#348 Frank Wright - The Last Living Original Marine Raider From WW2

Sergeant Frank S. Wright is a World War II Marine veteran who enlisted at just 16 years old following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He served with the 4th Marine Raiders and fought in major Pacific campaigns including Guadalcanal, New Georgia, Guam, and Iwo Jima, where he was wounded in combat. He later served as a Marine Corps drill instructor and was promoted to Sergeant in 2025 in recognition of his lifelong service and commitment to the Marine Corps. Wright is also the author of Battles of the Pacific: World War II, My Personal War Causing PTSD and My 12 Days in Hell. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: Privacy Isn't Paranoia. It's Protection. Download Glacier - https://theglacierapp.com One thing to pack, five ways to power! Head to https://Ridge.com/SRS for Ridge’s Friends & Family Sale, where you can buy two Ridge Power Banks and get a third FREE. Start learning a new language today with Babbel and save up to 60% at https://babbel.com/SRS Rules and restrictions may apply. The Terminal List Season 2 premieres all 8 episodes on October 21, 2026, exclusively on Prime Video. Upgrade your eyewear at https://roka.com and use code SRS for 20% off sitewide at checkout. Frank Wright Links: Purchase Battles in the Pacific - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WTR6X32 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 2:08Shawn Ryan?

  Mr. Frank Wright, welcome to the show. It's an honor to have you here.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Thank you very kindly.

• 2:14Shawn Ryan?

  So I just found out before, right before we sat down, that you are the last living original Marine Raider.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  That's correct. That's why I understand now.

• 2:27Shawn Ryan?

  That is incredible. I had a lot of friends, I have a lot of friends that are Marine Raiders, and I have a deep, deep respect. And I know they're gonna love this interview.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  We were a good group, but the good Lord says that he wants them on pearly gates, they got them.

• 2:49Shawn Ryan?

  That's right. Well, let me start you off with an introduction. Mr. Frank Wright, you're a World War II Marine veteran who joined the Marine Corps at just age 16, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, later serving with the 4th Marine Raider Battalion, one of the Marine Corps' earliest special operations units. You fought in some of the most pivotal campaigns of the Pacific War, including Guadalcanal, New Georgia, Guam, and Iwo Jima, later serving with the 21st Marines. You were wounded multiple times in combat, including a devastating gunshot wound on Iwo Jima that tore your chest, lung, clavicle, and left arm, ultimately

• 3:34Shawn Ryan?

  earning you the Purple Heart. Among your other citations, Purple Heart with 1 Star, Presidential Unit Citation with 2 Stars, Navy Unit Commendation, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal with 3 Stars, Fleet Marine Force Combat Operations Exignia with 4 Stars, Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal Combat Action Ribbon with 4 Stars, World War II Victory Medal, and the Navy and Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal. After recovering from your combat wounds, you went on to serve as a Marine Corps Drill Instructor, training the next generation of Marines. After the war, you built a successful

• 4:18Shawn Ryan?

  career and a family that now includes children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Later in life, you wrote Battles in the Pacific to preserve your firsthand memories of the war and ensure the names and stories of the men you served alongside were never forgotten. You were married for 74 years, you're 101 years old, most importantly, you're a Christian. Once again, welcome to the show, and

• 4:48Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 4:49Shawn Ryan?

  I'd like to start off by just saying, thank you for your service.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  Thank you very kindly, sir.

• 4:54Shawn Ryan?

  So you joined right after December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor happened, correct?

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:04Shawn Ryan?

  Can you talk a little bit about what it was like when Pearl Harbor happened?

• 5:11Speaker 02

  Well, first thing, I was, I was sitting at the dining room table making airplanes out of Boswood. In fact, it was a Falcon 78, which was what I was looking, I was working on. And I heard this news at first, I said, well, that's pretty sneaky, you know, doing something like that. But I didn't know where Pearl Harbor was. It was, it was something

• 5:50Speaker 02

  out in the Pacific, is all I knew and, and really cared for. But then, later on, I found out what it actually meant. When it was, it was put on television.

• 6:09Shawn Ryan?

  How old were you when you joined?

• 6:11Speaker 02

  16.

• 6:12Shawn Ryan?

  16 years old?

• 6:13Speaker 02

  Yes. And they wouldn't take me.

• 6:15Shawn Ryan?

  Why wouldn't they take you?

• 6:16Speaker 02

  I was too young, and I didn't weigh much. So, but I took care of that by having my aunt, which was my mother's sister, fill out a, a belated birth certificate out of, and it was never certified. So, but the sergeant didn't care. He, the recruiting sergeant,

• 6:54Speaker 02

  he wanted me, that was it. So he didn't care about that. And then, of course, the weight was concerned, I had gone home and bought five pounds of bananas and stuffed them in my blouse. And so I, I joined with five pounds of bananas in my blouse, really.

• 7:20Shawn Ryan?

  How much did you weigh? Do you remember?

• 7:23Speaker 02

  No, I really don't.

• 7:26Shawn Ryan?

  Do you remember?

• 7:28Speaker 02

  It was, it was five pounds did it. That made me high, uh, weigh enough to get in the service. And I still think that the, the recruiting sergeant fudged a little bit on his papers on it. But then, who was I to question his great authority he had? So, but anyway, that was one of the reasons that were...

• 8:04Shawn Ryan?

  Why did you pick the Marine Corps?

• 8:06Speaker 02

  The Marine Corps has a heck of a lot purtier uniform, as you can see. And I thought that was a, a great, well, we called it a chick getter.

• 8:25Shawn Ryan?

  A chick eater?

• 8:27Speaker 02

  A chick getter.

• 8:28Shawn Ryan?

  A chick getter?

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. In my day, the girls were chicks. And I needed help, all the help I could get.

• 8:42Shawn Ryan?

  Don't we all?

• 8:44Speaker 02

  So, but they got me in a lot of trouble a couple of times, though. But then, when I was stationed in Tynecoon, Oregon, we had a bar that we used to go to. And one of the, and I was way too young to be drinking, but the guys passed me brandy underneath the table and stuff and so. And doing so, one of the Navy guy, and I hate, just really

• 9:19Speaker 02

  hate to say this, but the Navy and the Marines did not get along very good in 1941. So we had problems on it, and we, and why I don't know, but of course, I was gonna join right in with the reason why. But a sailor came by and knocked my cover off the, my head, and I reached down and I picked it up, and came up with my right fist, and I ducked him.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  And the fight was on. The Navy and the Marines both started fighting and stuff. And I was sitting down like that, and something, somebody hit me on the shoulder. I turned around, and just as I turned around, the beer bottle hit me right in the face. There was that sailor that I had knocked down. The head got up and he took, and I swing, it hit me across. I still have a little scar on my forehead, where he hit me. Knocked me out, the rest

• 10:38Speaker 02

  of the guys on the, on the, on the table, pulled me over and put me behind the bar. And then they went on fighting and stuff. Shore Patrol came by and closed the place down.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Locked the door. Poor little old Frank was still behind the bar. I stayed there and behind the bar out till about two in the morning. And I woke up. No one was around. I tried the door and the door was locked. I couldn't get out that way. So I called the base. Got a hold of one of the guys there at the, had a car. And they came over and picked me up, put a shoulder to the front door. Got me up, put me in the car and took me back to the base.

• 11:41Shawn Ryan?

  I don't think much has changed between the Navy and Marine Corps since then.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Oh, you don't think so?

