just makes me very sad. | ||
| It's a day of, you know, you try to remember and try to hopefully think of some good things, but it's pretty sad. | ||
| So that's it. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| That was Becky in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Slossi in Rayford, North Carolina, line for veterans. | ||
| Good morning, Slossi. | ||
| Slossi, are you there? | ||
| Am I saying it correctly? | ||
| Rayford, North Carolina. | ||
| Slossi, we'll give you one more try. | ||
| All right, Slossi, if we lost you, go ahead and give us a call back. | ||
| A programming note. | ||
| We have just a few minutes left in this first portion of today's Washington Journal. | ||
| We'll have a guest joining us in just a few minutes. | ||
| And also wanted to note that later today, it's at 11 a.m. Eastern this morning, President Trump will visit Arlington National Cemetery to participate in a wreath lane ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier. | ||
| You'll be able to watch that live right here on C-SPAN. | ||
| You can also find it on our app, C-SPANNOW, and on our website, c-span.org. | ||
| It was yesterday on the program that Travis Partington, who is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and host of the Oscar Mike Radio podcast, joined us on Washington Journal and shared his thoughts on Memorial Day. | ||
| Here's a clip. | ||
|
unidentified
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So personally, I think about the Marines that I buried when I was in the Marine Corps. | |
| It comes very much to the focus. | ||
| People talk to me. | ||
| I had the distinct honor of talking to two Gold Star family members a couple weeks ago. | ||
| And the thing that is the same between them is the loss never really goes away. | ||
| These family members feel this loss always, every day. | ||
| But there's also hope. | ||
| They see people enjoying life. | ||
| You know, it's graduation time in this country, so they're seeing kids graduate and people in their prom dresses, and weddings are starting. | ||
| And what one member told me is she's like, when I see this stuff going on and I see the t-ball games, I see a little bit of my son in all these things, and I'm reminded that this is why he served and what his sacrifice means to people. | ||
| So it's a time of loss, it's a time of remembrance, but it's also a time of hope and happiness. | ||
| We have Flossie and Ray for North Carolina. | ||
| Flossie, not Flossy. | ||
| We apologize for that. | ||
| Line for veterans. | ||
| Good morning, Flossie. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, good morning. | |
| I just wanted to comment on today. | ||
| I am a generational person who has served in the military to include all the way back to my great-grandfather and my brother, family members. | ||
| And I do not agree with the gentleman that called earlier. | ||
| I am a black retired captain. | ||
| I am an author of Rise and Conquer. | ||
| It is the story of my military life. | ||
| I came in the Army during the early 90s, where females were then transitioning over to work in combat arms support. | ||
| And I spent the majority of my career from a private to a senior enlisted officer to going over to be officer intelligence officer and then working up to the White House staff at the Congressional Delegate Escort under the Four Star Generals. | ||
|
unidentified
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So I don't understand why he would say that people of color should not be in the military. | |
| I am a black female officer. | ||
| My family have served proudly, as does many other black families. | ||
|
unidentified
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And today is a tradition of people who have fallen, who have fought for this country, who have been native-born to this country, who have, along with black and white and Native Americans, have built this country. | |
| So it's a day to be proud of. | ||
| Yes, our loved ones have fallen, but that is a proud thing. | ||
|
unidentified
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I don't celebrate our country just for today. | |
| I wear the flag constantly on anything that I wear because I'm proud of this country. | ||
| I'm proud that we have fought, and I'm proud of the ones who have fought for our country and who have died. | ||
|
unidentified
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So I just hope that resonates to all the veterans and to all of us of color and to all of us, period, who have served and who have had loved ones that have served because it's not about us of black, white, or whatever color. | |
| It's about today and how our country was established under the people who gave their lives for today. | ||
| Flossy, you said that you wrote a book about your time in the military? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I did. | |
| It is called Rise and Conquer. | ||
| It was published through Mr. T.C. Bradley, who is a famed publisher and author himself. | ||
| And we did it out at Oral Roberts University. | ||
| It was published in January 2021. | ||
| Actually, it was debuted December 3rd of 2020. | ||
| And 2021, we actually published the book. | ||
| So I think that it displays from the time of me coming in. | ||
| And of course, I tell everyone year by year of my triumph, even when I became a single soldier parent, always being deployed. | ||
| I deployed twice to Kuwait at the height of the war when it first began. | ||
| I spent one whole year in Korea as one of the female enlisted soldiers who was 12 miles from the DMZ at that time. | ||
| So with the evolving of military from all of that time and our sacrifices, I think it is much noted that people learn and they understand what it is to give yourself to the country. | ||
| And if they read the book, it is very interesting. | ||
| It is called Rise and Conquer. | ||
| Blossy, we're showing it on the screen right now. | ||
| Oh, I'm going to go on Amazon if people are interested. | ||
| That's the name of it. | ||
| It is available on Amazon. | ||
| We do need to end it there, but we appreciate your call. | ||
| Still ahead this morning on Washington Journal, Robert Edsel, author of The Monuments Men, will join us to discuss his new book, Remember Us, that looks at the history and role the Dutch have played in honoring and taking care of the graves of Allied soldiers. | ||
| But next, we'll talk with author and historian Tim Bouvery about his book, Allies at War, that examines the relationships between Allied powers during World War II. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss his new book, Allies at War, how the struggles between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World is author and historian Tim Bouvery. | ||
| Tim, thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
| We were talking a little bit before the interview started, and there are a lot of books about World War II. | ||
| Why did you write this specific book and what did you focus on? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, I think, Tammy, that everyone is very aware of how the Allies won the Second World War militarily. | |
| But what is far less well understood is how the politics of that war works and how the Allies collaborated and often disagreed over the best way to prosecute the war and over the sort of world that would emerge at the end of the war. | ||
| So the idea behind the book was to fill a gap in the market by showing how the British, and it was the British originally, searched for allies after the fall of France in June 1940, most importantly of all, the United States of America, but also the Soviet Union and relations with nationalist China and smaller powers such as Greece, Yugoslavia, how that came about, | ||
| and then the real challenges of working together in a coalition that was united in its desire to defeat the Axis, Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, but was really divided about ideological reasons, the sort of world that should emerge in the aftermath of war about economics, finance, imperialism, the future of empires, | ||
| and security arrangements that would be put in place once the Axis had disappeared. | ||
| So it is an attempt to look at both the elements of cooperation among the Allies, but also the struggles and the conflict and how that conflict has shaped the world which we still inhabit today. | ||
| Your book does include, it does talk about the well-known battles, Dunkirk, Pearl Harbor, the Normandy landing, the German invasion of Soviet Union, both history buffs. | ||
| People who just maybe have a lesser understanding of World War II history are familiar with those names. | ||
| Your book includes the thoughts and work of foreign ministers, ambassadors, emissaries. | ||
| What does bringing in those facts, that kind of behind-the-scenes look add to what we already know about these events? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, I think it adds a whole new layer of complexity, really, because as I've mentioned, these powers, the British, the Americans, and the Soviets, the big three Allied powers, were united in a shared military goal, but they were divided on most other things. | |
| Even the British and the Americans, who were both liberal democracies, Soviet Union was, of course, a communist dictatorship, were bitterly divided about the best way to win the war, over operational planning, over grand strategy, but also about what sort of world they wanted to create in its aftermath. | ||
| And by looking at the level, looking at the battles that the diplomats and the foreign ministers, as well as the main Allied leaders, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin, participated in, I think it reveals that there was an awful lot of behind-the-scenes argument, frustration, compromise that went on behind those battles that you've just mentioned. | ||
| And that without those arguments, without those discussions, without those debates, many errors would have been made, but also some errors might not have been made. | ||
| It was the German military theorist, Klausevitz, who said, and I paraphrase here, but war is politics by other means. | ||
| And that is really true. | ||
| We can all debate whether it's good to send your tanks further forward in this particular battle or what time or what tide or all sorts of elements of military strategy that come into those main battles. | ||
| But before you even get to any boots on the ground, you have to have a coalition and there has to be an agreed strategy. | ||
| And that strategy is not just how the war is going to be prosecuted, but what it's about. | ||
| What is it that the Allies were actually fighting for? | ||
| And even that question was surprisingly contentious. | ||
| Your book is out here in the US next month, beginning of next month, but it's already gotten some write-ups there in the UK. | ||
| And this was from an excerpt from something that The Spectator wrote about it. | ||
| It says, Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt's friend and emissary, whose chronic ill health had made him very thin, was described by one British diplomat as looking like an animated piece of shredded wheat. | ||
| Paul Raynard, the French prime minister with his narrow eyes and natural smirk, was said to have had the countenance of a samurai educated at Cambridge, while the Soviet foreign minister Javislaw Malatalvo had small, deep-set eyes and the smile of a Siberian winter. | ||
| Anthony Eden was a satirical symphony. | ||
| Those are some of the observations that you include in this book. | ||
| A lot of some of what you wrote is also the first time that it's been shared, that it's been documented. | ||
| How did you come about these records? | ||
| And what were some of the challenges you had in finding and gathering them? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, the challenge for any historian dealing with the whole of the Second World War, even if it's just the whole of the anti-Axis Allied side, is the sheer volume of material. | |
| I went through over 100 different archives in Britain and the United States, and it's boxes within boxes. | ||
| It's like Russian dolls. | ||
| I spent weeks at the Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library in upstate New York, and it's not just FDRs that are there, but most of the papers of his leading associates. | ||
| And it's fascinating, Tammy, how even an archive such as FDRs, which has been so trawled by historians, there are still documents in it which haven't been published before or whose significance haven't been realized before. | ||
| For instance, I write in the book about the time when the British Royal Navy, tragically, but in my view necessarily, decided to sink a significant proportion of the French fleet off the North African coast on the 3rd of July 1940. | ||
| And it's often been speculated that one of the reasons that Churchill wanted to do this was to show the Americans, to show the Roosevelt administration, that Britain was determined to continue the war no matter what, and that Britain was prepared to act ruthlessly, even on the fringes of morality. | ||
| These people, these sailors, had been Britain's allies but two weeks earlier. | ||
| And yet it's never been proven before that the British corresponded or discussed the planned operation against their former ally in North Africa with the White House before it took place. | ||
| And yes, in Franklin Roosevelt's papers, I came across a one-line telegram from the British ambassador, Lord Lothian, to Franklin Roosevelt, dated the 4th of July, 1940. | ||
| And it simply said, Mr. President, you will see that Winston Churchill has taken the action that you and I discussed the other day and which you approved. | ||
| So the British, even at that stage, a whole year and a half before Pearl Harbor, was asking the United States for their blessing, as it were, to undertake a very, very significant and yet highly controversial military operation. | ||
| Our guest for the next 45 minutes or so is Tim Bouvery, author of the new book, Allies at War, How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World. | ||
| If you have a question or comment from him, you can start calling in now. | ||
| The lines for this segment are broken down by region. | ||
| If you are in the Eastern or Central time zone, you can call in at 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you are in the Mountain or Pacific, you can call in at 202-748-8001. | ||
| And also want to note that we have that line up still for military and military families. | ||
| Again, that is veterans, retired, and active duty. | ||
| You can call in at 202-748-8002. | ||
| Tim, wanted to ask you about going back to challenges of collecting information. | ||
| You did have access to a lot. | ||
| The exception is information regarding Russia. | ||
| What does lack of still having not access or information about Soviet wartime diplomacy, what does that, what impact did that have on your writing of this book? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, it's not quite true to say that we don't have original Soviet material because the Stalin archive is online and the archive of the Molotov Secretariat, that is Vashaliev Molotov, who was the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, the Soviet foreign minister, that's also online. | |
| And there are, in addition to that, great volumes of published documents of Soviet material, as well as the published diaries of the Soviet ambassador to Britain, Ivan Meisky. | ||
| There are, I'm sure, papers relating to the Second World War in Moscow or elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, which have yet to see the light of day. | ||
| But I do think that it is not the same as expecting or discovering a great cachet of material in the West, certainly in relation to diplomacy. | ||
| The Soviet Union was an extremely centralized, highly autocratic, punitive, coercive dictatorship. | ||
| And why does that affect the quality of the material? | ||
| Well, it affects the quality of the material because all of the apparatches of the Soviet Union, down to the quite junior levels of diplomat, but right all the way up to the foreign minister at the top, are always guessing what it is that their boss, and the ultimate boss is Joseph Stalin, wants to hear. | ||
| There is very little honest reporting therefore. | ||
| And in addition to that, there are very few private diaries and there are hardly any memoirs. | ||
| To keep a private diary was an enormous risk in the Soviet Union. | ||
| Even Meiski, who kept a private diary in London, knew that his diary was being read each night by the NKVD members of the Soviet secret police. | ||
| And so it's not an honest diary. | ||
| It is all praising Stalin and praising Molotov and suggesting that their foreign policy is as shrewd and foresight visionary as could possibly be. | ||
