Pod Insights Shawn Ryan Show #69 Don Graves - World War II Marine Survives Iwo Jima with Flamethrower, Grenades, and Pistol | SRS #69 About this episode "Yesterday, December 7, 1941 a date which will live in infamy the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan....with confidence in our armed forces with the unbounding determination of our people we will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
These were the words that would change the course of history forever. These words would also give way to the Battle of Iwo Jima, one of the most costly campaigns of World War II. Of the 7,000 killed and nearly 20,000 wounded, Don Graves, a Marine would survive amongst them. Graves shouldered one of the most feared responsibilities in the Marine Corps–wielding a flamethrower in the caves and pill boxes that littered the island. In this episode, Graves recounts his experience in those 36 days of fighting and lends his perspective on where the country is headed now. Graves, now 98 years of age, has a wise view and a wealth of knowledge to share with the American people.
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Transcript 23,793 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.
0:28 Speaker 01 College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake up call at 5:55 in 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.
0:58 Shawn Ryan? Ladies and gentlemen, this episode is one for the history books. We have a WWII Marine Corps veteran on the show. He served in Iwo Jima as a flamethrower. Flamethrowers in Iwo Jima had a four-minute life expectancy, and this man is the only surviving flamethrower that served in Iwo Jima. His name is Don Graves. He's 98 years old, grew up in the Great Depression, has experienced a lot of America's times,
1:40 Shawn Ryan? and gives us great perspective of what it was like growing up back then, and the greatest generation known to America versus today, which is pretty eye-opening. Don gave me an artifact. Many of you know the studio here is full of artifacts from all of our guests and my personal service. This is a sword that Japanese commanders used to carry.
2:11 Shawn Ryan? And they would use it to commit suicide if they were going to be captured by an enemy combatants, or if they knew they were going to be killed. This will be framed and on display in the studio for everyone to see. Starting to turn into a museum here at SRS. Ladies and gentlemen, I see a lot of you out there pulling our content, making your own content. We made it super easy for you. There's a link below. It's got hundreds of reels. Take them, monetize them, make money off of them, put it on Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, wherever you want. Make money off of it. All we ask is that you give credit
2:54 Shawn Ryan? to the Sean Ryan Show and tag us, or link our show in the description. Head over to Apple and Spotify. Please leave us a review. Tell us how we're doing. That really helps the show. Like, comment, and subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven't already. Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to say thank you for all of the support that you give us and all the love. We here at SRS love you too. Without further ado, please welcome Don Graves to the Sean Ryan Show.
3:31 Shawn Ryan? And one last thing, I want to give a huge shout out to the Air Power Foundation who made this interview possible with Don Graves. Without them, none of this would have happened. Thank you so much.
3:52 Shawn Ryan? Don Graves, welcome to the show.
3:55 Speaker 03 Thank you.
3:55 Shawn Ryan? It is an honor to have a World War II veteran sitting in this studio across from me today. Thank you so much for being here.
4:06 Speaker 03 Thank you for that compliment.
4:07 Shawn Ryan? So, yeah, yeah, it's a real, it is, it's a real honor. I want to give you a quick introduction here. So Corporal Don Graves, you're a husband, you've been married for 70, you were married for 72 years, 98 years old. You're a father, a pastor, Christian, singer, and you are a flamethrower at the Battle of Iwo Jima, World War II, in the United States Marine Corps. Couple of facts for the audience. Flamethrower was the most dangerous job in the Marine Corps. Life expectancy in battle was four minutes. Ninety-two percent casualty rate during Iwo Jima.
4:49 Shawn Ryan? Graves, you were the only flamethrower from your unit to survive and walk off of that island. Your unit began with three hundred and thirty-five Marines and only eighteen left the island of Iwo Jima. No officers from your unit survived.
5:06 Speaker 03 That's correct.
5:08 Shawn Ryan? That's amazing. I'm, um, just humbled to, to get your testimony on what happened that day. But, um, but first, everybody that comes on gets a gift. I got you a couple of gifts.
5:26 Speaker 03 Well.
5:27 Shawn Ryan? There you go.
5:28 Speaker 03 All right.
5:32 Shawn Ryan? You can have a look, see what's in there.
5:33 Speaker 03 The Sean Ryan Show.
5:34 Shawn Ryan? That's me.
5:37 Speaker 03 Uh-oh.
5:38 Shawn Ryan? That's right.
5:39 Speaker 03 Uh-oh.
5:40 Shawn Ryan? Some good stuff in there.
5:41 Speaker 03 Uh-oh.
5:43 Shawn Ryan? Couple of covers for you.
5:45 Speaker 03 Vigilance Elite.
5:47 Shawn Ryan? That's right.
5:52 Speaker 03 Oh, I love these things.
5:53 Shawn Ryan? What, what is it? Hats?
5:56 Speaker 03 All the same.
5:58 Shawn Ryan? Nope, there's another one.
6:00 Speaker 03 Oh, is there?
6:01 Shawn Ryan? There you go. That's the good stuff. Vigilance Elite gummy bears.
6:06 Speaker 03 Poggy bait.
6:10 Speaker 03 Poggy bait.
6:10 Shawn Ryan? Perfect, perfect.
6:14 Speaker 03 Another cap, go look at that.
6:15 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
6:16 Speaker 03 Yep. There it is, the Sean. No wonder he wanted me to look through the bag like this. And another.
6:24 Shawn Ryan? Just a couple more gummy bears.
6:26 Speaker 03 Oh my goodness.
6:28 Shawn Ryan? That's all right, it's just a little something to remember our experience.
6:30 Speaker 03 I know who would like to get one of these bags.
6:33 Shawn Ryan? Yeah?
6:35 Shawn Ryan? I'll give you a couple more.
6:41 Speaker 03 Oh, boy. This is real nice.
6:47 Speaker 03 That cap I'm gonna really use.
6:49 Shawn Ryan? Good.
6:50 Speaker 03 Black. Black. You know why it's black?
6:53 Shawn Ryan? Why's that?
6:54 Speaker 03 Sands of Iwo Jima. Black volcanic ash.
6:58 Shawn Ryan? Really?
6:59 Speaker 03 All black. Thank you. This is really good.
7:03 Shawn Ryan? You're welcome.
7:06 Shawn Ryan? And I got you one other thing.
7:07 Speaker 03 What's that?
7:08 Shawn Ryan? One warrior to another, I got you a coin.
7:13 Speaker 03 For what?
7:14 Shawn Ryan? A coin.
7:16 Speaker 03 Oh, thank you. Look what I've got for you. A coin.
7:21 Shawn Ryan? Oh.
7:24 Shawn Ryan? Man, thank you.
7:27 Speaker 03 Oh, that's a good one.
7:28 Shawn Ryan? Airpower Foundation.
7:29 Speaker 03 That's a nice one. I don't have this.
7:32 Shawn Ryan? That is a Naval Special Warfare Coin from, uh, it represents all the SEAL teams. And I thought you should have it.
7:41 Speaker 03 That's a beautiful one.
7:42 Shawn Ryan? Thank you. This is beautiful, too.
7:45 Speaker 03 I'll put this one by 350.
7:47 Shawn Ryan? All right. Thank you.
7:52 Shawn Ryan? All right, Don, so I'd like to get into the interview, but being 98 years old, you have experienced a lot in life. And you have experiences that not many people, uh, have been through. Like, I know you grew up through the Great Depression. And so I'd like to start with your childhood. What that was like growing up in the Great Depression. And then move into World War II, Iwo Jima.
8:18 Speaker 03 All right.
8:18 Shawn Ryan? And then we'll move into what it was like coming home after war at that time period.
8:22 Speaker 03 All right.
8:23 Shawn Ryan? And we'll get into what you were doing afterwards when you became a minister. And then maybe we'll talk a little, uh, where the country's headed. And then we'll end it.
8:34 Speaker 03 All right.
8:34 Shawn Ryan? Sound good?
8:35 Speaker 03 Very good.
8:36 Shawn Ryan? All right, so where did you grow up?
8:40 Speaker 03 Well, I was born in Detroit, Michigan, 1925. I came up through the end of the big crash and went into the Great Depression. And President Roosevelt was our president. And thank the Lord, he got in when we had that because he settled, he got us out of it. Nobody had anything. Gas was 10 cents a gallon for your car. My mother used to put 50 cents in and we'd ride around a little bit. I, when us kids, we'd chip in some money. We'd have an old car. And we'd chip in dimes, nickels, whatever we had.
9:25 Speaker 03 We'd pull up in front of a pump. They pumped your gas for you and they wiped your windshield and everything. You got everything for that dime. Oh, wow. And we'd pull up and say, he'd say, "How much gas do you need there, young fellows?" I said, "Ah, put 50 cents in." He'd look at us, "That's 50 cents. That's five gallons, five gallons of gas. We could last all day on that." So, you know, it was hard, but things were cheap. How old were you when the Great Depression hit? The Great Depression? Well, that, I think it ended in 31. So you'd have been six years old. I think it ended around 1931. So I was born in 25.
10:06 Speaker 03 So I was just a little tot going through that, you know? I can remember a Christmas, I wanted a trike. There were two boys and two girls. Not that early, but we totally were two boys and two girls. I had a brother that was two years, 18 months younger than me. And we had to share an old, used trike that my mother got out of a trade shop. Really? She brought it home to us, yeah. And we would fight over that bike every time. It was, my mother took it away and hit it on us and that stopped the fighting.
10:46 Speaker 03 But we lived in a cottage. My grandma and grandpa lived on a farm and they were on commodities. We were all on commodities, welfare, whatever you wanna call it. And that kept them going on the farm. And you know, it was hard to sell because nobody had any money. The money just wasn't there. And so we lived in the cottage all year round. And you know cottages back then on a lake were made of panel, wallpaper, no insulation. And the winter time, oh, and you know, you used to get a, you see down in the zeros, you know. And we had a potbelly stove, a big one.
11:30 Speaker 03 And we would get that going with wood. We went out and got wood. And we put that going with wood and when it got hot enough, we'd put the coal in there. We got coal in there. And then that would burn all day. And my job was to make sure that that fire didn't go out all night. If it went out, I had a price to pay for my dad. What was that? He'd give us a good beating. Yeah. Yeah. He didn't mix words with it. He was a mean father. He was. We never had, I never had a good father, a wonderful mother. My father was a heavy drinker. He, I don't know, he, he never had a trade, but he, well, he did have a trade. He was a roofer.
12:15 Speaker 03 And you know, roofer's drank. Masons and carpet, they all drank. And I don't know why, whether it was the material they were using, the nails or whatever it was. But they'd always leave the job and go into a bar and drink and then not finish the day. I went, when I was a little boy, I worked for my dad. He carried shingles up a ladder. Can you imagine? The seat was, they'd drop over your shoulder. I'd carry about two or three of them. And he would take a pack, practically a bundle up there. Well, so we all had to pitch in and work. And we lived on fish. We lived on wild game. Rabbits, pheasant, quail. We hunted all the time, all year round.
12:59 Speaker 03 And the game ward never said a thing because he knew we were on, uh, the depression was on. Nobody had any money. They wouldn't be able to pay a fine if they were fined. So, I mean, but those were good years because we stood together, we loved one another, and we fought together. We just kept things going. Well, the depression lifted. And we moved in Detroit. My dad started getting some roofing contracts. The sad problem is that he just spent money. And he didn't come to the family. So, we still struggled quite a bit. You know, the depression boys never had good clothes.
13:42 Speaker 03 And that's why we never went to church. Because we were ashamed to go into a church.
13:47 Shawn Ryan? Oh, man.
13:48 Speaker 03 And that has a little bearing on my life when I hit the beach at Iwo Jima, which I'll mention. Well, we went to school. I wasn't a good student. I didn't particularly like school. And, you know, it's strange. I hated math. I could, I hated math. And if you don't do math, you don't do well at all. Because you've got to have math. And I just didn't like doing it. I had a tough time, so they held me back a grade. And then when I got in junior high school, that was a bummer.
14:28 Speaker 03 And when I got in the eighth grade, I was about sixteen years old. And I remember the three, my two buddies, we grew up together in the neighborhood. And we had an old car that was sat in front of the house in Detroit. And we rigged a, a, a, a radio up, an old radio. We rigged it up and we would listen to the big bands. And, uh. What were the big bands? Oh, the big band numbers, oh, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, the brothers, oh, two Irishmen fought all the time. And we had, oh, Duke Ellington, he had a black band, great music, good music.
15:12 Speaker 03 And we, there were so many, then Bing Crosby, the Gruner, he always was on a particular radio show. We'd listen to him. And my grandma bought, moved, bought his recordings on an old Victrola, which you cranked. And as a kid, I spent time playing Bing Crosby. And I'd go sit down and Bing would be hitting, singing him, he'd like to, over the, uh. There was no power left. I'd go and crank it up again. That's what we had to do to listen to a recording.
15:49 Speaker 03 Oh, Kate Smith, the big lady, two hundred pounds, great American woman. During the war, she introduced, God bless America, Irving Berlin wrote it for her. And she introduced it and it, it just went wildfire. Today, nobody sings it unless I have them sing with me. They don't sing it, they don't know it. High school students do not know that song. And it's a great song, it's another patriotic song. So my brother and I, we, we struggled through, I sold newspapers, Saturday Evening Post for a nickel. I got two cents. A newspaper was three cents, I got a half a cent.
16:33 Speaker 03 I got a cent for every two papers I sold. I mean, that's what we did. But you could buy stuff for what you had. You could always buy something. You've got something for your money, you know? And if we just... And when we got to be teens, you know? We would go out to the lake and swim. We had a gang of us that'd get together in an old car. We'd go out to the lake, my grandma's cottage. She'd let us use the cottage. And we had a beautiful 90-foot drop-off sand beach, you know? Sand waiting, then you drop down. It was crystal clear, loaded with pike, loaded with bass, loaded with walleye pike, oh, and perch and crappies.