• 11:45Shawn Ryan?

  I don't think so. It's pretty much the same when I was in.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  We didn't get along very well.

• 11:52Shawn Ryan?

  So what did you join the Marine Corps to do? Was there a specific job you had in mind that you wanted to do in the Marine Corps? Did you want to go to war?

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I wanted to, uh, I wanted to be an airplane mechanic.

• 12:05Shawn Ryan?

  An airplane mechanic?

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course, I was building airplanes and stuff and stuff. And I had a lot of experience in that. And so I joined up and I asked for, uh, to be in the Air Force on it. The Marine Corps Air Force on it as a mechanic. It didn't work out. The closest I got to an airplane was when they took me into it and I saw them fly over. That was about it. Cause they said, oh yeah, we'll put you in the Air Force, uh, Marine Air Force. So that was good enough of me. Sergeant says that, that's true.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  But, uh, I never did get close to an airplane to do any, any work on them on, at all. Really, and I'm, I'm still not that versed in it. I was a lot better at fighting than I was.

• 13:07Shawn Ryan?

  How did you find out you were good at fighting? You became a, you wound up becoming a Marine Raider very early on. How did they choose Marine Raiders?

• 13:15Speaker 02

  The, the guy was, that was the head of, uh, his name was A. H. Allen. And he turned out to be my senior drill instructor. He knew what I was and what I was capable of doing. When, uh, when he was training us. So he put in his bid for me to be a Raider. And I was the fourth one, I think, the fourth one out of the, uh, whole company that was picked for Raider Battalion.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  And it turned out that, uh, Jimmy Roosevelt was my Raider Officer.

• 14:07Shawn Ryan?

  The President's son?

• 14:08Speaker 02

  President's son. He was good. And the one thing he said that kinda impressed me. We were trained in boot camp to listen to our superiors. Of course, Sergeant Allen was, uh, the, one of the reasons that, uh, I, I remembered because he kinda impressed us with his, uh, training methods too, so. But, uh, when Roosevelt came in contact with the fourth Marine Raiders,

• 14:49Speaker 02

  the first word he said to us, we were all hunched down on our butts. And he says, "Kill." That's what I want you to remember. Kill. We're not here to defend anything else but kill. And says, "And I'll train you to make sure that you do that and you'll be able to do that." And he was true. Every time that he trained us in something, it was to kill them.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  It wasn't any, we didn't go for wounded or anything like that. And we, we were taught to kill. And, and we did. And we used that method that he taught us.

• 15:53Shawn Ryan?

  Do you remember the method?

• 15:56Speaker 02

  Very definitely so.

• 15:58Shawn Ryan?

  What was it?

• 16:02Speaker 02

  Well, I could kill a guy and with two blows, that's it. That's all I needed. I was able to break his nose. I was able to break his thorax. And I used that method that he taught us all the time. But he was, of course, you know, I'm, I'm only at that time, probably 16 or 17. You know, I go to church.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Thou shalt not kill, but not. At the Colonel, he was very adamant on it that that's what we were there for. And that's what kept me alive, going on some of the things that I was doing on it. And I had to do, so.

• 17:14Shawn Ryan?

  Do you remember the first man you had to kill?

• 17:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 17:20Shawn Ryan?

  Who was it?

• 17:24Speaker 02

  It was a Jap. Japanese, I guess, but it is. I guess a Jap sir, a derogatory term. But they're still Japs to me. They were the enemy. That's it.

• 17:50Shawn Ryan?

  How did you do it?

• 17:55Speaker 02

  Crossed up in his throat. Used my hands. Killed him. Wrist side of my hands. Like that. Cross his throat. It only takes two, two times to do it. You come pretty, get pretty good at it.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  It's impressive on it when they, they say, you're gonna do that and then you're gonna be able to, you know, kill a person that, what are you, when, when you don't want to, but you're gonna do it. Self-presivation. So, but anyway, we.

• 19:01Shawn Ryan?

  How old were you the first time you killed a man?

• 19:05Speaker 02

  I think I was 17.

• 19:07Shawn Ryan?

  17 years old?

• 19:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was from the, and the other guy was young as well. And he was, he was good, but not quite good enough.

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• 21:10Shawn Ryan?

  Where is the first place that you deployed to?

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Our first place was on, uh, New Georgia.

• 21:19Shawn Ryan?

  It was New Georgia?

• 21:20Speaker 02

  First combat, and I didn't, I didn't kill anybody there on it, but, uh... Boy, I sure learned a lot there, though. Please, not only myself, but some of the other guys that had gone through, uh, a lot. They, uh, they got ambushed a couple of times, and I wasn't involved in it, but, uh, that was... On New Georgia, there's really jungle fighting and between tribes.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  On it, different tribes of, uh, they had, they... The natives against the natives. And the pride of the native people there on New Georgia. It was, they had black hair on the low, on the lower part of their skull, and on the top of it is about an inch and a half, two inches of red hair that grows out.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  And so, they, they were, uh, considered between native groups to be, uh, the redhead of natives were a lot better. We found, and I didn't go through there, but I found out how they killed and what they did on it. They cut their heads off from the, from their shoulders

• 23:19Speaker 02

  and placed them on the statues inside of our smokehouse. And these guys that went through the, this smokehouse said, "God, it stunk." From, from the, that's how the, the headhunters used the... As I said, they, they were, uh, I, I'd be scared, number one, I mean, two, I couldn't see

• 24:01Speaker 02

  them cutting the heads off and all that. They were headhunters.

• 24:11Shawn Ryan?

  What were you guys doing in New Georgia?

• 24:13Speaker 02

  I wanted a tattoo myself. I wanted on my upper right arm. And I wanted to get the, uh, Marine emblem on it, and they, it was against the rules. Regulations, we were not. And they said, "We're free not to have any tattoos on our body at all." Because the Japanese favorite thing was to skin that tattoo off of your arm, shoulder,

• 24:53Speaker 02

  or wherever it was on it, and skin it and use them for lampshades.

• 25:03Shawn Ryan?

  They would cut off the tattoos?

• 25:05Speaker 02

  I sure didn't want my, my skin on one of those, uh, shades, so I adhered to the rules of no tattoos, and so I never did get a tattoo.

• 25:21Shawn Ryan?

  Did you take fire coming ashore?

• 25:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 25:25Shawn Ryan?

  In New Georgia?

• 25:25Speaker 02

  No, not, not on New Georgia, uh-uh. No, we, we, it came in free and clear, none, no fire at all. Uh, because it's a few elements in our group. I was one of the, one of the guys that didn't. And one of the reasons I didn't get any fire at that time, I think, was because we were kind of protected in a way. For the first time that they had the boys' anti-aircraft, I did, not the aircraft.

• 26:09Shawn Ryan?

  Tanks?

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Yes, boys' rifle, boys' anti-tank rifle on it. 55 caliber. You laid down, uh, covering the fire for those in front of them. And we didn't have any fire at all coming in, because we were, they wanted, they being the, uh, Marine Corps wanted to know more about the anti-tank rifle. We were the first ones to put, uh, the anti-tank rifle in combat. And they wanted to see what we could do.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  And we had five guys in my squad on it, myself and four more. So I, I, I'm one of the first Marines that had a anti-tank rifle.