| And so the reports that the Soviet diplomats provided the Kremlin with are far less insightful and in many ways less interesting than the dispatches that British and American diplomats and free French diplomats were sending back to their governments. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We will start with Roberta in Washington, D.C. Good morning, Roberta. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, and thank you for taking my call and happy Memorial Day to everybody. | |
| I think it's my comment is it amazes me how the talk shows are talking and older women are being raped. | ||
| Kids are being killed. | ||
| And all we want to do is have a format and talk about it. | ||
| We need to get together and help these people. | ||
| I mean, and Roberta. | ||
| Roberta, we're talking with author Tim Bouvery about his new book. | ||
| Do you have a question for him? | ||
|
unidentified
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No, you said I could talk about the veterans as well. | |
| Memorial Day. | ||
| The ones that died. | ||
| I'm not thinking about that man's book. | ||
| We have, no, Roberta, I think you misunderstood. | ||
| We have a line for members, people who are veterans, but our topic is still Memorial Day. | ||
| We'll go on to Randy in Lost Nation, Iowa, member of military family. | ||
| Hi, Randy. | ||
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unidentified
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Hi. | |
| I'm Jim Collins saying my great-grandpa served during World War I. | ||
| And so just four brothers. | ||
| One died in World War I. | ||
| And the other three came home. | ||
| And my great-grandpa and my great-uncle served, they were BFW members for years in Clarence and Laudanaowa. | ||
| And I'm very proud of their service. | ||
| My great uncle served in Africa, World War II, and then he served in, he was in Paris. | ||
| He was a queer party guy. | ||
| My great uncle was, he was a hyper man. | ||
| He had a hard time breathing a lot. | ||
| Hit asthma. | ||
| And I passed the call to. | ||
| Tim, any response for our caller? | ||
| Well, he had a question there. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, just to say that I entirely understand why he is so proud of what his grandfather did. | |
| And it's not just he, but everyone in the West and everyone who believes in freedom and the right to make your own choices and decide your own government and to live in a liberal democracy should be deeply grateful for the service that his grandfather gave. | ||
| Let's hear from Merle and Winston, I'm sorry, Wilson, North Carolina, member of the military. | ||
| Good morning, Merle. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| I serve and I'm so proud of all the people that have served. | ||
| But I want to, why do he think? | ||
| You know, a lot of people died for NATO and to build up that alliance. | ||
| And it has been, well, his kid kept the peace. | ||
| And I noticed the new president here, he hasn't been over there at all. | ||
| He don't support Ukraine. | ||
| It seems like he's trying to break NATO up. | ||
| And this is so many people have died for that, sir. | ||
| And I want to get your opinion on that. | ||
| And all that thing I want to say is I have a son in the military now, someone who called earlier. | ||
| And they were saying that they don't think black people or whatever should serve in the military. | ||
| But it's just not black people. | ||
| A lot of people probably don't want to serve. | ||
| If I was in today, we might be deployed to support genocide. | ||
| This country is moving toward authoritarian way. | ||
| A lot of the generals are being replaced. | ||
| So many generals, good ones, have just been fired. | ||
| And hello, am I still there? | ||
| Yes, you are. | ||
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unidentified
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Okay, thank you. | |
| A lot of generals have been fired. | ||
| And that concerns me. | ||
| Because when you fire all these generals that have this knowledge and everything, then you've got other generals up there that was put in by this president. | ||
| And there's no telling what the orders that they will give you. | ||
| And you will have to do that. | ||
| And that's what I fear for my son being in the military. | ||
| I wanted him to be in there. | ||
| I was so proud of him. | ||
| But it's terrible today. | ||
| And a lot of people are called in, and I feel like crying, and I really do. | ||
| Because I don't know if we're going to really have another Remoria Day to really celebrate our freedom. | ||
| It's being taken. | ||
| All things, all kinds of things. | ||
| It's not just America, but it seemed like people follow America. | ||
| And now you look into the other part of the world, and everybody is not everyone, but a lot of them, except Europe, are moving toward authoritarian and everything. | ||
| And I look at the people that's in power today. | ||
| You've got Netanyahu been in 20 years. | ||
| You've got Putin been in 30 years. | ||
| And it's no good. | ||
| Merle, we'll get a response from Tim. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, Merle, the first part of your question was on NATO, and I couldn't agree with you more. | |
| I think NATO is extremely important. | ||
| NATO came out of the Second World War and the early challenges of the Cold War and is based, was based on the experiences that the Western nations, Britain and America, had had before, which is that isolation doesn't work. | ||
| Isolationism did not protect the United States on the 7th of December 1941 against the Japanese. | ||
| Isolationism in the 1930s did not protect Western Europe. | ||
| And therefore, if we cherish our democracy, if we believe in liberal values, if we believe that everyone has the right to live with freedom without fear of aggression, which was one of the fundamental points Franklin Roosevelt made in his 1941 State of the Union address, then it is important to have alliances that deter. | ||
| It is important for would-be aggressors to know that democracies are not going to fracture, they are not going to splinter and allow that to happen. | ||
| They are going to club together and they are going to provide a united response. | ||
| And the United States is critical to NATO, and yet the United States is also a beneficiary of NATO. | ||
| There has only been one time in history when Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, which says that an attack on one member state is an attack on all member states, has been invoked. | ||
| And that was after 9-11. | ||
| And lots of European, including British, soldiers went and fought unhesitatingly in Afghanistan as part of an American-led coalition following that appalling terrorist attack. | ||
| So NATO was important in the 1940s. | ||
| It was important throughout the Cold War. | ||
| And it's more important now than ever when we are looking at renewed Russian aggression in Europe. | ||
| Tim, I wanted to share a quote that you start your book with. | ||
| It's early on. | ||
| It says that the difficulties inherent in maintaining a global alliance between great powers with different strategic goals, combat priorities, governmental systems, ideologies, and economies were immense. | ||
| Only Hitler could have brought them together. | ||
| The Allies were united in their desire to defeat the Nazi dictator and rid the world of German, Japanese, and Italian militarism. | ||
| In this quest, they cooperated successfully and to an unprecedented degree, yet they were at odds about the best way to win the war and about the world they hoped to construct from its ashes. | ||
| You talked a little bit earlier about an incident or a quote that you found in a book while writing or in a diary while writing this. | ||
| But remind us where the relationships between the Allies stood at the beginning of the war in 1939 and then when the U.S. entered at the end of 1941. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, Tammy, I say in the book that the grand alliance, Britain, America, the Soviet Union, was improbable and incongruous. | |
| And it was deeply improbable. | ||
| In 1939, the Soviet Union, of which Russia was the largest constituent, was the ally of Nazi Germany. | ||
| The Nazi-Soviet pact of August 1939 had divided Eastern Europe between the totalitarians. | ||
| It was Stalin's cynical deal with Hitler that had unleashed the Second World War. | ||
| And then in late October, November of 1939, the Soviet Union committed fresh aggression against neutral Finland. | ||
| So the idea of the West cooperating with the Soviet Union seemed extremely far-fetched and indeed only came about because Hitler turned on his former partner in crime, Joseph Stalin, and invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941. | ||
| Equally, from the British perspective, America did not seem anywhere near joining the war. | ||
| The neutrality acts, which had been passed in the 1930s, were all invoked by Franklin Roosevelt, as he had to at the start of the war. | ||
| And indeed, the British government at that stage, when the French alliance was still in being before the fall of France in June of 1940, the British didn't even necessarily want the Americans to fight for them, worried about what demands the U.S. government would make of Britain and particularly of the British Empire at the peace conference. | ||
| So it would have been a very, very, very far-sighted, if not clairvoyant, observer in 1939 who could have said, this is how the war is going to pan out. | ||
| The British, the Americans, and the Soviets are going to come together to defeat Nazism. | ||
| I don't think anyone was predicting that then. | ||
| You also note there's a quote at the beginning of your book from Winston Churchill that says, there is only one thing worse than fighting with Allies, and that is fighting without them. | ||
| Talk about what happened as the war progressed, the overall general relationship between the Allies. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, there is a honeymoon period at the start of the Anglo-American relationship after Pearl Harbor and Churchill comes to Washington and spends a lot of time with FDR. | |
| He addresses a joint session of Congress. | ||
| Churchill remains an extremely popular figure in the United States throughout the Second World War. | ||
| And it should be said that British and American servicemen collaborated to an extraordinary and completely unprecedented degree right up to 1945 and the fall of the Third Reich. | ||
| Never before have two mighty nations cooperated so successfully in such an integrated, collegiate, and generally fraternal manner as the British and the Americans did. | ||
| And I should say the British Commonwealth, because a huge amount of Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, and South Africans were fighting alongside the Americans and the British at that time. | ||
| But at the same time, we can't allow ourselves to think that there was a romantic idea of what Churchill called the special relationship operating at all levels. | ||
| And as the war went on, the British and the Americans disagreed increasingly over the coming peace. | ||
| They disagreed over grand strategy. | ||
| The British favored a Mediterranean strategy. | ||
| The Americans wanted to cross the Channel into France at the earliest possible date. | ||
| And they also disagreed about how to handle that other member of the alliance, the Soviet Union, and what potential threat Joseph Stalin was constituted to European security and indeed global security. | ||
| Let's talk with John from Naples, Florida. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I'm a veteran, U.S. Navy. | ||
| I just want to talk a little bit about, I hope we're learning from this war. | ||
| I hear a lot of virtue signaling about what we're doing now, maybe aligning with certain people or countries that other people aren't comfortable with. | ||
| Well, we aligned with some people back then that weren't very virtuous. | ||
| We aligned with Joe Stalin, a massive executioner. | ||
| We aligned with Bao Sedong, another massive executioner. | ||
| I mean, they both helped us win World War II against the Japanese and the Nazis. | ||
| So I think when you compare that war to what's going on now, I mean, you need to figure out who your friends are going to be. | ||
| Our next big enemy is going to be China, and we're going to need Russia, whether people like it or not. | ||
| Whether they like it or not, and I think if you look at World War II, you can see that's exactly what's happening. | ||
| As far as England is concerned, it's just a tremendous country, great empire. | ||
| People are just an unbelievable group of people. | ||
| I would hope that they get their immigration problem taken care of now, so those people that fought in World War II shouldn't be embarrassed and ashamed in their graves by what's happening to their country. | ||
| Because I believe right now it's turning into a third world country with all of the Middle Eastern immigration. | ||
| I'd like to hear what he's got to say about that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Tim. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, John, firstly, to your point, it is completely true that the British and the Americans had to make major political and ideological compromises in the Second World War in order to win it. | |
| And you're completely right. | ||
| They aligned with some extremely unsavory characters and unsavory powers, most notably the Soviet Union, a nation and a regime, rather, which had murdered many more people than the Nazis had by the time that the war broke out in 1939. | ||
| The only thing I would say is that this was a moment of extraordinary circumstance. | ||
| This was an existential war. | ||
| It was a war for the very survival of Western liberal democracy. | ||
| And it was put quite neatly, if colloquially, by the British ambassador to Washington, Lord Halifax, who was asked by a Republican congressman at the time, how could Britain justify allying herself with Soviet Russia? | ||
| And this was just before Pearl Harbor, so America wasn't yet in the war. | ||
| And the ambassador replied, when a man is at the bottom of a hole, he will accept the hand of a guerrilla if it's his only way out. | ||
| And the Republican congressman replied, well, what if the guerrilla turns on you when you get out of the hole? | ||
| And Lord Halifax gave the reply, which really did sum up Anglo-American policy thereafter. | ||
| We will cross that bridge when we come to it. | ||
| I'm sure that you are right that China presents a fundamental challenge to the West, not least economically and environmentally. | ||
| But it is not of the same nature of aggression and global hegemonic potential as the Nazis were at least touting in the late 1930s. | ||
| And we are still in a far more unipolar world than we were then. | ||
| The United States is still by far and away the strongest military and economic power. | ||
| And the rest of the world, what Republican and Democratic presidents showed throughout the Cold War was that if they wanted to win the Cold War, they had to have on their side as many countries as possible, however small, however parochial, however poor these countries were. | ||
| And one of the ways that the United States won the Cold War was clinging to the ideals of democracy, liberalism, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and a lack of tolerance for unprovoked aggression against democratic nations. | ||
| And so I think that the United States can continue to lead the world in that way when it stands up for the fundamental principles of American democracy enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution. | ||
| And that is something that shouldn't be lost sight of. | ||
| It's very easy to lose principles. | ||
| There are other democracies in the world which have lost their principles at moments. | ||
| And it's much easier to lose them than to regain them. | ||
| But the United States has been a shining example of democracy and freedom of expression and freedom from fear, freedom from aggression for many, many years. | ||
| And it can continue to wield great influence in the world by being that shining example. | ||
| Tim, you talked earlier about an incident that took place between the British and French navies. | ||
| There was also fighting between countries and France, the Vichy versus Free France. | ||
| What impact did that have on Allied efforts? | ||
|
unidentified
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It had an enormous impact, Tammy. | |
| And I think this is an area of the book which I hope also sets the book out from what is on the shelves at the moment, is that it looks at far less explored areas of the war. | ||
| Far too few people know that the Allies fought a two-month war against the Vichy French in Syria and Lebanon in the summer of 1941. | ||
| And it caused, obviously, an enormous amount of resources to be expended in this fight at a time when the British and not quite the Americans, but the British Commonwealth was still fighting the Germans in North Africa and the Italians. | ||