17:16 Speaker 03 Oh, we lived on that stuff. Today, I love fish.
17:21 Shawn Ryan? You do?
17:21 Speaker 03 I love fish. I do. I love seafood. Yeah. Well, anyway, we were healthy kids. It's strange, isn't it? We didn't have a lot of stuff kids have today, but we were healthier. We went through a lot. We had all the diseases, even before they had all the shots. And it was strange, you know? We used to walk home from school and we'd notice a black Ford coupe. Well, when you saw a black Ford coupe, that was a nurse. And if it was in front of your house, she was in there waiting to give you shots.
18:00 Shawn Ryan? Okay.
18:01 Speaker 03 Oh, man, we don't want to... We wanted to skip and get out of there, but we know we had to go in there. So in we go, and she's, "Here they are." I said, "My brother, come in." I had two sisters, all of us. "Roll your sleeve up." I was, "I don't want that shot." Oh, my God. We, you know, in those days, we were afraid of all that stuff. Well, they gave us shots. And then she left, and well, it wasn't too bad. Our arms were sore, but we went through all of that. We didn't have any particular thing to keep the pain away. But we were healthy kids. We didn't see the doctor a lot. We did have trouble with our teeth. And my mother, she was a great cook and a great baker.
18:44 Speaker 03 She had a bakery during the Depression. I can remember in Detroit, on the West Side. She... We needed a place to live, so there was a, like a store. And... In the back, there was everything you needed. It was everything we were to live with. But in the front, it was sort of like a, you could put a, they had a couple of counters in there, so you could put a bakery in. And we put a baked shade, a drape across that. We lived behind that. That's how we lived. And she was so bakery and sell cakes. The only problem is, my dad would tap the till.
19:29 Speaker 03 He'd open the till up, take money and go out, and he'd be drinking. Oh, man. He just irresponsible. And us boys, we worked. I was, I, when I was 10 years old, I will never forget it. My two buddies were coming down the sidewalk and they're, the one of their dads worked for the Detroit City Railway. He always had a job, always. Streetcar was buses, always had a job. So he always had money in his pocket. And he shared, we all shared. And so they came by and they said, "Hey, Don, you gonna wanna go to the movie with us Saturday?" And I said, "I haven't got any money." He said, "All you need is a dime, get in."
20:14 Speaker 03 I said, "I'd have a dime." "Wait a minute, maybe I'll ask my ma." Things were a little bit better then. I walked in, I'll never forget. "Ma, can I have a dime?" She's, "What do you want a dime for?" "I wanna go see a movie, Ken Mader, favorite cowboy is gonna be on." She said, "You want a dime?" I said, "Yes, ma'am." "Go earn it, I don't have it. I don't know what we're gonna have for supper, but we'll have something." She always managed to have something. And you know, she said that to me. And I went out and my two buddies says, "I will each give you a nickel, let's go." And I never forgot what she said. So I went to work.
20:57 Speaker 03 After school, I did everything I could. I shoveled snow in front of stores. I'd ask them if I could clean there. They'd give me 35, 40 cents like that, maybe 50 cents, 25. And I always had money in my pocket. And you always have friends when you have money in your pocket. All your buddies come around. You learned that at a young age. Oh, yeah. So I became quite independent like that. I worked, I've worked since I was ten years old. And I'm paying a little bit for it right now, but the ministry, that was mental stress, you know. But the other work I did, it was decorating. I climbed ladders, hung wallpaper, refinished
21:40 Speaker 03 wood, antique furniture. I did it all in the line of decorating and refurbishing. And that was hard work. And now my legs are paying for it. I believe that's what it is. Really? Yeah. Because I never injured my legs. Yeah. But they say you'll still pay a price. I remember coming home from the war. I sat in the front room. My dad was reading the paper and I says, "You know, Dad, I'm really lucky." He said, "Why?" I said, "I went through four years of war and I came home. There's not a thing wrong with me." He said, "Give it a little time yet." He was in the First World War. He said, "When you get older, you're gonna find out, you're gonna pay." What did your dad do in the First World War?
22:25 Speaker 03 In the First World, he was in the Marines. He was in, he was in the Marine Corps at PI, Paris Island. I was San Diego, Hollywood. And they got that swine flu swept in there and killed a lot of them. Really? They didn't have it and they had to take for it. And he got it. And he did have a problem continuously. Didn't keep him from working, but it would hit him every now and then. You'd come back on him. But a lot of them died, so he couldn't go aboard ship. They wouldn't put him on a ship. So they just let him do whatever they could keep him busy
23:04 Speaker 03 doing, you know. Well, the war ended. We only fought on it for a year. It ended. Now they came home and went back to roofing and doing that type of work. But those fellows, his brother worked with him and both of them would go out and get drunk and never work on the job. It was irresponsible. Their father was no good. I met my grandpa once or twice. Heavy drinker. It was passed on down the line. You know, during the Great Depression, people drank. They made their own stuff, because, you know, it was, there was a prohibition was on. And below the cottage, my brother and I would open up the doors and we'd crawl on, you know, you don't know what's under those houses.
23:49 Speaker 03 That's what they threw everything, stuffed everything under the houses. So we opened the trapdoors out and we crawled in there. We had rattlesnakes here, initially in Detroit, outside of the city. And they're short rattlesnakes, so we had to be very careful. I found these big, like, like a jack. And it had a crank handle. And I thought, what is this thing? So I took it out and I brought it around the house. And my mother was in there, he was gone. I said, Mom, what is, where did you get that? I said, under the porch. You put that back in there. You don't need to know what that is.
24:31 Speaker 03 Well, they kept bottles with it. They made their own booze. Wine and, and they made liquor. What kind of liquor? That's what was going on. What kind of liquor? I, I, I have no idea, but, I mean. So prohibition was- Firewater, whatever. It ain't like you get over here. Yeah. So prohibition was going on at that time? Prohibition was going on, then Roosevelt got in. And Roosevelt said to his vice president, "I feel like a glass of beer." And boom, that opened it up. And believe it or not, they didn't drink as much when the prohibition was lifted.
25:16 Speaker 03 No kidding? You tell a person you can't do that, he gonna try and do it. Yeah. We're all like that. We can't, there was a lady of ours, she was a wealthy woman. And when I was in the ministry, she helped, she helped us out a lot. I mean, she practically bought a house from me.
25:35 Speaker 03 I mean, it was, she was just such a wonderful old bohemian woman. She had a lot of money. And she shared. And, you know, we'd be painting in the parson's that, painting everything up. And she'd come in, she's, "How are your fellows doing?" And I says, "If you want to look at Mary, don't touch him, because it's wet." And she'd go to the wall. "Oh, oh." Tell them not to do it, and they'll do it. Especially children. Yeah. Well, I don't know if I told you enough about growing up as a child. What was, what was school like back then? What kind of stuff were you learning in school?
26:18 Speaker 03 School was very strict. You didn't mind it, but it, I mean, you know, I go and speak in a lot of high schools and junior high schools. They hang around the halls and horse around. We never did that. You didn't do that. You went to your classroom. I mean, there were hall monitors. I don't see them anymore, but hall monitors, they, there were, there were students that were advanced, and they would tell you, "Go to your room." They, they could order us in, in our room. It was strict, and yet you didn't mind the strictness, because it was a system that you got used to, you know?
27:02 Speaker 03 You know exactly what to do. Our teachers were older women, never young women. And they were spinsters. They never got married. They were dedicated to their profession. They were our second mother. I can remember several of us kids would become sick and we'd throw up. She cleaned that up.
27:31 Speaker 03 The janitor had one job, that's to keep the boiler going in the wintertime. But if anyone was sick, she had to clean that up. I mean, that's what they did. And every morning, we marched out of school around the flagpole and pledged allegiance. After school? No, no, in the morning, after school started. And on Thursday, the president, he had a program that he talked to children. Roosevelt did. And they had that on during school. Really? Oh, yeah. We listened to it. You listened to the president. What would he talk about? What kind of stuff would he talk about?
28:15 Speaker 00 This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior-like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.
28:44 Speaker 01 College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition, even a marching band wake-up call at 5:55 in 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.
29:15 Speaker 03 Education, how we could be a president, I mean, it was really good. Now, this is in junior high school and senior high, you know. I'll never forget it, because I can remember him talking, "Do you know that every Saturday night in Detroit, President Roosevelt, all over the country, but for us in Detroit, see, the comics came out Saturday night, the white section came out Sunday morning." So we obviously get the comics, we lay them out on the floor. Well, the president would come on. "All right, children, lay your comics on the floor, because we're going to find out what happened to Lil' Labner."
29:59 Speaker 03 And then Maggie and Jigs, did their daughter ever get married? Well, let's find out. It was so interesting. It was so good. My mother would sit there and listen.
30:13 Shawn Ryan? How long, was it just Roosevelt that would speak to the kids? Or did this go on through every presidency up to a certain point? Was it just Roosevelt that spoke to the kids? Or did it continue on after Roosevelt?
30:27 Speaker 03 Oh, no, no. That was Roosevelt's. That was strictly Roosevelt.
30:31 Shawn Ryan? Okay.
30:31 Speaker 03 Harry Truman got in. Things changed. We had a war, you know. Roosevelt got us out of the war. You know, the day we loaded up and took off from Evil back to Pearl Harbor, we got the speaker sounded off. Now here are this. The old man is dead. We said, old man, President Roosevelt died this morning with a cerebral hemorrhage. Harry Truman will become the vice president or the president. We said, who's Harry Truman? We never heard of Harry Truman. Roosevelt never used his vice president much, like they use him now, you know. But Harry did a good job. Yep.
31:18 Speaker 03 He was a mule skinner.
31:21 Shawn Ryan? Did you guys learn a lot about American history in school?
31:24 Speaker 03 Oh, we loved history. We had American history. Detroit has the Detroit Fort at Mackinac.
31:34 Speaker 03 It's between Canada and Michigan. That fort is still there and tourists go in there all the time. And they play over the speaker, a battle between them and the Indians. It's interesting. Families love it. We had the Mohicans. There was a story written and it became a movie, Last of the Mohicans.
31:58 Shawn Ryan? I've seen that.
31:59 Speaker 03 Yep, Last of the Mohicans. So Detroit had a lot of good history. Well, it's the place of Ford Motor.
32:10 Speaker 03 And Henry Motor, he did a lot for the city. He and Roosevelt got together and started Bad Boys Trade School. And most of it in those days was tool and die.
32:28 Shawn Ryan? Really?
32:29 Speaker 03 Things changed, automation, tool and die went out.
32:34 Shawn Ryan? What was punishment like in school?
32:38 Speaker 03 Pardon?
32:39 Shawn Ryan? What was punishment?
32:40 Speaker 03 Punishment? There was everything, there was discipline dealt with for, if the teacher handled minor discipline. If it was any further than that, she called for the vice, for the vice principal. And the vice principal would come down. And if he had to single one or two out, he said, after school, in my office. We'd say, yes, sir. And we went into his office. He would talk punishment. The principal, old man Cotter, ready for retirement, would use a razor stab on your hand.
33:25 Shawn Ryan? Oh.
33:26 Speaker 03 Bam, bam, and he'd watch your face. And the best thing you could do was start crying, because he stopped then. And the women were in, working right around the desk and all that. They hated it. You could see them wince their face. Well, old man Cotter died, and Mr. Long, the vice president, took over. And he called me in the office one day. He lived two blocks from us. I used to deliver him newspapers. He'd say, Donald, I want to show you something. He reached in a drawer, the president's, yeah. He picked it out, he said, you remember this? Yes, sir, I'll never forget it.
34:08 Speaker 03 He said, throw it in the ashcan for me. You're the last one that was strapped with that. He never, he never resorted to physical punishment. He humiliated you with talk. He impressed you. You went home thinking.
34:30 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
34:31 Speaker 03 You didn't go home rubbing.
34:37 Speaker 03 Those were good days.
34:39 Shawn Ryan? Yes.
34:40 Speaker 03 Yes, we got tired of school and yet we waited for summer vacation to come. Then we all had to go to work. Couldn't lay around. We all had to go to work. I sold news. I was a Western Union boy in Detroit. I delivered telegrams all over Detroit downtown section. Some for the Detroit Tigers. I had interesting people. I knew every business billing downtown. People would say, Donald, I have to go pay a bill and that where was the Ford building? You take what you call it to work and then jump over on what you call it. And it's about two blocks down on the left. You can't miss it.
35:22 Shawn Ryan? What kind of stuff did you like to do for fun back then?
35:25 Speaker 03 For fun?
35:26 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
35:26 Speaker 03 I loved fishing. Yeah. I liked organized softball. But, but I liked fishing and honey. That's what I loved to do.
35:36 Shawn Ryan? Really? What kind of fish?
35:38 Speaker 03 Huh?
35:38 Shawn Ryan? What kind of fish?
35:40 Speaker 03 Croppies. Newgills perch. Bass. When we'd troll, deep troll for, for, for a pike. And I'm talking about pike. Right like that. Two and a, two and a half feet long, right like a good, good sized northern pike.
35:59 Speaker 03 Lot of bone, but delicious meat.
36:03 Speaker 03 Friday in Michigan.
36:06 Speaker 03 It's that way in Wisconsin. I don't know if it's that way around here or not. You don't so. But every Friday was fish night.
36:15 Speaker 03 It, it, it just, it was fish night.