• 27:14Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Uh, it's 55 caliber. And as I say, it's, it was, it was very good, but it was real heavy, and it took two other guys to carry the ammunition for it on it. I had, uh, the opportunity to fire, fire in combat, but, uh, I didn't hit anything because there was, there were no, we had no tanks there.

• 27:45Shawn Ryan?

  Could you see what you were firing at in the jungle?

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:48Shawn Ryan?

  You could?

• 27:49Speaker 02

  See that, you could see that, and we, we knew what it was, and we, we knew the vulnerable places to fire.

• 27:59Shawn Ryan?

  What were you firing at?

• 28:01Speaker 02

  We were, we were firing at the first track. And he, he hit that track, hit that track, and then knocked it, knocked it off the, the, uh, whatever it's called.

• 28:14Shawn Ryan?

  The tank?

• 28:15Speaker 02

  Out of the tank on it.

• 28:18Shawn Ryan?

  What were you doing at Guadalcanal?

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Guadalcanal, uh, we were first on, on the way to Guadalcanal. We were instructed, uh, to, that we were there for safety to the troops that were fighting there. So they didn't have any, they didn't have to stand guard or anything like that after they were attacked or after they attacked Henderson Field. And I think our orders read, "Stand guard on Henderson Field."

• 29:04Shawn Ryan?

  Do you remember clearing enemy positions and hunting holdouts with Major James Roosevelt?

• 29:14Speaker 02

  Uh, well, there was one there that held out for a long time. Couple of years, I'd say there was, but anyway. We had, uh, we had some that were in, uh, coconut trees. Uh, and then, uh, we got a Japanese cock, uh, two squads of Marines going through the, the coconut grove, and they didn't have a good scout.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  Scouts missed the ones that were in the depths, that were in coconut trees. And they ran into a, a good, uh, good number of, uh, of kids that were killed on that, that, that, they all started firing at one time, and our chaplain, like, come over there and he wanted to, to give those guys that were caught in this

• 30:38Speaker 02

  trap, I guess, that the Japanese had set on, on them, and...

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Anyway, I, I heard all of this commotion, so I told my squad that, uh, is still there on, uh, landing. Tell them to hang, hang in there and stay hidden and fire when you need to and, and, and whatever you need. I'm going to see what all that firing is. So I went down the road a little bit further and I came in contact with, uh, some Marines that were, had gotten, uh, and really running away from that particular trap that the Japs had set up.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  And the chaplain got a hold of me and he said, "Turn these guys over." And so I can read the rights, barrel rights or whatever they call it on it. So I, but I did. I turned several of them over and

• 31:57Speaker 02

  see their faces.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Any, anyway, we, one of the guys I, I recognized, I turned him over and, and he was dead. And that shook me up quite a lot.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  But the chaplain

• 32:24Speaker 02

  read them, I think it was called. He turned, he read the rights to them.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  And I couldn't, I couldn't take anymore of that. That, that was too close to home. So I stopped.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  And of course he stopped, he even, I guess there's something in their creed that they can't, uh, but you have to see their face to, to give them the rights. I don't know. But anyway, we, that's what had happened there and

• 33:06Speaker 02

  the next day,

• 33:09Speaker 02

  we went out in our group in water canal and we got caught in the same position, same thing. We had two, two guys that were killed out of the, out of, uh, our, uh, 21st Marines.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  And that was, that was, uh,

• 33:36Speaker 02

  that was a hard, that was hard to take.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  And that's really the first time I'd seen dead guys that were,

• 33:48Speaker 02

  that I knew.

• 33:52Shawn Ryan?

  They were your friends?

• 33:54Speaker 02

  Yes. Well, not close friends, but they were known to.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  We were friends, we played cards, stuff like that together, so.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  But he's, uh,

• 34:11Speaker 02

  they are good at chemish lodge. The Japanese are excellent at, in that particular field. In fact,

• 34:26Speaker 02

  the, uh, commander of the,

• 34:30Speaker 02

  of, uh, all four raiders made that recommendation to the warlords or whoever it is, that one of the things that we had that the Marines had to be taught and boot camp on

• 34:52Speaker 02

  how to chemish lodge yourself better. Cause that was, and then coming to think of it, you know, I, I don't think I ever got a, any kind of a training on, on chemish lodge. It was always, it was always something, uh, physical that we had to do ourselves on it. But they were, they were good at it, real good at it.

• 35:20Shawn Ryan?

  Let's go back to Guam. Do you remember, do you want to talk about the first time you landed on the beach?

• 35:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:27Shawn Ryan?

  In Guam?

• 35:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:28Shawn Ryan?

  What was that like?

• 35:31Speaker 02

  I was scared.

• 35:33Shawn Ryan?

  Why were you scared?

• 35:34Speaker 02

  I was really scared on it, cause we had, we had, uh, they were shooting at us on it. And, uh, I, I didn't get, uh, wounded there. And it was next day after that, that first landing on it. But, uh, I was scared really. Cause it, uh, when you look at those people that, and

• 36:05Speaker 02

  and then you start thinking, you know,

• 36:08Speaker 02

  this is, this is what they are released from, all their tyranny that they had before on it. And that was,

• 36:20Speaker 02

  later on, they had a, a lot of, uh, caves

• 36:28Speaker 02

  up against, uh,

• 36:31Speaker 02

  uh, the area that we landed. And the Navy was firing at those caves that were in there. That was one of the things that,

• 36:49Speaker 02

  on my second trip to Guam, I was able to go over there and, and see and up close where the, where the Navy had really telted the, the, uh, landing area where we had landed.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  That was good on it. We stood in, I, I was able to, on my second trip there, I was able to go in there and, uh, and actually see the entrance of those, of those particular caves on it.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  We had a lot of, uh, a lot of Japs, saw a lot of Japs there when the, the tanks, Japanese tanks came down the hill from Atan.

• 37:46Speaker 02

  And, uh, just as the tank battalion was landing, and so they were not able to, our troops were, our tanks were not able to get up there fast enough, cause the Japs were coming down

• 38:06Speaker 02

  and the Japs were following the tanks right behind them.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  And just as they got down toward where we were bedragged, they jumped out from behind the tanks and came and attacked us just where we were bedragged on it. Some of them ran past us, went, went on further down to the headquarters company and tanks that were coming in.

• 38:37Speaker 02

  And then some of them stayed there and fight, fight us guys. We had just gotten out of the foxholes. And I started fighting them as it came down.

• 38:50Shawn Ryan?

  There was 400 of them, plus?

• 38:53Speaker 02

  Yes, a lot of. And I, I got one who was a little feisty on it, guy, and

• 39:06Speaker 02

  got a hold of him and, and boy, I wish I hadn't, no, anyway. Uh, he started charging me and then, uh,

• 39:16Speaker 02

  I jumped out of, out of the way of his charge.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  First time, the second time on it, then I wasn't fast enough and

• 39:26Speaker 02

  I, uh, stepped backwards. So let me back, let me, let me dig our foxholes on it. We dug them and, and piled the dirt up around the, on the outside of it like a berm on it. And

• 39:48Speaker 02

  I, as I was going backwards of the last trip, I fell, just as I fell, the Jap lunged and he stuck me in the stomach with his bayonet.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  And I fell down backwards on it. And my

• 40:10Speaker 02

  neighbor next to me on it, I don't know, he shot him

• 40:18Speaker 02

  or, uh, or whatever. And the Jap fell down on top of me while I was in the foxhole. And he fell down on top of me on it.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  As he fell down, my hand, as I fell down, my hand went out and I hit my gung ho knife that was, that I had been using to dig into the dirt.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  And recognized it and I pulled it, my hand hit that. I pulled it out and on my, and swat, and then I cut his head, his throat. And he starts bleeding all over me and all over the place on it. And he was a,

• 41:19Speaker 02

  he was a little heavy, I couldn't move him.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  So I had this hole in my stomach and that was beginning to get sore.