| But it also caused great diplomatic and political problems because the Vichy government was recognized by Washington, by the United States, and continued to be recognized by the United States right up until Vichy disappeared when the Germans invaded the whole of France, the southern part of France, following Operation Torch in the late autumn of 1942. | ||
| Whereas the British were supporting General de Gaulle and the Free French. | ||
| And this caused some very serious diplomatic Ruckuses, such as when the Free French seized the small collection of islands known as Saint-Pierre et Miquelon off the Canadian coast. | ||
| And at the time, Churchill was in the White House. | ||
| He was the guest of the American president. | ||
| But the U.S. Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, rather than applauding this seizure of Vichy-controlled islands by the Free French, who were nominally fighting the Axis alongside the British and the Americans, tried to insist that the Free French give the islands back to the Vichy authorities. | ||
| And this caused an enormous amount of controversy within Allied capitals. | ||
| Let's talk with Michael in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Good morning, Michael. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call and a fascinating subject. | ||
| I do not know, I'm embarrassed to say that much about the World War II before America became involved. | ||
| But I had two questions for your guests. | ||
| And number one, was that a common, is there something unique in your book, something new in your book about this British attack on the French Navy, which I was not aware, that they had sunk the French Navy off of North Africa? | ||
| Is that something new? | ||
| And the second question I had is: there's also a question I read the book at Dawn We Slept, which was about FDR's, America was so isolationist before World War II that FDR was willing to go to any lengths to get us into the war. | ||
| And there was some question about whether we left our Navy unprotected for Pearl Harbor. | ||
| Well, Michael, on your first point, yes, I think that there I have new material relating to the British decision to sink the French fleet off Maurzel Kabir, French North Africa, in July of 1940. | ||
| I have the diaries of the British naval attaché, who I actually didn't realize this at the time until I began researching my book, is actually an ancestor of mine. | ||
| Would have been my great-great-uncle, as well as the contemporary diaries of the chief negotiator, the British officer, who was sent in to try and stop the French from having their fleet destroyed. | ||
| The British offers the French four alternatives. | ||
| They could join the Royal Navy and continue the war. | ||
| They could sail their ships to North America or the French West Indies and keep them there for the duration of the war. | ||
| They could scuttle their ships. | ||
| That is to say, they could sink them themselves. | ||
| Or they could face, as was made plain, destruction at the hands of the Royal Navy. | ||
| And it was their failure to take one of the honorable options which was put forward to them that led to the tragedy of the 3rd of July 1940. | ||
| And it's, I think, a fascinating episode, not just because it's so important, and it really did have a huge impact in America. | ||
| The Americans, I think, before the sinking of the French fleet, felt that Britain was quite likely going to sue for peace as the French had just done. | ||
| This extremely aggressive, rigorous, and, as I say, an action which is on the bounds of morality really convinced American public opinion and the White House that Britain was not going to surrender, that Britain would continue the war even without allies. | ||
| It's also a scenario which brings together the two elements of my book, which is the constant dilemma and relationship between military expediency on the one hand. | ||
| The British did not want under any circumstances the Germans to get hold of the French fleet. | ||
| That's why they offered the French Navy these options and ultimately sank it. | ||
| But at the other stage, there was a political element to this, which is what I've just mentioned, the desire to show the world that Britain would carry on the war no matter what. | ||
| As to your question about Pearl Harbor, there are an awful lot of conspiracy theories on the internet about what Roosevelt and what Churchill knew or did not know about Japanese intentions before the 7th of December 1941. | ||
| But I can quite categorically say that neither Churchill nor Roosevelt knew that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor before it happened. | ||
| There was a strong amount of intelligence suggesting that the Japanese were going to attack somewhere, that the Japanese were preparing for war, but it wasn't even clear whether the Japanese were going to attack the Americans in the Pacific or the British in Southeast Asia. | ||
| And the smart money was actually on the Japanese attacking the British in Malaysia and Singapore, which indeed did happen completely contemporaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor. | ||
| Of course, there was missed intelligence. | ||
| There were moments whereby the Americans could have found out about the attack on Pearl Harbor even a few hours before it happened, which would have saved hundreds of lives and, I'm sure, some of the major capsule ships which were sunk. | ||
| But there was no deliberate attempt to not warn the naval base at Pearl Harbor that this attack was coming. | ||
| Let's talk with Ted in Raymond, New Hampshire, Line 4 veterans. | ||
| Good morning, Ted. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, I have a question for the gentleman. | |
| Dunkirk, a lot of the civilians brought ships to help evacuate the soldiers that were their backs to the sea and were being scraped by German planes and that. | ||
| Do you know the amount of how many that perished during that by the civilians? | ||
| And is there a memorial for them in England for what they've done to help save the troops? | ||
| It's a very good question. | ||
| Certainly there were dozens, if not hundreds of small boats that took part in the evacuation of Dunkirk. | ||
| But I'm afraid I don't know the exact number of how many civilians took part or whether there is a memorial. | ||
| I would suspect that there is. | ||
| It was very much the focus of remembering Dunkirk from the immediacy of the evacuation. | ||
| J.B. Priestley, the playwright, spoke about the small boats, the little boats, and this became a hugely romanticized element of the Dunkirk story. | ||
| But one must acknowledge the fact that far, far, far more troops Troops were evacuated in a more traditional fashion by the Royal Navy from Dunkirk. | ||
| But it was an extraordinary deliverance. | ||
| At the beginning of the evacuation, the British Chiefs of Staff thought that they would only manage to rescue 50,000 British and French soldiers, sailors, and airmen. | ||
| But by the end of the five and a half day evacuation, over 350,000 had been evacuated, including nearly 100,000 French, who, I'm afraid, a few days later, almost, or certainly months, a couple of months later when they were offered the chance to join the Free French and General de Gaulle, chose instead to be repatriated to France and to live under German occupation. | ||
| Tim, wanted to talk a little bit more about troops. | ||
| Your book focuses on the alliance's leaders and key advisors, but certainly it was also the troops who had thoughts about their allied counterparts. | ||
| What did sentiment among troops look like and how did they promote unity within them? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there was a friendly invasion of the British Isles from 1942 onwards as hundreds of thousands of American servicemen came to Britain to prepare for operations in North Africa, in Italy, and finally across the Channel with D-Day and the invasion of Normandy. | |
| The Americans were not always popular, but nor were the British always popular. | ||
| There were various stories of British and American forces clashing. | ||
| The British resented the Americans for being better paid. | ||
| The American army was the best paid army in the world. | ||
| And the Americans had better rations than the British. | ||
| The Americans similarly didn't really, weren't really prepared, I think, for the level of poverty and the poverty of luxury that existed in Britain. | ||
| Because of the very large Atlantic Ocean, almost none of the United States suffered a blackout during the war. | ||
| But in Britain, you couldn't show lights after dark for fear of guiding enemy bombers towards their targets. | ||
| Very, very strict rationing was taking place in Britain from the earliest stages of the war. | ||
| And a vast amount of the British Isles had been destroyed by German bombs. | ||
| And I think a lot of American soldiers, coming from comparative bounty and munificence in the United States, found this difficult. | ||
| But there was very, very good cooperation in battle. | ||
| And among the leading generals, I mean, there's a story that Eisenhower was a superb supreme Allied commander and would not allow petty jealousies and old national antagonisms to get in the way of real proper inter-allied cooperation. | ||
| There's a story whereby he heard that one of his subordinates had called a British officer with whom he was working a son of a female dog. | ||
| And he dismissed the officer and sent him back to America. | ||
| And the British officer went to Eisenhower to plead for this man to have a stay of execution. | ||
| And he said, we over here in Britain have learnt recently that to be called a son of a female dog is actually a term of endearment, really, as far as American soldiers go. | ||
| And this is all part of the camaraderie of war. | ||
| And I really think that you might give this man a reprieve. | ||
| Eisenhower said, I don't mind that he called you the son of a female dog. | ||
| I mind that he called you the British, a British son of a female dog. | ||
| My ruling stands. | ||
| And Eisenhower, people say often the government rots from the head. | ||
| It's like a fish. | ||
| But the converse is also true. | ||
| And proper collegiate feeling flows from the top. | ||
| And the example set by Eisenhower, who was in Britain from 1942 onwards and led the Allied armies all the way to victory, was absolutely exemplary. | ||
| He was a part. | ||
| People can disagree about his virtues as a tactician and as a general, but as a politician, as a leader of a coalition, he was absolutely superb. | ||
| Sean in Virginia, line for a military family. | ||
| Good morning, Sean. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| Happy holiday to everybody. | ||
| I wanted to ask you, at the present time, how do you think that the whole approach is going to take place with Latvia, Finland, Sweden, Lithuania? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, John, these nations really consider themselves now on the front line, and they have had experience. | |
| We are having a worrying sense of deja vu because these were the Baltic states. | ||
| You meant, I mean, Sweden is obviously not a Baltic state, nor Finland, but it was the Baltic states and Finland that was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939 and 1940 before Hitler then invaded the Soviet Union, thus transferring the Soviet Union from the Axis camp to the Allied camp. | ||
| And the Baltic states remained part of the Soviet Union until the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. | ||
| So I would say this. | ||
| My first book before I wrote on this was on the 1930s and on appeasement. | ||
| And every act of unprovoked aggression that went unchecked in the 1930s merely encouraged more. | ||
| It merely begat more. | ||
| If you want to encourage a dictator to continue to take over his neighbors and to expand his empire, all you need to do is to allow him to take whichever state it might be. | ||
| And had the West had a more robust response to the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the incursion into the Donbass in 2014, then it is possible that Vladimir Putin might have thought twice about the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. | ||
| So I would say that the best defense and the best deterrence for Vladimir Putin with regards to the Baltic states and Scandinavia would be for him to not look back at Ukraine and think, this was a success. | ||
| I invaded a country which had done nothing to provoke this, a sovereign, independent democracy, and I got away with it. | ||
| What's next on my list? | ||
| Tim, your book looks at or focuses a lot on the advisors, again, not just the key leaders that we may be familiar with. | ||
| Talk about some of the examples in the book of those advisors making suggestions, recommendations, offering intel, only to have them ignored or pushed aside. | ||
| What did relationships among the varied ranks, not even just maybe U.S. commander to a U.S. advisor, but among all of them, how did those look? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there are myriad examples, Tammy, of advisors putting forward a point of view and having it ignored by the big three. | |
| And I think it's really important for historians to capture the advice that wasn't taken because it shows the options that were available to the main protagonists of history, and it gives us an insight into their psychology and the reasons for either their success or failure. | ||
| To give you one specific example, William C. Bullitt was the first American ambassador to the Soviet Union. | ||
| After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the United States did not recognize the Soviet Union as a political entity. | ||
| But Franklin Roosevelt gave the USSR American recognition in 1933, and he sent his old friend William C. Bullitt to be the first American ambassador to Moscow in its newly Sovietized communist form. | ||
| And Bullitt told FDR in 1943 when FDR was positing the idea that Stalin didn't want anything else for his country but security, and that if he, FDR, | ||
| gave him that security, allowed him to create a set of buffer states along the USSR's Western frontier, then Stalin would work with the United States and with the British after the end of the war for a world of security, peace, law-abiding international relations. | ||
| Bullitt had no truck with this whatsoever. | ||
| He told FDR very explicitly that Stalin was, and I quote, a Caucasian bandit whose only thought when he got something for nothing was that the other fellow was an ass. | ||
| And Bullitt then wrote an amazingly clear-sighted memorandum for FDR, pointing out that Stalin had not become, as so many in the West like to think during the course of the Second World War, a quote, mere Russian nationalist. | ||
| But even if he had, to be a mere Russian nationalist was no guarantee of behaving in a law-abiding, pacific manner, a pacifist manner, that is to say. | ||
| He pointed out that Russia itself is an empire. | ||
| Russia itself had for centuries conquered one people after another, and that textbooks in the Soviet Union were published in the early 30s when he was there as ambassador in over 150 different languages and dialects. | ||
| Far from being a guarantee of Pacific behavior, he said that Russian nationalism was inherently imperialistic and that the United States needed to recognize this fact while the war was going on and have this constantly in mind while dealing with Stalin and the Soviet Union. | ||
| But FDR, who had great faith in his own abilities as a diplomat, as a politician, as a personal intermediary with Allied leaders, felt that he could, and this is another quote, handle Stalin. | ||
| Let's hear from Jerry in New Jersey. | ||
| Good morning, Jerry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning and happy Memorial Day to everybody. | |
| Tim, I got a couple of questions for you because I listened to you. | ||
| When we talk about the Allies that we have, when this war with Ukraine started, did Europe not continue buying oil from Russia, which in turn enriched Russia to keep this war going? | ||
| I know President Trump has put a lot of sanctions on Russia, but then if Europe is buying oil from them and supporting the war that way, how does that help end this war? | ||
| That's number one. | ||
| Number two, we had a president for the last four years, evidently in the later years, had dementia. | ||
| How do you think that has helped with the war? | ||
| Clearly, he was taken advantage of, not only with the amount of money that we've been giving Ukraine and the war, I think the other countries took advantage of it also, because they saw the shape he was in. | ||
| So when you say allies, I'd like to know just how much our allies are really our allies. | ||
| Can you explain that, please? | ||
| Well, it's a very good question. | ||
