417: Nikki Stratton—All the Gallant Men

Nikki Stratton is the granddaughter of Pearl Harbor survivor Donald Stratton. Donald was a sailor aboard the ill-fated USS Arizona on December 7, 1941, and wrote the book All the Gallant Men https://www.amazon.com/s?k=all+the+gallant+men+by+donald+stratton&crid=23SFYYL3BSNSC&sprefix=all+the+gallan%2Caps%2C166&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_14 to recount the event. Nikki is the sponsor of the soon-to-be-commissioned nuclear submarine SSN Arizona. Every ship in the US Navy has a female sponsor who has a plethora of duties, including christening the ship. Nikki recounts her grandfather's harrowing escape from the burning USS Arizona and breaks down all of her duties as sponsor of the SSN Arizona.

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

• 0:04Mike Rowe?

  Hey guys, me again with another episode of The Way I Heard It. This one is called "All the Gallant Men" with Nikki Stratton. Chuck, you've done it again. You've found a guest that I absolutely love with a story that absolutely needs to be shared.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Good story.

• 0:20Mike Rowe?

  I've reached out to our audience and I didn't want to share this with you. I was gonna save it for Christmas, but we've decided to keep you on for another month.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. This is good news.

• 0:31Mike Rowe?

  It is good news. December 7th is upon us and Nikki Stratton is a woman who is the sponsor of the new USS Arizona or SSN Arizona.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  That is correct, which stands for?

• 0:49Mike Rowe?

  Submersible Ship Nuclear?

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Yes!

• 0:53Mike Rowe?

  Well, we'll sort of fumble through that in the conversation you're about to hear.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Yes, we do.

• 0:58Mike Rowe?

  But of course, the USS Arizona famously sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor. I don't call it a battle. Some people chided me for that historically, but I think it was more of an attack than a battle.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  It was a surprise attack, a dirty, stinking, you know, kick you in the you-know-what's attack.

• 1:20Mike Rowe?

  Go ahead, say it. Say it. It was, man. What happened in Pearl Harbor on the 7th of December 1941 is infuriating and I was so struck in reading this book by Nikki's grandfather, Donald Stratton, "All the Gallant Men." I was struck to learn some things, to relearn some things in a way that somehow made me angry.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:45Mike Rowe?

  It made me angry, just the pure horror of this attack and the way that I'm afraid we forget, you know, it's always never forget. Oh, we'll never forget this, but we do, man, because we can't live with that level of jaggedness and that kind of constant outrage. It's not good for us, but we can't forget, man. And this book will remind a whole new generation of what happened that day through the eyes of a man who survived against odds. Guys, I am telling you. It's a miracle he lived. It's a miracle he lived to 96, I believe.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Yes, uh huh.

• 2:28Mike Rowe?

  This book is a miracle and the fact that his granddaughter is now the sponsor of the ship that he occupied 80 some years ago. It really is a total circle and I just think you're gonna like this woman.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  She is a great spokesperson for the event. She is the reason that people will never forget Pearl Harbor because she's carrying her grandfather's story on and as long as the SSN Arizona, when it finally is christened and launched.

• 3:02Mike Rowe?

  2027, I think.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, when it should be done. As long as that's around, it's, you know, the story is gonna live on. Hopefully it's gonna live on forever, but she is gonna help make that happen. It's personal to her. She sat on this man's knee and listened to him tell stories about what happened on that ship.

• 3:19Mike Rowe?

  But not the whole story.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:22Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, you know, this is the thing about guys like Stratton and so many of the greatest generation, they just, they hide it under a bushel and they do it, I think, in some cases just for self-preservation and for some cases out of genuine modesty and just a desire to move on from that hellscape, but you just have to really understand on a human individual micro level. World War II was macro. It was the whole world.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:54Mike Rowe?

  Right? What happened at Pearl was micro and what happened to Donald Stratton.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Super micro.

• 4:00Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. It's a story that you need to hear. The book is called All the Gallant Men and we'll talk about why as we get into it, but I can't recommend it enough. It's terrific and so is the woman you're about to meet. Nikki Stratton. Stand by for her right after this.

• 4:21Mike Rowe?

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• 5:52Mike Rowe?

  This is so cool. First of all, you came bearing gifts.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Yes, I did.

• 5:56Mike Rowe?

  And I haven't looked in the bag yet. I'm gonna look now because of, first of all, very patriotic, bunting tissue paper.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  Thank you very much. So that's actually a crew hat. So that's the same hat that the crew wears on their daily rounds and duties. So you are an official member of the USS Arizona Crew.

• 6:16Mike Rowe?

  One size fits most, I see.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  I hope so.

• 6:19Mike Rowe?

  What a relief that is. Because my head is larger than the average. These out here, what do we have here? Shirt?

• 6:27Speaker 02

  Yes, so that was actually designed by the crew as well. So the Arizona is kind of, they want it to be kind of the ghost of the ocean because of the new VPN module, which I'm sure we're going to talk about later.

• 6:37Mike Rowe?

  The VPN module?

• 6:38Speaker 02

  VPN module.

• 6:39Mike Rowe?

  What's that stand for?

• 6:40Speaker 02

  Virginia Payload Module.

• 6:41Mike Rowe?

  I have so many questions. There you go. All right. And then we have this.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  So that's a challenge coin. That's actually my personal sponsor, Challenge Coin. And so it's actually in the shape of Arizona. On the first foreside, you have the original Battleship Arizona, as she was December 6, 1941. And then you have the Tree of Life, which is actually on the USS Arizona Memorial. And then when you flip it on the other side, you have the Future Submarine. So you have past and future.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  You're holding it sideways.

• 7:08Mike Rowe?

  I got a lot going on, dude. Okay, I got hats, I got shirts, I have this thing in my other hand.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  So that is the USS Arizona coin for Electric Boat. They're the ones that are actively building the submarine at the moment.

• 7:19Mike Rowe?

  Oh my God, that's amazing. And this?

• 7:20Speaker 02

  That is the very first Challenge Coin from the USS Arizona. It is, they're collector's items. I think they've only made like 50 or 100 of them. So only a handful of people actually will get those.

• 7:32Mike Rowe?

  All right, that's everything.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  I think there should be a patch in there, too. But it might be buried somewhere deep in there.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  It's rectangular.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Hopefully there's a patch in there.

• 7:48Mike Rowe?

  I don't know.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 7:50Mike Rowe?

  I don't know, I got a shirt. Ah!

• 7:52Speaker 02

  It was in your lap. So that's a crew patch. They actually wear those on their uniforms. It denotes that they are part of SSN 803, which is obviously the name of USS Arizona. They actually did colorize versions of those, but I figured the military patches were.

• 8:06Mike Rowe?

  I can't see SSN and see anything other than the social security number.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a hard one to get over.

• 8:11Mike Rowe?

  What's the official acronym stand for?

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Uh...

• 8:14Mike Rowe?

  Sailing Ship?

• 8:16Speaker 02

  Oh gosh, you're putting me on the... Yes, Subsurface Navy, I believe.

• 8:21Mike Rowe?

  Oh, so this is for the new Arizona?

• 8:23Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 8:23Mike Rowe?

  Okay, I got it. And this is your new husband, Mike?

• 8:26Speaker 02

  This is my new husband, Mike, yeah.

• 8:27Mike Rowe?

  Reclining and resplendent in a Davenport that's not my own. When I heard that you guys were willing to fly in from Denver to talk about your pops, I was like, well, let's please make that happen. So first and foremost, thank you for coming and thank you for the lovely gifts.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  Yes, you bet. Thank you for having me and appreciating that, you know, originally we wanted to do this in December, but I was going to be in Hawaii in December. So I appreciate the flexibility.

• 8:50Mike Rowe?

  All right, having said all of that, your pop.

• 8:55Mike Rowe?

  My business, such as it is, my career such as it is, happened because of my granddad, who was a giant inspiration in my life. And I am reading Donald Stratton's book, Your Grandfather, All the Gallant Men. As you can see, I'm probably four fifths of the way through. And I started making marks, Nikki, about passages I might want to read aloud, ask you about specifically, and realized that the entire thing was marked up. That's not going to happen. But there are so many things in this book that absolutely took my breath away. And the crazy thing about it is, while I learned a lot of things I didn't know, the things I read about that I did know landed with such a wallop.

• 9:40Mike Rowe?

  I know the Arizona. I know what happened to it. I've been there. I've looked at it. I had all that. But reading about it from your grandfather's perspective, it's breathtaking. And I can't even imagine how proud you must be, not only of your new position vis a vis your relationship to him, but just by sheer nature of the DNA you were so fortunate to inherit.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  I'm so grateful. I mean, he has been my hero since I was very little. And it was one of those things where, when you looked at him, you never knew that he was, had survived such a catastrophic event in history, was a part of such an incredible moment, inflection point in our history. I mean, you could see the burns on his hands, but he acted just like everybody else. He still had a great sense of humor and, you know, he never really wore anything that kind of indicated that he was a Pearl Harbor survivor, let alone a USS Arizona survivor.

• 10:31Mike Rowe?

  There was another terrific book that this reminded me of a little bit around that point exactly, it was called Unbroken.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Great movie, too.

• 10:41Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Lamparini, was it?

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Lamparini, yeah. Escaped from a POW camp.

• 10:46Mike Rowe?

  The fact that he did all that and survived is enough, but the fact that it didn't break him. That it made him even, it made all the good things about him even better. You know, that's something.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  You have to remember, he was an 18-year-old kid. He had just come out of the depression. I mean, the depression era forged that generation into just, you know, steel. I mean, there was just no way of breaking them because of the depression. And so, he was an 18-year-old kid. He was burned over 65% of his body. He, basically, the Navy said, "Thank you for your service. You're done." And then he was like, "I'm not ready to let go yet." And he re-enlisted and went right back into war and finished out World War II after being burned as badly as he was.

• 11:23Mike Rowe?

  Steel sharpens steel.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Yes, it does.

• 11:25Mike Rowe?

  So, he's there at the beginning, and he was really there at the end off Okinawa, right?

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Yes, he was. He started the war and finished the war.

• 11:32Mike Rowe?

  Okay. So, I hate to ask you this because I know you've been over it a thousand times, but so our listeners understand. Who was your pop? Was it Red Cloud?

• 11:42Speaker 02

  Red Cloud, Nebraska.

• 11:43Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:44Mike Rowe?

  I mean, Dust Bowl stuff.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  100% Dust Bowl, yeah.

• 11:48Mike Rowe?

  All right. So, how did he grow up? How did he get into the service? And what in the world did he see on 7th December?