• 41:34Shawn Ryan?

  Where did the hole in your stomach come from? Did he stab you?

• 41:37Speaker 02

  Yes, he got stabbed me with, uh, his bayonet on it.

• 41:43Shawn Ryan?

  And you kept fighting?

• 41:44Speaker 02

  The top part of my stomach.

• 41:48Speaker 02

  And as he went down, I turned him and it turned, the blade turned and it went in on a slant.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  And it hurt. So he just stayed there on there. I think that course died. Laid, laid on top of me.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  We got.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  And I guess the guy that shot him yelled something out, out, I don't know what it was.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Must have been, I got him for you, right? Or something like that.

• 42:38Shawn Ryan?

  He saved you?

• 42:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, he did. He really did.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  He, he either shot him or stabbed him or something. I don't know how it was, but it was better. I cut his head off. And I didn't cut it off. I just swiped it across and.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  But anyway, it was enough to bleed. So he bled, bled on it. And then, then that evening, that night, whatever it was on it.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  Next morning.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  They tried to count all of the.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  People that were wounded and, and things like me.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Finally they saw, they saw me then and I was yelling and hollering. Get that bastard off of my stomach. And they pulled him off and he was dead. Then they got me out and saw what it was on it like that. It really wasn't that deep on it because it was, as I said, I, I turned just as it, I fell on it. And he.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  But it was.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  It was, I was more scared than, than, than I was hurt. They called, they, they pulled me out and of course I had all kinds of blood on me. My blood and his blood.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  And.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  So I went up there and I yelled over to the corpsman come up. The corpsman came over and. He cleaned me up to see that it wasn't a real deep cut. And so he put a, a piece of tape on it and pulled it together. That's how I, I stayed and that's why I didn't go in any further than the aid station there. There were guys that were a lot worse than me.

• 45:19Shawn Ryan?

  Frank, let's take a quick break.

• 45:25Shawn Ryan?

  If you've ever been in another country and couldn't communicate the way you wanted to, you know how frustrating that can be. You can know where you're trying to go, know what you want to order and still feel stuck because you don't have the words. That language barrier changes the whole experience. My team and I had this problem when traveling internationally for interviews. So to solve that, we started using Babbel. Babbel is built around real life conversation, not random vocabulary lists or endless grammar drills. These are the words and phrases you'd actually use with a real person in a real place. And Babbel gets you there faster than you'd think.

• 46:06Shawn Ryan?

  People who use it just 10 minutes a day can start having real conversations in a new language in as little as three weeks. It's designed by more than 200 language experts. So what you're learning is what people actually say, not what they wrote in a textbook 30 years ago. And it fits into real life. A coffee break, a commute, 10 minutes before bed. Babbel's bite sized lessons work around your schedule. That's why Babbel has sold more than 25 million subscriptions and carries a 14 day money back guarantee. Start learning a new language today with Babbel. Right now, listeners can save up to 60% off at babbel.com/srs.

• 46:50Shawn Ryan?

  That's Babbel, B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash SRS for up to 60% off. Rules and restrictions may apply.

• 47:34Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Frank. We're getting into, you wanted to talk about your second trip to Guam.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  Yes, uh, the governor of Guam had invited me to come to them on a reunion that they had. They wanted me to be their grand marshal of the parade that they were having. And I was able to see some of the people that were in, that we released from prison.

• 48:15Shawn Ryan?

  This is after the war?

• 48:17Speaker 02

  This is afterwards. This is way afterwards.

• 48:21Shawn Ryan?

  How did it feel being back there?

• 48:23Speaker 02

  Oh, it was good, really good on it.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  I was able to retrace the landing area, retrace the, the steps that I had taken on Guam the first time on it. And it meant a lot to me. Later that evening, I was able to go to a Colonel's, I think it was a Colonel, uh, house for snacks and stuff.

• 49:07Speaker 02

  And we walked out to the, to the edge of the hill that we had climbed the first time on it. We walked out and I was able to look over the hill at, at the hill that we climbed up on it. And we dug our, our, uh, first box hole there. I was able to stand on the same spot that I was able to.

• 49:45Shawn Ryan?

  It looked the same? Did it look the same?

• 49:49Speaker 02

  No.

• 49:50Shawn Ryan?

  Looks different now.

• 49:51Speaker 02

  More green, had more green to it and stuff, you know, and stuff, but, but it was there. And.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  It was just so real on seeing those, those areas that we came in on. Then when we got up there before, this is before, when we released the prisoners on it. And the prisoners would come out like that and shake their hands. And now if you want to see what freedom looks like, you look into the eyes of those who survived it.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  And they were treated so horribly.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  But the look in their eyes on it when they hug you.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  And throw away from there, look down into the, especially on the little fellows.

• 51:11Speaker 02

  And you see their eyes, it reflects.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  Hope, freedom from tyranny and everything like that. They had furnished us, uh, a hotel on Hilton, Hilton Hotel. And we were on the 12th floor.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  And Martin and our photographer was there.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  They came over to our room and they woke me up.

• 52:03Speaker 02

  I says Frank, I want you to see this. So Marvin pulled me out on the patio deck out there. And see the sunrise.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  And see the sunrise on there just, there just out of this world on it. And it started making me talk.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  And, and say what was in my heart.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  And.

• 52:49Speaker 02

  So I gave a little speech there.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  I was standing in my shorts. They were still filming me.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  But I looked over the side and there's two dogs down on the bottom of the...

• 53:14Speaker 02

  They were just standing there, just sitting there on their haunches, looking up toward me.

• 53:23Speaker 02

  And, and I was talking.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  And I could see this beautiful sunrise.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  And a flock of butterflies came up from underneath the balcony where I was standing. And it started coming up as a flock, right in front of me. And.

• 54:05Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think that was?

• 54:07Speaker 02

  Just like they were standing and listening to me.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  I says you can't photograph that feeling.

• 54:19Speaker 02

  But it was so real.

• 54:27Speaker 02

  And seeing this butterfly as a group.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  They flew up right in front of us.

• 54:44Speaker 02

  And they got it on film, I think. And they just disappeared.

• 54:53Speaker 02

  And there's down below, there was two dogs, owl. And I just, I, I, I just got carried away.

• 55:06Shawn Ryan?

  It was emotional?

• 55:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh dear God, it was.

• 55:13Speaker 02

  Then later on.

• 55:19Speaker 02

  We're in the parade, I was the lead in the parade. And the governor came down to the parade. And she stopped the parade, came over and shook hands with me and thanked me for coming over and all that.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  And the thing, butterflies flew right in front of me and her and she flew there. And then they disappeared.

• 55:55Speaker 02

  And.

• 56:00Speaker 02

  She said, or I think she presented me with a, a T-shirt.

• 56:09Speaker 02

  And she's called me Liberator Frank.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  And then shook hands with me and went off. We were going to have another meeting later on.