| It's a very good question. | ||
| Certainly, Europe has nothing to be proud about in the way that it has, or was, I should say, was, reliant on Russian natural resources for their energy. | ||
| That has stopped. | ||
| And I believe it was, in fact, the former president who you were just referring to who placed the greatest number of sanctions on Russia and his democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, who started the process of putting sanctions on Russia when the invasion began in 2014. | ||
| Look, I think there's a very clear analogy here with the Second World War. | ||
| The United States gave the British and other nations, poorer nations than the U.S., an enormous amount of money and an enormous amount of material in order to create a world where aggression, unprovoked aggression, could not triumph. | ||
| Now, you can say that that is taking advantage of the United States, or you can say that the United States is gaining a great advantage from living in a world where trade can continue to happen across the world without wars disrupting it. | ||
| That security in one part of the world affects security in another part of the world. | ||
| What was happening in Europe in 1939, 1940, and 1941 might have seemed, and did seem to many Americans, a completely separate realm, almost a different world. | ||
| And yet the success of the Germans against the British and the French and other European nations emboldened the Japanese. | ||
| And we saw what happened with that on the 7th of December 1941 when the Japanese committed an unprovoked attack against the United States at Pearl Harbor. | ||
| And isolationism was not a defense against that attack. | ||
| So I would say that my best response with this is a Winston Churchill quote. | ||
| And he said this in a speech in 1943 when he received an honorary doctorate from Harvard. | ||
| The price of greatness is responsibility. | ||
| The United States is the most powerful, the most admired, the greatest country for many eyes in the world and has played a world-leading part since Pearl Harbor, right up to the present. | ||
| But the United States has also benefited from that. | ||
| The United States has been the beneficiary of a global system of trade fashioned in its image and has become immensely rich. | ||
| So I don't think it's right to say that Ukraine and these other countries are taking advantage of the United States any more than anyone would say that Britain was taking advantage of the United States in 1940. | ||
| It is in America's interest as much as it is in our interest to live in a world where aggression doesn't get rewarded, in fact, should be deterred with punishment. | ||
| Tim, we are almost out of time, but wanted to ask you, there's a lot of new information in your book. | ||
| Do you have a favorite bit that you learned from researching and writing this book? | ||
| Anything stand out to you? | ||
| And also, for those who do read it, what do you want them to take away from it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
There maybe isn't one single piece of new information which I'd like to single out. | |
| I think it is the wealth of new diaries and memoirs and correspondence which show the advice that was being given to the big three Allied war leaders that I think is of great value, but also records what they were doing. | ||
| By going to the level, as I did, below not just the main leaders, but also below the foreign ministers, looking at the ambassadors, the aides de camp, the attachés, those people who went to the Allied conferences and watched them interact. | ||
| I think that it adds a whole new level of nuance and complexity to what may seem to people a familiar story. | ||
| So I think this huge amount of new information which is in the book complicates the story. | ||
| And that's good because history isn't black and white. | ||
| It isn't straightforward. | ||
| And you can have a situation whereby the alliance is collegiate and successful and admirable. | ||
| And yes, at the same time, it's rivalrous, duplicitous, and deeply unadmirable in certain respects, in some of the ways it conducts itself. | ||
| What would I like people to come away from with the book when they read it? | ||
| I would like people to come away with a more nuanced understanding of the Second World War, but also a recognition that politics is an inherent force for good and for coalitions, | ||
| and that although coalitions are, by their nature, disparate and at times infuriating, I write in the book an awful lot about how much the Allies could rub each other up the wrong way and disagreed on an enormous number of issues. | ||
| The simple fact is that Adolf Hitler would not have been defeated were it not for an alliance, were it not for allies. | ||
| The Americans needed Britain, if only as a physical country with which to launch the cross-channel invasion. | ||
| They needed Britain for other reasons as well, but at the bare minimum, the sheer physicality of the United Kingdom was essential to the liberation of Europe. | ||
| And so I do believe that it is very easy to take allies for granted, but they are absolutely essential. | ||
| And in the current world in which we are living, I think even more essential than they have been for at least two decades. | ||
| Tim Bouvery is author of the new book, Allies of War: How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World. | ||
| It is out June 10th. | ||
| You can find that on shelves June 10th. | ||
| Tim, thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Tammy. | |
| It's been a great pleasure. | ||
| Happy Memorial Day. | ||
| Same too. | ||
| Next on Washington Journal, Robert Edsel, author of The Monuments Men, joins us to discuss his new book, Remember Us, which looks at the history and role the Dutch have played in honoring and taking care of the graves of Allied soldiers. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mike said before, I happened to listen to him. | |
| He was on C-SPAN 1. | ||
| That's a big upgrade, right? | ||
| But I've read about it in the history books. | ||
| I've seen the C-SPAN footage. | ||
| If it's a really good idea, present it in public view on C-SPAN. | ||
| Every single time I tuned in on TikTok or C-SPAN or YouTube or anything, there were tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people watching. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I went home after the speech and I turned on C-SPAN. | |
| I was on C-SPAN just this week. | ||
| To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN. | ||
| They had something $2.50 a gallon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I saw on television a little while ago in between my watching my great friends on C-SPAN. | |
| C-SPAN is televising this right now live. | ||
| So we are not just speaking to Los Angeles. | ||
| We are speaking to the country. | ||
| In a nation divided, a rare moment of unity. | ||
| This fall, C-SPAN presents Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| In a town where partisan fighting prevails, one table, two leaders, one goal, to find common ground. | ||
| This fall, Ceasefire, on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Nonfiction book lovers, C-SPAN has a number of podcasts for you. | ||
| Listen to best-selling nonfiction authors and influential interviewers on the Afterwords podcast and on Q ⁇ A. Hear wide-ranging conversations with the non-fiction authors and others who are making things happen. | ||
| And BookNotes Plus episodes are weekly hour-long conversations that regularly feature fascinating authors of nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics. | ||
| Find all of our podcasts by downloading the free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts and on our website, c-span.org slash podcasts. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss his new book is author Robert Edsel. | ||
| The book, Remember Us, American Sacrifice, Dutch Freedom, and a Forever Promise Forged in World War II. | ||
| Robert, thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
| Thank you, Tammy. | ||
| We wanted to start by asking you what drew you to this story. | ||
| It's a very heartfelt story, decades in the making. | ||
| Why did you want to tell it? | ||
| It's hard to imagine 80 years after World War II that there'd be a story that's a major story that we don't know about, but this is one. | ||
| We've sanitized, I think, the telling of World War II, a lot of wars. | ||
| Soldiers are killed and we move on to the next scene, but obviously someone had to deal with that body, with the identification, with the notification, and with the transformation of the lives as a result of the loss of someone that was loved. | ||
| And then we introduce this remarkable moment of humanity and grace when the Dutch found an answer to the question, a question that they ask, how do you thank your liberators when they're no longer alive to thank? | ||
| And it led to the grave adoption program, which for 80 years has honored all of the Americans that are here in the Netherlands where I am. | ||
| I was at the cemetery yesterday for Memorial Day, and it's the most uplifting, inspirational story of World War II I've ever heard of. | ||
| And it really started Memorial Day of 2016. | ||
| You met a woman, Frida von Syck. | ||
| Tell us about her. | ||
| Frida was 15 years old when the German tanks rolled past her home in the little town of here, right outside Maastricht. | ||
| And this is the area of the Netherlands where World War II and Western Europe began. | ||
| The German invasion of Western Europe had to cross through the Netherlands to get to France and Belgium. | ||
| She was 19 when the American tanks came and liberated her country. | ||
| And I knew of her from the monuments men and my work in telling that story because she had written a letter to Harvard in September 1945, knowing an American soldier, the one American monuments officer who was killed in combat, Walter Hutchhausen, who's buried here at the cemetery in the Netherlands. | ||
| And she wanted the university to see if they would share the name and address of Walter Hutchhausen's mother because she wanted to say, I walk five miles several times a week to put flowers on his grave and I'm taking care of it. | ||
| And the university responded, I knew that story when I wrote Monuments Men, but in 2015, I learned for the first time she was still alive. | ||
| And so I flew to England where she lived. | ||
| She married a British soldier after the war and spent three hours with her showing me photographs of the German tanks, the American tanks, the Americans that they knew. | ||
| She said, are you aware of the cemetery? | ||
| And I said, yes. | ||
| And she said, have you been there? | ||
| And I said, yes, I've been there several times. | ||
| So you know about the grave adoption program. | ||
| And I said, the what? | ||
| And she said, the grave adoption program. | ||
| And I said, I have no idea what you're talking about. | ||
| So I left there with no intention of going to write a book. | ||
| I just thought she's maybe the last person to have spoken to this American monuments man before he was killed. | ||
| I felt duty bound to go talk to her. | ||
| And I left there curious, embarrassed that I didn't know about the grave adoption program. | ||
| And that led me to do some general research just to find out about it. | ||
| And the more I learned, the more inspired I was that this is a big story and it's an important story, especially today that we should all know about. | ||
| And it's been a great, great pride of mine for the last privilege, the last nine years, to write this story and now share it with the public. | ||
| I want to share a quote you start the book with. | ||
| It says, beginning in 1947, the United States government offered to bring its 280,000 sons and daughter home for reburial. | ||
| Many families accepted the government's offer, but 39% did not since 1949, when the 2,800 or so remaining bodies at Mark Groten, that's the cemetery we're talking about, were reburied in the permanent layout. | ||
| The Netherlands American Cemetery has been their final home. | ||
| The walls of the missing, fronted by the beautiful cherry trees, are carved with the names of 1,700 more. | ||
| They are Americans, mostly young, many volunteers, who gave everything. | ||
| They rest here now through the rains of spring, the heat of summer, and the leaves of autumn, the snow of winter. | ||
| Almost 10,000 stories, too many to tell. | ||
| Your book focuses on just a handful. | ||
| How did you choose which stories to tell? | ||
| And who are they? | ||
| Well, there's a reason it took eight years to figure out how to tell this story. | ||
| 17,800 boys, imagine that 17,800 boys and a few women were buried at the cemetery at the end of World War II. | ||
| It was our largest World War II cemetery. | ||
| That's the size of a town, a city. | ||
| Those kind of numbers numb us. | ||
| I needed to find a handful of people to tell the story through their lives. | ||
| And I picked, I wanted to show the diversity of the country. | ||
| I wanted to remind people we were a country of immigrants. | ||
| We are a country of immigrants. | ||
| We always will be. | ||
| That's a good thing. | ||
| We work together to achieve an incredibly noble outcome. | ||
| I chose a professional soldier, Robert Cole, who was with 101st Airborne, who received the Medal of Honor for his heroic efforts during the D-Day landings. | ||
| I chose two boys who were twins, who had never spent a day apart, that the Army Air Force allowed to pilot and co-pilot the same airplane in 1943. | ||
| Seems crazy, but it was allowed to happen. | ||
| I chose a chaplain who wanted to be near the front lines with his boys. | ||
| He felt like I can't do any good talking to them before they leave for combat, and then I'm not there with them. | ||
| And he was able to transfer and become a paratrooper himself to be there on the front lines when they dropped into the Netherlands in March 1945. | ||
| I introduce a gravedigger, a story that we don't know about in our movies and films and books about World War II, because I want people to know about the car wreck elements of war. | ||
| I want them to know about how horrible the war is and what happens to a soldier when he's killed on the field of battle. | ||
| We don't tell that. | ||
| I mean, we cut to the next scene. | ||
| But I wanted to not only follow what happens to the body, where do they take it? | ||
| How do they process it? | ||
| How do we know for sure that person is the person that they say it is? | ||
| How did the notification happen to the families? | ||
| How did they deal with this worst possible news a family or a young spouse could ever receive? | ||
| And how then did the adoption program come into being? | ||
| That was a really important part of the story. | ||
| And a poignant aspect because we chose to assign that job to black quartermaster troops that we were more comfortable handing a shovel to than a gun. | ||
| And it was a horrible, horrible task. | ||
| Under gruesome weather conditions, there was no wood out there, no coffins. | ||
| These boys were buried in bed sacks, so they had to be touching the bodies or parts of bodies all day long every day. | ||
| If they were lucky, they dug one grave a day. | ||
| So these are some of the characters through whom I tell the story. | ||
| And today at the cemetery, there's someone from every single state in the United States. | ||
| There's not a community in America that doesn't have a connection to this story. | ||
| And I wanted that to be reflected in the characters that I chose. | ||
| Our guest is Robert Edsel, author of the new book, Remember Us, American Sacrifice, Dutch Freedom, and a Forever Promise Forged in World War II. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now. | ||
| The lines for the segment are regional. | ||
| If you're in the Eastern or Central time zone, it's 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you're in the Mountain or Pacific, it's 202-748-8001. | ||
| And we also have the line set aside for military and military families. | ||
| Again, that is for those who are active duty, retired, or veterans. | ||
| We actually already have a call ready for you. | ||
| We'll start with Alan in Brooklyn, New York. | ||
| Good morning, Alan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you so much. | ||
| This ties in well with the last guest because that was a discussion about how we were able to muster the will to oppose aggression through alliances. | ||
| I had asked in my earlier potential question whether the readiness of a country to oppose aggression depends on the readiness of all of its people to serve and the possible effect at the end of our draft without any corresponding national service requirements 50 years later might have weakened America's readiness to oppose aggression and increased the likelihood of future aggression, the kind we have now in Ukraine with Russia. | ||