• 11:55Speaker 02

  It's, that last question is very loaded, but we'll start at the beginning. My grandfather was born in Red Cloud, Nebraska. It was a town of maybe 100 people, 200 people. It's, you know, it's slightly bigger today. I think they're over 1,000, but, you know, not really a ton bigger. He was born in a one-bedroom, two-bedroom farmhouse. He shared a bedroom with his brother and sister. Grew up on a farm, working outside. Really wasn't a lot to be had. And, you know, when he was, oh, gosh, I want to say 13 or so, the Great Depression started. And so, that started putting everybody out of work. There was food shortages. There was work shortages, everything, and...

• 12:31Mike Rowe?

  Again, this is a thing that everybody listening has heard of.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:35Mike Rowe?

  And it's a thing that everybody listening thinks they have some sort of intellectual understanding of. But you can't.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  You can't. Yeah. Then you have this dust bowl that happened and basically, you know, dust storms covered, I think, what was it, forty, forty-five percent of middle America. Basically, crops became pulp overnight. There was crops that were completely covered in dust where you couldn't even see over the top of them. And so, I mean, that's the Americas, what little food that we had during the depression wiped out every other food sources. And I think just kind of in the Nebraska area alone, I believe that the dust storms actually killed around 7,000 people due to starvation because there just, there wasn't enough food to go around. And so.

• 13:16Mike Rowe?

  Worth pointing out, too, that this is not a time where, unlike today, what, one and a half percent of the country feeds 330 million people, right? Back then, there was a lot more farmland.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  A lot more farmland.

• 13:29Mike Rowe?

  And there were a lot more people who really lived specifically on the food they grew. And so, the whole ecosystem was just so much more intense and so much more personal. So, yeah, this was not a thing that happened to other people.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  It was, it was the 1930s. There was no fast food. I mean, the Great Depression just wiped out everything. So, if you did manage to go into a grocery store, you'd be lucky if they had basic needs like flour. You know, my grandfather remembers surviving on a piece of bread with butter and maybe a glass of milk from their cow a day. That's one meal a day that they survived off of. And this was still while trying to work the fields on what area that they could that hadn't been affected by the dust storms. But you also have to remember when those dust storms came in, you know, there was no protection. They didn't have masks. They didn't, there was no way to kind of get around it. And so, you know, dust got in house, it got under plates, it got in the food, but mostly it got into the immune system. My, my grandfather's sister had a compromised

• 14:27Speaker 02

  immune system because she was breathing in the dust. And I mean, she never, her lungs never really functioned right after that.

• 14:32Mike Rowe?

  Oh, God. It's just, it's so insidious. It's in your eyes. Your nose, your ears.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:39Mike Rowe?

  It just gets in everywhere.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  It's kind of like rolling around in a thing of dirt and, you know, seeing what you breathe in and then your eyes get all crusty and gross.

• 14:46Mike Rowe?

  It just must be, you know, again, I'm saying something kind of obvious, but to be a grown up and suddenly be confronted with this incredible change of circumstance, it's probably more terrifying in some ways than being a 13-year-old kid or younger and not having too much, right? I mean, you haven't been around long enough to be sufficiently freaked out by the weirdness of it, but still you have to adapt.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  You absolutely do have to adapt and you also have to remember, at least in the rural ports of America, most houses didn't have electricity. So my grandfather's farmhouse did not have electricity and it didn't have indoor plumbing. And so as these dust storms were raging and as, you know, things were going on, they still had to go outside to go to the bathroom and then when they came back in, there was no light. So they basically just kind of had to feel around where they were. They probably had some small lanterns, but no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no toilet paper. I mean, toilet paper was a luxury at that point. And so I would say 90% of homes at that point had no toilet paper. So they used to use pages of the Sears catalog.

• 15:49Mike Rowe?

  I'd always heard it, but your pop actually writes in some detail about it.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Yes, he does. Yes, he does.

• 15:54Mike Rowe?

  Wow. And yet, for all of that hardship, one of the first things that strikes me in the book is how painful it was to leave home, to leave all that dust, to leave what you know and basically muster out, right?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, at that point, as the Great Depression had finally had finished its course in a town of less than 500 people, not a ton of jobs for a 16, 17, 18-year-old kid. And so he ended up was running mail to and from the local theater and then wandered in and saw some of the colorized posters that are kind of iconic of World War II of a big old battleship. And so he walked into the Navy office and got some information and took it back home to mom and dad and said, well, it's a job. I would get paid $20 a month, which if you think about that today, how many people have $20 in their pocket right now and will spend that on? Coffee or whatever, twenty dollars a month for him. And a lot of those guys at that time would send, I would say eighty to ninety percent of that money back home.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  You know, because they needed it more than they did. Obviously, the military took care of food, lodging and all of that, so they sent most of that home. Took that back to my great grandmother and said, this is a chance for me. I want to explore the world. I want to see the world outside of Red Cloud. And, you know, he used to read all of the time and one of his favorite books was Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. And so he wanted to be like Captain Nemo. Little did we know later in his life, he was very much like Captain Nemo, but we'll go through that a little bit later. But he's like, this is something I really want to do. And my great grandfather was in World War One. He was in the trenches and actually had some damage to his lungs. And obviously, as we know it today, PTSD. And so my grandmother was very hesitant to allow my grandfather to go.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  Just because she knows how my great grandfather was with his nightmares and his lungs and all of that.

• 17:42Mike Rowe?

  Back when they called it shell shock.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Shell shock, exactly. But, you know, my grandfather was very persistent. He was a very stubborn man. I think our entire family has inherited that trait of being stubborn. And so she said, okay, she said, you can go enlist. And so he enlisted and, you know, as he was walking out the bus to catch the bus. She sent him off with a pocket Bible. It was, I believe, the New Testament pocket Bible, because she was very religious. And gave him a hug and said, you know, there's a couple of snacks for the road. And then my great grandfather said, basically, like, keep your nose out of trouble and stay out of the brothels. That was his advice to my grandfather, to make sure that he kept his nose clean.

• 18:25Mike Rowe?

  You could have condensed it and just gone with keep your nose out of the brothels.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  He was keeping more than his nose clean.

• 18:33Mike Rowe?

  So what was the state of recruitment like prior to the war?

• 18:40Mike Rowe?

  Were they leaning on people to encouraging people to enlist?

• 18:44Speaker 02

  Not really. They really weren't leaning on it just because they, at the time, the Americans wanted to stay out of the conflict, both on the Pacific side and obviously the European side. So there really wasn't a huge push to recruit, but at the same time, they used kind of the depression as, hey, this is a job. This is $20 a month. This is free room and board. This is, you can see, chance to see the world, to get out of your small town and to kind of see the world. And so that was kind of where their recruitment tactics were.

• 19:14Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Okay. So for a long list of reasons, he decides to leave everything he knows and loves, to go out there and have his adventure. But he doesn't go straight to Hawaii, right?

• 19:23Speaker 02

  He does not. So he started his training, so his boot camp in the Great Lakes facility, which is actually still in existence today, virtually, I would say, almost very similar to what it was in 1941. I'm sure they have a few upgrades. And then he headed out to a place called Bremerton, Washington Shipyard. And the very first time that he actually saw an ocean was at the Puget Sound. So in Great Lakes, they have him training, but it's on a lake, so it's not necessarily the same as the ocean. So the very first time he had ever seen an ocean was when he saw the USS Arizona. And it was actually pulled out of the water in dry dock. And so it was almost like 20 feet overhead. And like, you can see the bow, you can see the stern, you can see the underneath piece of it, you can see the, like, the beam line all the way through. They were retrofitting her and painting her.

• 20:07Mike Rowe?

  A mighty ship.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  A mighty ship, yes.

• 20:09Mike Rowe?

  And one that had been around, though. It wasn't just built for the war. This thing had been, what, 1914 or something like that?

• 20:14Speaker 02

  I believe it was commissioned in 1916 in the Brooklyn Shipyard.

• 20:18Mike Rowe?

  Wow.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  So it was part of World War I, but didn't really see any action. It did, I believe, escort President Hoover over to the Paris Peace Accords when they happened.

• 20:27Mike Rowe?

  So it goes through a boot camp, which is instructive

• 20:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:31Mike Rowe?

  in the book. And he checks all the boxes. And does he get to Hawaii on the Arizona?

• 20:37Speaker 02

  He does. So his, basically, out of boot camp, his first and only ship for his first time around in the Navy was the Arizona. So he hopped on out of Bremerton. They actually didn't go to Hawaii right away. They were on the coast of California, so they were kind of Sailing up and down California, working on maneuvers. And basically, he was learning his battle station. He was a portside anti-aircraft director setter. So his, basically, his job was to kind of point the anti-aircraft guns and then he lets them know and fire. But as and true in the Navy, you have multiple jobs. And so one of the things that they had him do, and he actually volunteered for one time and one time only, was towing a motorized skiff out to sea about 15 miles away from the Arizona.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  And behind it was a floating target. And so the Arizona would use their 15-inch guns, 14-inch guns, and they would fire to hit that floating target. And so he said the Arizona's guns were so accurate that they could hit that target from 15 miles away, dead center. And he said it nearly capsized him in the skiff with his two crewmates. And he said, out of all the jobs in the Navy, he said, playing target was not his favorite.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Wait a minute, he's in a skiff dragging the target behind him? Like, how far behind?

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Uh, I would say probably a couple hundred feet. Not far enough. It was close enough to where, like, the boat nearly capsized.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  That is a dangerous job.

• 21:56Mike Rowe?

  Well, the thing that strikes me is just the sheer wonder of it all for this kid from the middle of a Dust Bowl, essentially, one minute and the next minute. It would be like seeing a, like a spaceship or something. So it's just the technology, the massiveness of it. All those other men, the camaraderie, the band, everything. It must have been just, how do you process that?

• 22:23Speaker 02

  I mean, for an 18-year-old kid, he was free for the first time in his life, really. And he was surrounded by young kids his age who had dealt with the exact same things that he had dealt with. And they grew up in the Dust Bowl, they grew up in, you know, the Depression. And so they were all looking for the same escape. They all wanted a job. They all wanted to contribute to their country. And so this was the way that they could.

• 22:47Mike Rowe?

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• 23:31Mike Rowe?

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• 24:16Speaker 02

  They pulled into Hawaii, I believe, later that summer. You know, I always liken this to like the Dorothy, like the Wizard of Oz. And so for him, you know, being in Nebraska, where it's gray and it's brown, and it's like those are kind of like the colors that you see, with the exception of a random green here and there with the corn. But when you pull into Hawaii, it almost turns into like a technicolor type deal, where you see more colors of fish than he ever knew existed. Like the watercolor was completely different than he had ever seen. And so it was very much like Dorothy, you know, stepping into the world of Oz when that color change happens.

• 24:51Mike Rowe?

  Not in Kansas anymore.