• 56:25Speaker 02

  But to go back, go back into the past and seeing all those people that were, had been in prison.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  And the nicest deeds that the Gromanians showed. Especially the Shamaros, they're great people, right? The Shamaros used to get over us and they'd bring a war canoe over and take a squad of us back in the back jungle, way back there. That's when we saw those, those places where they had, had hunters and stuff. And then we'd get a little bit further on, deeper and deeper and that.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  And we'd come across places that they could smell the food that the Japs were building, that they were building, Japs had going back in, further back on it. And they just pulled it in.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  Let the guys out.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  We all went out in there looking for those people that were, that were Japs that were cooking that meat or whatever it was that they were cooking on it.

• 58:02Speaker 02

  The Shamaros could smell it more so than we.

• 58:06Shawn Ryan?

  You weren't looking for them?

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, we were, we were, they were really looking for those holdouts that were back there in the back.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  And it, we could hear them more so when they would yell at each other to, that we were coming or something.

• 58:26Shawn Ryan?

  Did you find them?

• 58:28Speaker 02

  We found, we found a lot

• 58:34Speaker 02

  of Japanese that had committed hairy carry.

• 58:40Shawn Ryan?

  What is hairy carry?

• 58:41Speaker 02

  Or what do they call it?

• 58:45Speaker 02

  Self-destruct, I think they call it on it.

• 58:49Shawn Ryan?

  With the sword?

• 58:50Speaker 02

  And he, uh, and they have a ritual that they go through to stick a dog in your stomach and to, uh, they can't face it. They can't face defeat, they can't face what we were doing. It's, uh.

• 59:14Shawn Ryan?

  Have you seen them?

• 59:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 59:16Shawn Ryan?

  Do it?

• 59:18Speaker 02

  No, no, not, not, not see them. I didn't see that, but what the results showed.

• 59:24Shawn Ryan?

  You saw it afterwards?

• 59:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, because when we come through there, I, we see a lot of, a lot of the, especially the officers on it, their hands would be still clutched to their, uh, sword. And that's, that's if, if some officer hadn't gone by there first and, and taken the dagger out and use it for a souvenir. And they usually, the officers usually got the better part of it.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  But I wanted to, I wanted to let the audience know, uh, that freedom is something other than just plain words. You look at their eyes and you see it, then you know what freedom is and what it looks like.

• 1:00:34Shawn Ryan?

  Have you ever heard the, the saying?

• 1:00:41Shawn Ryan?

  Freedom, those who fought for it, has a flavor the protected will never know?

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  That's a good saying. I'd never heard it before, but that's a good saying.

• 1:00:57Shawn Ryan?

  Do you remember Iwo Jima?

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. We trained, I think it was eight months from the time that, uh, that we were through with Guam. First it was, uh,

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  we got a little flak and stuff and bombs and, uh, took, uh, and, uh, different kind of ammunition thrown at us at our landing that we had not been forced with before. And we didn't face it. Now, now this is entirely different. The landing was different. Everything was different. The, the, uh, ground cover was, you couldn't walk on it hardly because of the, it was full of, uh, more like little, little rocks,

• 1:01:58Speaker 02

  small rocks and, and we headed for a place that we could stand and hide and out of sight of, from the guys that were on lookout. This little building up on the right had, uh, a lot of cans and stuff like that. And I told, told the new recruits, I had two new recruits with me. One, uh, was a BAR man, the other was a scout.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  And they joined my gr- my group. I told the guys, I said, "When you get off," I says, "get off on the left side. You're, that building up there is a spotter and he's got a gun on there and he can shoot you. Use the, uh,

• 1:02:57Speaker 02

  LST or the Higgins boat, whichever one you're on. Use it as a protection. Get it off on the other side." And two of the guys, uh, they got scared. The first thing they did, they jumped up on the right-hand side and they got shot. Both of them, and both of them got shot in the legs. Thank goodness we had our, our medical people.

• 1:03:30Shawn Ryan?

  They were able to get them?

• 1:03:32Speaker 02

  They would jump off also and bandage them up at that time and tell them to wait here and on, get undercover.

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  So, they stayed there and

• 1:03:47Speaker 02

  evidently they did, uh, survive because I didn't see them anymore, so they, but they did survive. We were there.

• 1:03:59Speaker 02

  We started moving all those rocks, boulders, really. And...

• 1:04:07Shawn Ryan?

  Where did you go after you landed on the beach?

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  Got in there and had, had a good spot for it.

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  But I, uh, I got hit in the head with something. I don't know if it was a shell or, or what, but I got, got knocked out. I heard a lot of yelling and hollering and hooping and stuff like that. And that woke me up. Came out of my stupor, I guess. And

• 1:04:43Speaker 02

  that was on twenty, the twenty-third of

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  February. That's when they raised the flag up on Iwo Jima. I got up in time to see it.

• 1:05:00Speaker 02

  The second flag, I didn't see the first flag. The second flag, they...

• 1:05:05Shawn Ryan?

  You were able to see it?

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  They, we thought that the war was over. They, we won, the flag went up, we won, all that. The Japs did the same thing. They thought that they had won.

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  And they were hooping and hollering because that was their troops up on the hill. And, uh, uh, twenty-eighth Marines were, had, were up on a hill. They're the ones that actually did the raising. On twen- the twenty-eighth of the Fifth Marine. And then we got ready to go. As we were going, then further on up, up the ridge there. But then the Japs realized that it was our troops up on the hill

• 1:06:05Speaker 02

  that were raising the flag, not them. And so they all started running back into their caves and, and to their uh, places that they were hide- had been hiding before. And we of course followed as much as we could. There was several,

• 1:06:29Speaker 02

  uh, people went off on their own with a flam- flamethrower.

• 1:06:36Shawn Ryan?

  Did you ever go off on your own?

• 1:06:38Speaker 02

  No. No. Uh-uh. No, I, I, I always

• 1:06:45Speaker 02

  followed my scout. My scout's job was to locate them first.

• 1:06:52Speaker 02

  And so I gave him a person a job. Then he did it. So, and I knew that he would have done it. So, I didn't, my BAR man, uh, was the same way on it. I gave him a job to do. He did it and he did it right. He was the best BAR man I'd taken in the Twenty-first Marine. My opinion. So...

• 1:07:29Shawn Ryan?

  When you were knocked unconscious, when you got knocked out?

• 1:07:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:07:34Shawn Ryan?

  Did you take another helmet?

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  That was something, I don't know what it was, if it was a round or if it was a piece of rock, boulder or something like that. Because they were, they were throwing, uh, uh,

• 1:07:55Speaker 02

  different type of ammo at us at that time. And we're, we were all in a big hole. Big, uh, kinda hole, I guess you would, could be called. And, uh...

• 1:08:09Shawn Ryan?

  Did you lose your helmet?

• 1:08:11Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:08:13Shawn Ryan?

  You did?

• 1:08:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, knocked, knocked the helmet off, naturally.

• 1:08:18Speaker 02

  But that was, uh, I got a helmet and

• 1:08:24Speaker 02

  I had, uh...

• 1:08:26Shawn Ryan?

  Did you get a new helmet?

• 1:08:28Speaker 02

  Hmm, yeah, from the, oh, there's equipment all over the place. Dead guys and stuff. So, I don't know what it was or who's it was or anything, so...

• 1:08:40Shawn Ryan?

  You just picked one up?

• 1:08:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just picked it up and fit. That's where it stayed. I didn't, didn't need it at any other time on it, too, so... But, uh,

• 1:08:55Speaker 02

  because I fought with my hands a lot.