| And your story seems to tie in directly with that because the readiness of people to volunteer or to serve as draftees depends upon the honor that their country and other countries involved in the effort put on their sacrifice through acts of kindness, like these people taking care of the grave sites. | ||
| We have now not just a population not ready to respond as broadly to these needs or these threats, but we also have a generation of leaders in Congress now who have been raised in a world without the draft and many of whom have never served as volunteers or as draftees. | ||
| Do you see a tie-in between the honor we've given these soldiers from World War II and the lack of respect that this country and some of its leaders are showing toward current or potential draftees or enlistees in the level of new violence or aggression that we're experiencing in the world? | ||
| Can we really deter that without having a population, not just a military, that's ready to sacrifice and confident they will be honored if they die? | ||
| Alan, if you write me at robert at robertetzel.com, I'm happy to answer that question, but that's a political question in nature. | ||
| And on this Memorial Day, when we're honoring, in particular, the 10,000 men and women that are buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery and our more than 100,000 men and women that are buried at cemeteries in Europe, not to mention all of the heroes from recent conflicts that are buried in the United States, I'm not going to get into a political question about something because I don't want to see sullied the memory and legacy of these men and women. | ||
| And I don't want to confuse the issue with the challenge at hand today, which for us is not only making people aware about this high watermark for humanity of what the Dutch have done in honoring our American men and women, but they only have the contact information. | ||
| These 10,000 adopters only have the contact information for 20% of the American families because at the end of the war, the United States government refused to provide the adopters with the names and addresses of the other 80% of Americans. | ||
| So we've created a website called foreverpromise.org. | ||
| I'll explain why maybe in a later question. | ||
| And it has a searchable database of all 10,000 men and four women that are buried at the cemetery here in Margrotten. | ||
| And we're asking people to go there, see if you have a relative that's buried there or know of someone that's buried there. | ||
| If there's a short questionnaire that pops up, it asks you, what's your relationship? | ||
| Are you aware there's a grave adoption program? | ||
| Are you in contact with your doctor? | ||
| If you're not, would you like to be? | ||
| And if so, will you give us permission, the Monuments Men and Women Foundation, to share your contact information with our colleagues in the Netherlands who run the Dutch Foundation for Adopting Graves so that they can put the Dutch adopter in contact with the American family of the relative they've watched over for 80 years. | ||
| Some of these families have unsent letters or photographs of the boy because he was in their home. | ||
| He lived in their barn or something. | ||
| They were there for three or four months waiting for weather to pass and start the spring offensive, but they don't have anyone to share it with. | ||
| And that's something we want to see changed. | ||
| So that's my focus right now, not to get into politics. | ||
| Again, I'm happy to answer your question if you want to write me personally. | ||
| And just so you have it, again, the website that Robert just mentioned is foreverpromise.org. | ||
| Robert, wanted to follow up. | ||
| You mentioned, or we talked a little bit about the length of time it has been since you started working on this project on this book. | ||
| How did you find the information and what were some of the challenges that you had in putting it all together? | ||
| Well, working in other languages is always a challenge. | ||
| Frida, who I became close friends with over the last eight years of her life, in fact, I delivered her eulogy two summers ago. | ||
| She shared with me information and she was quite fluent in English, so that made that easy. | ||
| The other woman, and I used Frida's, my friendship with Frida and my friendship with a lady named Emily Michels Van Kesnick, Emily, we'll say, who was a mother of 12, a Dutch mother of 12. | ||
| She had three children during the war. | ||
| She had eight before the war, one after. | ||
| I didn't know Emily personally. | ||
| She died in 1970, but her daughter, 92 years old, who was with me yesterday at the cemetery, in fact, I had the daughters of Frida and Emily both with me at the cemetery. | ||
| It's the first time they'd met. | ||
| And Emily kept diaries all during the war, every day, practically writing in it, putting photographs, newspaper articles. | ||
| So she helped me from the grave. | ||
| And we had to translate all those documents. | ||
| That took more than a year just to translate all of the things into English. | ||
| And then, of course, reading it and trying to understand it. | ||
| And when you're trying to tell a story like this, it's a jigsaw puzzle. | ||
| Some of the pieces are easy. | ||
| You can tell where they fit together. | ||
| Other pieces seem to defy you from figuring out how they fit into the picture. | ||
| But eventually you do, you are able to sort it all out. | ||
| And Emily was a critical component because when the United States government and Army refused to provide the next of kin information, she wrote a letter to President Truman in 1945 and pleaded with him to help. | ||
| And when that didn't work, she got on an airplane in 1946 and flew to the United States. | ||
| She'd never even been on an airplane. | ||
| She traveled around for five weeks, meeting with different families that had lost a son, a husband, a brother during World War II. | ||
| Some of these families' losses had happened in some other country, not even the Netherlands, but she was someone to speak to. | ||
| She was someone to share their grief with. | ||
| And for five weeks, she met with these families, she met with these young war widows, and to all of them, she said the same thing. | ||
| Leave your boys with us. | ||
| We will watch over them like our own forever. | ||
| The forever promise. | ||
| Hence, the reason we named in our partnership with the Dutch Foundation, foreverpromise.org. | ||
| Let's finish 80 years later what they tried to finish then and have all these American families contact us. | ||
| We don't charge anybody for the effort. | ||
| We're just trying to finish doing a really good thing. | ||
| And in the process, it'd be a nice thing for we Americans to thank the Dutch for what they've done because this didn't happen in any other country to the extent that it's happened in the Netherlands. | ||
| Our guest is Robert Etzel, author of the new book, Remember Us. | ||
| We have him for another 30, 35 minutes or so, but wanted to let you note that at 9 o'clock in just about eight minutes or so, the house will be gaveling in for a brief pro forma session. | ||
| And we will be going to that again briefly when that happens. | ||
| Let's hear from Mary in St. Louis, Missouri, line for military family. | ||
| Good morning, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I can't believe that this has turned on. | ||
| In 1943, my father's youngest brother, my uncle, was shot down over the Netherlands after the Schmeichfurt raid. | ||
| And his wife had agreed to allow him to be buried in the Netherlands Cemetery. | ||
| She and his sister went over in the late 1940s, and no other family member has been there since, except this a week from this Saturday on June the 7th, my husband and I will be visiting his grave. | ||
| And I'm so thankful for the book. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Well, you're going to have me crying now, which I do a lot every day. | ||
| And they're more tears of joy and gratitude than they are painful as your experience may be. | ||
| But you're going to find out. | ||
| It's going to be maybe the most rewarding thing that you've ever had happen to you in your life, as well other Americans that do this. | ||
|
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There are 253 sons of Missouri who were buried at that cemetery. | |
| 2.5% of the American boys that are at that cemetery are from your state. | ||
| So we're just asking people to, you know, you fiddle around on the internet, help us find these Americans and allow them to have this transcendent experience of being connected with the Dutch family that goes out there on the birth and death date of the boys on Veterans Day, on Memorial Day. | ||
| The Dutch have turned this cemetery into a classroom. | ||
| They're out there with their kids and grandchildren all the time. | ||
| It's a place not filled with death, but with life and with youth, and they drill into them. | ||
| You're able to say what you want to say and think what you want to think because of the freedoms that were paid for with the lives of these American boys and girls that are buried here. | ||
| They understand freedom's not free. | ||
| They don't take it for granted. | ||
| And it's inspiring and instructional and leaves me and those of us that work at the Monuments Men and Women Foundation asking, why the heck in the United States do we not have a grave adoption program? | ||
| And it's something that we're working on. | ||
| But we want to finish the job that needs to be finished over here first and help the Dutch help us. | ||
| Robert, you mentioned at the top it's been almost 80 years that this has been happening. | ||
| Take us back to when it first started. | ||
| How did civilians come to be caretakers for these graves? | ||
| Well, that's a great question. | ||
| And that was a huge part of what inspired me was trying to figure out the answer to that question. | ||
| It started organically. | ||
| A lot of the people like Frida knew an American soldier. | ||
| And when they found out they were dead, they were grief-stricken. | ||
| They felt like it was a loss of someone in their family. | ||
| They considered them their boys. | ||
| They went out and put flowers on the grave at the temporary cemetery. | ||
| And this was happening throughout the area, not just people in Barg Roton or Moss Street, but the whole South Lindbergh Province region. | ||
| And then the cemetery started construction in October 1944. | ||
| Again, we don't tell during World War II, we don't talk about cemeteries because it's depressing. | ||
| And this would be a depressing story, too, if it ended that way, but it didn't. | ||
| The grave adoption program gives us a different ending to World War II than every other book and film that's been told. | ||
| And it's an inspiring ending. | ||
| In November, the cemetery received its first American soldiers. | ||
| An American soldier named Captain Lane was there paying respects to his cousin who was buried there, Captain Land from South Carolina. | ||
| And there was one civilian that was allowed out there at the cemetery, a guy named Joseph Van Laar, who was from Margrotten. | ||
| And he was allowed out there because he spoke English fluently. | ||
| And Captain Lane said, I've got orders. | ||
| I've got to leave. | ||
| You'd be doing me a great honor if you'd watch over the grave of my cousin. | ||
| And Joseph Van Laar said, I will do more than that. | ||
| I will take care of him as if he was my own. | ||
| Indeed, I will adopt him. | ||
| Now, he meant adopt in a figurative sense. | ||
| And in January 1945, the mayor of Margrotten, a small town of 1,200 people then. | ||
| Today, it's just a small little town, but it's less than a mile from the cemetery. | ||
| The people of Margrotten, the town council, gathered, and they asked the question: Well, how do we thank our liberators when they're not alive to thank? | ||
| Now, the war is still five months away from being finished, and they're already thinking about this. | ||
| The sense of gratitude is so great. | ||
| And they threw out ideas about parades and special masses. | ||
| And then Joseph Van Lars said, I have an idea. | ||
| I've promised so many American soldiers I'll watch over their cousin or their buddy's graves. | ||
| I can't possibly do it all myself. | ||
| Maybe we could do that. | ||
| And the mayor of Margrotten, Mayor Ronkers, said, That's it. | ||
| That's what we're going to do. | ||
| By May 1945, they only had a couple hundred adopters. | ||
| And then Emily, who I mentioned earlier, the mother of 12, got involved because she said, every American soldier I look at, I see the face of one of my boys. | ||
| And she wrote, President Truman, that didn't go anywhere. | ||
| But in September, the mayors of these towns, Emily's husband and Maastrik, Mayor Ronkers and Margrotten, and other towns, started receiving letters from the United States. | ||
| And the letters all pretty much said the same. | ||
| I'll give you an example. | ||
| A lady from Demopolis, Alabama, wrote and she said, I'm 26 years old. | ||
| My husband died on his 25th birthday a few weeks before the end of the war. | ||
| He was my whole life to me. | ||
| I would be beholden to you all the days of my life if you could take a photograph of his grave. | ||
| For American families, that was all they were going to get. | ||
| They couldn't go overseas. | ||
| There wasn't any modern communication system. | ||
| The mail service had only just then resumed. | ||
| So Emily went out there and took two of her young daughters. | ||
| You can see that photograph in the lower portion of the screen, lower left, lower right on the screen. | ||
| Those are her two daughters out there. | ||
| And she sent it to this lady in Alabama. | ||
| And the lady forwarded the letter and the photograph to Life magazine and they printed it. | ||
| And she said, I know there's a lot of other people suffering. | ||
| I know you want to know something about your boys. | ||
| There's this really nice lady named Emily in Maastricht. | ||
| I think if you'd publish her address, it would be a great help to Americans. | ||
| And they started sending letters by the thousands, all making the same request. | ||
| So this is where it started. | ||
| And then this effort, the resumption of mail service, is what transformed it from something that was nice and noble, adopting the graves of dead boys, to something that was transformative. | ||
| And that was the Dutch adopter and the foundation realized the help needs to extend to reaching into the homes in America, into the families, and try and assuage their grief. | ||
| That's our task. | ||
| That's what we want to do. | ||
|
unidentified
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And they've been doing it for 80 years. | |
| We will continue the discussion with Robert in just a moment. | ||
| Right now, we are going to take you to the House floor where they will gavel in for a brief pro forma session on this Memorial Day. | ||
| Usually they're only a few minutes. | ||
| We take you there now. | ||
|
unidentified
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The house will be in order. | |
| The chair lays before the House a communication from the Speaker. | ||
| The Speaker's Rooms, Washington, D.C., May 26, 2025. | ||
| I hereby appoint the Honorable Jake Elze to act as Speaker Pro Tempore on this day. | ||
| Signed, Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives. | ||
|
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The prayer will be offered by Chablin Kiblin. | |
| Kibbin, would you pray with me? | ||
| Gracious God, engraved in stone around our country are the names of countless men and women who paid the cost of our nation's freedom. | ||
| Lord, ensure that the poignant reminder these simple headstones represent inspires in each of us the same measure of devotion to preserve and protect the liberties of each of our fellow Americans. | ||
| Engrave on our hearts their memory and stir in us the same degree of love and faithfulness to this country and to her people. | ||
| And should we lose sight of the goal toward which these brave patriots strove, the common good for which they fought and died, sound again the clarion call that summons each of us to serve one another in love. | ||
| Then arouse in us the desire to uphold and honor the selflessness and sacrifice of these our fallen heroes. | ||
| Then, when the day is done and gone the sun, may all safely rest in the nearness of your peace. | ||
| It is in the memory of our fallen and the strength of your eternal name we pray. | ||
| Amen. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 13 of Rule 1, the journal of the last day's proceedings is approved. | ||
| The chair will lead the house and pledge allegiance. | ||
| I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | ||
| Chair lays before the House of Communication. | ||