• 24:53Speaker 02

  Very much so, yeah. Very much so.

• 24:55Mike Rowe?

  Uh, so this would have been early in 1941?

• 25:00Speaker 02

  Uh, yes, early 1941.

• 25:02Mike Rowe?

  Okay, so he's there in Hawaii, he gets used to it enough. Does he go native? Is he, I mean, do you get soft, I wonder? I mean, you're stationed in Hawaii, you're not really at war. It's just, and the temptations, I'm just thinking of those brothels.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  You know, Hotel Street was very popular with the sailors, as, you know, I'm sure a lot of the stories have said. And Hotel Street actually still, the street itself actually exists today in Hawaii. There's the original USS Arizona bar, Smith Union, it still exists there, it's still a bar, owned and operated by a man who loves the Arizona. That virtually hasn't changed. My grandfather was a very, he took his father's vice to heart. I think really the only like crazy thing, I guess, if you could call it that, that he did at that time was he got a tattoo. So the very first tattoo he got were a pair of swallows on his arm. And swallows are very unique to naval culture.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  And then as he kind of progressed through his naval career, he ended up with a full Spanish galleon ship on his chest. So that's kind of where he went.

• 26:07Mike Rowe?

  Wow, from a couple of swallows to a galleon.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 26:11Mike Rowe?

  I want the whole ship.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 26:12Mike Rowe?

  What is the significance of the swallow?

• 26:14Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, I can't remember offhand, but I believe swallows indicate the safe passage both outward going and coming back. But don't quote me on that, I'm not 100% sure.

• 26:24Mike Rowe?

  All right.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  I'll have to look that up.

• 26:26Mike Rowe?

  So, there he is, doing his thing, biding his time, living the life. And December 6th comes along, he goes to bed, next morning, that's not in the playbook.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  Not in the playbook at all. His best friend that he worked with, Harrell Nelson, had actually gotten sick and was in sickbay about a week beforehand. And so my grandfather got up very early because he was going to go to church, it was a Sunday. He was going to go to church on the fantail of the Arizona. And he ended up having some, an early breakfast and grabbed some oranges and was getting ready to head down into sickbay to go see Harrell. But unfortunately, he never made it. And the sirens started blaring for the attack on Pearl Harbor. So he ended up dropping his hat full of oranges and sprinting to his battle station. And thankfully, he made it there unscathed, but some of his shipmates did not.

• 27:16Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, unscathed is not really a word that applies to that day, it seems like. I mean, everybody got a little something on them. The lucky ones did, anyway. But there were.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  I just looked up the swallows.

• 27:29Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  And it says that sailors earn a new swallow tattoo for every 5,000 nautical miles traveled, which is about 5,754 regular miles.

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Okay, very cool.

• 27:39Mike Rowe?

  Oh, there you go.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  There we go.

• 27:41Mike Rowe?

  There was no talk of tattoos on that morning.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  No talk of tattoos.

• 27:44Mike Rowe?

  In fact, I dare say many were burned off.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  I would say the majority of my grandfather's tattoos were burned off. So when I knew him as a person who could appreciate that, I would say pretty much all the tattoos on his arms were gone. The swallows did survive because they were on the underside of his arm, but for the most part, the majority of the gallionship was kind of there, not all there, but the rest of his tattoos were not.

• 28:11Mike Rowe?

  The account in the book, and he wrote this with, he had some help, I assume, Ken?

• 28:16Speaker 02

  Ken Geyer, yes.

• 28:18Mike Rowe?

  I'm curious about how they collaborated on this. It's so tight. Didn't you think, Chuck, reading, it just... I'm surprised at how quickly I was turning the pages on a story that I already knew.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  It's a very easy read.

• 28:31Mike Rowe?

  It is easy, but it's horrifying. It's horrifying in both the detail and the simplicity. You know, it's almost like the sentences are, it's almost Hemingway-esque. It's very short.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:48Mike Rowe?

  And my skin fell off. What?

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:52Mike Rowe?

  It's like sentence after sentence. And the exponential effect of that is really one of immersion. They did a great job.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  The book itself is a testament, not only to my grandfather's story, but to Ken Geyer, and that's because he really listened to my grandfather. So Ken would come over to my grandfather's house. He was 91, 92 at this point, so he was well into his 90s. He basically said, "Okay, nobody can be in the house when we talk. It's just you and me, Don." And a lot of that is because he wanted my grandfather to feel safe, and he did not want any disruptions and distractions. Because you know, when you're a person who has been in a situation like my grandfather, yes, you can kind of talk about it and you can kind of gloss over to the fact, the fact of everything that happened, but Ken wanted to go deeper. And he knew that if my grandmother there was there, my father was there,

• 29:42Speaker 02

  that my grandfather would not be able to slip into the psyche of a 19 year old kid and really get into the nitty gritty details of what he remembers. And so I think it took him two to three weeks, every single day of Ken coming over to the house. And basically my ma or my dad and my grandmother would leave the house and they would come back four or five hours later and they'd asked how it goes. And my grandfather would be like, it was fine. Um, and so basically the reason why you see short sentences like my skin fell off is because that is my grandfather's voice. That's how he was. That's how he spoke.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:18Mike Rowe?

  I won't ask you to go through all the nit and all the grit, but had he talked to you about this beforehand? Joe George, for instance, and the neighboring ship, what was it, the Vals?

• 30:31Speaker 02

  The Vestal.

• 30:32Mike Rowe?

  The Vestal and, and the captain over there and the insubordination that ultimately led to his survival. That's an amazing story. Yeah, I would like for people to at least know that. Spoiler alert, folks, but it's important.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  I mean, no matter how many times I tell it, it's always going to be, the core of the story is the same, but obviously the details, you know, just kind of depending on, on who I'm talking to, I'm trying to, you know, tailor it to whom I'm talking to. But there was a neighboring ship called the USS Vestal. It was a repair ship. It was moored alongside the Arizona. It was still fixing some of the hull damage that the Arizona had had when it hit the Oklahoma on November 22nd.

• 31:10Mike Rowe?

  It wasn't supposed to be.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  Correct. Yeah, it wasn't supposed to be in Pearl Harbor because it was actually on its, should have been on its way back to Bremerton, Washington for a complete overhaul. But as they were doing maneuvers, the Oklahoma rammed right into her side. And she was like listing, I think, 30% of the ship. And so thankfully they were able to fix most of that and she got back into Pearl Harbor. And so the Vestal was actually, you know, fixing the rest of that damage. And there was a man by the name of Joe George, and I should preface this by saying, our family had no idea who this man was. We didn't know his name. We knew he existed. We just, we didn't know where he's from. We didn't know his name. So for the majority of my life, he was just a guy. He was the guy. And so sailor-

• 31:53Mike Rowe?

  The guy in a story that you've heard around the edges.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And so Joe George, he was a sailor aboard the Vestal. He was the heavyweight champion of the Navy. He was a boxer and so absolutely loved to fight. And I always say, what Joe loved more than fighting inside the ring was fighting outside of the ring. And so on December 6th, actually December 5th, Joe was in a bout with the Marine Corps, and it was heavyweight versus heavyweight, and it was touted as the, you know, the biggest fight of the century. And Joe ended up knocking the guy out, and I think, under a minute. It was heralded to be this long, brutal bout. And so Joe just was like, I'm not going to deal with that and just knock the guy out. And so he did what any other sailor would do after winning a bout. He went out to the bars and celebrated.

• 32:42Mike Rowe?

  Sure.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  And so him and his buddies were out, and some sailors from the Marine Corps came into the bar they were in. They objected of his knockout of their sailor, and Joe did what anybody else would do. He started a fight and knocked the one that spoke up first cold on the floor. So he took on, I think, three or four sailors, knocked him out, knocked him around, took a couple punches himself. MPs were called. He was taken aback aboard the Vestal. His commanding officer was like, that's it. That's enough. This is your third strike, or whatever it was. You're going to face the summary court martial in the morning. We're going to put you in the brig until Monday morning, which you'll, when you'll get your summary court martial. So Joe's in the brig, and they actually ended up letting him out on Sunday morning, early. He doesn't know why. We still don't know why, but they

• 33:26Speaker 02

  let him out. Maybe the captain had a change of heart or something like that.

• 33:29Mike Rowe?

  Before the attack?

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Before the attack. They let him out right before the attack.

• 33:32Mike Rowe?

  That's crazy, because a summary court martial basically would mean you're essentially guilty.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  Pretty much, yep.

• 33:37Mike Rowe?

  Like, we've just-

• 33:38Speaker 02

  We're done with you. We're washing your hands of you.

• 33:39Mike Rowe?

  You're guilty on the face of it. And later we'll have a little ceremony where we'll check the box and go directly-

• 33:45Speaker 02

  He knew his life in the Navy was over. So, summary court martial, you're done in the Navy, dishonorably discharged. He knew it was coming. December 7th happened, so he was let out early that morning. As he was walking back to his bunk, that's when the alarm started blaring. That's when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened. So, Joe, being a man who was facing a court martial, you know, did what any man would do. He joined the fight. He picked up an axe and started fighting fires. He started trying to get some of the lines cut from the Arizona. Cause they were tied along each other.

• 34:16Mike Rowe?

  Absolute sitting ducks.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  Absolute sitting ducks.

• 34:18Mike Rowe?

  Tied to each other.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  Tied to each other.

• 34:20Mike Rowe?

  Complete sneak attack.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Cold boilers, no engines. I mean, it would take three to four hours for those boilers and those engines to get going if they really needed to get going. So, lucky enough that I believe it was the Nevada was the only one that had her engines up and running and they were able to kind of get out and run aground and so they didn't block the channel, but.

• 34:37Mike Rowe?

  Interesting too to point out, zeros are coming in just over the surface, dropping torpedo bombs in a way that makes it almost impossible to hit them.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  Exactly. I mean, my grandfather mentions in his book and was very candid about this. He could actually see the whites of the pilots' eyes. He could see them smiling.

• 34:55Mike Rowe?

  Smiling.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  And laughing as they gunned down sailors.

• 34:58Mike Rowe?

  Because the torpedoes are slamming into the boats and then they're strafing the sailors who are running around trying to deal with it. Meanwhile, the guys who are on the guns can see the bombers way up there, but they're out of range.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the fuse timers, the high altitude shells that they used at the time had fuse timers. And so they were bursting before they reached the right altitude in order to hit those bombers. And so what they did is they had to lengthen the fuse and then try again. But because the attack happened, you know, the fuel and the ammunition and stuff was not being loaded and sent up. And so one of the guys in my grandfather's director actually left to go get more ammunition and he was never seen again.

• 35:41Mike Rowe?