• 1:08:57Shawn Ryan?

  You fought with your hands?

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:01Shawn Ryan?

  In Iwo Jima specifically?

• 1:09:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, same thing.

• 1:09:05Shawn Ryan?

  It was that close?

• 1:09:08Speaker 02

  It's really, uh,

• 1:09:11Speaker 02

  habit. Get into the point, it's just a habit to do. Like some guys get, they lead with your left or whatever, you know? It's a habit to get into. When you're doing something that works the first time, you try to end. And I didn't get a chance to do that on Iwo.

• 1:09:37Speaker 02

  They...

• 1:09:39Shawn Ryan?

  How close were you?

• 1:09:42Speaker 02

  Well, we were the fifth, I think the fifth time to take that hill.

• 1:09:51Shawn Ryan?

  Five times?

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think it was the fifth time on it, going up there. And we'd go up there and it'd, we'd fight like that. And then the order would be to retreat. So, we'd retreat. We're down, go back down there. There, and that would be on, um, the third, the, uh, second, second of March. And, uh, that's where...

• 1:10:23Shawn Ryan?

  Chris Pratt is back as James Reese in the prime original series The Terminal List, Season Two, based on Jack Carr's True Believer. The season picks up nine months after Reese finishes his vendetta. He's hiding out in Mozambique when the CIA pulls him back in for one final mission. Track down the terrorists behind a wave of attacks across the West. That mission takes him through Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. And along the way, he reconnects with brothers he thought he'd left behind. But here's what I respect about this series. They've brought in people who actually lived that life to help tell the story. Seventeen military veterans worked on this season, both in front of and behind

• 1:11:07Shawn Ryan?

  the camera. Jack Carr and former Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza were part of that team, with veterans working as writers, directors, technical advisors, and cast members. That matters, especially when telling a story about service and the people who carry that experience with them. There's plenty of action, but what's at the center of it is loyalty, sacrifice, family, and that bond with the guys you've served alongside. That doesn't go away because your service ends. Watch The Terminal List, Season Two, on October 21st, only on Prime.

• 1:11:46Shawn Ryan?

  Did you get shot in Iwo Jima?

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:49Shawn Ryan?

  Where?

• 1:11:49Speaker 02

  I got, I got machine gun across my chest. The guy that shot me, he, he ran back into his, uh, hill box, got a hold of the, a Lambo 25, 25 caliber. And just as I was coming over the hill, I had two corpsmen behind me, and we were carrying, uh, ammo, extra ammo

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  for the BAR man. And just as I came over the hill, then the guy that ran into the, into the hill box, he grabbed it and opened fire. He fired the first round across my chest. The first two rounds went together on it and went through my upper right hand side

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  chest, went through, cracked my papar, papar, across my lungs. It, it came out on my left side, left a big hole on my left side on it as it, as the rounds went through on it. And as it came out, I, I had raised my arm up to, to fire and this I did, and the rounds went, those rounds went through the muscle on my left arm and took all the muscle out

• 1:13:43Speaker 02

  of my left arm and went someplace. Uh, and then, then I went down, and as I went down, the two corpsmen behind me had grabbed a hold of my, my pack straps, and they pulled me back and then one of them pulled me down into a shell hole right below where I had just come from. I was there for, oh, not too long, but then about that time, well,

• 1:14:16Speaker 02

  then here comes McCoy, who was my BAR man. And he had a, a hand grenade that had gone off in his back, toward his back, and the hand grenade, uh, threw out a lot of shells on it. And a recruit slid off of his back end, and he had, uh, God, I don't know, a hundred or so, maybe, uh, from, uh, from all these

• 1:14:57Shawn Ryan?

  Wounds.

• 1:14:57Speaker 02

  Missiles that came from that hand grenade into his, uh, to his back.

• 1:15:02Shawn Ryan?

  The shrapnel.

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  No, he was shrapnel type. And he came, and so they towed him and guided him down into the shell hole where I was. And while we're in, while we're in there, the Japs were up on top of the hill, dropping off hand grenades and stuff like that into the shell hole on it. About that time, he was coming down, and he said, he said, right, you know, this is, guy could get hurt down here. Can you walk? I said, yes, I can walk,

• 1:15:45Speaker 02

  but I have to have someone hold on to me. And he said, well, let's walk. So we'll go back to the aid station on it, because I got a, a whole bunch of holes in my back. So I grabbed hold of one of his arms and we started back, walking back and went, going back to the aid, the Third Division aid station, which was just on the other side of, uh, airfield number two. And we saw, about that time, I saw an airplane coming down over

• 1:16:30Speaker 02

  there, right above us, and boy, that thing is big. It didn't land, but it was big. And so they, it went on to another, another field, which was number one field. We had passed number two already. Uh, we did that on our four across the field, airfield number two. I led, I did, my, my, me and my squad led the 21st Marines across airfield number two,

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  until we came to the, uh, sulfur pits. The sulfur pits was on the, on the wayside of the, of airfield number two. And we was, that's where we, uh, got into a little trouble with, uh, a lot of hill boxes there, just on the other side, because we had been chasing them all across the airfield. Finally caught up with them in there. And we had one hell of big fight there. Finally, we cleaned them out.

• 1:17:59Shawn Ryan?

  How did you clean them out?

• 1:18:00Speaker 02

  All them out. We cleaned all of the Japs out of, out of the airfield, out of the, sulfur pits. Uh, the Japs had, had kidnapped from different islands that they had been there. And they had, kidnapped a lot of, of, uh, younger boys, younger men, who dived the sulfur pits on it, because that's, that was Iwo Jima's main supplier of, of sulfur

• 1:18:44Speaker 02

  to the Tokyo. And we chased them out, and they went, and, and on those that we didn't kill, they went to, went over to Hill 227, which was the, uh, Moriyama, called Moriyama Village. And chased them over to there. And they were using the Moriyama, airfield

• 1:19:23Speaker 02

  two, 27, as a spotter for the radio station, which was Iwo Jima's radio station, which was shown 228, I think it was. And, uh, the radio station would be broadcasting what was going on, that we were, that they had been chased over there. And they were, they

• 1:19:56Speaker 02

  were spotters for the, uh, for the other caves that were on the island. So this general that had confiscated us, told us to follow him, and his orders, the, the major general's orders were to clear, clear kill. That meant everything, everything, every living thing would be, in our language, were to be killed. So that's what we did. There's only one way

• 1:20:40Speaker 02

  of doing it, the clear cut, as we called it, was to go down the path along the, where the Japanese had made a path all the way down from top to bottom, was to run down and throw hand grenades into the windows and kill everything that was in there.

• 1:21:09Speaker 02

  That's what we did.

• 1:21:13Speaker 02

  Boys, girls, women.

• 1:21:19Speaker 02

  They all went.

• 1:21:22Speaker 02

  God, that was terrible.

• 1:21:25Speaker 02

  We cleared, we cleared them all out of there. We went back up to the, up through the area that we had just tossed our hand grenades into. And

• 1:21:45Speaker 02

  see what we had done and if there was any live ones in there yet.

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  If they were, we would shoot them.

• 1:21:54Speaker 02

  Henry.

• 1:21:58Speaker 02

  God, it never, God. It was bad.

• 1:22:05Speaker 02

  Some of the women were in there, we killed them.