| The Honorable Speaker, House of Representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in Clause 2H of Rule 2 of the rules of the U.S. House of Representatives, the clerk received the following message from the Secretary of the Senate on May 23rd, 2025, | ||
| at 1:35 p.m. that the Senate passed Senate 97, Senate 129, Senate 216, Senate 1051, that the Senate passed without amendment House Joint Resolution 87, House Joint Resolution 88, House Joint Resolution 89, that the Senate pass Senate Joint Resolution 55, Appointment, Canada U.S. Interparliamentary Group, | ||
| Congressional Executive Commission on the People's Republic of China, Migratory Bird Conservation Commission. | ||
| Signed sincerely, Kevin F. McCumber, Clerk. | ||
|
unidentified
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Pursuant to Clause 13 of Rule 1, the House stands adjourned until 11 a.m. on Thursday, May 29, 2025. | |
| That was the House Gaviling Inn for a brief performance session on this Memorial Day Monday. | ||
| We return now to our guest, Robert Edsel, author of Remember Us. | ||
| We thank you for hanging out there with us for a moment, Robert, for that interruption. | ||
| But we do have some callers still waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll go to Linda in Missouri. | ||
| Good morning, Linda. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you, sir, for having this as one of your subjects today. | ||
| When we were, we took a vacation out to Grand Canyon, and it was the most pleasurable part of our month-long trip: all the people from the Netherlands and the Dutch and that we met out there. | ||
| And every time we spoke to those people, they talked so much about the honor and the privilege and their duty to take care of our soldiers that were left over there. | ||
| It was just, my husband served in Vietnam, so and he's a historian. | ||
| He likes to read about everything. | ||
| But it was just one of the most memorable parts that we spent out there was visiting with these extremely passionate people. | ||
| It truly is an honor that they take as seriously as anything. | ||
| But I just wanted to let you know that that was what we felt and saw and heard from these people and the commitment that they have. | ||
| And thank you so much. | ||
| Well, thank you for the affirmation. | ||
| Thanks to your husband for his service to the nation, especially this weekend, we should say that. | ||
| And imagine in 1945, 80 years ago, 80 years ago, yesterday, there were 40,000 people from this province that has little towns, 40,000 people that walked to the cemetery for the Memorial Day, the first Memorial Day after the war. | ||
| 40,000 people walked, rode horses, came on carts, rode their bikes. | ||
| They didn't have any fuel, and most of them didn't have cars. | ||
| But they stood out there for hours to pay respects to these American liberators. | ||
| The New York Times at the time said it was without precedent that a country would honor foreigners in this way. | ||
|
unidentified
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And I think that's still true today. | |
| Robert, I wanted to ask you, you had a book out in, I believe it was 2007, The Monuments Men. | ||
| It went on to become a movie. | ||
| Some people may be familiar with it. | ||
| That movie helped raise awareness of the story you were telling. | ||
| And you've had a couple callers today who know about this, who have heard about it. | ||
| Do you want to see the same thing happen with this story? | ||
| What would you like to see happen? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I don't write books for the sake of writing books. | ||
| I love doing the research. | ||
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unidentified
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The writing's difficult. | |
| I'm a messenger. | ||
| I tell stories to people that are their story. | ||
| I'm interested in trying to change the world a little bit for the better. | ||
| The Monuments Men story was driven by my desire to see the United States thank these men and women that did what they did during World War II because when they came home, it was the early 1950s, when they came home after returning four and a half million stolen works of art and cultural objects to the countries from which they'd been taken. | ||
| We were engaged in the Cold War, Korea was going on, and they just got lost in the fog of history. | ||
| It wasn't anybody's fault. | ||
| But I wanted to see them honored. | ||
| We got that done in 2015 with the awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal to them. | ||
| And that was a joyous moment to be there with four of the monuments men and women and be able to speak in the halls of Congress to the hundreds of family members that were there to participate in that. | ||
| We were able to persuade the United States Army to reconstitute monuments officers. | ||
| That happened in 2020-21 with the creation of the Army Monuments Officer Training Program, which I spoke at the very first commencement ceremony for the new monuments officer. | ||
| So that's important that we have that today. | ||
| And I think globally, people understand protecting our shared cultural heritage is usually important. | ||
| So what's the higher calling of Remember Us? | ||
| The higher calling is this. | ||
| We should remember that for all of the bickering that's going on in the United States and other places around the world today, that freedom's always under attack. | ||
| If we're in war, we fight freedom. | ||
| We fight to preserve our freedom with bullets and weapons. | ||
| But freedom's under attack when we're not in war. | ||
| People or organizations trying to erode away freedoms. | ||
| We have to fight for them all the time. | ||
| That's part of the message. | ||
| But there's this transcendent thing that happened at the end of World War II in the Netherlands that didn't happen in the same way anywhere else. | ||
| The gratitude that was expressed, the decency of people. | ||
| In this case, they were Dutch. | ||
| And I think that's something we all need to know and be inspired by. | ||
| And the point that just one person can make a difference, it was the decency of each person here doing what they were able to do. | ||
| What a 19-year-old girl like Frida could do was different than what a 37-year-old wife of 11 or 12 at the time who was the wife of a mayor could do. | ||
| But everyone did what they were able to do. | ||
| And that's a hugely important story. | ||
| And then, of course, I think it's great that we always say we don't leave anyone on the field of battle. | ||
| But what happens? | ||
| What's the point if we forget about them? | ||
| So this is designed to make sure that we don't forget about them, that they live forever young and that their lives and their sacrifices mattered because I believe everyone, everybody wants to be remembered somehow, some way by somebody. | ||
| And the Dutch are making sure that these boys and the four women who are frozen in time, forever young, will always be remembered. | ||
| And they're the ones that are out there doing it. | ||
| And that's heartwarming to me. | ||
| So we have a mission to finish. | ||
| The foreverpromise.org is that mission. | ||
| We want to see all of the Dutch adopters, each one of them, have an American relative to be able to correspond with and get that percentage from 20%, where it is right now, to 100% through the foreverpromise.org effort. | ||
| And then there's 7,500 American boys that are in the United States who had adopters for the first three or four years that they were buried in the Netherlands until their families brought them home. | ||
| So there's much more to be done. | ||
| And I think it can, it's a pathway to engage our youth who are not learning about the cost of freedom in schools. | ||
| And they're not going to grow up anymore with World War II veterans or parents of the Depression era. | ||
| They're not going to learn like I did growing up in a World War II household where my father was a young Marine who fought in the Pacific in Saipan, Okinawa, Nagasaki. | ||
| They're not going to have that advantage. | ||
| And the schools aren't doing it. | ||
| So how upset can we be that Americans don't know what the cost of freedom is or that it's not free because there's no place for them to learn it. | ||
| This is a chance to learn from the Dutch and do something like that in the United States and teach our kids and get them engaged the way the Dutch are. | ||
| Let's talk with Melissa in Garland, Texas, Line for Military Family. | ||
| Good morning, Melissa. | ||
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Hi, Robert. | |
| I want to thank you immensely for your book. | ||
| I will be purchasing it after this call. | ||
| My grandfather is buried at that cemetery. | ||
| And I didn't get in contact with the family until 2015 after reading about this program in the Washington Post. | ||
| Now, I had been sending flowers at the grave for his birthday and on Memorial Day and on other holidays, but I didn't know about this program. | ||
| And then when I did finally get in touch with the family, I learned that they had been in touch with my grandmother, the first adopter. | ||
| And the family shared sent pictures to me that they had shared with my grandmother. | ||
| And you're right. | ||
| At the very beginning, the photo shows the mother with her child on her knees and the kids are on their knees praying at the cross. | ||
| And so it's immensely special to families to have that. | ||
| And then every year, it's three generations. | ||
| And then their children as well also go. | ||
| So there's all these generations of families that are going and there's a waiting list to adopt the graves too. | ||
| But it is sad that most families, as you said, 20%, were not aware of this. | ||
| And so I'm the editor at the Christian Post. | ||
| And so we also shared the story back in 2022 because there was a family that's also searching for their American family. | ||
| Yeah, one thing I wanted to ask you to share about is the Faces of Margrotten program where they have their requesting a photo from the American families of their soldier that they have adopted. | ||
| It's posted by the cross for a special event. | ||
| And I don't know if they do that yearly or every few years, but I wanted to know if you could shed some light on that. | ||
| Yeah, Faces of Margraton is a great program. | ||
| It's just one more way the Dutch are finding a way to bring these men and women to life and preserve their memory. | ||
| So they've asked the families they're in contact with, which again is only 20%. | ||
| There's 80% of the families, the adopters, there are 100% of the graves and names on the walls of the missing that have an adopter. | ||
| There are only 20% of the families the Dutch have contact information for. | ||
| So we're looking for 80%. | ||
| You're from Texas. | ||
| I'm from Dallas. | ||
| There are 388 sons of Texas that are, or 398 rather, sons of Texas and one woman, one of the four women, are from Texas out there. | ||
| And 29 from my own city, from Dallas, eight from Fort Worth. | ||
| So the Face of Margraton is an important part, but they can't ask for photographs of the men and women that are buried out there from the family members if they're not in contact with the family. | ||
| So that's another reason that we're trying, this is the time. | ||
| We have the tools of technology. | ||
| Americans are a generous people. | ||
| They don't know about this. | ||
| I've met with so many people in Washington that run on about, well, we know all about our overseas cemeteries. | ||
| And I ask them when they're through talking, do you know about the Dutch Grave Adoption Program? | ||
| And they say the same thing that I did. | ||
| I never heard of it. | ||
| So we can change that. | ||
| And Remember Us is a way to not only tell the story of these 12 American heroes that are buried there, very moving stories, threaded together. | ||
| These aren't individual stories unrelated to each other. | ||
| They're all connected. | ||
| But the stories converge at the cemetery or in and around that area. | ||
| And as I said, some make it through, some do not. | ||
| But you find out about what the real cost of war is and this transcendent moment that the Dutch have done and are continuing to do. | ||
| And here's the call to action for Americans. | ||
| Help us help the Dutch continue to honor our men and women that are over here, especially on this Memorial Day. | ||
| Use a little time. | ||
| Visit the foreverpromise.org website. | ||
| Buy the book, as I said. | ||
| Don't buy the book if you don't want to, but that book, I believe, will leave every reader with an experience of honor and decency and feel proud to know that there are people like this in the world, that even in the most difficult, harsh circumstances, that the very best of mankind and womankind will surface. | ||
| And like a great fairy tale, you'll carry this story of decency and goodness around with you the rest of your years and have a chance to share it with people. | ||
| And I believe you'll feel better as a consequence. | ||
| Robert, your book not only puts information out there and is trying to find information to close some of these loops. | ||
| I wanted to note your author's note at the beginning of the book. | ||
| It says the photo on the front cover is of an American paratrooper from the 82nd Airborne Division playing with two Dutch children. | ||
| It's near a village on September 18th of 1944 after the commencement of Operation Market Garden. | ||
| What else can you tell us about this appeal to find this person? | ||
| Well, we have since learned that this is a fellow named Lieutenant Russell Brazelton, who was with the OSS, and he was there right around Operation Market Garden, so September 1944. | ||
| We have identified the house in the background. | ||
| It's still there. | ||
| looks exactly the same and we are in the process of sending a letter to the town uh near nijmegen in in the netherlands where the house is located with the address and making an appeal of the people there in that town to find us and tell us number one the names of these two children and more importantly are either or both alive and i think there's a good chance that one or both of them are so it's just You know, | ||
| we have these threads and we have this responsibility in telling of history, one, to get the facts correct and two, to provide context. | ||
| I have a third objective, which is try and make the world a little bit better in our own way, to the extent that we can do that. | ||
| And the Forever Promise Project, foreverpromise.org, that's the way we're going to do it. | ||
| We're going to get them to 100% and have this place be what it always intended to be at the beginning, 100% connection between the Dutch and the Americans that are buried there. | ||
| And then use that, I hope, as a platform to consider how we can go about honoring the men and women that we, I mean, we had four army soldiers killed in Lithuania two months ago in an accident. | ||
| They should have had adopters right away, but we haven't thought about doing that. | ||
| And the Dutch have given us the template. | ||
| They've handed it to us. | ||
| And this is an opportunity to do something for our country and our men and women in uniform, past and present, that I think is a good thing to do and the right thing to do. | ||
| And there's no better day to talk about doing that than Memorial Day. | ||
| Let's talk with Anthony in Arizona, line for retired military. | ||
| Good morning, Anthony. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning, teammates. | |
| Robert, I just recently completed a tour with the National World War II Museum travel, where we went through England and then there was a follow-on segment to go into Berlin. | ||
| It sure would be nice if your forever promise was listed with the National World War II Museum Travel. | ||
| And on our first part of the tour, the first day when we had the authors from some of the associations that were affiliated with the World War II Museum, I mentioned to some of the traveler fellow travelers, you know, wars, wars never rest, only the warriors. | ||
| And not only is there no rest for the wars, but for the people who witness the wars and the aftermath. | ||
| And I'm so glad that you mentioned about the people who buried the warriors. | ||
| As a fellow warrior myself, I know that each and every day is a blessing, but it means nothing if you have given your all and somewhere in some part of the world lays a grave marked or unmarked and there is no one there to care for it. | ||
| So please get your forever promise on the World War II Museum travel brochure so that we can go there. | ||
| Because I learned from this tour, I would rather visit places where peace was signed instead of memorials. | ||
| But memorials are what got us there because that's why peace was signed to honor those forever promised. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you very much for that suggestion. | ||