36:18 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
36:18 Speaker 03 And everybody loved to go out for fish. I'd say to my wife. Today, Friday, the kids will be gone. Wanna go for fish? Yeah, let's go down to the golf club and eat fish there.
36:32 Speaker 03 Friday night fish. What would you hunt? Huh? What kind of animal would you hunt? I love rabbit. My mother could roast ra- oh, she was good with rabbit. Yeah, and I love birds. grouse, grouse are delicious, very delicate. Yeah. Deer? Huh? Venison. I like a good venison steak with pancakes. Really? Oh, that goes good. Maple syrup. It goes good, yeah. I went deer hunting up north with my dad. Fourteen years old. Never forget it. There was a cousin of mine, they're fourteen, same as me. We hunted together.
37:15 Speaker 03 They put us on a stand and we had slugs and a shotgun. They had rifles. They went around, drove them towards us. And then when they come at us, they would either fire at them or tell us where, which way they went. Cause when they came at us, they'd bear off or go that way.
37:34 Speaker 03 So, they wanted to know why we didn't take a shot.
37:39 Speaker 03 We couldn't kill them. We couldn't do it. We were young. They would stand there and look at you.
37:48 Speaker 03 How could you kill something like that? Yeah. Unless you were starving or hungry.
37:54 Speaker 03 We couldn't do it. We couldn't come. You're not even gonna use your guns anymore. When we get back, leave them.
38:02 Speaker 03 What kind of rifles were you using? Huh? Do you remember what kind of rifles you were using? Winchesters, yeah. Remington. Remington? Twelve gauge, sixteen. You know, there was, what they claimed on, on birds, the best weapon was a twenty gauge.
38:22 Speaker 03 Straight ahead, you know? I believe that's still true to this day. Like a bullet. Excuse me. A round.
38:34 Speaker 03 Couldn't do that in the Marine Corps. Round. How many rounds hit him? Three of them got him in the leg.
38:42 Speaker 03 What?
38:45 Shawn Ryan? What got your interest in the military?
38:48 Speaker 03 Pardon?
38:48 Shawn Ryan? What, what got your interest in the military?
38:51 Speaker 03 My dad was in the Marine Corps in the First World War. He never talked much about it, but I knew he was in and we'd ask him questions and he'd reluctantly answer us. He was not a discussionist type person at all. No, I don't know, he'd go like that, you know, it was, I don't know, he had something in his childhood, just a mess, you know. But, what was your question?
39:21 Shawn Ryan? I asked you, what, what got your interest in joining the Marine Corps?
39:26 Speaker 03 What?
39:27 Shawn Ryan? What got your interest in joining the Marine Corps?
39:29 Speaker 03 To go in the Corps. Two actors, Pat O'Brien, Jimmy Cagney. Both of them played a lot of Marines, tough sergeants. And it, it, I just, I just liked the Marine Corps. I liked the uniform. We, we were all honest by saying, you got to admit, it was the uniform that really interested us.
39:56 Shawn Ryan? It still is.
39:56 Speaker 03 Or we paid a heavy price. A heavy price. We went into boot camp, the first thing we heard there were a bunch of kids that are all we went through, "You'll be sorry." Yeah, but I loved the Corps. We fought good. We were Americans. This is one thing that the Corps appreciated when we went in to sign up. "Why are you signing up on the Marine Corps? You realize that we're the first to fight?" We said, "Yes, sir." "Well, why do you want to come in the Marine Corps?" "Because I know they fight and we want to fight the enemy.
40:40 Speaker 03 We want to fight Japanese." That's, that's just the way we felt.
40:46 Shawn Ryan? Was that?
40:46 Speaker 03 See, we, we learned that, we learned that in school also.
40:50 Shawn Ryan? A lot of patriotism back then.
40:51 Speaker 03 Yes. And the movies went to war. Yep. Hollywood was good in those days. It's a bunch of trash now. Trash.
41:06 Shawn Ryan? What was the media like?
41:08 Speaker 03 Media?
41:09 Shawn Ryan? Yeah, the news. Were they very...
41:11 Speaker 03 I think, I think, in all fairness,
41:17 Speaker 03 I have never experienced anything in my life until now, these past years.
41:27 Speaker 03 The last of what I was used to was with Donald Trump.
41:34 Speaker 03 I haven't seen it since. Breaks my heart.
41:39 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
41:39 Speaker 03 I love my country.
41:42 Speaker 03 People are distorted, their minds are all goofed up, they don't know what to do.
41:48 Speaker 03 And that's because the schools are to blame with our high school kids today. I'll be very honest and frank, and I know what I'm talking about because I've gone, I've spoken high schools. Can you imagine a high school, a, a, a school dropout? Going to a college, a university and talking to students? The Baptist Theological Seminary, I went and spoke to twice in Dallas. And they know, they know, they know that I did not finish school.
42:23 Speaker 03 Why? What's the difference? What happened? I think that we learned something that was deep rooted with our country that they don't get today.
42:34 Speaker 03 No. And Hollywood is not making good wholesome movies about our country, our... We, I, we learned a lot of history from Hollywood, a lot of history.
42:49 Speaker 03 We learned all about Ford, how he started out.
42:56 Speaker 03 Our, our electricity. Everything.
43:02 Speaker 03 The first mirror in an operating room, Thomas Edison put a mirror up, and it deflected the light directly, directly right on the wound where they were working. Yeah. But it was done by reflection. He thought of that. We saw all of the Thomas Edison movies. Very educated. Alexander Graham Bell, The Electricity. How that Wabash, Indiana, is the place where they lit the first lights. That town is still there, and those lamps are still there in the streets. Really? My son had a home there for a couple of years,
43:45 Speaker 03 and I went there quite a few times. Did Americans get along back then? I think that we got along good, because, you know, we had parades. We had parades all the time. And I thanked my dad for doing it, but, you know, young boys, forget. And when the parade, when the flags would come by in the parade, we'd be sitting down. Get up on your feet, the flag is coming. Now, can you imagine my father spending more loyalty to the flag than he did his family? But that's what he was. That's what he was trained. He was a Marine. So we would stand in our home.
44:29 Speaker 03 When Roosevelt spoke, we stood up in our home. Wow. That's the way it was. Some different times. A lot of respect. We had parades. Do you know that all the car industry, the big factories in Detroit, do you know that the Fourth of July, they all had company picnics, and families, members and families that worked there were invited to the picnic? Everybody went there. The parks were jammed full all over the city of Detroit. They paid for everything. That's gone. There's nothing like that anymore.
45:14 Speaker 03 After the war, it ended. It stopped.
45:19 Speaker 03 So that lost a real relationship, a touch there. There was a bond there.
45:26 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
45:27 Speaker 03 We've lost that. Boy Scouts, I was a Boy Scout. I've speak to Boy Scouts. Up at Roanoke, they had Boy Scouts there. It was a patriotic day and I spoke.
45:41 Speaker 03 And they were standing around with their hands in their pocket.
45:45 Speaker 03 One kid had his turk tail hanging out.
45:49 Speaker 03 And I said to the Scoutmaster, is the Scoutmaster there? And he raised his hand, would you mind bringing the boys up to the front? And he said, sure. And he got them all together. They all came up the front. They thought they were going to be recognized. And I said, would you boys turn around and face the audience? And they turned around and faced the audience. And I said, young men, do you realize that you are the future of America? Do you realize that maybe someday you will have to take our place when it comes to battle?
46:27 Speaker 03 Look at you now. You got your hands in your pocket, your shirt's hanging out. Look at your socks.
46:36 Speaker 03 Straighten up. Get in good shape there. And do you help people cross the street? We did. If you saw a woman with bags of groceries and rams, would you help her? Or would you let her go out right by you? I mean, and the Scoutmaster was, stayed on the other side looking at me. And he shook his head with agreement.
47:01 Speaker 03 That's what we got. That was just recent.
47:07 Speaker 03 We got a problem. And the school is to blame for it.
47:13 Shawn Ryan? Yeah, I don't disagree with you there.
47:14 Speaker 03 The school had more of us than our own mothers. And they didn't use it. And they're not using it today. And we're losing good teachers because they're not going to teach that junk.
47:27 Speaker 03 Trash. Has nothing to do with our country.
47:34 Speaker 03 And another thing is, one thing we have to learn.
47:40 Speaker 03 I speak to a lot of our young men that have lost their arms and legs.
47:48 Speaker 03 They can never say they had victory. They can never say they won the battle. It's still going on. They've been doing it for 2,000 years for crying out loud. They've been fighting Israel. It's not gonna stop, that's all they know. We had no business going in there. And we sent our boys in there because, "Oh, we're America. We're gonna help the world." The world doesn't help us. We're on our own.
48:18 Speaker 03 Yeah. So you ask a question like that, and I reach way out that far ahead. Well, I appreciate the fact that you do. But we've got to look at this. We need to know what's... We've got to realize what's happening.
48:33 Speaker 03 We've got to get back to being a patriotic country. We've got to protect our nation. We've got to see that gate slammed shut on the border. Run the first... Run those that are standing there. Run them back over on the Mexican side. Shut that gate up and lock it up forever. I think it's gonna happen. I think so too. It's gonna happen, real quick. I think you're right. That may sound like harsh words, but I love this country, and we better start... I was in France, Normandy. We spent some time in Normandy, three veterans. We were invited there for a big celebration.
49:17 Speaker 03 One of the first things I saw when I drove... When we drove into the yard of a home while they were gonna keep us for four or five days. I saw the American flag flying right next to a French flag. And I saw it everywhere, all over that part of France.
49:38 Speaker 03 Schools, buildings, American and French flags together. And I didn't know that. I never really liked the French. I didn't like the way they fought. I didn't like the way they stood back when things were happening. I just never liked it. I had a lesson to learn. Those people loved their country. They went through battle hell. They have memorials and they're not going to erase them. I was told that they've got memorials. They have stains on walls. Well, they had firing squads during the First World War.
50:22 Speaker 03 I never liked that. Well, let me tell you something. If anyone goes to France and goes to Normandy and goes a few miles out of Normandy, they will see a little church chapel that is over 100 years old on a river side. It is called the Church of the Bloodstained Pews. We didn't know what that meant, so we were invited in. It's a history. Saint Patty was in it. Really? He went there. And we couldn't understand what this blood stain was.
51:03 Speaker 03 So she took us on a tour and showed us the benches. There are blood all over the benches stained dry from the Second World War. The Germans took that town over. And they fought from inside of that chapel. And we beat them and drove them out of town, but our boys got hit. And they set a hospital up inside the church, but hadn't done it, they couldn't quite get it all done. And the boys were sitting in the pews waiting to be taken care of. And there was blood all over the place. It's still there.
51:43 Speaker 00 This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an Ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.
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52:45 Speaker 03 My dear friend Kelly was with us. She knows, she's seen it. Or did you not?
52:51 Speaker 03 I don't think she did. That was some other place. We went to Ireland. I got to Ireland, too.
52:57 Shawn Ryan? So let's get, uh, let's get back to what got you interested in joining the military?
53:03 Speaker 03 The what?
53:03 Shawn Ryan? What got, what got you into joining the military? When, when did? How old were you when World War II started?
53:12 Speaker 03 How old? When the war started? 16 years old.
53:16 Shawn Ryan? 16 years old?
53:17 Speaker 03 16, yes.
53:20 Speaker 03 And I can never, I'll never forget what really stimulated me.
53:26 Speaker 03 It was the 8th of December, one day after Pearl Harbor.
53:32 Speaker 03 And it was cold. Eight degrees below in Detroit.
53:37 Speaker 03 And we were sitting in our old car listening to the big bands over an old radio we hooked up. And we were wrapped up in a blanket. We had caps and jackets on. But we wanted to listen to the big bands, you know? And our parents really didn't particularly like it, so here we could listen to it. And then all of a sudden, the announcer comes on. He said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt this broadcast. The President of the United States will address the nation." And on came Roosevelt, our hero. He led us through the war. And we beat the enemy. And this is what he said.
54:21 Speaker 04 Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
54:45 Speaker 03 I interpret the will of Congress and of the people. We shall gain triumphant victory, so help us God. Soon as that was over with, I said to my two buddies, I said, "Tomorrow morning, I'm skipping school. I'm going down and join the Marine Corps." And they said, "You can't, you gotta be 17 years old, and you have to have your mother's, your mother and dad's signature." Well, I can get them both, I only got six months to go. I'm going down and get the paper. So I got up in the morning, and I had two sisters and a brother. I said, "Don't tell anything to Ma, I'm going down to the Marine Corps office this morning." So I took off, I ran downtown.
55:29 Speaker 03 Saw a gunny sergeant in the door where he met me. He said, "Young man, what can I do for you?" I said, "I want to join up." He said, "How old are you?" I said, "16." He said, "I can't take you, you gotta be 17." "When will you be 17?" I said, "In six months." "Tell you what I'll do. If you want to do this, I will give you a piece of paper. You take that paper of your mother and father, and when you're 17, you have them sign it, bring it back, and we'll do business." "You want to do that?" "Yes, sir." He said, "Go." And out the door I went, down the stairway, ran all the way home as best I could. Ran through the back door, but I forgot I skipped school. And my mother was there baking.
56:13 Speaker 03 And she said, "What are you doing home?" And I realized I had skipped school. And I said, "Ma, I skipped school. I went down to the Marine Corps office and I got papers. And when I'm seventeen, I'm gonna go in the Marine Corps." "No, you're not. You're gonna stay in school. You're not gonna do..." "I went through this already. Oh, one more. I'm not going through this again. So forget it. Throw it away." I went in the front, in the dining room, and went in the buffet, opened the drawer, tucked it under some papers. Shut the drawer. Six months later, it was May third. And we had a small party. My dad was there. And I knew I had no problem with him.