• 1:22:11Speaker 02

  Boys, they were killed. But it was a clear cut.

• 1:22:17Speaker 02

  That was our orders, get rid of them. So we did.

• 1:22:24Speaker 02

  And we got up to the top like that, then

• 1:22:28Speaker 02

  then we had the two twenty-eight, they do the same thing to over. Just kind of like a neighbor area.

• 1:22:40Speaker 02

  And

• 1:22:42Speaker 02

  we had to take them the same way.

• 1:22:48Speaker 02

  My B A R man went inside with his B A R and he liberated. He liquidated everything that was alive and then

• 1:23:06Speaker 02

  it didn't

• 1:23:08Speaker 02

  got rid of all the radios that were on the shelves and stuff, which was a lot on it. They were using

• 1:23:18Speaker 02

  low powered radios to broadcast

• 1:23:23Speaker 02

  what those kids and, and women had seen on the airfield and stuff.

• 1:23:34Shawn Ryan?

  How did you leave Iwo Jima?

• 1:23:36Speaker 02

  It was terrible.

• 1:23:40Speaker 02

  Anyway, we cleaned those out. And

• 1:23:46Speaker 02

  it kind of

• 1:23:49Speaker 02

  just as we was going off of the

• 1:23:56Speaker 02

  off of the hill before we got into the

• 1:24:04Speaker 02

  three, two eighty, three eighty-two, three eighty-two, I think it was, was when I got shot.

• 1:24:13Speaker 02

  Anyway, he

• 1:24:16Speaker 02

  we went through that same way.

• 1:24:21Speaker 02

  And all the women that were killed and stuff and

• 1:24:28Speaker 02

  I think

• 1:24:31Speaker 02

  my own opinion on it.

• 1:24:37Speaker 02

  Japanese used the

• 1:24:40Speaker 02

  women as, they called them comfort girls.

• 1:24:48Speaker 02

  I said, after we took two of those hills.

• 1:24:54Speaker 02

  I think our

• 1:24:58Speaker 02

  officers, head officers, took them as comfort girls too. But that's the reason that

• 1:25:11Speaker 02

  that's one of the reasons, put it that way.

• 1:25:17Speaker 02

  That we had in, you, what they call clear cut.

• 1:25:24Speaker 02

  They wanted them dead as well. That's not, and that wasn't a good thing.

• 1:25:35Speaker 02

  But later on in life,

• 1:25:39Speaker 02

  which is, the Japanese have

• 1:25:44Speaker 02

  apologized for kidnapping all the guys. And, and stuff.

• 1:25:58Speaker 02

  They have apologized

• 1:26:01Speaker 02

  for

• 1:26:06Speaker 02

  getting all those boys and stuff kidnapping them and the women. But they have not.

• 1:26:16Speaker 02

  I repeat, they have not apologized

• 1:26:22Speaker 02

  for kidnapping the women who use as comfort girls.

• 1:26:29Speaker 02

  That's still on the docket. They've apologized now for

• 1:26:39Speaker 02

  just the boys.

• 1:26:43Speaker 02

  And the, and the men that they used for

• 1:26:49Speaker 02

  spies or reports or whatever you want to call it, plus the other things, so.

• 1:26:57Speaker 02

  And I think that's one of the reasons it was ordered

• 1:27:03Speaker 02

  to kill them all. Clear cut.

• 1:27:09Speaker 02

  On one of them, we found a

• 1:27:16Speaker 02

  as we was going through the, my B A R man found one of the guys, somebody was trying to crawl out of the, one of the caves on the bottom of the caves.

• 1:27:33Speaker 02

  So he just, he just

• 1:27:37Speaker 02

  shot off about four or five rounds and and finally found out that that was a guy and his girlfriend. They're digging themselves out of the bottom of one of those caves.

• 1:27:56Speaker 02

  And he shot him.

• 1:28:02Speaker 02

  Now, you know, that's

• 1:28:06Speaker 02

  that happens all the time and

• 1:28:10Speaker 02

  and, and, and, and I, I'm very opposed to it, very opposed to it. And, uh,

• 1:28:22Speaker 02

  I was quieted down once.

• 1:28:28Speaker 02

  I was given I was given an interview

• 1:28:34Speaker 02

  or a paper

• 1:28:37Speaker 02

  on, on happenings. No, probably not one. I'm not, Iwo Jima's happenings when, uh,

• 1:28:50Speaker 02

  uh, one of the

• 1:28:53Speaker 02

  things that we were asked to do.

• 1:29:00Speaker 02

  When we went back to Iwo Jima.

• 1:29:07Speaker 02

  We were asked to describe who we had done. And at the time,

• 1:29:17Speaker 02

  it was still, I was still emotional. Tied to that second period of time, that time when I was and I broke down and started crying.

• 1:29:32Speaker 02

  And it, uh, and I told that asshole, I'm not a person. But

• 1:29:44Speaker 02

  he said, well, I want to know, how were you shot? I said, well, hell, man, I said, how is anybody shot?

• 1:29:52Speaker 02

  I said, I want to tell you what, how I got shot and why. And he wouldn't let me.

• 1:30:01Speaker 02

  And he kept, kept buzzing me on it and buzzing me on it. But I just couldn't take it any longer. I started stopping tears and crying.

• 1:30:12Speaker 02

  Marvin was a

• 1:30:15Speaker 02

  he was away, but he was, he was close by. He started to come over and get me. Just pulling me away from that newspaper guy. And

• 1:30:30Shawn Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:30:30Speaker 02

  I just, I couldn't help it. So he, he was

• 1:30:39Speaker 02

  it's good he couldn't, he got, finally got a hold of me. They pulled me away. He wouldn't let me talk to him.

• 1:30:47Speaker 02

  He wouldn't let me explain why.

• 1:30:55Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:31:41Shawn Ryan?

  training, traveling, working, or sitting down to record a podcast. The optics are razor sharp, there's no glare, and I'm not constantly adjusting them like I am with cheap glasses. And I like that Roka does not look overbuilt. It performs like real gear, but still looks clean enough to wear every day. And if you're outfitting a law enforcement unit, military team, or looking for corporate gifts for your team they'll actually like, Roka has wholesale partnerships too. If you're looking for eyewear that offers protection, comfort, and performance, Roka is it. Ready to upgrade your eyewear? Check them out for yourself at roka.com and use code SRS for 20% off sitewide at checkout. That's roka.com code SRS.

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

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• 1:32:58Shawn Ryan?

  What was it like when you came home?

• 1:33:00Speaker 02

  After I got shot, they, they pulled me over to, he and I, he and my, uh, P A arm and walked, walked back to the, uh, aid station. We got back to the aid station, I fed him, and I went, I, our, our, he and I were together, and we stayed together, and then finally, they, they were looking for all the ambulatory, which he was ambulatory, and I was too, but of course that, but I couldn't do it without help.

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  So, he took off, and he went back on board hospital ship, and I went back on the hospital ship, and I got on, they laid, they, they, they put me on a, a gurney and put me over and, and to, to the hospital ship. I got laid down on the hospital ship, and kept, kept waiting for my, my time to go

• 1:34:23Speaker 02

  into the surgery room, and there's two doctors in the surgery room.

• 1:34:33Speaker 02

  I got, and I got in, they, they looked at my arm, and that was really the only thing that was showing too much was my arm, because it had all the, all the muscle were gone. It was all shot out. And so one doctor said, "Well, we're gonna have to take it off and, well, uh, she can use it better with the, uh, artificial arm." And that woke me up.