| I used to be on the board of the National World War II Museum, but nothing would mean more than you writing them and making that suggestion yourself having gone on their tours. | ||
| Their tours are outstanding. | ||
| There are a lot of fine people there. | ||
| And I think in the course of time, we will be having tours like that. | ||
| But that would be great if you could do that. | ||
| More importantly, thank you for your military service on this Memorial Day. | ||
| Thank you for the sacrifice that you and your family have made. | ||
| Robert, you mentioned it, and then Anthony, our collar, just mentioned it. | ||
| But I wanted to read a passage from your book talking about what happens once a soldier dies on the field. | ||
| It says on September 11th, 1943, the same day friendly fire brought down 23 airborne transport planes. | ||
| War Department Circular 206 officially created the American Grave Registration Service, the GRS, a new organization under the command of the Quartermaster General, designated to standardize policies across all Army groups and theaters. | ||
| By D-Day, the GRS had refined procedures for quick retrieval, field identification, and burial. | ||
| That's why Normandy's cemeteries are so complete and close to battlefields. | ||
| Operation Overlord was, among many other things, a breakthrough in the practice, practical handling of combat deaths. | ||
| The process began when a platoon of GRS soldiers, between 12 and 20 men, set up collecting points just behind the front lines. | ||
| The objective, according to the GRS handbook, was to remove bodies quickly, but in the most considerate manner, so as to sustain the morale of the troops. | ||
| Combat units often took their own dead to the collecting point. | ||
| This was the most basic and heartfelt honor fallen soldiers received. | ||
| The devotion of friends, many of these men had been honored where they fell, like Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cole, wrapped in a parachute, the tool of his trade, by his heartbroken men. | ||
| The collecting point offered another opportunity for commemoration, especially if a grave registration officer was present for buddies to identify their friend's remains and provide the details of his death for GRS records. | ||
| This testimony was a solemn ritual, even in the midst of battle, to say his name and briefly recount his final moments as soldiers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Goodbye. | |
| Well, let me say, listeners, be proud. | ||
| Be proud to be an American. | ||
| This is a great country. | ||
| And when you read Remember Us, you will have tears reading the extent to which Americans, for years after the war, searched every square inch of Europe looking for any shred of an American that was missing, that had been shot down, that maybe fell into a well, parachuted into a creek, that was buried by some well-intended person and then ignored. | ||
| They went house to house. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They had advertisements in the papers. | |
| They did everything humanly possible and then some to find anybody so that nobody would be left behind. | ||
| And that effort continues today at the Defense Department's Department of POW MIA accounting agency that's continuing to go to the cemeteries in the Netherlands in particular and go into graves of unknown soldiers to extract DNA and see if they're able to use the cutting-edge science that they employ. | ||
| And we talk about that. | ||
| So that's an important thing. | ||
| At our movies and our telling of World War II, you know, we were behind, we got attacked, we were behind, we caught up, we went over there, we fought, we won, we moved home, we moved on. | ||
| But for 400,000 Americans that would never go home and millions of family members whose lives would never be the same, there was no moving on. | ||
| And we tell that story. | ||
| We go into the family homes. | ||
| We then talk about the effort of the American Army to find every single boy that was out there or remnants, and that continues even to this day. | ||
| It's a heartwarming aspect, and it shows how great this country of ours truly, truly is. | ||
| And it's something we should embrace rather than, you know, the bickering and disagreements and stuff. | ||
| Of course, things aren't perfect. | ||
| They never are going to be. | ||
| But there's no country in the world that does this for their soldiers. | ||
| I mean, the boys that the Russian boys that fall in Ukraine, they'll disintegrate in their uniforms because they're cannon fodder. | ||
| They don't matter, but they matter to Americans. | ||
| And that's something I think we can feel very proud about. | ||
| Robert, the cemetery there has been holding ceremonies and services post or for Memorial Day since 1945. | ||
| What can you tell us about the preparations that went into the lead up for that first Memorial Day in 1945 there? | ||
| And then also what's happening today. | ||
| It's a perpetual Memorial Day at that ceremony. | ||
| So is there anything, I guess, even more special today? | ||
| Yeah, I mean, when I met Frida the first time, and then in the subsequent, the many years that we'd speak about things, she told me a story about the very first Memorial Day. | ||
| So her father was a, he mapped these caves that are here. | ||
| It's the second largest bat habitat in the world. | ||
| And these caves are actually, were used to smuggle Jews and down to Allied pilots. | ||
| And Frida's family did do that. | ||
| I write about that in the book. | ||
| They smuggled Jews and Allied pilots through these caves because there was one place called the Smuggler's Hole. | ||
| They could get them from the Netherlands into Belgium and then into a resistance network and get them out. | ||
| But he was consulted by the Army because he understood all the beautiful vegetation. | ||
| And the effort was to try and beautify the cemetery at the beginning, even though it was only a temporary cemetery for this first Memorial Day. | ||
| Well, of course, there was no grass out there. | ||
| There were just clods of mud everywhere. | ||
| Mud, mud, mud. | ||
| That's what they were dealing with all the time. | ||
| Rains, just horrific conditions. | ||
| But they mounded these graves. | ||
| In other words, they basically took like an old TV dinner tray upside down and created an elevated portion of the grave and then straightened all of the wooden crosses, which had dog tags nailed to them because they hadn't had time yet to stencil names on there. | ||
| One of the dog tags was in the mouth of the soldier, if there was a head. | ||
| The other dog tag was nailed to the cross or Star of David. | ||
| And they made it as pretty as they could. | ||
| By the second Memorial Day in 46, the grass that had been planted had taken. | ||
| There were starting to be grass that needed to be mowed. | ||
| The Army superintendency there at the cemetery had no lawnmowers. | ||
| Frida, 19 years old, 20 years old at that stage, told the superintendent, don't worry, I'm on this. | ||
| She went around to all of her neighbors and said, we need to borrow your lawnmowers. | ||
| Put a tag on it with your name, and we'll bring a truck by and collect them all. | ||
| They brought them all to their place and put them in a barn. | ||
| And when the cemetery superintendent came by, she said, I have a surprise for you. | ||
| She took him out and back and opened the doors of the barn. | ||
| And there were 20 or 30 lawnmowers that were used to mow the lawn. | ||
| He was speechless. | ||
| So it goes to, I mean, it's a beautiful story, but it underscores the point. | ||
| Everyone did what they were able to do. | ||
| Frida, she wasn't a powerful person. | ||
| She didn't know important people, but she was able to go ask friends, neighbors to borrow their lawnmowers and make the place as beautiful as they could. | ||
| So today, I was there yesterday all day long, giving interviews, meeting with, there were three veterans that were there. | ||
| One veteran I've known for several years. | ||
| He was 104. | ||
| What a force of nature. | ||
| The king of the Netherlands was there, the prime minister, ambassadors of different countries. | ||
| Our ambassador, Joe Poppolo, was not, he's not in position yet, but he will soon be there. | ||
| But his assistant, Mark Markelli, was there. | ||
| Just a fantastic group of people. | ||
| And then thousands, I don't even know how many thousands of people from this area that were there. | ||
| There was a flyover. | ||
| Wreaths were laid, but it was a beautiful moving ceremony. | ||
| And one of our American generals delivered the remarks and informed and shared with everybody that a grandfather of his was buried there and he only recently found out about it. | ||
| And everyone in the family since him had been named after this fellow that was buried there. | ||
| So there's so many touching stories we don't know about yet, but they're there to be uncovered. | ||
| They're there to be told. | ||
| And we need these 8,000 American families to come forward and make this connection. | ||
| Do this one thing for us. | ||
| And we'll do all the rest and gather these stories and gather photographs of the families and make sure that the mission's completed. | ||
| Robert Edsel is author of Remember Us: American Sacrifice, Dutch Freedom, and a Forever Promise Forged in World War II. | ||
| It is on sale now. | ||
| You can find out more about it as well as the programs Robert has talked about throughout this discussion at robertedsel.com. | ||
| Robert, thank you so much for your time this morning. | ||
| Foreverpromise.org for the connection to the Dutch adopters. | ||
| Thank you so much for your time, Robert. | ||
| We appreciate it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Tammy. | |
| We are wrapping up today's Washington Journal with more of your calls about Memorial Day. | ||
| If you have thoughts or a memory you'd like to share, you can start calling in now. | ||
| The lines there on your screen, Eastern Central, it's 202-748-8000. | ||
| Mountain and Pacific, it's 202-748-8001. | ||
| And military, military families, again, that is those who are retired. | ||
| If you're active duty or a veteran, it's 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's being scared to death and saddling up anyway, as John Wayne said. | |
| Y'all made it. | ||
| You climbed that mountain. | ||
| Take the risk, push yourself onto a new challenge. | ||
| This week, watch commencement speeches from across the country featuring inspirational messages from political leaders, sports personalities, and celebrities. | ||
| Hear remarks by Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins at Piedmont University. | ||
| Maryland Governor Wes Moore at Lincoln University. | ||
| New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayot at Nashua Community College. | ||
| Minnesota Governor Tim Walz at the University of Minnesota Law School. | ||
| Singer and songwriter Usher at Emory University. | ||
| Rapper and record producer Snoop Dogg at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. | ||
| And former basketball star Carmelo Anthony at Syracuse University. | ||
| Watch 2025 commencement speeches this week, starting Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2 or online at cspan.org. | ||
| On November 17, 2002, 23 years ago, Rich Atkinson appeared on the Book Notes television program to discuss his book, Army at Dawn. | ||
| This was the first of three books Atkinson called The Liberation Trilogy, a full history of the European theater of World War II, which is a total of 2,512 pages, including notes and indexes. | ||
| Beginning in 2019, Rick Atkinson switched trilogies. | ||
| This time, it's the history of the American Revolution. | ||
| In this episode of Book Notes Plus, we are repeating the 2002 interview, which has substantial background on Rick Atkinson's life and writing experience. | ||
| Next week's episode, we will talk with him about his second book on the revolution, The Fate of the Day. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Rick Atkinson with his book, An Army at Dawn, on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | |
| BookNotes Plus is available on the C-SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. | ||
| There are many ways to listen to C-SPAN radio anytime, anywhere. | ||
| In the Washington, D.C. area, listen on 90.1 FM. | ||
| Use our free C-SPAN Now app or go online to c-span.org slash radio on SiriusXM Radio on channel 455, the TuneIn app, and on your smart speaker by simply saying play C-SPAN radio. | ||
| Hear our live call-in program, Washington Journal, daily at 7 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Listen to House and Senate proceedings, committee hearings, news conferences, and other public affairs events live throughout the day. | ||
| And for the best way to hear what's happening in Washington with fast-paced reports, live interviews, and analysis of the day. | ||
| Catch Washington today, weekdays of 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern. | ||
| Listen to C-SPAN programs on C-SPAN Radio anytime, anywhere. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| What is that for? | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back up until the end of today's show. | ||
| We are talking about Memorial Day. | ||
| If you have a memory or a thought about Memorial Day, you can start calling in now. | ||
| This is a live look right now at the Vietnam Memorial on the National Mall. | ||
| We will start with Mike in Washington, D.C. Good morning, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
First of all, C-SPAN, thank you for taking my phone call. | |
| And I've been really enjoying the show this morning. | ||
| When I think about this Memorial Day, it really makes me angry at these elected officials because these men and women, they go out and they put their lives on the line. | ||
| And for these elected officials in corporate America to live the lifestyle of the rich and the famous, and when they come back and they still have to battle for, you know, their benefits, I find that appalling. | ||
| There should be no homeless vets in this country, period, or battling for their resources. | ||
| And I blame the elected officials for that. | ||
| So if they really want to honor these men and women from the armed forces that put their lives on the line for them, for your death, these greedy elected officials in corporate America live the lifestyle of the rich and famous. | ||
| They need to make sure that those families get the benefits they rightfully deserve. | ||
| And for the sister that called early and couldn't understand why the blacks that called early couldn't understand why the brother filled away how he did some of the men and women from World War II and the racism they had to deal with. | ||
| I hear that all the time from my grandfather because he served in World War II. | ||
| So, you know, that sister need to do a little bit of solar searching because these men, because a lot of the blacks that do serve in the military, they still got to come back to, you know, a racist country that still have not loved black people. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Mike in Washington, D.C. Skip in Seattle, Washington. | ||
| Line for veterans. | ||
| Good morning, Skip. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I am a Vietnam veteran, and I was honored on Memorial Day in 1974 after Vietnam when I was stationed in Italy with the 509th Airborne to commemorate the 30th anniversary of D-Day on June 6, 1974, by parachuting into Eindhoven in the Netherlands. | ||
| And before my feet hit the ground, When the drop zone I was landing in was circled by over 50,000 people from Eindhoven, my feet didn't hit the ground before a group of Dutch people who were so grateful carried me. | ||
| And literally, my patches off my uniform were their souvenirs. | ||
| And so is my uniform and my parachute. | ||
| And the next day, we celebrated by all of us, 120 of us, being guests in the home of a Dutch family as they honored our World War II veterans who were sacrificed for their free. | ||
| And I just want to say thank you for C-SPAN. | ||
| That was Skip in Seattle. | ||
| Morgan in Nashville, Tennessee, line for military family. | ||
| Good morning, Morgan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Well, my story is a little different. | ||
| My father was in World War II as a paratrooper. | ||
| And as he was getting on the plane, he slipped and broke his ankle and wasn't able to go. | ||
| And so he ended up, and he was stationed in Fort Benning, and he ended up going to a nearby town, Opalaca, Alabama, where he met my mother, got married, and had me. | ||
| Yep, it's a good story. | ||
| Morgan. | ||
| Of a broken ankle. | ||
| Morgan, what do you do to honor or memorialize today? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, I honor every day being so grateful that I was born to such beautiful people and have had such a wonderful life. | |