  Wow. Okay, so the attack's underway. Joe George, for reasons we don't understand, has been released from the brig aboard the Vestal. Your granddad is in a state of absolute pandemonium. Couple thousand sailors running here and there, trying to make sense of what's going on. And then the big one hits.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  And then the big one hits. It hit on the forward part of the magazine. It basically went through a number of decks into the lower part of the Arizona where the powder was, the black powder. So basically, it ignited a million gallons of aviation gas and then probably around the same of black powder. And so basically, what happened was, is the ship itself lifted almost 100 feet out of the water, straight up. So just think of it as like a Roman candle just going like that, and it slammed right back down. So the entire front of the battleship was blown off. And so what it did is it sent a concussion wave across the entire island of Oahu. It blew men off decks, but it basically, anything that was in the forward part of the deck,

• 36:44Speaker 02

  which included my grandfather and his battle station, was almost instantly vaporized. If you didn't have any type of surrounding metal to help you, you were pretty much instantly vaporized. I mean, the captain of the Arizona was holding on to the rails in the command center, and all they found of him was his class ring, and it was welded to that railing. That's how hot and that's how bad that blast was.

• 37:09Mike Rowe?

  And the flash burns were interesting, too. I mean, really, these guys were, most of them were asleep, some were having breakfast, but the uniform for the day was what?

• 37:19Speaker 02

  A white cotton shirt and cotton shorts, because it was a Sunday. So the normal, you know, uniform of like long pants and a white shirt, that, I mean, on Sundays, they were a little bit more casual. And so pretty much anything that wasn't instantly, like, that wasn't covered. So basically, all your arms and all of your legs was almost flash fried and instant first-degree burns.

• 37:39Mike Rowe?

  So that happens and very quickly what's left of the Arizona turns into like a kiln.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, obviously you have a massive explosion and then everything is on fire. So the deck was made of teak and so that was instantly on fire. But you know, what happens when you heat up metal, right? When something you put heat under metal, it just it expands, right? So, you know, my grandfather remembers his shoes melting. So he was basically standing on burned feet in his battle station because the soles of his shoes had completely melted off. Most of his clothing was gone because it had been burned off. And it just kept getting hotter and hotter and hotter. They said at its highest temperature, it was the same temperature as lava coming out of the Kilauea volcano, which was about 2,000 degrees.

• 38:24Mike Rowe?

  So you're standing on magma.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Pretty much.

• 38:27Mike Rowe?

  They're still shooting at you. The torpedoes are still coming. You're seeing your friends vaporized. All around you. Your ship is sinking. And burning at the same time. Men are in the water by the hundreds. Oil is in the water.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  On fire.

• 38:44Mike Rowe?

  A foot to two feet thick. In many cases, it was the oil that was holding the people up. So you're wedged in there, it's an inferno.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  You did forget one element, though.

• 38:55Mike Rowe?

  What's that?

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Sharks.

• 38:57Mike Rowe?

  Oh, fun, in the harbor.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  In the harbor? Because there was so much blood and so much decay and so much dead body in the harbor, sharks came in from the ocean because they smelled the blood. And so my grandfather looked down and could see sharks picking people apart.

• 39:12Mike Rowe?

  It's so odd how I only associate that with the Indianapolis. But of course, it's not like the sharks are just, you know, dedicated to one ill-fated boat.

• 39:24Mike Rowe?

  Okay, so all of that's happening, it's getting hotter and hotter. Your grandfather tries to describe the pain. And as I read it, my feeling was he just gave up on trying to find the words.

• 39:41Mike Rowe?

  Which is a very powerful way.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:44Mike Rowe?

  One time in the Boy Scouts, Nikki, sitting around a campfire, I took a stick and I put a styrofoam cup on the end of it. Because I was fifteen and curious about the way things burned. It was the green flame that attracted me to it. And I held it up to watch it burn, of course, and a blob of styrofoam fell down onto my head. And it burned so bad, I thought maybe I would just weep, you know? That little piece of styrofoam burning through my skin, Chuck. Absolutely indescribably.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Sounds horrible, Mike.

• 40:13Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. And then I read this book and I thought, well, how about that?

• 40:17Speaker 02

  You know, at some point, I think the body, I think there's two things that happen. So first of all, the body goes into shock. And so it's just like, okay, this is where we are. Like, there's nothing we can do to change our circumstances right now. We're just gonna do what we can to survive. But also, as you start to burn away layers of your skin, you effectively almost cauterize your nerves as well. So as you get deep enough into the skin, basically the nerves just go dead because they've been cauterized and cut off from where they are. And so you kind of just go numb from that. So I think he experienced a little bit of both of those. And at one point, it was just a hundred percent survival mode. Right? You just put yourself into a state of almost meditation as you can in a chaotic environment that you're in.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Just saying, okay, what's the next thing? Right? We've done this. What's the next thing? We've shut the door. So my grandfather ended up shutting the director door to try to alleviate some of the smoke and fire from coming in.

• 41:12Mike Rowe?

  Just describe what the director is real quick.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  Uh, so the director is, I think of it as a little house that's on the side of the Arizona. Pretty much, when you look at the most famous photo of the Arizona, and you see it kind of tilted sideways, there's like a little house and a little door. My grandfather's battle station was right in there. And so when the big bomb hit, basically what happened is it blew that door open. And so all the smoke and all the flames and everything were coming through. And so my grandfather, who was closest to that door, um, reached out with his right arm and tried to close it. Uh, he ended up did getting it closed. You know, obviously it burned his palm very badly, but it scorched his right arm. Almost like blackened to the point where he could pretty much no longer move it. And so they were, basically, there was him and five others that were trapped in this director.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  One had passed away from the blast because he hit his head against the, the bulkhead and his skull caved in from the pressure. And so they were basically, yes.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Is this the most famous one?

• 42:06Speaker 02

  That is the most famous picture. So this right here. That area right there, that is my grandfather's battle station.

• 42:14Mike Rowe?

  You think he's in there?

• 42:16Speaker 02

  He is in there.

• 42:17Mike Rowe?

  When that photo's taken?

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, crazy.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Yep, more than likely.

• 42:24Mike Rowe?

  I mean, it's just unthinkable.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it was him and five others that were trapped in that little box next to, uh, with the Vestal. And, uh...

• 42:32Speaker 01

  And, and they're over top of a burning?

• 42:34Speaker 02

  They're over top of a burning, sinking...

• 42:37Mike Rowe?

  They're a cauldron.

• 42:38Speaker 02

  Pretty much, yeah. They're, they're in pot, right? So it just kept getting hotter and hotter and hotter. The Arizona burned for almost four days afterwards before that they could actually get on there and start recovering bodies.

• 42:47Mike Rowe?

  So part of you is thinking, "I've gotta jump over." And then you look over the side and you say, "I can't jump over."

• 42:52Speaker 02

  I can't jump over.

• 42:53Mike Rowe?

  That's out of the frying pan into the fire.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  Yep, the water was on fire. There were sharks. You just, there was just no way.

• 42:58Mike Rowe?

  So in this moment of absolute futility and despair, they look across at the Vestal. And who do they see?

• 43:07Speaker 02

  They see a very large man carrying a hatchet, which happened to be a man by the name of Joe George.

• 43:17Mike Rowe?

  Can't believe it's been 15 years since that headline first appeared in Slate Magazine, the one that said, "The Greatest Hoodie Ever Made." That's the headline that put American Giant on the map. And that's the same year their CEO sent me one of these hoodies unsolicited in the mail. I didn't know Byrd Winthrop back then, but he was a fan of Dirty Jobs. He and his kids watched it, and he wanted me to have one of his sweatshirts, so I beat the hell out of it. I mean, I wore it, I don't know, on dozens of different Dirty Jobs. I just saw an old episode last week of me castrating lambs, wearing this hoodie. No garment in the history of the world, in my opinion, has ever been bespectacled

• 44:00Mike Rowe?

  with a more curious array of unholy fluids than my American Giant sweatshirt. And it's still standing. Honestly, at this point, I'm less concerned about replacing it than I am deciding who gets it when I'm gone. But what made American Giant famous, of course, was not just a sweatshirt that refused to die. It was making that sweatshirt right here in America with skilled people doing good work. That's something I'm happy to support, especially when I can support it while wearing something comfortable. If you're looking for a gift that might outlast your relationship with the recipient.

• 44:33Mike Rowe?

  Consider the hoodie that started it all. Go to American-giant.com/mike. You'll save 20% when you drop my name at American-giant.com/mike. American giant, American made. American giant, American made. And what the heck does Joe George do?

• 44:56Speaker 02

  My grandfather and his shipmates started hooping and hollering as obviously their singed vocal cords would allow. And they said, "Hey, Vestal, throw us a line. Hey, Vestal."

• 45:05Mike Rowe?

  How far away are they, you figure?

• 45:06Speaker 02

  Uh, it's probably about 75 to 100 feet. And this is obviously between the two ships. The Arizona was kind of tilted, but it was still fairly high up. So they were kind of like this. So Joe looked over, saw the men in the Arizona, and he kind of was looking around. So he got a monkey's fist, which is like a ball of twine, and it's wrapped a bunch of times. And he knew that if he could get that line over there, that they could kind of shimmy off and get to the other side and the Vestal.

• 45:33Mike Rowe?

  So the monkey's fist is attached to an actual line?

• 45:37Speaker 02

  A thin, like a heaving, or like a thin line, so that they would attach another line over and then they'd pull it across.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  So, I mean, think about it. I mean, the director itself, the window, is probably maybe a yard by a yard. That's just kind of how I imagine it. And to get that monkey's fist through there, it had to have been just a... I mean, there's obviously smoke and fire and all of that. So it was a once in a million shot.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  And it took a few times, a few tries before he did, right?

• 46:04Mike Rowe?

  So Joe is on the Vestal, and he's throwing this thing about 75 feet through the air, up, into a target that's probably a cubic yard.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 46:14Mike Rowe?

  That's what he's shooting for.

• 46:15Speaker 02

  That's what he's shooting for.

• 46:16Mike Rowe?

  And your pop and four of his friends are in there getting cooked.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 46:20Mike Rowe?

  Meanwhile, Joe's purpose out there with the axe...

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Was cutting lines from the Vestal to the Arizona.

• 46:27Mike Rowe?

  To get away from the Arizona.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  To get away from the Arizona.

• 46:30Mike Rowe?

  And in the midst of Joe George's trying, this impossible hail mary shot.

• 46:36Mike Rowe?

  His captain comes down, who for reasons we still don't understand, let him out of jail earlier that day and says what?