56:57 Speaker 03 So I went and got that piece of paper. I didn't have a pen. I said, "Dad, sign this, will you?" He said, "What is it?" "I'm going in the Marine Corps. Give me a pen." He grabbed the pen and he signed it. He said, "Vera, sign this." She says, "I'm not signing that." And she went through that same thing. "I went through this before. I'm not gonna go again." He said, "Vera, let me talk to you a minute. Dad, listen to me. The boy walked out of school. He's doing odd jobs. He'll probably turn out to be a bum." And I went like this to my mother. She said, "Give me the paper." And she signed it.
57:43 Speaker 03 They both had to sign. I went out that door and I ran all the way downtown, saw the sergeant again. What did he say? He said, "You got it?" I says, "I have. Here it is." He said, "Good. Now, I want to tell you something. See that door over there?" "Yes, sir." "You're gonna go in that door and meet a Navy doctor." I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "He's gonna check you over from the top of your head to the tip of your toes. You ain't never gonna forget it. Do you wanna do that?" I said, "Yes, sir." He says, "Go." I went in, knocked on the door. I said, "Come on in." Walked the door, and he did. He checked me from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, and I ain't never gonna forget it, and I haven't forgot it yet.
58:32 Speaker 03 That was it. That was the start. Well, he said, I'll call you in two weeks. And your mother and father bring you to the train station. We'll go to San Diego. And you'll go eight weeks of boot camp.
58:43 Shawn Ryan? How many sixteen year olds were signing up back then? Or seventeen year olds?
58:50 Speaker 03 Well, a lot of them tried it, but they had, you had to have your birth certificate. And the birth certificate doesn't lie. There it is. So they had to be seventeen. You hear about them getting, sneaking in the army. That was a lot easier, but you could never do it in the Marine Corps.
59:04 Shawn Ryan? Really?
59:05 Speaker 03 Now, there's no way you're gonna get away with it. They're not gonna take that liability. They just didn't think they had to, you know?
59:13 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
59:14 Speaker 03 But...
59:15 Shawn Ryan? Lot of people joining back then?
59:17 Speaker 03 Huh?
59:18 Shawn Ryan? Lot of people joining the armed forces?
59:20 Speaker 03 It was, when you boot camp, oh. In San Diego, the Marine Corps base.
59:28 Speaker 03 That, that parade ground where we trained was so packed full of platoons of young kids. It was amazing how we didn't hit, we went right around one another. The DIs were good. They, they yelled command of, you know, of all, everything we had to do. Left oblique, right oblique, left turn. And we never went into one another. They, they couldn't, in fact, they stopped, stopped taking them in till we could get them out of there, you know? Graduate. Tyrone Power, the actor, was in there, one platoon behind me. Glenn Ford was in there. Eddie Albert from Green Acres was in there.
1:00:09 Shawn Ryan? Really?
1:00:10 Speaker 03 Yes, we had people in there from Hollywood. Hollywood went to war.
1:00:15 Shawn Ryan? Everybody was joining?
1:00:17 Speaker 03 The Duke, John Wayne, tried to go in the Corps.
1:00:23 Speaker 03 The, the officer said to him, he says, Duke. He said, take care of your family at home. You're forty years old. He says, go home and take care of your boys and make movies so we can learn something. We learned from Hollywood. They had some good military movies.
1:00:44 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
1:00:45 Speaker 03 They really did. It's exaggerated junk today. There is one I highly recommend, Letters from Evil. That is a classic.
1:00:59 Speaker 03 If you want to know how the Japanese really felt about fighting our Iwo Jima, see that movie. They were lied to. They were told by the politicians that they were on a holy war. And that meant they would never surrender. They would always fight to the death. But all of a sudden, the soldiers start surrendering. They got word that they were lied to. That's what it was all about.
1:01:31 Shawn Ryan? Well, what was your training like in the Marine Corps boot camp?
1:01:34 Speaker 03 The Marine Corps, very severe training.
1:01:38 Speaker 03 Our DI's were, I don't know what's going on now. I can't speak up for it now, but our DI's were, they had a lot of time in the Corps. They were salt. They'd been in Philippines. They had really been around and they were stiff. I mean, when you had rifle inspection in the morning, every morning. Port arms, unload weapon, pull the bolt open. He would come by and grab that out of your hand and flip it around his hand. Look through the barrel on that. He'd find something wrong. What is this?
1:02:18 Speaker 03 I looked at it and I thought, I thought, sure, I cleaned it. I said, sir, that's dirt. Wipe it right on my face, just like that. Clean it off and clean your weapon. I want everything clean on that weapon tomorrow.
1:02:35 Speaker 03 I mean, that's the way it was. No, we never left home before. I mean, that would bring tears to our eyes. I mean, we felt beat down in the ground, but it made men out of us.
1:02:47 Speaker 03 When, show me a platoon that'll go through the Marine Corps. Training, basic. And walked downtown on Liberty. He doesn't slouch around with his hands in his pocket. He's marching. We walked like we were doing cadence everywhere we went. My daughter told me, she's one day in Dallas. She said, "I was waiting to go aboard the plane." And we were about three or four of us waiting. A young man came up and he had a suitcase. And he set it down on the, on the, on the, on the ground, on the floor. And he was standing there. He was looking around. He said, "Young fellow, can I ask you a question?" She, he said, "Yes, ma'am." "Are you a Marine?" "Yes, ma'am." She says, "I thought so."
1:03:35 Speaker 03 You can see it. You can tell it when he walks down the street. If he cares at all.
1:03:41 Shawn Ryan? Yeah. I'll bet. What else did you, what else did they train you to do in boot camp?
1:03:49 Speaker 03 Excuse me?
1:03:50 Shawn Ryan? What else did they train you to do in boot camp?
1:03:53 Speaker 03 It, it was a matter of, of, uh... Well, you know, your calisthenics, your marching and all that. That, that is to uniform, right, parades, ceremonials. You have to learn and know that. Uh, the rest of it was combat training. One of the first things we did. We had bayonets. And we had our rifles. And we fixed bayonets. And he had each one of us come up. And they had a dummy there. And he said, "There's a Japanese soldier coming at you there. What are you gonna do with that rifle?"
1:04:38 Speaker 03 And we would thrust that blade in. We'd just poke it. And he'd stop, grab it out of your hand, shove you back and say, "You're dead."
1:04:51 Speaker 03 Just like that. Can you imagine talking to seventeen year old kids that way? Like, first time they left home. But we needed it. That's, that's, we're gonna, we're gonna face the enemy. I mean, and these guys, they've had it drilled in their head too, because a lot of them never saw any action yet. You know. Too young. But he told, he showed, he's, "Now, I want to show you something." And he took a rifle with his bayonet. And he showed us what you do. If you can't get it up, pull the trigger. It'll come out. That's what you learn.
1:05:36 Shawn Ryan? So you went to Delta Company's 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, 5th Marine Division, correct?
1:05:42 Speaker 03 Yep. Brand-new division.
1:05:45 Shawn Ryan? It was brand-new at that time?
1:05:46 Speaker 03 Called Spearhead Division. And Roosevelt wanted that division specific for one thing, which we never knew till one day off the island, Iwo Jima.
1:05:57 Shawn Ryan? Really?
1:05:58 Speaker 03 Absolutely. We did not know. But I knew one thing after I saw Iwo. We didn't know it at the time. But we always invaded a knoll or a hill. If, if you've been out, Santa Clemente Island?
1:06:14 Shawn Ryan? Yes, I have.
1:06:15 Speaker 03 We raided, we invaded that island.
1:06:18 Shawn Ryan? Really?
1:06:19 Speaker 03 Yes. And there was just like a volcano on a channel. And we would approach that, and I'd use fire and everything. I mean, that's, we trained on that island. That's what it was used for.
1:06:32 Shawn Ryan? Wow. That's, I trained on that island.
1:06:34 Speaker 03 But it didn't, we didn't understand. It didn't mean anything to us.
1:06:40 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
1:06:41 Speaker 03 But here, we're standing there looking at Mount Suribachi, and I thought, "My gosh. Now I know what the heck we were doing."
1:06:50 Shawn Ryan? So you went from San Diego and then you went to New Zealand.
1:06:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, that first time over.
1:06:57 Shawn Ryan? Where?
1:06:59 Speaker 03 We went to New Zealand to train because New Zealand opened up its doors. They have a great vast of desert because they have a lot of cattle, sheep. And it was just like California. And it's only 200 square miles, you know, but they let us do that there. And so, otherwise it would be Hawaii.
1:07:22 Shawn Ryan? In New Zealand?
1:07:24 Speaker 03 Yes, New Zealand.
1:07:25 Shawn Ryan? Did you know you were going to Iwo Jima when you went to New Zealand?
1:07:29 Speaker 03 Did we know we were going to New Zea-- you never know where you're going to go. That's never told. Never, that's never brought up. You just go. Do you know, we left San Diego, arrived at New Zealand 21 days later. Zigzag, seven knots, just like that, slow. That's slow, but that was because of submarines. You don't run a straight line. You zigzag. So when we went from island to island, it took a long time.
1:08:04 Shawn Ryan? Did you see any engagements from submarines?
1:08:09 Speaker 03 Pardon?
1:08:10 Shawn Ryan? Did you see any engagements?
1:08:12 Speaker 03 No, we never did. And you know, I had a sailor who was standing alongside the line. And I said, "Dang, this is scary. We don't have any protection." He says, "Sure you do." I said, "Where?" He said, "Guns? We got that, but I mean out there." He said, "We got, don't worry, we got plenty of protection if we need it." Well, something happened, and I don't know what it was. We got near the equator. And all of a sudden, I heard "Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh." A destroyer pulled right up alongside of us. And then they stayed for a while, and then veered off, gone, never saw them.
1:08:57 Speaker 03 As you look across the ocean, the waves, you can't see them anymore. You can't see them until they're on you.
1:09:08 Speaker 03 So you do have protection.
1:09:10 Shawn Ryan? Okay.
1:09:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, they're not gonna send a convoy over there without protection.
1:09:16 Shawn Ryan? So you were going to Island X. What is Island X?
1:09:23 Speaker 03 Excuse me?
1:09:24 Shawn Ryan? What is Island X?
1:09:28 Speaker 03 I don't know.
1:09:30 Shawn Ryan? Was that a code word for New Zealand, or was that a code word for Iwo Jima?
1:09:38 Speaker 03 No, we never used a code word for Iwo Jima.
1:09:40 Shawn Ryan? Okay.
1:09:41 Speaker 03 No, no, I don't know where if that.
1:09:45 Speaker 03 I don't. We knew all the islands, they were named, you know. Because we weren't going, we weren't heading for an invasion yet. But, you know, when we left, when we packed up and left New Zealand, we were ready for combat. But our job was to knock out tanks. And on the islands, tanks didn't do very well. They went down in the mud. And so they used them for artillery. So how are we gonna make up by going in there? We had half tracks. And that wouldn't work, so they broke us up. They felt we weren't needed. Went back to the States and formed the Fifth Marine Division.
1:10:24 Shawn Ryan? Okay.
1:10:25 Speaker 03 That's when we formed the Fifth Division.
1:10:27 Shawn Ryan? So you went to New Zealand first, then back?
1:10:29 Speaker 03 First one was the anti-tank battalion.
1:10:31 Shawn Ryan? Okay.
1:10:32 Speaker 03 Yeah. So we went, I went on two tours. And then the next time we were ready, we went to New Zealand. And we stayed there and trained for a while, then loaded up, got around Honolulu, went all through the channel, on our way to Saipan, got off of that, and loaded LSTs, which had six
1:10:54 Speaker 03 fibius tractors down below. That was gonna take us to combat. And we took off for two weeks, and one morning, we woke up at five o'clock in the morning, we're banging away, and airplanes flying, and we were right in a battle. And about two miles away was Mount Sorobachi. And we saw that mountain, we could see it. And the Navy and the Air Force hammered that thing, it was a cloud of smoke all over the place.
1:11:22 Shawn Ryan? Before we get there, when did you become a flamethrower?
1:11:28 Speaker 03 I was issued a flamethrower to begin with in the 5th Division because that's what we were going to train for. My job was, of course, to knock out pillboxes, fortifications, burn them out.
1:11:43 Shawn Ryan? What does a flamethrower carry in combat?
1:11:46 Speaker 03 Five gallons of fuel, fuel, oil, gasoline, mixture, lot of fire, no napalm. Napalm's a jelly and it throws chunks like that and burns. We didn't use that. The tanks used that.
1:12:04 Shawn Ryan? Okay.
1:12:04 Speaker 03 And they could shoot it way out.
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1:12:39 Shawn Ryan? How far did your, did you carry a sidearm at all?
1:12:43 Speaker 03 I carried a 45 because couldn't carry a rifle. Because that gun is about that long.
1:12:49 Shawn Ryan? Yeah?
1:12:50 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:12:51 Shawn Ryan? What about, how far, how much distance could you get with a flamethrower?
1:12:55 Speaker 03 How far would it go?
1:12:56 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
1:12:58 Speaker 03 I would say
1:13:02 Speaker 03 with a straight shot, full force, you could probably, you'd probably get
1:13:10 Speaker 03 65, 70 feet.
1:13:13 Shawn Ryan? Wow.
1:13:14 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah. But it wouldn't be as effective if you burst in the entrances, you know? Because you're, you're going into an open cave. There's always an entrance, you know? And you blow fire in there. Just blow a couple of bursts like that. You have six to seven bursts. That's all you've got. If you held the trigger back 15 seconds, you're empty.
1:13:35 Shawn Ryan? That's it?