| It's an honor just to be here. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| That was Morgan in Nashville, Tennessee. | ||
| We are taking your calls on Memorial Day 2025. | ||
| Your thoughts and memories, if you have a thought on one of those, you can give us a call. | ||
| The lines, Eastern Central, is 202-748-8000. | ||
| Mountain Pacific, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And if you are a member of the military or military family, and again, that's if you're retired or if you're active duty, if you're a veteran, that line is 202-748-8002. | ||
| This is a live look at people who are outside on the National Mall at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on this Memorial Day. | ||
| It is later today that President Trump will be at Arlington National Cemetery. | ||
| He will participate in a wreath-lane ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. | ||
| You'll be able to watch that live here on C-SPAN at 11 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| You'll also be able to find it on our free mobile app, C-SPAN Now, as well as online at c-span.org. | ||
| It was last week on the floor of both the House and the Senate that members of Congress talked about what Memorial Day means to them. | ||
| Here is a clip of Senator Todd Young, Republican of Indiana who served in the Marines, speaking about Memorial Day. | ||
| Whether they be in country churchyards or on the National Mall, we build tributes to our soldiers for the same reason we celebrate Memorial Day. | ||
| Monuments and a day of national reflection are reminders of our enduring debt. | ||
| But they're more than that. | ||
| They're warnings, too. | ||
| If we should ever forget our fallen, we will in time cease to be free. | ||
| Sadly, that warning is not always heeded. | ||
| In the summer of 2004, vandals snuck into Pleasant View Cemetery and smashed the statue of Private Riddle to pieces, breaking it at the knees, suffering, severing its head. | ||
| This wasn't simply the destruction of a piece of art. | ||
| Knowingly or not, it was the desecration of a promise. | ||
| We don't glory in war, but we do honor the glorious deeds of the men and women who, at the last resort, are called to defend our liberties. | ||
| The memory of those who do so is as sacred as our flag. | ||
| We stake our republic on a promise to honor them always, and of course, to care for those they leave behind, and to do everything in our power to prevent future Americans from joining their ranks. | ||
| It's been alleged throughout history that republics are ungrateful, self-obsessed, self-absorbed, selfish, self-regarding. | ||
| America has consistently proven otherwise. | ||
| If you ever doubt this, visit Pleasant View Cemetery in Monroe County, Indiana. | ||
| You see, the people of Unionville were heartbroken when the monument to Private Riddle was knocked down. | ||
| So Edith Clark, the cemetery's caretaker, paid $600 to have the sculpture restored and resurrected. | ||
| Then the community held a bacon yard sale to help her recover the cost. | ||
| Patriotism. | ||
| Never forget it. | ||
| So today, he shows where the brim of his hat's broken. | ||
| The bayonet from his rifle is lost. | ||
| Part of his ear is missing. | ||
| And so are a few fingers. | ||
| But Private Thomas Forrest Riddle stands once more, and his memory remains. | ||
| His watch continues, and America's gratitude goes on. | ||
| So today we remember Private Riddle and all who have given their lives for our freedom on this Grand Memorial Day. | ||
| Just a little over 15 minutes left in this morning's Washington Journal. | ||
| Taking your calls, taking and getting your comments on social media on this Memorial Day 2025. | ||
| This coming in on X from Jersey Girl says, it's the day to remember young people like my eldest sister's first boyfriend who was killed in Vietnam at the age of 19. | ||
| I never knew him, but my parents always made sure we visited Ray's grave when we were at the cemetery. | ||
| As kids, we learned the impact of war early on. | ||
| And this from Rico says, I think my past family members First and mourn. | ||
| And then I think of past people sent out to defend some ideology. | ||
| And then I think of the current lives being lost. | ||
| And finally, I mourn for the plight of all of us. | ||
| And this from Steve. | ||
| He says, I am grateful that I only know one person killed in action and war, Carrie Hein, a medevac helicopter pilot shot down during the first desert storm in 1991. | ||
| Carrie was a real stand-up guy. | ||
| My uncle, who I never knew, was shot down over Europe while dropping bombs on the Nazis. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Let's talk with Alan in Arkansas, Line 4 Military Families. | ||
| Good morning, Alan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Well, yes, I should say Little Rock as well, and the birthplace of Douglas the McCarthy, the most decorated soldier in World War II, and several references and memorials to him here, and others more to come, I should say. | ||
| And only on half a memory of my father and my mom, who traveled with him, got to travel with him a lot during World War II, amazingly. | ||
| But he was a radar operator on a blimp that flew from Lakehurst, New Jersey. | ||
|
unidentified
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He was there shortly after the crash of the German sub that came in, or excuse me, blimp that came in and then stationed in Miami, the largest base in the world, actually, blimp base there, just outside Miami. | |
| And he flew, and the story I wanted to tell quickly was that he flew along the coast where there were many, he told me many German subs were coasting along our eastern coast that were not discussed because of the fear and panic that might have resulted all along where they, and there's numerous stories, you can search them. | ||
| They were in the Gulf of Mexico and watching and would have attacked if they had gotten just a little farther along with devastating effect. | ||
| And I just want to report that to say that we have the same threat today from the Chinese communists that are in our country. | ||
| There's 200,000 that came in illegally right now that came in through this rush of the last four years. | ||
| Now we don't know where they are. | ||
| 200,000 illegal Chinese communists, young males, that are in our country with this same threat. | ||
| So I want to thank everyone in our service and our military, and we need to get them out, President Trump, please. | ||
| So Godspeed to our military and all those serving. | ||
| That was Alan in Arkansas. | ||
| Richard in Worcester, Massachusetts. | ||
| Good morning, Richard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well, Richard. | ||
| I just wanted to briefly comment. | ||
| One of your commentators said that there was no warning during World War II of planes going over. | ||
| I think his comment was there was no indication that there was any warning. | ||
| Well, I was born in 1940. | ||
| Richard, are you still there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah, I served during Vietnam. | ||
| I was born in 1940 and my mother told me I was there. | ||
| I was probably four years old and there was a knock on the door and it was the air raid warden and he said, Mary, you need to darken the windows. | ||
| So I think that indicates there was some overhead concern. | ||
| And I can't remember how he phrased it, but I think that's evidence that there was some concern of planes going over, that you had to wax the windows. | ||
| And that's all I want to say. | ||
| Thank you for your program. | ||
| That was Richard in Massachusetts. | ||
| Robert in Pennsylvania, line for military families. | ||
| Good morning, Robert. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, dear. | |
| My father was World War II. | ||
| And I was in the Vietnam era. | ||
| 54th Combat Engineer platoon, but I was in Germany. | ||
| But I understand. | ||
| I know we are just dead. | ||
| But what about that guy? | ||
| I said still alive. | ||
| Veterans who are still alive, Robert? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pardon me? | |
| Are you talking about veterans who are still alive? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm a veteran. | |
| That was Robert in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Just about 10 minutes left. | ||
| This coming in on social media from Andy, 63, says, on this day and every day honoring my brother, it's SFC Charles Anderson. | ||
| It says 1955 to 2018, 23 years of military service to the United States of America. | ||
| We love you, Charles. | ||
| Let's hear from Mary in New York, New York, line for military families. | ||
| Good morning, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and happy Memorial Day to everyone who is celebrating today. | |
| This is a tradition in my family that every year we go and put flowers on all the graves of our family members. | ||
| But also, I wanted to give a highlight to the fact that this was started by formerly, and this whole holiday was started by formerly enslaved black Americans May 1st, 1865 in Charleston, South Carolina. | ||
| And I've been really reflecting on, this was right after the Civil War, and I've been really reflecting on the Civil War lately. | ||
| In fact, I want to rewatch Glory, which is a movie starring Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman about the first African American regiment that was put into the Civil War, and they literally gave their lives for freedom. | ||
| So I really want to reflect on all of those who have given their service. | ||
| I want to give honor to my father, who is a two-time Purple Heart. | ||
| He was given two Purple Hearts for the Vietnam War, and all of my uncles who served and everyone in their families who also served. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mary, if you are doing some research and looking into the Civil War, make sure to check out our video archives. | ||
| C-SPAN.org, BookTV, and AHTV have numerous events and information about the Civil War. | ||
| Let's talk with Don in Minnesota. | ||
| Good morning, Don. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| So there's this Bible verse: there is no greater love than for a man to give his life for a friend. | ||
| And I don't mean to contradict the Bible, but there actually is. | ||
| It would be for a total stranger to give his life for another race. | ||
| And I think it could change some hearts and minds if people would realize that they were actually blessed to come to the only country that one race would fight to free another race. | ||
| And yet, here in Minnesota, we were the first to send soldiers. | ||
| And there's between 80 and 1,200 buried at Oakland Cemetery without a monument. | ||
| I didn't even learn that fact until I was older. | ||
| I've been trying to get a monument. | ||
| I've been trying to get a day, like maybe slavery liberation day, and there's nothing. | ||
| And here in Minnesota, what they've done is taken Memorial Day and turned it into George Floyd Day. | ||
| And it's really quite ridiculous. | ||
| And I think that people should honor their ancestors that suffered so much so that they could literally change the course of history for these people. | ||
| It's up to them whether they succeed or not. | ||
| And we should also honor our Civil War soldiers, and they are the first ones that began Memorial Day. | ||
| So that's all I have to say. | ||
| That was Don in Minnesota. | ||
| This is the front page of the Washington Post Metro section from this morning. | ||
| It has some photos that were taken yesterday. | ||
| It says this photo here is motorcyclists gathering in the Pentagon's North parking lot in Arlington before the annual Rolling to Remember ride to honor fallen service members, prisoners of war, and troops missing in action and support, care for veterans. | ||
| And then there is a photo here. | ||
| You can see a dog wearing goggles. | ||
| It says a furry passenger travels in a side car. | ||
| And it also looks, has photos. | ||
| It says a biker relaxes before the Sunday ride, that annual rolling thunder ride that takes place here in Washington, D.C., every Memorial Day weekend. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Let's talk to Eric in New York. | ||
| Good morning, Eric. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning. | |
| Thank you very much, C-SPAN. | ||
| It's a wonderful resource that I've come to get used to. | ||
| I just wanted to say that I wouldn't be here if it weren't for war. | ||
| One of those kind of situations. | ||
| I was born into a family who already had two siblings from another father who had lost his life in between wars as he tried to gain altitude to develop an aircraft carrier in the northern Atlantic. | ||
| So I found myself born into a family with two young, a brother and a sister, half each. | ||
| And my father, he also became a radioman in the Navy. | ||
| And he got sick at training and getting in a little late and missed action. | ||
| But a little known fact about people in the Navy who are radiomen, they were trained to listen to numbers that were random in code, in other words, numbers and letters, and write them down faithfully and hand them to his commanding officer who went into a locked room and decoded it. | ||
| So he had to get the numbers and letters just right in order for this valuable information to be passed on. | ||
| So I did not serve in war, but the war's effects are long and the shadows are long. | ||
| And I just wanted to say in closing that Memorial Day also should remember that most people killed in wars are not the military. | ||
| It's the civilian population. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That was Eric in New York, Donald, Bakersfield, California. | ||
| Good morning, Donald. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Hi, Donald. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I wanted to share, I'm listening to your show, what my father taught me, who was stationed in Minnerfield in Bakersfield, California. | |
| He met my mother in Detroit, grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and they were married in California, in San Diego. | ||
| But my dad always taught me the reason that we fought in the wars was for our freedoms. | ||
| As a young boy, I was 13 years old. | ||
| And my dad said that freedom of speech is one of the most important things that we have, that we should always be able to say whatever we have in our mind and communicate with each other and not hold it against each other. | ||
| And I think that that's very important today with all of the divisiveness. | ||
| And those are freedoms that we have that other countries don't. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Donald in California. | ||
| Charlie in Dayton, Ohio. | ||
| Good morning, Charlie. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, Tammy. | |
| I just wanted to say happy Memorial Day to everybody out there. | ||
| And you got some veterans calling in. | ||
| You know, I hear heart monitors going off in the background. | ||
| I just wanted to tell them that they're appreciated and they're loved. | ||
| They're rock stars. | ||
| And we wouldn't be here without them. | ||
| And they're my heroes and they're appreciated to all the living veterans. | ||
| And thank you. | ||
| And thank you for what you do, Tammy. | ||
| God bless America. | ||
| That was Charlie in Ohio. | ||
| And our last call for today's program, Roger in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. | ||
| Good morning, Roger. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hello. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Hi, Roger. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| U.S. Navy I was in Vietnam in 1965. | ||
| And I got strong feelings about it. | ||
| 58,000 men and women died for our politicians. | ||
| And the same thing with Iraq. | ||
| There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. | ||
| But one thing I love about President Trump, he's trying to keep us out of war no matter where it's at. | ||
| And I guess that's all I can say. | ||
| So thank you for your time. | ||
| That was Roger in Iowa, our last call for today's Washington Journal on this Memorial Day 2025. | ||
| We thank our guests and our callers who participated in today's program. | ||
| We will be back tomorrow morning with another program at 7 a.m. Central and 4 a.m. Pacific. | ||
| Until then, enjoy your Saturday. | ||
| We will leave you with a shot from Arlington National Cemetery and the tomb of the unknown soldier, where President Trump will be laying a wreath in just about an hour. | ||
|
unidentified
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This show and C-SPAN is one of the few places left in America where you actually have left and right coming together to talk and argue. | |
| And you guys do a great service in that. |