• 46:42Speaker 02

  And says, "Cut all ties to the Arizona." And this included, at that point, when his commanding officer came down, Joe had made the throw, he had got it into the Arizona, they had just tied off the heavier heaving line, so it's probably a line probably two or three inches thick. And so his commanding officer says, "Come down," and says, "Cut all ties to the Arizona," including that one, the one that he just tied. And Joe's like, "No, those guys over in the Arizona, they're gonna come across." He's like, the commanding officer basically looked at him and said, "They're dead already." Like, "Just look at them, there's nothing left of them. They look like ghosts. Like, you could only see the whites of their eyes, they were so badly burned." And Joe stood up tall, and again, you have to remember, Joe is a Navy fighter, a heavyweight fighter, he had an axe in his hand as well, and said, "No."

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Didn't need it.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  Didn't need it, didn't need it. And said, "No, I'm not gonna leave those men over there, they're gonna make it off." And then his commanding officer told him again, he's like, "Cut that line." So Joe kind of walked up to him a little bit more, probably intimidated him more than enough, or more than he probably should have, and said, "No, I'm not cutting that line." And the commanding officer decided that day that it was probably better to find himself elsewhere dealing with other things than Joe George, heavyweight boxing champion of the Navy.

• 47:58Mike Rowe?

  He's had a big 24 hours, he's probably hungover still.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Maybe, yeah. But didn't his commanding officer threaten to court martial him as well?

• 48:04Speaker 02

  Yep, he did. He's like, "I'm already gonna be court martialed anyways, it doesn't really matter at that point."

• 48:09Mike Rowe?

  I've already been found guilty.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  So, Joe is the only reason why I'm here.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Wow, that's amazing.

• 48:15Mike Rowe?

  Well, but it gets crazier. It gets crazier.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  It does.

• 48:19Mike Rowe?

  I mean, it's kind of a miracle, it's like throwing a bullseye about 50 feet away from a dartboard.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:25Mike Rowe?

  Like, nice shot.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:27Mike Rowe?

  But he makes the shot finally.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  He makes the shot.

• 48:29Mike Rowe?

  But now, all that has to happen is these men who have been burned to a crisp have to crawl arm over arm from the Arizona to the Vestal.

• 48:38Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 48:39Mike Rowe?

  Below them is the fires of Mordor.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 48:44Mike Rowe?

  Right?

• 48:45Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 48:46Mike Rowe?

  That's the most harrowing part of the book.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:49Mike Rowe?

  The handover, I mean, his skin's gone.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  Skin's gone.

• 48:53Mike Rowe?

  Tell it.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  So, my grandfather was the second to cross. The guy that crossed first wanted to make sure that it was okay. And he was actually burned less because he actually had pants on that day. So he climbed over. He's like, yeah, let's go. So my grandfather gets on the rope. Obviously, his skin is all burned, blackened. He, you know, his fingerprints. I'll tell that story in a second. But climbs hand over hand across the burning water. You have to remember, obviously, burning water. You have to remember sharks. You have to remember oil. But obviously, the planes were still strafing at the same time. They were shooting at him. They didn't hit him, thankfully, but they were shooting at him from crossing that line. And I'm sure you on Dirty Jobs know this. When you get to the center part of a line, even if it is a little bit lower, what happens?

• 49:35Mike Rowe?

  It dips. It doesn't matter how tight you make it.

• 49:37Speaker 02

  Exactly. And so the last, probably 20, 30 feet, was completely uphill. And so when he finally, as he was going, Joe, just, my grandfather remembers this so clearly. Joe kept yelling at him, "Let's go, kid. Come on, you can do it. Don't look down. One hand in front of the other. Let's go. You can do it. Keep coming." And so when he finally landed on the deck of the Vestal, he knew he was relatively safe. He was obviously off the burning ship. Pearl Harbor was still happening. Strafing was still happening. But he looked down at his arms. Hopefully, I don't crush you guys out too badly. But he basically just kind of went like this and pulled the skin down his arms like a tube sock. So basically, when you think of a tube sock and you roll it down. And we asked him later in life why he did that.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  And, you know, as you pointed out with the book being very simple sentences, he had a very simple answer, and he said it was in the way.

• 50:30Mike Rowe?

  I'm struck, the unbroken thing vis a vis your pop and all those other guys. But I'm also just struck by this weird duality in men and like in the way we think of Joe George. Like, the night before, he's a brawler. He's probably a bully in some ways. He's had a few drinks, and he just loves to knock heads. It just feels like today, based on that character assessment alone, we would dismiss him as the very definition of everything that's toxic and masculine. Right? But within 24 hours, he's doing about the most selfless thing you could ever hope.

• 51:16Mike Rowe?

  I mean, he's got everything but the cape on, Nikki.

• 51:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, he saved six lives.

• 51:19Mike Rowe?

  Come on, boys.

• 51:20Speaker 02

  Six.

• 51:20Mike Rowe?

  You can do it.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 51:22Mike Rowe?

  The night before, you could have just as easily been throwing him through a window.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah. We're very good friends with the Taylor family, the George family. And his daughter, she's like, you know, my dad wasn't perfect. He was a drinker. He liked to fight. But you know, later on in his life, when he met his wife, Joanne's mother, she tempered him out. And he ended up, you know, he had a full-

• 51:47Mike Rowe?

  A woman will do that.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  A good woman will do that, yeah.

• 51:49Mike Rowe?

  Oh, now, now, see, that's gonna get you in trouble.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Why, saying a good-

• 51:52Mike Rowe?

  A good woman will do that, really? It's 2024, genius. People actually listen to this.

• 51:57Speaker 02

  But you know, he had a full career in the Navy. He went another-

• 52:00Mike Rowe?

  Joe George did?

• 52:01Speaker 02

  Joe George, he did-

• 52:02Mike Rowe?

  Find his picture, Chuck. He's gotta be there somewhere.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  Full 20 years in the Navy. So, nothing, like, he basically had a commendation written in his military jacket that said, commended for, you know, saving five lives, six lives off the Arizona. That little piece was lost to us for, I wanna say, when we first started looking, when we first started trying so 16 years, but it was 70 years.

• 52:27Mike Rowe?

  How does that get lost? That's like saying, "Yeah, Jefferson, good guy. Misplaced the Declaration. Never knew he did that. That was a good one."

• 52:37Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 52:37Mike Rowe?

  I mean, that's one of the defining moments in a man's life.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  Yes. So, the only way we would have found him is he gave-

• 52:44Mike Rowe?

  Is that him?

• 52:44Speaker 02

  That's him.

• 52:45Mike Rowe?

  That's Joe George.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  That's Joe George.

• 52:47Mike Rowe?

  Oh, that's just nothing but mischief and- Well, it's everything we've talked about. You can see it in that face.

• 52:52Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 52:53Mike Rowe?

  That guy's just as soon likely to pull over and change your tire or knock your teeth out.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Maybe both.

• 52:59Mike Rowe?

  Who plays him in the movie that needs to be made? About this whole thing.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  If we had our choice, I'd say maybe Alan Richardson. He's the guy that plays Jack Reacher.

• 53:09Mike Rowe?

  Reacher?

• 53:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:10Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, same body type, same virtual kind of.

• 53:13Mike Rowe?

  Big guy.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  Big guy, fighter, you know, things like that, so.

• 53:17Mike Rowe?

  I think like in the old days, maybe George Kennedy could have done it.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:20Mike Rowe?

  You know, but.

• 53:22Speaker 02

  We're actually pursuing this, you know, it kind of, just with the writer's strike and everything, where we were working on getting it turned into a movie and we're hopeful. We would love to have Tom Holland as my grandfather. And the only reason being is because when you put those two side by side, they look almost identical. It's actually kind of spooky.

• 53:39Mike Rowe?

  By the way, quick sidebar, Don Stratton was the bass singer in an international champion barbershop quartet called the Oriole Four.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Different Don Stratton.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, my grandfather may have had a secret life, I didn't know.

• 53:57Mike Rowe?

  Well, when Chuck sent me this book, you know, weeks ago, and I looked, I'm like, Donald Stratton? I was like, dude, we know Don Stratton, no, it's not that Donald Stratton.

• 54:04Speaker 02

  Different Donald.

• 54:05Mike Rowe?

  But maybe it's not such a sidebar because music is a part of this story too. And the fate of the Arizona Band. Oh, my God.

• 54:15Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 54:15Mike Rowe?

  That's worth a quick riff.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  I mean, to this day, the trophy that's awarded for the best band in the Navy is still known as the USS Arizona Trophy. It's dedicated to them and their service. So at the time, the Arizona was the best band, they were competing in the Battle of the Bands in Pearl Harbor, and so they had played the night before. Their battle stations was very, very deep in the hold. They were running up the munitions, up the conveyor belts and everything like that. And so when Pearl Harbor started happening, every single one of them ran down to their battle station. And unfortunately, when the big bomb hit, there was just, anybody lower in the lower decks just was instantly vaporized.

• 54:50Mike Rowe?

  Fortunately, unfortunately, I'm not sure either word works, but in the pantheon of things that can happen. Instant vaporization on that day.

• 55:02Speaker 02

  Blessing.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  May have been, yeah.

• 55:04Mike Rowe?

  I mean, you just hate to say it out loud, but. Talk too, if you would, or if you can, about the incredibly underrated role of music on a ship in the armed forces in general. I just don't think a lot of people think about that.

• 55:21Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, you have to think, first of all, if we're looking in 1941, you have to remember, they didn't have TV, they didn't have Wi-Fi, they didn't have internet. So they used to do movies on the fan tail. So they would set up a screen and they would, you know, put movies on. But the only really other form of entertainment was music. And so bands in the 1940s especially were hugely sought after because when you're out at sea, when you're in the middle of nowhere, music is what connects us to our humanity. And so having a band on board to entertain and having a band on board to remind us who we are and that we're humans, it was a big deal. I mean, it's still a big deal to this day in the American Armed Forces. You know, they have

• 56:02Speaker 02

  the naval band, which obviously is my favorite because I'm a Navy girl. They're fantastic. You know, they take pride in their craft and they're skilled musicians, but at the same time, they're also Navy sailors. They have a battle station, they have orders, they have a duty outside of just the music piece. And so they're an integral part of our United States Armed Forces.

• 56:22Mike Rowe?

  Your pop writes with such affection about those men.

• 56:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 56:27Mike Rowe?

  About all of the men, actually. And I'll tell you something else that occurred to me, or I guess it didn't occur to me, but I just, it made me angry, Nikki, all over again. And I don't know how to feel about that, but angry the way I was on September 12th. Obviously, I wasn't around on December 8th of 1941. But that's the closest I can come to thinking about just the outrage. Just the, it made me think things I can't say out loud, just like a visceral anger. And your pop is honest about that. It's funny, he quotes FDR a lot, talking about

• 57:10Mike Rowe?

  the importance of doing this for humanity, civilization, and not vengeance. But he almost always follows it with a parenthetical. It was like, now for me, I was pissed. And I wanted vengeance.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 57:23Mike Rowe?