1:13:35 Speaker 03 That quick. That quick.
1:13:38 Shawn Ryan? Wow.
1:13:38 Speaker 03 So you have to learn to
1:13:43 Speaker 03 that's it. You got about five or six like that, five gallons gone. Yeah.
1:13:49 Shawn Ryan? Wow.
1:13:50 Speaker 03 Two and a half in this tank, two and a half in that tank. The pressure tank was in the middle. Yeah.
1:13:58 Shawn Ryan? So there's three tanks?
1:14:00 Speaker 03 Yeah, well, it's three cylinders.
1:14:02 Shawn Ryan? Okay.
1:14:03 Speaker 03 Yeah. That middle one was reinforced steel. And the other tanks were close to it. The only thing that I would think of is if they shot me from the back and a round hit between the tanks, they would get right through in my back. But if it hit those, they were oval, so it would probably ricochet off.
1:14:25 Shawn Ryan? Interesting.
1:14:29 Shawn Ryan? Let's talk about
1:14:34 Shawn Ryan? the gourmet breakfasts, the morning of the invasion.
1:14:37 Speaker 03 The gourmet breakfast.
1:14:43 Speaker 03 We got up in the morning and they had chow on top side, they brought it up.
1:14:50 Speaker 03 Because the amphibious tractors are down there, we had to live on that thing for two weeks. On top, on a blanket, that was it.
1:15:00 Speaker 03 And we had to leave the blankets there when we got off. And all of a sudden, you know, every now and then we'd see a Jap zero and one of our planes fight overhead, we'd see that. And then the shells from the warship, the battleships and that, you could hear them, shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo, like that, and then we'd watch where it would hit.
1:15:25 Speaker 03 Well, anyways, they brought the chow up and we had steak and eggs. I never had a steak in the Marine Corps, I had a lot of eggs, but not a steak. So we're standing there eating at makeshift tables. And I said to this kid next to me, I said, "Hey buddy," I said, "what's with the steak and eggs?" He said, "Graves, think about it. What do they do with convicts before they execute them?"
1:15:53 Speaker 03 That's the kind of humor we had going into battle, it's crazy. But that's where we were. Until we got in it. And it was reality.
1:16:06 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
1:16:07 Speaker 03 And I'll never forget, we passed by a transport. And the Navy's were up in the bow, waiting for us to go by, you know. And they'd have a cup of coffee. And they'd say, "Give it to them, they're a Marine, give it to them." And they're like, "Give me a cup." "No, I don't want one."
1:16:26 Shawn Ryan? Did they, did they give you a mission brief before you went in?
1:16:30 Speaker 03 Give us what?
1:16:31 Shawn Ryan? A mission brief? Did they?
1:16:34 Speaker 03 Oh, yes, we had briefing.
1:16:35 Shawn Ryan? What did they tell you?
1:16:36 Speaker 03 They said, "If you can take a prisoner, take him. We don't know a thing about this island. We know it's eight square miles. We have an estimate of 22,000 Japanese soldiers on it."
1:16:49 Shawn Ryan? 22,000?
1:16:50 Speaker 03 22,000. Yes.
1:16:53 Shawn Ryan? How many Marines were going in?
1:16:54 Speaker 03 Uh, that would be 20, 65,000. Three divisions. There's 20,000 in a division, about 20, 40, 60.
1:17:05 Shawn Ryan? So 60,000 Marines took 22,000 Japanese to Iwo Jima?
1:17:10 Speaker 03 Can you imagine on eight square miles?
1:17:12 Shawn Ryan? No.
1:17:12 Speaker 03 But you see, they, they fought underground, then came up, fired, and went back down underground. So they weren't actually fighting on, on top side, you know?
1:17:23 Shawn Ryan? Why did we want to invade Iwo Jima?
1:17:26 Speaker 03 Iwo Jima? Iwo Jima lie in the way, in, in the path of Saipan or B, uh, B-52, uh, yeah, B-52, uh, B-52.
1:17:37 Shawn Ryan? Bombers?
1:17:37 Speaker 03 Yeah, 52s were there. And, excuse me, B-29s. The B-29s were there, and they went direct flights there to Tokyo, dropped their bombs, and had to get back to Saipan. The, the Corsairs that from, uh, from, uh, from Saipan could not travel that far. They ran out of fuel. So they wanted to have that island for a place to land in case they were hit. And also, the P-51 would meet them, take them there, and take them all the way back to Saipan. It traveled that far.
1:18:22 Shawn Ryan? Okay.
1:18:22 Speaker 03 The P-51s. So Louisville designed this. That was his idea. And I thought it was a good, it was a costly thing, but when it was all over, we saved 29,000 Air Force personnel and some of our planes.
1:18:40 Shawn Ryan? Wow. What was the, what was the mission brief? When they told you?
1:18:47 Speaker 03 What did they, what did they tell us?
1:18:49 Shawn Ryan? What did they tell you?
1:18:50 Speaker 03 Number one, if you can take a prisoner, take him. If you can't, you kill him. That was, that was just primary, that was it. Because what could they tell us? They, they had, they, they tried to talk about the airstrips that were fortified, but they really didn't know. I mean, it was just a lot of guesswork. So I think that we were surprised an awful lot as we fought on that island. We were surprised.
1:19:24 Shawn Ryan? So you landed?
1:19:25 Speaker 03 They had a 500, they had it at Camp Pendleton. I don't know if it's still there. They had it out in front on display. But they had made something like a 500 MG rocket. And when it, when it launched, it went like that, and you could see it. You could see it, and it would drop and blow up. It was a rugged thing. It could only go short, it could go all over the eight square miles. And that was the thing that we tried to find, we could never find it. Well, what happened was, we were told that we were gonna, well, see, I, I'm going too fast
1:20:06 Speaker 03 because we had left Surabati, gone to Hill 362A. We lost our battalion there. And my job the next morning was to turn my frame tour in, grab demolition, and another man and I, we went up and we fixed a shape charge to drop that top in because that's where they were firing out of on our battalion. And when we reached the top, I counted roughly 50 Japanese dead soldiers on top of that island. And we had to crawl over them to get to the mouth of the cave.
1:20:48 Speaker 03 And we set that thing off, and it bellowed with fire, just bellowed inside. And then it was over. That seemed to stop them, but they went to the north. They just went underground to the north. That's what they did.
1:21:05 Shawn Ryan? Well, Don, let's, let's start at the very beginning. So you landed, you get, you, you arrived at Iwo Jima on the USS Missoula, correct?
1:21:17 Speaker 03 Yes.
1:21:18 Shawn Ryan? Landed on D-Day, the third wave onto the beach.
1:21:21 Speaker 03 February 19th, 8 o'clock in the morning.
1:21:24 Shawn Ryan? And the mission was to secure Mount Suribachi?
1:21:29 Speaker 03 Yes.
1:21:30 Shawn Ryan? The mission was supposed to last two weeks and wound up lasting six weeks. Japanese had underground bunkers called pillboxes. You were a flamethrower. Let's just, step by step, from the brief to loading up, the insertion on the beach. What was it like on the insertion to the beach?
1:21:52 Speaker 03 I had two men, one on my left and one on my right. We were pretty well much alone. We didn't wait for anybody else. We just kept doing our job, bellowing, firing what we thought they might be in, then we'd move along.
1:22:05 Shawn Ryan? Were they shooting at you before you, before you landed?
1:22:08 Speaker 03 This is where the two men come in also. If they come run, now, a lot of them were on fire and come running out. Bang, bang, we drop them. They would, they would kill them right there. If they would come up with their hands up and that, then we would call, we would call for support, and they'd send a bunch of people up there and grab them.
1:22:29 Speaker 03 But it was a different kind of a fight. We'd never fought like that on an island before. So, and Iwo Jima was all volcanic. So, they had to tunnel in everywhere they went. And it was solid and hard, you know, to get in and stay in. They lived in it. They lived in there for two years before we came. So, the idea was to block them up if we could. And the only way we could do it was to close it in. Now, the engineers followed us. We would do our best to get them out. And then when we left, they'd come along, blow the thing in. Dynamite it.
1:23:14 Shawn Ryan? Can you describe how long it took you to get from the beach to the tunnels, to the pillboxes?
1:23:22 Speaker 03 It took, from the top of the beach was 575 feet to Mount Surabachi.
1:23:29 Speaker 03 We got there the third day.
1:23:31 Shawn Ryan? Wow.
1:23:32 Speaker 03 Third day. They come at us at nighttime, but during the day, they threw everything they had on us because they're right down us, they could look, they could see us. That's why my skipper, when he took a wrong, right, bad place, he crawled up behind that rock and they couldn't get him. And he lit up a cigarette and that was it till we found him.
1:23:54 Shawn Ryan? What did he say?
1:23:57 Speaker 03 Yeah, it, when we reached the base finally, we had a hand fight with hand grenades. But they were throwing them down on us, but we couldn't throw up. Now, normally, we can grab, if we're fast enough, we'll grab that hand grenade, we'll throw it right back at them. Their own, their own, and it'll get them. But we couldn't do it, we couldn't throw them uphill.
1:24:21 Speaker 03 That's quite a long ways up there. So what we did is we secured the base, blew up, blew them out of there. Just did everything, we got them out of there. They went down in the cave and went down below Mount Suribachi. Some of them came up to the top there and then our patrol that went up with this flag that my battalion commander gave them to put up, they killed a few of them up there anyway. Yeah.
1:24:47 Shawn Ryan? Were there planes? Can you describe the scene a little bit? Were there, was there planes above? Were there, how much shooting?
1:24:57 Speaker 03 They did not come because they'd be hitting us, you know?
1:25:01 Shawn Ryan? So it was all man on man?
1:25:03 Speaker 03 We gave them, we're mopping up Suribachi right now, don't be coming on us. So they did not come.
1:25:11 Shawn Ryan? So it was just ground forces?
1:25:13 Speaker 03 We didn't want them to come because we were all over that place. They had a battalion of men. Well, I'll tell you, when we left Suribachi, we didn't have a battalion. And when we got to Hill 362A, that was a, that was a bloody thing. It just, it just hammered the daylights out of us. I almost cried. I was off to the side with the friends, if they get me, I'm chopped, I'm chopped liver. That's all there is to it. They got my squad leader. They tortured him. They found his body. So I took over the squad. But then I lost, I lost the squad.
1:25:57 Speaker 03 So I mean, it's just, it was just a bloody confused battle. We didn't know what to really expect because nobody knew anything about the island. It was kept secret.
1:26:11 Shawn Ryan? How many friends did you have die there?
1:26:13 Speaker 03 How many?
1:26:14 Shawn Ryan? How many friends did you have die there?
1:26:16 Speaker 03 I had a kid, Orville Caribou was his name. We went to school together in Detroit. We went to school together and he was a rifleman. He was killed on Hill 362A. I had about three or four good buddies there that were killed. We lost our officers. None of them came out of there. So we fought to the north end and by the time we got to the north end, we held it right there because we had them down by the water. We had about a week to go. When we, because we knew we would be five or six weeks there. So we had about a week to go and we would have it all done.
1:27:01 Speaker 03 And they would come at us at night and then go hunker back down on the beach by the water. They can go swim, our ships, our boats would take them up, pick them off, or they could come at us and eventually we'd wipe them out because we killed like two, three hundred every night at a banzai charge. I think we were fortunate. I don't know in my battalion of anybody that really got killed by a banzai charge unless it was hand grenades. But bodily, they did not get to us and that's what we were really afraid of, bayonet firing. We didn't want that to happen, but we were ready. If we had to, we had to, you know, but that never happened.
1:27:44 Speaker 03 Because we could kill them before they got right to us.
1:27:51 Shawn Ryan? How long did it take for you to see the first Marine killed in action?
1:27:56 Speaker 03 I didn't quite get the question.
1:27:58 Shawn Ryan? How long did it take for you to see the first Marine killed in action at Iwo Jima?
1:28:04 Speaker 03 Not long at all. When I hit the beach, I lay face down. I had these two boys with me. We were scared to death. John Bassaloon, Medal of Honor Guadalcanal, the first one. He was killed right to our right, never got up. Three kids ahead of me were already dead. There were bodies laying all over the beach and we had to crawl over those bodies to move to the top. But it was hard getting to the top because nobody could get off the thing. Every time you'd get up to move and run and when we got it, they had it all. They plowed up the volcanic ash loose, two and a half, three feet of it.
1:28:47 Speaker 03 And it would sink right up to here, right up to your cap. And then you had to get your leg up. Well, I had a flamethrower on. Well, by the time I reached the top, I lost my two buddies. They weren't with me anymore. So I went, I went the first night of that battle, I was alone. In a hole too.
1:29:09 Speaker 03 It was a mess. It was really a mess, a disaster. That's the problem going on these analyses you don't know anything about. You don't know what to expect.
1:29:20 Shawn Ryan? When is the first time you fired your flamethrower in battle?
1:29:24 Speaker 03 First time on the way to Surabati. Yeah.
1:29:30 Speaker 03 I pretty well burned my way right through to the base. And by that time, I was the only one left in my outfit. They were wounded or killed.
1:29:41 Shawn Ryan? Can you describe the first time you used the flamethrower in battle?
1:29:46 Speaker 03 Well, when I reached the base, they were, you know, it was funny. They had a, it's all cleared out now, but they had big boulders placed there. And so the entrance to the cave was, to the mountain was behind them. And this protected them, so they were in between. But you could see their hair, their head moving back and forth. You could see it. And we couldn't get them. A buddy of mine yelled, "Graves, come on over here." And I walked over and had my flamethrower on my back. "See if you can get him. I can't get him." So he held the gun, my gun, flamethrower, and I took the bar.