• 1:35:19Speaker 02

  So, he started grabbing for the saw to cut my arm off.

• 1:35:31Speaker 02

  About that time, I woke up real good, and I, I, I gave him a right cut, him through his throat, I was gonna kill it, kill him, and he jumped back, and I hit him, knocked him across the room, knocked over the surgical tray.

• 1:35:59Speaker 02

  About that time, two guards came in, and they got a hole in me on both sides, and

• 1:36:09Speaker 02

  they started, I kept yelling, "You're not gonna cut it, you're not gonna cut it."

• 1:36:15Speaker 02

  So, finally, he, he said, "That's ours." Started a couple, or whatever it was at that time, and he says, "We won't cut your arm off." And so that just all calmed me down a little bit, and so, I thought it was pretty good that way.

• 1:36:41Speaker 02

  And I, they bandaged the rest of my chest up, and I had, still had, had my clavicle, but it was still bleeding, I guess.

• 1:37:07Speaker 02

  Anyway, put me back on the, on the, on the gurney, and, uh, put me back out, because I thought, I figured, well, let's take care of that. About that time, I looked at my tag, say, "Whenever you get wounded or something like that, and I beat, and I, hey, uh, corpsman takes care of you. He puts down what he did."

• 1:37:47Speaker 02

  You know, you gave him a shot of morphine, or two, or whatever it was, and they bandaged it up and all that.

• 1:37:57Speaker 02

  And then that way, the next person that, uh, sees you, they, they know, they can just look at that and see what, what it is and what's happened, so, and what they did, so you don't get over, overmedicated.

• 1:38:16Speaker 02

  So I looked at it and medicated, I looked at my tag, and I, I thought I was gonna see GSW's gunshot wound, right chest, left chest, but all it said was combat fatigue. That was it.

• 1:38:42Speaker 02

  I said, "For hell, that's, that shouldn't be," you know? Anyway, four other docs, four other hospitals, they put me back on the hospital ship, and I went back over to Saipan, and I went to, uh, another, another place, and then finally went over to Honolulu, on a army doctor, on, but they, all they would do, they'd take

• 1:39:17Speaker 02

  me off my gurney and put me on the deck, and then they'd, uh, look at my card, and they're trying, it says combat fatigue. Well, move him over there, there, other nuts.

• 1:39:36Speaker 02

  And then picked me up, put me over there with them. And there were four different, four other different hospitals that didn't ask me or anything, they just look at the card, and that's what it said, combat fatigue. So, they put me in the wrong reward, got me the wrong, the ward, the long, wrong, the

• 1:40:11Speaker 02

  wrong lord, law, uh, long ward, on, four or five times, on.

• 1:40:24Speaker 02

  And finally, they gave me into the, to the nut ward, as they called it, and the night where light went on, because it was getting dark for that time, and I thought, I thought I had been, I had peed in bed or something, because I was getting, I was laying there, it was getting kind of warm and, and liquid.

• 1:41:01Speaker 02

  So I yelled for the night nurse, she came over, pulled the covers back, and then...

• 1:41:14Speaker 02

  Saw what was going on and she put the covers back on top of me and went in there and got a doctor and came back. And he had said previously that he was going to perform a tap. Cause he could, with a stethoscope, he could hear the the water or whatever in my chest. So he wanted to perform a tap. Now tap meant that he had to stick, after I asked for the nurses of what it was.

• 1:41:58Speaker 02

  And he said, you stick a needle in your back or your front, he'd want your chest and drain all the liquid out of your chest. So I said, well, that would be pretty good. I thought that it would hurt like that. Anyway, they came over and they pulled the covers off of me. And I was laying there in blood. I wasn't, I wasn't laying in water or urine.

• 1:42:37Speaker 02

  My chest had drained out and on the, and I was laying there in blood from the, from this shot in the chest in my clavicle or whatever it was, lungs or whatever. And they put something in there and he cleaned it off, cleaned it out and he said, well, we won't perform a tap on it. So he, he didn't.

• 1:43:21Speaker 02

  But no one has checked my chest since I left the Regina. I have fluid, I have blood, I should say, in my stool. And I keep trying to tell them, tell them that ain't anything but blood. Check it. No one would listen to me.

• 1:44:05Speaker 02

  They still haven't listened to me. I was in two weeks ago and they, they all, they say, oh, you have, you have blood in your stool. I says, damn it, look at my chest. Well, that's another department. So I'm still sitting there with, I have to wear a diaper because of that. I still got blood in my stool. I said, why don't they check my chest?

• 1:44:50Speaker 02

  That's where I'm sitting there, I still got, and of course, I got the breakdown I had in, and before I went in for the final one. There's another thing too.

• 1:45:07Shawn Ryan?

  Frank, want a drink?

• 1:45:13Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:45:14Shawn Ryan?

  Just take a drink. Cheers. Do you have a message for young Marines today?

• 1:45:30Speaker 02

  I, the last time I talked to the young Marines, I was with the, one, one time I

• 1:45:45Shawn Ryan?

  Do you?

• 1:45:46Speaker 02

  I was in the airfield office and waiting to go aboard plane. And there's a lot of young kids that came over and we were all standing in the line out there. Our commander was taking them to that place and I told him, I says, one thing remember, always do what your DI or your trainer is doing for you.

• 1:46:30Speaker 02

  They've been there, they've done that. Don't put that aside, but remember, remember what your DI says. I did that for one reason because I was a drill instructor for six months on my, my four-year tour. And I wanted to know that that's what I told my kids. That's what their DI usually tells them. Remember what they said on it. They train you.

• 1:47:13Speaker 02

  They've been there, they know how to handle themselves. Listen to them. Tell that to all of, everybody that I've seen so far.

• 1:47:26Shawn Ryan?

  What message do you have for Marines that are seeking help?

• 1:47:31Speaker 02

  That are what?

• 1:47:32Shawn Ryan?

  Looking for help.

• 1:47:35Speaker 02

  Well, I'll tell you, there again, listen to the patient. Patient knows his body. I, I knew something was wrong, but of course I can't tell them that. And it's hard, and it's hard when you're, when you're trying to keep your cool and then, and tell, tell the doctor or officer, he's wrong. You just don't do that in Marine Corps.

• 1:48:18Shawn Ryan?

  I have a quote here from you.

• 1:48:20Speaker 02

  What?

• 1:48:22Shawn Ryan?

  It says, if you need help, seek it out.

• 1:48:26Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. God's there. Don't take it yourself, son. Seek help, ask someone. Doesn't matter who it is, but tell someone and let them know what you feel and how you feel. They can tell, some of them can tell. But, but tell somebody. Don't do it yourself. God gave you a good body and he's going to keep it for you.

• 1:49:11Shawn Ryan?

  Frank, I just want to say it was an honor to interview you and thank you for your service. Seriously, it was, it was my honor. Thank you.

• 1:49:22Speaker 02

  Thank you, sir.

• 1:49:23Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you for your service.

• 1:49:25Speaker 02

  Thank you. You've got to raise your handshake.

• 1:49:32Shawn Ryan?

  God bless.

• 1:49:34Speaker 02

  We're gone.

• 1:49:47Shawn Ryan?

  No matter where you're watching the Sean Ryan Show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything, please like, comment, and subscribe. And most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review.

• 1:50:11Speaker 01

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