  And talk a little bit about, somehow he survives this.

• 57:29Mike Rowe?

  And somehow, they get him out of Hawaii and over to Mare Island. And somehow, he gets out of that. And then he does something truly unthinkable, but go ahead.

• 57:42Speaker 02

  So, once my grandfather, they got him on an open air truck. They got him to like the triage center and where only the worst kind of were given a bed. He was given a bed right away. The nurses famously marked lipstick, the red lipstick on the men who had a morphine shot. And they did that for two reasons. One, to not overdose them because they couldn't tell if they had had one or not. And two, because they were rationing the supply. And my grandfather was there for a couple of weeks, but he remembers very viscerally the first couple of nights that he was there. And, you know, men were screaming for their mothers, for their gods, for the nurses to hit them on the head with a bedpan, anything to put them out of their misery. But what he remembers most is the darkness. And that's because at the time, they did not know if the Japanese weren't going to come back. So, the entire island was blacked out.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  No lights, no nothing. And so, that's what he remembers the most is just being alone in the dark, not knowing if he was going to live, die, or if the Japanese were going to come back. It was a couple of weeks later when, you know, they were starting to send some of these sailors back stateside and my grandfather piped up and said, "I want to go back home." And the orderly turned him in and was like, "No, you're not going to make it. You're going to die on the way back." My grandfather was like, "I think I'm going to make it." Being the stubborn man that he is. And he's like, "What do I got to do? What do I got to do to go home?" And he's like, "All right, well, if you can get yourself up out of bed without assistance and stand while we change your sheets, I'll put you on the next one home." So, he got himself up. He stood on burned and blackened feet for probably what felt like an eternity and basically just stood there while they changed his sheets and true to his word.

• 59:12Speaker 02

  He was on the next boat home and ended up arriving in California on Christmas Day of 1941. So, he was in recovery and I think when he could finally stand again, he, his enlistment weight was about 160 pounds. And when he could finally stand again on his own, they weighed him and he was about 82 pounds.

• 59:30Mike Rowe?

  Oh, my God.

• 59:32Speaker 02

  So, all of his hair was gone, part of his hair was missing. He couldn't move his right arm. And so, then they started doing all of this. The triage and all the appointments and skin grafts and stuff. And so, you know, they used leeches to coax.

• 59:45Mike Rowe?

  Maggots.

• 59:46Speaker 02

  Maggots to eat the dead skin, leeches to coax the new tissue to develop blood flow. And at one point, they actually took my grandfather back for his saltwater baths. So they used to do saltwater baths. You get saltwater or something in an open wound, it is not. So imagine your entire body submerged. So they usually gave him a shot of morphine and then he remembers once they actually forgot to give him the shot of morphine before they submerged him. And the nurse just came running down because she was trying to find where he was. And you could hear where he was because he was screaming pretty good. Gave him a shot of morphine and kind of moved on with their lives. And so then they started doing skin grafts. So they would take skin from his backside because that was one of the only things that really wasn't burned.

• 1:00:27Speaker 02

  And so they would put it on his arms, hands, face had grafts, his feet had grafts. And then it finally came to a head when the doc pulled him aside. And they wanted to amputate his right arm because they said it would never fully work again. And I think at that point, my grandfather said, I have had enough, like no more. Like, you're not taking my arm, we're done, I'm out, I'm tapping out, like we're done. No more treatments, no more anything. He said, you know, if you take my arm, you know, what kind of life would I lead? And so they discharged him, medically discharged him from the Navy. And because there was still a war going on, he ended up hitchhiking back to Nebraska, back home, as one does.

• 1:01:06Mike Rowe?

  Oh, no, I didn't, oh, you're kidding me.

• 1:01:09Speaker 02

  No, yeah, hitchhiked back home.

• 1:01:12Mike Rowe?

  Oh.

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  So my great grandmother knew that he had survived at that point when he started making his way home. But she pretty much for about a month, didn't know if he was alive or dead. And that's a lot of it because it was chaotic. Obviously, we don't have the digital records that we do today. And so they were still trying to figure out who was alive, who was dead. And so all she knew is that he was missing in action. And there was another young man in my grandfather's graduating class that was on the Oklahoma. And he unfortunately did not make it. So Red Cloud had two boys from two of the most famous ships in Pearl Harbor. One survived, one did not. So my grandfather finally made it home. He recovered for a little while and then his dad, being who his dad was, put him to

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  work, which I think actually saved my grandfather because it kept his mind busy. It kept his body active and so gradually he started building up strength again. And my great grandfather ended up buying a bar. And so my grandfather was hauling beer kegs around the state. And so obviously those things are not light. And so he actually started to develop movement and strength in his right arm again. And once he kind of realized that he was one of the only young men in town, he's like, all right, I'm ready to go back. And of course, my grandmother was, or great grandmother was heartbroken and she's like, you've done your duty, you don't need to go back. For him, it was a little more like he wanted some revenge. So his best friend, Harold Nelson, still aboard the Arizona, and he felt like he needed to go back for himself and for Harold and for the rest of his shipmates.

• 1:02:38Mike Rowe?

  This was the guy who he was going to see.

• 1:02:41Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:02:42Mike Rowe?

  The morning of the attack.

• 1:02:43Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:02:44Mike Rowe?

  Who I guess saved him, really.

• 1:02:46Speaker 02

  Really saved him, yep.

• 1:02:52Mike Rowe?

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• 1:03:37Mike Rowe?

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• 1:04:16Mike Rowe?

  I want to hop forward into a, actually, I want to hear the story when you were in the fourth grade, but before we do that, I just want to circle back to the prostitutes that you so gently brought up and Hotel Road and the shortage of nurses in the wake of this calamity and, and what those women did.

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  I love this story and it's a story that just is not told, it's not known to history. So the women of Hotel Street, obviously, a lot of their money was made through the sailors, right, keeping them company. And so what happened during Pearl Harbor is they effectively stopped their normal business and they opened up all of their brothels and their rooms and housed injured sailors and nursed them back to health. They donated blood and a lot of them went back to like the Navy Corps and said, how can we help? What more can we do? And they're like, well, all that's left is just kind of dirty jobs. And so they're like, we'll take it, we'll do whatever we need to do. And so they ended up starting to clean bedpans, change sheets and clean medical tubing.

• 1:05:16Mike Rowe?

  The smell, Nikki.

• 1:05:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:05:19Mike Rowe?

  The smell.

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:05:21Mike Rowe?

  I've been in a hospital laundry before. This is that times what, infinity?

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  Infinity. And on top of that, they didn't have enough nurses or doctors to go around to escort the sailors back home. And so they volunteered to hop on a ship and take care of these sailors as they cross the Pacific, which is known to be not nice waters, landing in California. And a lot of these, you know, women, they got to know the sailors through both their normal work and through, through this. But unfortunately, when they were docked in California, these women wanted to see their sailors off, but unfortunately, the Navy would not allow them to exit the ship. They had to stay on the ship and then they were just taken right back to Hawaii. So unfortunately, a lot of them never got to say a truly heartfelt goodbye to their sailors that they took care of, which is unfortunate. But.

• 1:06:09Mike Rowe?

  This is another movie, you know.

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:06:11Mike Rowe?

  I mean, it's probably another movie all by itself.

• 1:06:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:14Mike Rowe?

  It'll be a heck of a scene and the one you want to do, but I just think it's so poetic and ironic and, and human that your great grandfather's bit of advice to your pop is keep your nose clean and stay out of the brothels. And it's the women from the brothels who, when the chips are impossibly down, actually step up.

• 1:06:37Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:06:37Mike Rowe?

  To bring- Gave blood, too, right?

• 1:06:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:40Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Standing in line to give blood. People were giving blood twice a day.

• 1:06:45Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:06:46Mike Rowe?

  It's really tempting for me because like Dan Carlin, I get sucked into the, just the minutia of the horror of these things that I think I kind of understand on one level, but can't possibly hope to. But I'm not going to do it because the book does a wonderful and important job of it. Flashing forward, you don't know any of this when you're in the fourth grade. You know your pop was heroic and you know where he was on 7th December. But tell me about your history teacher.

• 1:07:14Speaker 02

  Oh, I love this story. So we were learning about history, the Pearl Harbor history in fourth grade and, you know, we were talking about it and everything like that and I raised my hand and I said, you know, my grandfather was, was in Pearl Harbor. I said, he was on the Arizona. My teacher got very quiet and very serious and he's like, Ms. Stratton, I need you to stay after class because it was kind of close to the end. I was like, oh, great, I'm in trouble, as you know, a fourth grader does. And so he's like, I need to know everything. And so I ended up telling him what I knew, which was not a whole lot. And I realized that I didn't know my grandfather's story as much as I should. So I went home and I said, Dad, you need to tell me about grandpa. I said, we're learning about Pearl Harbor. And my teacher got really weird when I mentioned that grandpa was on the Arizona. I said, I want to know more.

• 1:07:58Speaker 02

  And so I ended up bringing some paper clippings in and I learned the story. But I was really able to learn a lot more when I was younger because I'd crawl up in my grandpa's lap and I'd say, grandpa, tell me about your boat. The boat piece of it always stuck with me because he would always kind of knock me behind the ear and say cricket. And he'd be like, cricket? He's like, it's not a boat, it's a ship. And so that to me always stuck with- And it's going to stick with me through this new submarine that we find ourselves in because I will always call it a ship. And even though it's technically a boat, but we can get into that later, too. But I was just absorb all of this knowledge and I kind of became this family historian as I kind of grew up and I grew older. I would collect stories. I would listen and I would go to Pearl Harbor and I had listened to all of our Pearl Harbor survivors and the Arizona survivors.

• 1:08:43Speaker 02

  And, you know, then we started learning and wanting to know who the man who saved my grandfather's life was because he didn't have a name. Um, and then so it was at the, I believe 50 or 60th anniversary, uh, 60th anniversary where we started to enlist the help of the Arizona Foundation. Like, help us find this guy. Like, there has to be a record somewhere, right? And there was, there was a single audio recording of Joe in the 1970s to a Texas State University. And it's about maybe 10 seconds long where he, he's talking about how he saved six lives off the Arizona. And that was, that was it. We had a name for the first time in our lives. He was no longer just the guy that saved our grandfather's life. It was Joe George.

• 1:09:25Mike Rowe?

  So when do you feel personally like you, because it feels like you're on a mission or became, what's the right word, convicted at some point? To tell this story and to just wrap yourself in the past of it, maybe to keep it present for the rest of us?