1:30:30 Speaker 03 And I'm firing away and I'm chipping the rock right at the guy's head. It would hit the top of the rock, but we couldn't get him. And then he'd move over him. We'd try, that went on and on and on. So finally, what we did is we called for air power. And our marine planes came in and they scraped the daylights out of that thing. Well, they did kill a few, but a few of them went back in the caves.
1:30:58 Speaker 03 But we wanted to get that done before dark. We had to get that thing wiped out before dark. That was a bad place to be.
1:31:09 Speaker 03 The problem is they came out at night and fought.
1:31:14 Speaker 03 That was the general's way of doing things. Hunker down during the day, let them have their fun, and then hit them at night. But they paid a price for it. Every night, we were ready. How would they fight you at night? How was the fight at night? Scary, screaming, yelling. I had one Japanese with a bag on his side, hand grenades. All he was doing was, he was drunk around Saki. They had Saki in the caves like crazy. They'd drink. I mean, anything to keep going, you know? And they had drugs. And, I mean, talking, mumbling themselves.
1:31:59 Speaker 03 One came at us with that bag of hand grenades, started throwing them. One lobbed down in the hole. And normally, if you grab it, you can throw it back at them. But there's no way in the world where you could get that hand grenade. I picked it, tossed it up, he hit the top of the bank and rolled back in. I said, "Ow, a grenade." We all cleared the hole. One fella, and he was a married man, one of the replacements. His one foot stayed in, and it went off, and it tore his foot off. It was hanging by his skin. And, man, we screamed for stretcher bear. A stretcher bear, well, they find him, brought a stretcher bear over to us. And we got him on there, but his foot was hanging off, you know, on the side.
1:32:43 Speaker 03 He didn't know it. I didn't say anything about it. But I broke down crying. I lost it. If only he could have pulled both legs out of there. And he says, "Don't worry about it, Don. I'm going home." And he did. Yeah. Harry, hairy nights. Sounds like it. Then we'd get up in the morning, have a go at them. Yeah. Make sure they're dead. Had a good job. And, you know, they were just like us. Young, teenagers, twenties. Young, young ones.
1:33:29 Speaker 03 Only young men can fight wars. We learned that. Older men cannot fight wars. Their minds different. We were brainwashed. For good. Got us home, got us killed.
1:33:46 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
1:33:46 Speaker 03 That's war. And you've got to be trained to go in. You have to be trained.
1:33:58 Shawn Ryan? What did it feel like to engage the enemy for the first time?
1:34:03 Speaker 03 First time in combat?
1:34:05 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
1:34:06 Speaker 03 Lot of screaming. Screaming and yelling. At both sides. It's just a lot of screaming and yelling, you know. They were as afraid as we are. But it was either that or they'd be shot. No surrender. Until later. On Okinawa, they surrendered.
1:34:30 Shawn Ryan? Did you... Can you describe what it was like to shoot the flamethrower? Was it bursts? Was it one long sweep?
1:34:43 Speaker 03 You know, at first, if you don't... If the fire was just on their back, like... They would run. They just... I suppose they're out of their minds. But they would run and, of course, our rifle would pick them off, you know. But it's just a... It's a tormenting... It hangs... Of course, it sticks on your clothes first and then burns. Well, then, you know, it's coming... It's going right through the clothes and your body. And their face, you know... Some surrendered had faces burned off. Some of their bodies... And they didn't wear... It was hot on there during the day. And they wore these little briefs or... I don't... I call them diapers. There's a word for it. I don't know what it was.
1:35:27 Speaker 03 I call them diapers. And they would be coming out, running out of the caves with those diapers. It was hot in those... It was smelly, terrible in those caves. Nice. They were full of... We had to spray them, prisoners. We fumigated them. It was terrible. Sprayed them. Or it was spread like wildfire. Put them in a compound.
1:35:54 Speaker 03 Never touched him.
1:35:55 Shawn Ryan? When you would shoot somebody with a flamethrower, how long would they be on fire?
1:36:00 Speaker 03 Pardon?
1:36:00 Shawn Ryan? When you would shoot somebody with a flamethrower, how long would they be on fire?
1:36:06 Speaker 03 Uh, how long would the fire last?
1:36:08 Shawn Ryan? Yes.
1:36:10 Speaker 03 Uh, like, like I say, if you're gonna do bursts, which you should, throw a burst, see what happened, another, throw another burst, and then move on. But you wouldn't, you wouldn't pull the trigger back until you emptied it because you only got fifteen, sixteen seconds. You're out.
1:36:29 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
1:36:31 Speaker 03 You're gone. But if you do it in bursts, you've got about five or six shots. That's not much, but when you stop to think, one shot could do a lot of damage.
1:36:41 Shawn Ryan? Yeah. How many, how many people could you engulf in flames?
1:36:49 Speaker 03 It, because they're all in a cave, you don't know, you hear a lot of yelling. They, they yell all the time. They, they try and scare you with yelling. They scream and yell at you when they come at you. So you, you know, it all sounds the same, you know? I don't know what the engineers found, whether they were all burned up or not, we don't know.
1:37:12 Speaker 03 But you have to move. You can't stand there. You move.
1:37:19 Shawn Ryan? Don, let's talk about some foxhole stories.
1:37:23 Speaker 03 The foxhole stories?
1:37:26 Shawn Ryan? So I heard that we have very similar saying, no atheists are foxholes.
1:37:34 Speaker 03 That's right.
1:37:36 Shawn Ryan? Can you describe that?
1:37:41 Speaker 03 If a person, we've had kids, and I think every war has them. We've had kids say, "I'm looking out for myself. If I get killed, it's my fault. That's the end of it." Some of them say, "I'm gonna hope God will help me get through this battle."
1:38:02 Speaker 03 No atheists in foxholes, though. I've seen them yell and scream and help, "Oh, God, help me." I've heard it time and time again. And they won't tell you, but they'll pray. You can see they're praying, but they would never tell you. And you don't bother them. When you know a man might be praying, you leave him alone. You never say a thing to him. You don't question him. But that started on Guadalcanal. No atheists in foxholes.
1:38:34 Shawn Ryan? Really?
1:38:35 Speaker 03 And it spread to other battles.
1:38:40 Shawn Ryan? I use that expression several times a battle.
1:38:44 Speaker 03 What's that?
1:38:44 Shawn Ryan? I said, "I've used that expression several times a battle." But you made a deal with God on that island.
1:38:51 Speaker 03 I made a deal with God. I made a pledge. I broke the pledge. But God understood the whole situation. When I hit the beach, I was terrified. I had my face right down on the sand. I was so scared. Everything, the screaming and the yelling. I just said, "Lord," I said, "I don't know much about you at all. I know you exist. I know you are. And if you could help me and get me out of this, I don't know, serve you the rest of my life." And I got a hunch there were a lot of kids on that beach praying, too. Where else would you go?
1:39:35 Speaker 03 What would you do? Well, to make it real short, he got me off that island in six weeks. He never really got me until nine years later. That was nine years after the war. I had something happen to me that I felt so ashamed. We were on the north end. We had about two weeks to go. They finally pulled a big bonsai on us.
1:40:13 Speaker 03 And it's funny. In the daytime, you don't see anything. You don't see anything at all. At two o'clock in the morning, that's when it happened. When you can't, you're fighting sleep. And that's when they start blowing horns and bells and screaming and yelling. They're coming at you. And you do your best. You want to make every shot count. And yes, a few of us would get it. But we would just kill them, knock them all down, lay them down. Well, what happened? We stayed in that hole that night. That night, and the next morning, there were three of us. We made it, got through it.
1:40:57 Speaker 03 And we got, I got word that I was to be looking for snipers. So I got up and I took my glasses on the ground like my elbows. And I'm looking around, I couldn't see a thing. It was all quiet, couldn't spot a thing. I was there about fifteen minutes, and I dropped back down. And I said, there's nothing going on out there. So I phoned in and I told them, no snipers. They said, keep looking because they know where we're at. They're shooting us back up here. I said, ten-four? By the way, he said, you've got a kid coming for your replacement. I said, we can use him.
1:41:42 Speaker 03 And so finally, the kid yelled over the hole, who's Graves? And I said, I am, come on in here. And he jumped in the hole. He said, what do you want me to do? And I said, sit down, we've got a lot to do later on tonight. I said, well, I gotta be looking. And he said, Graves, give me the glasses, I'll look. I said, no, you'll get yourself killed. One of my buddies says, give him your glasses, that's what he's here for. I threw the glasses at him. He got up and we're shooting the breeze. He's up here looking, then all of a sudden, he fell back. His helmet rolled off between my feet. When it stopped, I looked down in the helmet, I was shocked. All three of us, we were just stunned.
1:42:27 Speaker 03 We didn't expect that. That sniper thought that was me. He was ready for me.
1:42:36 Speaker 03 And there was a little, a young, a beautiful girl sitting in a chair and on her lap was a baby. I lost it. I got up and screamed and yelled and shook my fist in the air and say, curse Iwo Jima, curse God for letting that kid take my place. See, that's, I didn't understand. And yet, days before, I was praying for help. Well, we phoned in and told them what happened. We got into another hole.
1:43:17 Speaker 03 And same story until the end. And all of a sudden, nothing was happening. They were down there by the water and it was either come at us and die, or go in the water and be shot in the water, either way. We don't know what happened, but we were released by the third division. Eighteen of us walked down to the cemetery.
1:43:40 Shawn Ryan? Let's take a quick break.
1:43:41 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:43:44 Shawn Ryan? Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show.
1:44:05 Shawn Ryan? All right, Don, so we're gonna start to wrap up your time in Iwo Jima. And I just got a couple of stories that I heard you talk about last night at dinner that I'd like to expound upon. But let's talk about making hot chocolate in foxholes.
1:44:21 Speaker 03 Hot chocolate. Everybody, when I, if I'm speaking eventually, someone's gonna say, Don, you have any interesting stories? And so I'm saying, tell the hot chocolate.
1:44:36 Speaker 03 I don't like the hot chocolate, but I'll do it.
1:44:41 Speaker 03 We're sitting, waiting, nothing happening all day. I said, I feel like hot chocolate. And the other two guys says, well, make enough for three of us. So we, we have ration bar, chocolate bars when they drop off rations, you know? And we dice up that D bar. Did you ever see one? The D bar?
1:45:02 Shawn Ryan? I haven't.
1:45:03 Speaker 03 It was a combat bar, bittersweet. And we chop, I chopped it all up, put, we got our canteen water in there. I made a pretty good batch and let some demolition underneath, beautiful, nice blue fire. And we sat and shot in the breeze, watching, keeping our eyes open, looking around. All of a sudden, you could smell it. It smelled good. Then all of a sudden I heard a voice, hey Marine, very good chocolate. You bring chocolate here. I said, if you want chocolate, you come and get it. Oh no, you bring here.
1:45:43 Shawn Ryan? Did they come and get some?
1:45:44 Speaker 03 I'd be laughing.
1:45:47 Speaker 03 Then they'd say, well, send it down to us. To heck with him. I'd get your own darn chocolate bar out.
1:45:57 Shawn Ryan? Don, how long did it take you to fill up or to heat up a glass of hot chocolate being a flamethrower?
1:46:02 Speaker 03 It did about 20, 20 minutes to a half hour.
1:46:08 Shawn Ryan? All right.
1:46:11 Shawn Ryan? So we're getting close to towards the end of the battle here. And there is a famous photograph of some Marines lifting a flag up on Hiroshima.
1:46:23 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:46:26 Shawn Ryan? Can you go into that a little bit?
1:46:30 Speaker 03 That flag going up, that was never, that was never in the program. That was never planned out. Not as far as we were concerned on the island. We didn't know about putting the flag up. It just was never discussed. What happened was my battalion commander Chandler Johnson, aboard ship on a transport going to Saipan from Hawaii, he stayed up with the skipper of the ship. And when we were getting ready to embark, he said, Colonel, he said, "Take this flag", he said, "And give it to, give it, see if you can get someone to put it up for me. I'd like to see that flag go up.
1:47:15 Speaker 03 Wherever you can put it up." And so Johnson said, "Okay, I'll do that." He was, I liked my battalion commander. He knew me real well. We got along real good. He put me in the brig three times.
1:47:30 Speaker 03 Sounds like a hell of a guy. Insubordination, I came in late from Liberty. Well, anyway, he gave that to Harold Schreier, Lieutenant Schreier, that led the patrol up. He just gathered some guys together. When they got up there, they shot a few Japanese up. They had a little skirmish up there, but they beat them. And then they, it's like I said last night, that was drainpipe that that flag was put on. People don't know that. We had no pole for a flag. We didn't know anything about a flag going up on the mountain. So they found this drainpipe and they put it together. And the Japanese used it to get rainwater
1:48:15 Speaker 03 down in the cave below. They couldn't remake their water. They couldn't purify it like we did. We purified our water. So we always had plenty of it. Didn't taste too good, but it was pure. And so they got the flag all rigged up. And we're, we're, we're through fighting, so we're walking right to the top. And when we get up to the crest and stand there, from here, right here to that wall, there it goes up.
1:48:47 Speaker 03 Man, it was a shock. And everybody saw that flag go up out in the bay. All those ships out there let go in the air with tracers and rockets. And our boys over on the north fighting with the airstrip while we're doing Surabashi. They start opening up with tracers. It was just like a spectacle. It infuriated the Japanese. They fought twice as hard. We put our flag on Japanese soil for the first time in history. Yep.
1:49:19 Shawn Ryan? How far were you from that flag?
1:49:20 Speaker 03 Well, from here, that picture on the wall.
1:49:23 Shawn Ryan? About 20 feet?