• 1:09:43Speaker 02

  It's a good question. I think that a lot of times, you know, whenever we would go out with my grandfather and people would realize who he was. He kind of became like the Beatles whenever traveling with him, especially for military related events because people would just gravitate towards him. I think we realized as a family that whenever he passes away, because we knew that obviously he was getting up there in age, as well as all of the survivors of the Arizona, that when those guys passed away, that was it. There was nobody else to tell the story if they go. So it was placed upon our shoulders then, and it was put upon our hearts to say, okay, it's our job now to take this story, to share it where we go, to speak about it to other people so that first of all, it stays present in everybody's minds.

• 1:10:25Speaker 02

  And also to remind people what happens when, you know, we forget our own history and we become complacent as a country. I think that's probably the biggest thing is that you don't want history repeating itself. Obviously, we saw what happened on September 11th where we were attacked again. You know, virtually very similar circumstances and you would think as a country we would learn, you would hope that we would learn. But for me, it became very personal because. My grandfather's life means something. It meant something. And the sailors that he served with meant something to me and to this country. I'm always of the feeling that if we stop talking about it, then their memory just fades. There's no more of them once we stop talking about it. But every time I talk about Harrell and every time I talk about Joe,

• 1:11:09Speaker 02

  their memory is perpetuated for another generation where somebody will remember them and it just keeps going.

• 1:11:15Mike Rowe?

  In a way, you're a custodian, not just of the facts, but of, well, of gallantry. In fact, All the Gallant Men is the name of the book. Why?

• 1:11:28Speaker 02

  All the Gallant Men is in memory of all the gallant men is written on the memorial wall at the USS Arizona Memorial. And so this is in memory of all of them.

• 1:11:36Mike Rowe?

  What does the word mean to you, gallant?

• 1:11:40Speaker 02

  I don't know if I can put it into words, but whenever I hear the name gallant, I always see Joe George's face.

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  And that's because he didn't have to do what he had to do. He knew that if he followed his commanding officer's orders, they may have forgiven him for what he did the night before. But he chose, he chose a different path. He chose to save six men's lives. And he knew that his career in the Navy was probably over. But there was nothing on this God's earth that could stop him from doing that. And to me, when I hear the term gallant, that's what it means to me. That's I see his face.

• 1:12:19Mike Rowe?

  Your pop says something about it in here. He buries it like he does a couple of other big points. It's one of a thousand things I marked. I'm not going to go hunting for it. But he says, and this is the difference between brave men and gallant men. Brave men do the hard thing when the chips are down. Gallant men volunteer to do it again.

• 1:12:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:48Mike Rowe?

  Knowing, right?

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:51Mike Rowe?

  Knowing it's running into the fire.

• 1:12:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:55Mike Rowe?

  After you've been burned.

• 1:12:56Speaker 02

  After you've been burned.

• 1:12:58Mike Rowe?

  Your old man went back to fight.

• 1:13:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:13:02Mike Rowe?

  He's on the Arizona and he's on, I forget the name of the, was it the stack?

• 1:13:08Speaker 02

  USS Stack, yes.

• 1:13:09Mike Rowe?

  At Okinawa.

• 1:13:10Speaker 02

  Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Lake� Gulf.

• 1:13:15Mike Rowe?

  I gotta talk about your position as a

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  Sponsor.

• 1:13:20Mike Rowe?

  Such an odd title. Now a word from our sponsor. It's Nikki Stratton. But I'm just, I'm sorry, I'm hopscotching around, but I don't want to forget, I'm at the part in the book now where your pop talks about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And he very even-handedly, I think, talks about the controversies. And we've done it on this podcast before, I don't want to belabor it, but walks through the projections and the statistics and he and he makes this statistical case, he makes the numerical case, he talks about 10 million Japanese deaths and probably 800,000 dead Americans if we invade. It just becomes very mathematical and practical. And I'm like, yeah, I've heard that argument and that makes sense.

• 1:14:05Mike Rowe?

  And then again, in another little parenthetically short sentence, he says, and you know something, we dropped leaflets.

• 1:14:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:14Mike Rowe?

  And then he publishes, he writes the exact leaflets that were dropped.

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:20Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:14:20Mike Rowe?

  They're incredibly detailed and persuasive.

• 1:14:24Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:14:25Mike Rowe?

  And then the final sentence of that chapter is, we didn't get any leaflets on December 7th.

• 1:14:30Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:14:31Mike Rowe?

  I'm like, yeah. I know, that knocked me out too. I mean, what can you, right? So it's just, bravo all around, all the gallant men.

• 1:14:42Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:14:43Mike Rowe?

  But flashing further forward, now here you are, his granddaughter. And the Arizona lives again.

• 1:14:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:14:50Mike Rowe?

  In the form of, I think you brought some visual aids, let's have a look.

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

  Well, before we do that, did you want to see the?

• 1:14:59Mike Rowe?

  I want to see all of it.

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:15:00Mike Rowe?

  I want to see the thing wrapped in the towel.

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  Yes. So before I move on to the submarine, I do want to show you guys this. So I've got two pieces of Battleship Arizona here. The first one is pretty significant. So this is actually a piece of the armor plating that was basically surrounding the Arizona. So that's probably about a five by five piece. And you can tell by its weight, it's pretty heavy, right?

• 1:15:23Mike Rowe?

  That's cast iron.

• 1:15:25Speaker 02

  Pretty much. And so that armor plating was meant to protect the Arizona from armament and obviously direct hits. And we kind of know what happened to the Arizona when a bomb hits the Teakwood deck and goes down many decks. But you know, the armor plating was pretty technologically advanced at the time. It was meant to kind of deflect any type of larger armament, but it also added some significant weight to the Arizona. So I think that they, I think she was like 25 and a half thousand tons.

• 1:15:54Mike Rowe?

  Twenty-five thousand, yeah.

• 1:15:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, just around that.

• 1:15:57Mike Rowe?

  Well, that's heavy.

• 1:15:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:59Mike Rowe?

  Wow.

• 1:15:59Speaker 02

  Yep. So, and then I also brought a smaller piece of steel, which to me, I know that the armor plating is significant, but this is probably my favorite. And that's because you can actually see the delamination of the steel. So when steel is made, it's made in layers. But when it gets hot again, it actually, what's called delaminates. And so you can actually see the individual layers of steel that created the battleship Arizona. And basically, this shows you how hot the battleship burned, because you can see the individual layers on there. So that was very close to my grandfather's battle station right there. That piece is in Waipou. The main superstructure is in Waipou Island. It's like a little inlet, so just resting away.

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 1:16:44Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, truly.

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:47Mike Rowe?

  All right.

• 1:16:48Speaker 02

  Um, oh, I also want to show you guys this. So this is actually so cool.

• 1:16:55Mike Rowe?

  So cool.

• 1:16:56Speaker 02

  So the Pacific Historic Parks, where the USS Arizona Memorial is, back in, I think, the 90s, maybe early 2000, I think the 90s, decided that they wanted to do an Americans of Valor series. And so they started with my grandfather. He is the first and only crewman of the USS Arizona, or of any battleship, to be created into his own action figure. And I really want to stress this enough, it is not a doll. My grandfather made it very clear that it was not a doll.

• 1:17:26Mike Rowe?

  I'm just thinking, what would Joe George think about this?

• 1:17:29Speaker 02

  Yes. So basically, what it is, it's my grandfather as the 19-year-old sailor. It has his story on the side. They actually did a Rosie the Riveter one as well, but his was the actual only sailor that they ever did.

• 1:17:43Speaker 01

  Did he sign it on the back?

• 1:17:44Speaker 02

  He did.

• 1:17:45Speaker 01

  So that's his actual signature.

• 1:17:47Speaker 02

  That's his actual signature, yeah. So they did a run of them. You can still find them on eBay every once in a while, which was super fun.

• 1:17:54Mike Rowe?

  How many did they make?

• 1:17:55Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh, I want to say probably, I want to say maybe like 5,000 to 10,000 of them. They sold out. Every time we went to Hawaii, they were always sold out. We actually talked to a couple companies and they're like, we want to do, if the movie ever gets done, they want to do another series of these, which would be super, super cool.

• 1:18:13Mike Rowe?

  That would be awesome.

• 1:18:14Speaker 02

  All right, now for the cool thing, the next gen thing. So this is a model of the future USS Arizona nuclear submarine, which was named in 2019 by Secretary Thomas Modyle.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Nice. Just to go back, I did look it up. SSN stands for Submersible Ship Nuclear.

• 1:18:36Speaker 02

  Submersible Ship Nuclear, thank you. I should know that. I'm probably going to get a lot of hate.

• 1:18:39Mike Rowe?

  Well, you are the sponsor. If nothing else, you can take that from this conversation.

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  And one other thing for you. Unbroken was written by the guy who was in, you know, his story, was it Louis Zamperini?

• 1:18:49Mike Rowe?

  Zamperini, not Larry, right, right. Thank you. All right, good. So this is, what is this, Virginia class, Columbia?

• 1:18:55Speaker 02

  It is a Virginia class, but it's actually a new gen model. So it is the Virginia class with the VPM.

• 1:19:00Mike Rowe?

  Okay. What does the average person need to know about this weapon and submarines in general that they don't?

• 1:19:10Speaker 02

  Well, right now submarines are absolutely crucial to our Navy or to our United States just overall safety. They patrol the waters. So pretty much the Navy has stated outright that basically a SEAL team or a United States Navy team can be on site to any particular area in the entire world and on the entire globe within 24 hours. And a lot of that has to do with our submersible fleet. I would say what makes the Arizona unique is it is a new generation model. So it has what's called the VPM module. It's an additional 83 feet to the current Virginia class. It has four vertical tubes that are basically placed inside of the submarine itself. I want to say it's kind of like, it's not really open use, but there are so many uses for those. So they can actually store.

• 1:19:55Speaker 02

  For additional Tomahawk missiles, so it triples the lethality of the current Virginia class. They can actually flood those tubes as well and launch Navy SEALs out of them. So they actually don't have to surface where currently they do. Which, I'm not gonna lie, when it's kind of, I kind of want to try it. I kind of want to have them, I want to don some scuba gear and have them shoot me out of the VPM tube. So totally working on that.

• 1:20:18Mike Rowe?

  For sure.

• 1:20:19Speaker 02

  You know, I'm a sponsor, I can do what I want, right?

• 1:20:21Mike Rowe?

  That's cool.

• 1:20:23Speaker 02

  But what it basically does is it gives our Navy another weapon against some of our rising enemies and rising aggressions, especially over in China. She will most likely be positioned in Pearl Harbor when she's completed. So right close to China and some of those other places. But obviously, I want her to be stationed in Pearl Harbor. It makes sense, not only from a historical standpoint, but from a, you know, tactical standpoint as well.

• 1:20:48Mike Rowe?

  So how did you come to be, like, this is a phone call? Do you get a telegram? You get a, how's that work?

• 1:20:55Speaker 02

  So typically, what would happen, in every other normal case, the Secretary of the Navy would reach out via either a phone call or via email. A lot of times, they have personal relationships with sponsors where they have a specific person in mind. And basically what it is, is there's a single female sponsor per United States vessel. First of all, let's start with the naming. So the USS Arizona was named in December of 2019 by Secretary Tom Maudley. My grandfather passed away in February of 2020, so just a couple of months after it was named. And, you know, I actually got to know Secretary Tom Maudley when he was the undersecretary. He had the USS Vestal Bell in his office.

• 1:21:36Mike Rowe?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:21:36Speaker 02

  And he had a picture of my grandfather above it. The reason he did that is, he said, every time I walk by, he's like, I want to remember what we're fighting for. And I want to remember what our men did, so that we don't repeat it. So him and I got to know each other through email very well. And when my grandfather passed away, we ended up inviting him to attend the funeral. He ended up speaking at my grandfather's funeral, which was absolutely incredible. And then he pulled me aside and said, Nikki, I have something I want to speak with you about. And so we ended up going into a small room. At the church and he said, now I know you know about sponsorships and being a sponsor of a vessel. And I said, yes, I'm familiar with the practice. And he said, well, I want you to be the sponsor of the Arizona. And he's like, I can't in good conscience, just name anybody.

• 1:22:21Speaker 02

  He's like, this is such a unique piece of our history. He's like, there has to be a familial connection with this ship because of the 1511 crew members. And we knew that they would probably not make it until the, at that point, I think there was two left, that they would not make it until the commissioning of the submarine. But he said, he really wanted to make sure that there was always a familial connection, a direct descendant with the original battleship Arizona to this new generation.

• 1:22:48Mike Rowe?

  What are your duties?

• 1:22:50Speaker 02

  That's a fun question. So there's ceremonial duties and then there's actual duties. And for the most part, a sponsor can be as involved as she wants with her crew and with the ship. For me, I'm, I'm very involved.

• 1:23:02Mike Rowe?

  Do tell.

• 1:23:03Speaker 02

  I'm sure you probably guessed that, but kind of the very first milestone of sponsorship is called the keel laying. And that basically marks the very first construction piece. And nine times out of 10, for a non-submersible vessel, obviously there's the keel, which is the backbone of a vessel. So what happens is, is a welder, the sponsor will first write her initials into a plate. And then a welder will weld her initials into the keel plate. And then they will affix it on the keel itself inside of the vessel. For me, being the, you know, extra girl I am, decided with the blessing of Electric Boat to weld my own initial. And so my husband and I ended up learning to weld in Denver.

• 1:23:48Speaker 02

  And we ended up laying our keel plate down December 7th of 2022, so on the anniversary. I got up there, I donned my amazing Rosie the Riveter gear. It was the, probably the most comfortable I have ever been at an event. I didn't have to wear a dress, I didn't have to wear heels. I was in a jumpsuit, I had gloves on and I welded my own initial into the plate. And then we had the welder finish it because it's actually a really huge honor to be chosen as a welder for a keel laying ceremony. So I did not want to take that away from a welder. And so we ended up having an electric boat welder who had been with the company for almost forty years, I believe. And he started when he had just gotten out of high school. He had done a number of other boats and

• 1:24:29Speaker 02

  they actually gave him the opportunity to weld on the USS Illinois, so Michelle Obama's vessel, but he's like, no, give it to someone younger. Like, it's good for them to do that. And they came back and said, well, we have USS Arizona, you know, we want to give you that opportunity. He's like, I'm not passing that up. So he made sure that he was on the USS Arizona. So.

• 1:24:49Mike Rowe?

  What are you doing in real life?

• 1:24:51Speaker 02

  Uh, I do want to show this. That is my welding helmet. I wore that when I welded my initials and thankfully Lincoln Electric heard about me and my story. And they're like, well, we don't want you to just wear any helmet. Like, you have to have a badass helmet. And so I was like, yeah, let's go for it. And so they ended up, they're like, well, we have two like US flag helmets. One was a little bit more modern, like a more modern flag. And they said, this one has a little bit more of an older feel. I was like, I want that one because it had that, it just has that like cool nineteen forties vibe to it. And then you can see the signatures around. So a lot of those were the people on stage with me. So you have Admiral Lindsay,

• 1:25:32Speaker 02

  Lance, Yancy Lindsay. So he was one of our admirals on there. The president of Electric Boat was on there. Our welder is on there. And so just as a very good memory of.

• 1:25:43Mike Rowe?

  Pretty great.

• 1:25:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. When I go around and speak around the different places, you know, I'm very blessed to be able to tell this story. I bring the helmet with me, especially to the younger kids. And, you know, when I was down in Gilbert, Arizona, which is the host town for the submarine, they actually watched me welding. And a lot of the girls, when I came back, I think three or four months later, they're like, you're the welder girl. You would make me want to weld when I'm older. So for me, it's really cool because it's like they associate that with like, oh, a girl can do that. Like, yeah, let's go.

• 1:26:13Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Well, you may be the sponsor for more than the Arizona.

• 1:26:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:26:17Mike Rowe?

  Really.

• 1:26:17Speaker 02

  So, but to continue that, so the next ceremony thing that we have is the, will be the christening. And that means that I get to smack a bottle. Over the nose of the sub and for me it will be unique as always because originally the original battleship was christened with two bottles. So the first was water that had been collected from the Roosevelt Dam. So it was the very first dam that was built in Arizona. Arizona was also a dry state at the time and so they did not want their first battleship to be christened with alcohol and then the second is the traditional champagne. For me, it's the first bottle is going to be root beer and a lot of that is because the guys, they were the survivors of Arizona drank root beer when they were recovering because it settled their stomach with all the medication and all of that. There's actually a local brewery in Gilbert, Arizona

• 1:27:01Speaker 02

  that brews their own root beer and so they're going to make the bottle for us and then we're going to smash that over and then the second will be the traditional champagne. We're honoring the past and then obviously forging and creating a new future and then the last ceremonial event will be the commissioning, which is basically where I will call the ship to life and say, you know, sailors, man your posts and call the ship to life. And as I say that, the submariners are going to run out onto the sub, man their stations and then basically from that second on, it is an active service vessel in the United States Navy.

• 1:27:34Mike Rowe?

  Do we have a date?

• 1:27:36Speaker 02

  We're hoping late 27, early 28.

• 1:27:41Mike Rowe?

  You know, I wonder if this is one of the ships that Blue Forge Alliance, have you heard of these guys?

• 1:27:48Speaker 02

  I believe so.

• 1:27:49Mike Rowe?

  The American Submarine Industrial Base is this huge assortment of 15,000 companies. They're trying to hire a hundred thousand tradespeople over the next eight, nine years to build four of these things. And it's just so interesting that you mentioned welding. We're constantly beating that drum here. The shortages are so real and I worry, not just about the Navy, but the overall workforce and skilled labor and it just seems we're so out of balance in the opportunities that exist. They're everywhere. The fact you're sitting here with actually the submarine, one of the ones in question, that's crazy. I love it. Anything else you want people to know that they don't, aside from the fact that All the Gallant Men is a book that every

• 1:28:34Mike Rowe?

  American ought to read?

• 1:28:36Speaker 02

  Um, well, I guess, and you can put this anywhere, but I will say that my grandfather always left with some of the best advice, and it's advice that I take with me through every bit and piece of my life. You know, he said this to former President Trump in the Oval Office. He said this to Mad Dog Mattis in the Pentagon and a few other folks. And that is, don't do anything you can't do standing up in a hammock.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  Wait a minute, what?

• 1:29:05Mike Rowe?

  Don't do anything you can't do standing up in a hammock.

• 1:29:08Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  There's a lot, there's very little you can do standing up in a hammock.

• 1:29:16Mike Rowe?

  That's essentially, I think, what he's saying. Don't get over your skis.

• 1:29:20Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:29:21Mike Rowe?

  If you're gonna do a thing, be careful and do it right.

• 1:29:25Speaker 02

  Do it right, and do it right the first time.

• 1:29:28Mike Rowe?

  Don't do anything you wouldn't do standing up in a hammock.

• 1:29:30Speaker 01

  That's interesting.

• 1:29:31Mike Rowe?

  It's not a terrible title for this episode either, I'll tell you that. Thank you so much for the hat, the shirt.

• 1:29:38Speaker 02

  You're so welcome.

• 1:29:39Mike Rowe?

  Mostly for the time. And also, you know what, for keeping grandfathers relevant. That's probably a good place to end this. We just read so much and hear so much about, you know, the importance of the family unit. Obviously, it's only critically important, but the role of grandfathers and the impact yours had on you.

• 1:29:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, hugely important. Not only just who he was as a person, but how he lived his life after. Obviously, I didn't know him when he was younger, but I mean, to go through what he did and to experience what he did, he had the best attitude. He was always laughing, he was always joking. He enjoyed his life. He was an offshore, he worked on the oil rigs when he was retired. And, you know, he, at one point, had the deepest dive in a two-man submarine. He was just a genuine person, and he lived his life to the fullest. And I think that that's something that we all should strive towards, is just living our life to the fullest, no matter what adversities come at us or what, you know, life may throw at us. Just understanding that that's part of what makes us who we are,

• 1:30:43Speaker 02

  but living our life to the fullest.

• 1:30:45Mike Rowe?

  Well, he's the epitome of the greatest generation, and you are indeed proof of it.

• 1:30:50Speaker 02

  Thank you very much.

• 1:30:50Mike Rowe?

  Thanks again for coming, Nikki.

• 1:30:51Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 1:30:52Mike Rowe?

  You're welcome.

• 1:30:54Speaker 03

  This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long, but if it made you smile, then share your satisfaction in the way that people do. Take some time to go online and leave us a review.

• 1:31:30Speaker 03

  I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge, but in this world, the advertisers really like to judge. You don't need to write a bunch, just a line or two. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Not four. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. And not three. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Definitely not two. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. We need five. All you've got to do is leave a quick Even if you hate it. Five-star review. Thank you.

• 1:32:06Speaker 04

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• 1:32:37Speaker 05

  What's that?

• 1:32:38Speaker 06

  My fresh detector.

• 1:32:40Speaker 05

  Uh, your what?

• 1:32:41Speaker 06

  There it is.

• 1:32:42Speaker 05

  What is it detecting?

• 1:32:44Speaker 06

  Fresh produce, fresh meat.

• 1:32:46Speaker 05

  Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh?

• 1:32:51Speaker 06

  Apparently, we celebrate.

• 1:32:54Speaker 07

  At Food Lion, you can count on fresh food at fresher prices when your fresh detector is going off. Head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com.