1:49:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:49:26 Shawn Ryan? 10, 20 feet?
1:49:27 Speaker 03 About 20 feet, yeah.
1:49:28 Shawn Ryan? That's incredible. What did that feel like watching that?
1:49:31 Speaker 03 Some say just within a few feet. They always do that. They exaggerate.
1:49:37 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
1:49:38 Speaker 03 I'd say about that distance right there.
1:49:41 Shawn Ryan? What was the conversation like as the flag was going up?
1:49:43 Speaker 03 Nothing quiet.
1:49:45 Shawn Ryan? Dead silence?
1:49:46 Speaker 03 They just backed off like this. But if you've seen the picture, you'll see when they get, when they raise it, well, they're going like this.
1:49:56 Speaker 03 But it was a shock to all of us. But boy, when it went up and waved, oh, gosh, it was a glorious looking sight. It was. We conquered that island. Cost, cost. I went up. Eight years later, I went up there. We rode up this time. Around the back, they got a road put up. And we stood there. There's two flag poles. Beautiful poles, bronze top. And the first pole is a Japanese flag. And this pole is the ball. No flag. We looked at that.
1:50:40 Speaker 03 I think there were two or three of us that fought up there.
1:50:45 Speaker 03 And we said, "This makes me sick." And the gal that brought us said, "Fellas, not to worry." She got under a big duffel bag and pulled out a flag that was about five or six feet long. We opened that flag up and held it up and everybody took pictures, photographers took pictures of it. We put the flag back up there.
1:51:11 Shawn Ryan? Good.
1:51:13 Speaker 03 That was the end of that.
1:51:15 Shawn Ryan? Was that, did that signify the end of the, the end of that battle?
1:51:20 Speaker 03 Pardon?
1:51:21 Shawn Ryan? When the flag went up the first time?
1:51:23 Speaker 03 Then it was over, it was, it was over on Sorobato, well, not, it was over on, on, on the, on the mountain. That was the finish of the mountain. We still had the north to go.
1:51:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:51:39 Shawn Ryan? Just a couple more things. I heard a story about you singing "God Bless America."
1:51:45 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:51:46 Shawn Ryan? And the Japanese wanted you to sing it again.
1:51:49 Speaker 03 We were in the, it was on the north end again.
1:51:53 Speaker 03 And we were, we were sitting in the hole. They said, "Graves, give us a song." And I said, "Well, you know, I'm gonna do something I bet you guys forget about." And I said, "What's that? God Bless America?" "No, we, we heard that, so sing it." So I sang it. And when I got done, there again, I heard a voice saying, "Graves, you may, America, marry. Very good sing, you sing again." And I said, "No more singing." He said, "Okay." Because we were afraid they might wanna sink in where we were at. By singing. So I didn't, I didn't repeat it.
1:52:32 Shawn Ryan? You didn't wanna give up your location?
1:52:33 Speaker 03 No, not a bit.
1:52:39 Shawn Ryan? One last thing, your skipper, Richard Allen, was wounded, bleeding. He got shot, correct?
1:52:45 Speaker 03 What's that?
1:52:46 Shawn Ryan? Your skipper, Richard Allen.
1:52:49 Speaker 03 Yes, sir, my skipper, yeah.
1:52:51 Shawn Ryan? He was shot?
1:52:52 Speaker 03 Yeah, going up to, going towards Suribachi.
1:52:55 Shawn Ryan? Was this at the ve- was this at the very beginning?
1:52:58 Speaker 03 Yeah, the very beginning, soon as we got off the beach. Captain Allen was energetic, a paratrooper. They broke him up, couldn't use him. And he, he came to, he came, my company commander. But he waved his arms. Even when we maneuvered, he would wave his arms. Get that patrol going, he's always, well, they're looking at him, I'm also, I'm surprised. But I told him one time, we were training. Skipper, you're going to get hit because you're waving your arms around. And he's, no, no, I've done that before. Well, that guy up on Suribachi sure took him. And he hit him right in the crotch.
1:53:42 Shawn Ryan? Oh, man.
1:53:43 Speaker 03 Right in the crotch. And he was bleeding. I said, skipper, you can't lose much more blood. We got to get you down on the beach. Get out of here, get up there. Oh, he was mad. No, sir, you're go, we're going to drag you down on a pontio. I didn't go because I had my friends over. But a few of the guys did and they got him, they got him down and then came back. Well, he, I don't know what happened, but 45 years later, I saw him. Well, we had a great time together. It was in San Antonio, we had a reunion, 45th reunion. And he came.
1:54:23 Shawn Ryan? Forty-five years later.
1:54:24 Speaker 03 Forty-five years later, we had a reunion. We don't have many more, we don't have enough men to have one. That's all gone. But he, I was so glad to see him. And you know, I couldn't believe that he went through that. He said he was fine and, but just what, two years later, he died of cancer.
1:54:46 Shawn Ryan? Oh, man.
1:54:47 Speaker 03 Yes, cancer set in.
1:54:51 Speaker 03 We missed your good, we'd have followed him to hell and back. That's what we thought about him.
1:54:57 Shawn Ryan? Did you have any questions for him when you saw him forty-five years later?
1:55:01 Speaker 03 Pardon?
1:55:01 Shawn Ryan? Did you have any questions for him when you saw him forty-five years later?
1:55:04 Speaker 03 We talked over a few things, you know, yeah.
1:55:08 Shawn Ryan? Did you happen to ask him why he made you a flamethrower, one of the smallest guys in the unit?
1:55:12 Speaker 03 I did, I asked him, I said, "Why didn't you put that flamethrower on my back, skipper?" He said, "Graves, you're here, aren't you?"
1:55:22 Speaker 03 I know what he meant, sure.
1:55:28 Shawn Ryan? Well, Don, your unit started with three hundred and thirty-five Marines and left with only eighteen from Iwo Jima.
1:55:37 Speaker 03 In my company.
1:55:38 Shawn Ryan? You were the only surviving flamethrower from the unit. You didn't sleep, brush your teeth, change your socks for six weeks.
1:55:47 Speaker 03 I, uh, I, I, when we got back and started training again with new men, I taught the flamethrower. I was the only one that taught the flamethrower. And I couldn't get these kids to pick it up, they wouldn't put it on. And for some reason or other, they, the lieutenants were standing right there, the platoon leaders, and they wouldn't say anything. So there's something about it that you can't force a man to use something like that. He has to want to do it. Because they banned it there, you know, they called that, uh, gas, same as gas and that.
1:56:28 Shawn Ryan? Yeah, I know they did.
1:56:30 Speaker 03 Banned it, you know.
1:56:31 Shawn Ryan? In fact, I was actually gonna bring that up in the interview. Do you know what they would do to a guy like me if I used a flamethrower in combat today? I'd probably be in prison.
1:56:44 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:56:45 Shawn Ryan? It's crazy how things have changed, isn't it?
1:56:49 Shawn Ryan? But you have a quote. "As the greatest generation, we fought that battle so Americans would not be speaking German and Japanese today."
1:57:00 Speaker 03 Absolutely. You bet. We said that, too. We won't be running around, kids having Japanese language, we're Americans.
1:57:10 Shawn Ryan? So what was it like?
1:57:13 Shawn Ryan? You left Hiroshima. Come back home to the US.
1:57:18 Speaker 03 Wasn't the same.
1:57:20 Shawn Ryan? It wasn't?
1:57:20 Speaker 03 It's never the same. It is never the same, even when I come home after the war. It was totally different. I don't know what there is about it. You know, we've seen movies on that where men return home, you know? And he just can't settle in.
1:57:41 Speaker 03 He doesn't speak their language anymore, they sure don't know what he's talking about, you know? Our convictions are different. No, I think that we were affected by... We were brainwashed. And that's what you have to be if you're going to face the enemy. You get so much training, you should, you know this, that it trains your mind of thinking. You yield to him. That's the way it is, kill or be killed. Do everything you can to kill him, or he'll kill you. That's training. And that's what training is supposed to do. You're different.
1:58:21 Speaker 03 It isn't that you don't love your family, it's just that they don't sympathize with you. If you expect to get a little pity from your family, forget about it.
1:58:30 Speaker 03 You would think you'd get it. Yep.
1:58:35 Speaker 03 Well, the war is over. Everybody's going back to work now. You're getting rid of war assembly.
1:58:44 Shawn Ryan? Did that bother you?
1:58:46 Speaker 03 Not really.
1:58:49 Speaker 03 Not really.
1:58:51 Shawn Ryan? Well, Don, a lot of veterans today have problems readjusting back into civilian life. How did you, what were your struggles adjusting back into civilian life back then?
1:59:05 Speaker 03 I have to tell you this. This post-
1:59:10 Shawn Ryan? Traumatic stress?
1:59:11 Speaker 03 Yes, stress. We never had that. I don't, every now and then, at least four of us would get together that fought from Detroit.
1:59:23 Speaker 03 We made it back, and some were replacements. And we never had that. We got together and talked all Marine stuff over again, passed it over again. We couldn't adjust because we were thinking different. Our lives were, you know, they had four years of us. And they brainwashed us. Might as well admit it. Everything was Marine Corps, our talk was all Marine talk. I still use it. And another Marine will understand what you're talking about, too, you know, with some of the stuff you really bring up. They know what you're saying. You'll never forget it. It's a brainwash, but it's gotta be, that's training.
2:00:08 Speaker 03 Train to kill the enemy. Hate 'em.
2:00:15 Speaker 03 And so you carry that stuff with you, but I will say this. I guess I had a couple of nightmares after I was home for a week or two. My mother said that she had to wake me up. And I said, "You did?" She said, "Yeah, you were moaning and groaning and yelling."
2:00:35 Speaker 03 And then she said, "Who's such and such?" I said, "Why you ask that? Because you were yelling his name out."
2:00:47 Speaker 03 I was, what was the name? And then I knew who she was talking about. So I might have been doing a chino, yeah. But it didn't last long, that's all we had. But you just have to calm down and adjust to people. These are different people. They're your people, your family. The Marine Corps had you for four years. Did they have a lot of questions for you? No, they're afraid to ask questions. What about your, what about your father? No, my dad didn't say much, no. Was he proud of you? Yeah, when he was drinking, he'd sit down with my brother. My brother was in the Navy. He got out a little after me.
2:01:32 Speaker 03 And we'd talk war stuff, when he was drinking. Sober, he wouldn't talk, he wouldn't, he wouldn't carry a conversation. I could never understand him. My brother went right after him and died. What do you mean? Alcohol, tobacco, all that stuff. He just went right at it. My oldest boy started smoking, got on weed, dope, alcohol. Everybody loved that guy. He just ruined his life. Died. That was your brother? He went in the Army.
2:02:15 Speaker 03 He went in the Army for two years and they handed him out because he got in a fistfight drunk and they busted his spleen. Who was this? My son. Your son? That same oldest boy. Yeah, and after he got out. He just, he went right at it. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Couldn't do a thing with him. I talked to people who do it, they wouldn't leave my home. Don't you can't make him do it. You'll just drive him further, you just can't. It's an unfortunate thing. Just hope that he'll grow out of it, but he didn't. I was in the ministry at the time when that happened. A preacher.
2:02:59 Speaker 03 My boy in jail, I had to go get him, go talk to him, try and get him out.
2:03:08 Speaker 03 I went to court when they summoned him.
2:03:12 Speaker 03 They gave him three weeks in jail.
2:03:18 Speaker 03 The judge suspended the fine.
2:03:22 Speaker 03 Here I am, I'm sitting there. The attorney said, "We have his mother and father here with us today." The judge said hello to the folks.
2:03:34 Speaker 03 And I would, I don't think the judge did, but people were looking at him and saying, "Should she take care of your son? What the heck went wrong?"
2:03:44 Speaker 03 "Can't do anything about it. He picks his company."
2:03:49 Speaker 03 "He picks it." I always tell them, I've told my grandsons, "Don't follow anybody. Pick your company. Pick someone that you agree with. Don't go following people around because they say it's a good thing to do."
2:04:10 Speaker 03 But every war you have, look at Vietnam.
2:04:15 Speaker 03 It's affected a lot of them.
2:04:18 Speaker 03 Jungle fighting. That's the last of the jungle fighting.
2:04:26 Speaker 03 Desert, no.
2:04:32 Speaker 03 Yes?
2:04:33 Shawn Ryan? Do you have any advice for
2:04:40 Shawn Ryan? the men and women coming home from war today?
2:04:43 Speaker 03 For them what?
2:04:44 Shawn Ryan? For the men and women coming home from war today,
2:04:48 Shawn Ryan? do you have any advice for them?
2:04:50 Speaker 03 You know, it would depend on what they've done, what they've seen, what they had to do, you know, so it's very difficult that way. And that fighting today is not the way we fought. It's...
2:05:06 Speaker 03 And I've talked to these kids, I speak to them every now and then. They had no incentive to fight. They knew, "What are we doing? They'll still fight when we leave here." I mean, it's been going on for 2,000 years, for heaven's sakes. Just read the Old Testament.
2:05:28 Speaker 03 Arabs, Arabian countries, trying to take one tribe over another. They don't get along. They never will. So I, it depends on what kind of rebellion. China, I'll tell you the next war is with China. I can tell you right out flat right now, and something's gonna happen. We might wake up some morning and find out what's going on because I know he's gonna try something with that navy. They're bragging about that navy. And that air force, they don't have much of an air force. We've got an air force. We got a good one. I've got a major general, he's a buddy of mine, and he's a crackerjack.
2:06:13 Speaker 03 He said, "I can't tell you too much, but I will tell you this, we have got the air force."
2:06:24 Shawn Ryan? Well, that's good to hear. So what did you do when you got home from war?
2:06:31 Speaker 03 Pardon?
2:06:31 Shawn Ryan? What did you do when you got home from war?
2:06:33 Speaker 03 From the war?
2:06:34 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
2:06:36 Speaker 03 Well, you have a few bucks, you know. Michigan gave every veteran returning home a $750 check. I went and bought a car.
2:06:47 Shawn Ryan? What kind of car?
2:06:48 Speaker 03 Only it cost me twice as much. $1,475 for a 1941 Club Coupe Ford, which sold for $750. Brand new. They had us, boy, they stuck it to us. I'm telling you. We all went and bought cars. We paid right through the nose.
2:07:12 Shawn Ryan? When did you start the ministry?
2:07:15 Speaker 03 That happened, hmm, let's see. I can tell you, it was May 15, 1954. I was at a Billy Graham meeting.
2:07:29 Speaker 03 I was converted there, my wife and I. And then I got back, when we got back home and got settled in again, I met five men from the Giddings International. And they wanted me to become a Gideon, and I did. I became the state chaplain for Wisconsin. Really? For a couple of years, yeah. But after that, I really wanted to get into Bible teaching, so I had an opportunity to take a church. I had five churches, and let's see, five churches, and I spent 29 years in the ministry, 32 doing Christian work. Wow. I still speak in churches.
2:08:12 Speaker 03 Two weeks ago, I had one. Yeah. What do you speak about? I speak about the Bible. I teach the Bible. I speak about what our lives should be, from what it was, if that need be. Do you have a favorite verse? Do you have a favorite verse? Absolutely. Naim 1:7. "The Lord is good, stronghold the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him." He knew what I was doing. All those nine years, that he said to me, "It's time."
2:08:56 Speaker 03 And I went through all of that. He was, God is patient. "One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years has one day." He doesn't care. He doesn't have a clock. We have the clock.
2:09:22 Speaker 03 Did you, did you struggle with alcohol at all when you got home? Never, I never struggled with, but I knew that the first time I got in alcohol, it was before I was a Christian.
2:09:38 Speaker 03 I don't know, not really. I, I was a party drinker. I'm still a party drinker. I don't drink, two, two, two drinks is mine. I'm, it depends on who you're with. I may go to a third one, but two is my, that's my limit. I know what it can do. I've been there. You have been there. I've seen my family. I've seen my sons. I've seen my aunts and uncles. So, I mean, when her, when her and I go to meetings and that or something, every now and then we'll, we'll have, she likes wine. I like, I like a highball. We'll have two drinks apiece, bingo, that's it. Where did you meet your wife? Huh?
2:10:23 Speaker 03 Where did you meet your wife? It was funny. My buddy was a, we grew up together, Alan Wells, Alan Wells. He went off to, uh, sea going, marine. Board a battleship, South Dakota. He was on that during the war. And I didn't know Chuck, my wife's brother, he was a friend of Alan, but I didn't know him. But after the war, he, he, all of us, all three were in the Corps. For, for some reason or the, her brother was dismissed from the Marine Corps. I don't know why. Never did find out. He never talked about it.
2:11:06 Speaker 03 And so, he had, he had gone through boot camp and spent a few months in regular service and something happened. I don't know what it was. Never did find out. But Alan, he went through the war. He went through the last two and a half years of the war. They're, both of them were younger than me. And so Chuck and I used to go out, we'd go out on Saturday night, go to dances or roller skate. We'd do all that stuff together. He never told me he had a sister. So one day she, "Come on with me. I gotta go home and change clothes." So I went with him. He had the car and I sat in the front room and in comes this girl.
2:11:48 Speaker 03 I was seventeen at the time. She come home from work. Quit school.
2:11:55 Speaker 03 And I looked at her and she looked at me and
2:12:02 Speaker 03 all of a sudden she started rolling her eyes at me.
2:12:06 Speaker 03 She almost did the, tried to get me, you know, try to talk me into things, you know. You know how women are.
2:12:25 Speaker 03 I said, Charlie, you didn't tell me you had a cute sister. He says, you didn't ask. I said, do I have to ask? Don't you love your sister? Anyway, we dated, dated, dated. We got married.
2:12:42 Speaker 03 After five years, we finally started having children and we had them four in a row. Four in a row? One, two, three, four. How many boys, how many girls? Two girls and two boys. Yep. But I suffered a lot for all those years. And I, when I say that, I, I don't, I'm not saying that she shouldn't have been pitied and felt sorry for. I didn't know what was wrong with that woman, but it was strange. We'd be packed up going on vacation, we'd get out of town. She'd say, what, what are we doing? I said, I'm going on vacation. I don't want to go, I'm gonna go home. Kids would start crying. I, I went through that for seventy-two years.
2:13:28 Speaker 03 Oh, wow. When she died. I, I don't even want to go, but she just fell apart. She had a lot of, like, poor kid, heart trouble, all kinds of trouble. Her arteries were so placked and so bad that it, it wasn't getting blood through. It wasn't all cholesterol. And so when he did four bypass, he had to use her veins. He couldn't use the arteries. And so you know how much blood she got. So her pulse rate would drop, drop, drop. They put a monitor on, that didn't work. She died. Well, I walked in the nursing home.
2:14:11 Speaker 03 I had her in for six months, the nursing home. And they were working with her. I said, "What's going on?" She went down, she said, "She passed away this morning. She fell down. We were giving her a shower. And she just passed out in the wheelchair. And we couldn't bring her to. I don't think her, she's not even pumping forty on the pulse rate. Oh, man. And so she's not gonna go through the night. So I said, "Well, she'd been wanting to go. And it was no good laying in bed like that." Well, my kids, my daughters came and we sat. And my son was working, my other boy. And about two o'clock the next day, she took her last breath.
2:14:56 Speaker 03 Boom, I said, "That's it, she's gone." I never understood. Then the nurse sits down, "Can you come down to the station? We want to talk to you." I said, "Sure." And I walked down and she said, "The doctor and I interviewed Rebecca. We found out something. And did you know that she was bipolar? Alzheimer's?" I said, "No, I never, never thought about it. But that explains why these disrupts, all these disruptions, you know. You make plans, then she changes them." She says, "That's what they do."
2:15:39 Speaker 03 But she said, "She definitely had bipolar." I said, "Well, thanks for telling me because that helps out a lot. I don't blame her for anything. I think of her when we did the good things, the good times. That was it. Poor girl, she just... And she had low self-esteem. My son took it from her. Low self-esteem.
2:16:09 Speaker 03 She threatened to kill herself several times.
2:16:11 Shawn Ryan? Oh, man.
2:16:12 Speaker 03 She never went through with it, though.
2:16:15 Speaker 03 I had a .22 caliber, beautiful pistol, holster, everything. I got it for 25 bucks. Brand new, if in those days, back in the 50s.
2:16:30 Speaker 03 I don't know what that cost now, but anyway. I went out, did a lot of squirrel hunting with it. I had a lot of fun with it.
2:16:39 Speaker 03 I kept it as a security in the house. She came in the office with me. We managed a 60-unit HUD housing project with seniors. That was after I left the ministry, just something to make money.
2:16:55 Speaker 03 And I don't know, she had whatever spells again, and she's, you know, Don, sometimes you get me so bad, I want to find that gun and shoot myself on the head. She went shopping. I went in and got the gun out. I said, that's coming out of the apartment. And I took it down to the office and hid it in the desk. Well, then the elevator man came in. And we got to talking.
2:17:21 Speaker 03 He was a nice guy, and we talked a little bit. And I told him, I said, I had a little scare, and I said, I took it out of the apartment. I've got it in my desk right now. I'm afraid she's, she might just go through with it. And an empty gun is no good.
2:17:37 Speaker 03 He said, you want to sell it? I sold it to her for 25 dollars.
2:17:43 Speaker 03 We got it to this day.
2:17:46 Speaker 03 But I thought I had to, so I did.
2:17:50 Shawn Ryan? How long was your wife in the nursing home?
2:17:52 Speaker 03 Oh, six months.
2:17:53 Shawn Ryan? Six months? How often would you go see her?
2:17:56 Speaker 03 Twice a day.
2:17:59 Speaker 03 And she couldn't notice, she didn't know who I was. It was terrible. I'd walk, and she'd say, who are you?
2:18:07 Speaker 03 I said, I'm your husband. I don't have a husband. You get out of here. Next day, come in, she'd say, hi, honey.
2:18:15 Speaker 03 It's crazy. You never know what to expect. So that head nurse called me over one day. And she was right. She's done. Are you crazy? I said, why? Why do you come in here twice? She doesn't even know what you're doing. Why don't you just come in once a day and see how she's doing? You don't have to do this. All you do is feel sorry and bad and you leave that way. And she was right. I developed high blood pressure. I've never had high blood pressure my entire life. I was sitting and I felt good. They were taking her test, her blood pressure. This is before, things were very critical.
2:18:56 Speaker 03 And I never, I hadn't, I hadn't had a blood test for good over a year. So I said, would you mind taking mine? She said, no, I'd like to. So she took my, my blood pressure. And when she's looking at, she looked at me and says, you need a doctor now. You're over 200. You need a doctor. Go now. I said, but Saturday, they're not open. Go to the emergency. I went to the emergency, told them what I wanted. And then they sat me around for a while. Finally, they called me in. The doctor, what's the problem? I told him, he said, what do you think Scott? He said, do you ever have high? I said, I've never had high blood pressure, never. He said, what do you think might have done that? And I told him about my wife.
2:19:41 Speaker 03 He said, that'll do it. Lay down. We'll get that down. And they got it down. Gave me, put me on Lycenapro, one of the first little pink ones, little, it keeps, keeps it checked. So I've been on them ever since. But VA puts you on blood pressure when you're, when you're about 70? They put you on blood pressure pills. You ask them why and they'll say, keeps you from having a stroke. So I'm still on them. Blood pressure is beautiful. I have a good blood report. This is the only problem right there, my legs. That's the only problem I have.
2:20:20 Shawn Ryan? Let's talk about the ministry a little bit.
2:20:24 Shawn Ryan? Is that the first thing that you did after war that you really liked to do?
2:20:30 Speaker 03 Say that again, what?
2:20:32 Shawn Ryan? Let's talk about your ministry real quick. You did
2:20:34 Speaker 03 The ministry?
2:20:35 Shawn Ryan? Twenty-nine years of ministry with your wife.
2:20:38 Speaker 03 Yeah.
2:20:39 Shawn Ryan? And five churches you opened, correct?
2:20:43 Speaker 03 I did.
2:20:43 Shawn Ryan? You opened five churches?
2:20:46 Speaker 03 I served five churches, yes, but I had seven years in the Gospel Ruska Mission in Tucson, Arizona. I taught, was their pastor and that. I just kept working, you know?
2:20:59 Shawn Ryan? Did you enjoy that a lot?
2:21:00 Speaker 03 I loved it. I loved it, yeah. I really did. I don't have a home church in Texas because they're all mega churches, big mega. There are some Bible churches, but it's not my style. It's not what we did.
2:21:18 Shawn Ryan? What's different today?
2:21:20 Speaker 03 They have entertainment. You want entertainment, go to church. I'm talking about Bible churches. You'll get all the entertainment you want. Singing, kids are up there and they're and their knees sticking out of their overalls, and they're just drumming away on the guitars and everything, having a lot of fun. The girls are jiving with a microphone in their hand. About that, that's no that's not what we're there for. We're there to learn the Bible, witness to people. That's what it should be for. You want to be entertained? Go to a theater. That's the way I feel.
2:22:02 Shawn Ryan? Do you still do it?
2:22:04 Speaker 03 I still do it, yeah, whenever I can. I was asked to come to a Bible church up in Madison, or Madison, just a town north of me. And we had a banquet there. They had a family get together. So I spoke, sang. I had a good time, yeah. I still like to be with the people of God, you know? I love the Lord. I'm not perfect, but then I'm so happy. The Bible says, "None perfect know not one. All have come short of the glory of God."
2:22:43 Speaker 03 Some people think they're good. They're no good, nobody else.
2:22:50 Speaker 03 All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
2:22:56 Speaker 03 I gotta tell you, a cute one. I had a man in my church, my first church, we became good friends.
2:23:05 Speaker 03 And he and his wife, they had four daughters. And, uh, girls will be girls, and so my boys will be boys. So, we had to go away for a weekend and his wife said, "Let her have, stay with my girls. They'll, they'll enjoy one another." And go ahead and go, so I did. When we came back, somehow this came up. I said, "Well, Charles told me that he and his wife never have a cross word."
2:23:34 Speaker 03 And she's, "Daddy, that's not true. I was there, they fought."
2:23:41 Speaker 03 "I never told him I knew."
2:23:45 Speaker 03 I said, "No, wait a minute, what do you mean fought?" "Well, they were arguing."
2:23:51 Speaker 03 "He told me they never had a cross word." He's a liar. That means he's not perfect.
2:23:58 Shawn Ryan? Yeah.
2:24:02 Shawn Ryan? Well, Don, we had a we had a lot of conversations last night at dinner. And about the direction the country's going.
2:24:12 Speaker 03 When last night, you mean?
2:24:13 Shawn Ryan? Yeah. Last night, we had a lot of conversations about the direction of the country. You don't seem to approve where we're headed.
2:24:21 Speaker 03 How do?
2:24:21 Shawn Ryan? You don't seem to approve where our country's headed.
2:24:25 Speaker 03 We're nowhere. We're nowhere, the people are nowhere, we're not together. We're in a mess.
2:24:32 Shawn Ryan? Where did you?
2:24:33 Speaker 03 We have poor leadership. And those that say they're not that way are following along anyway. To keep arguing.
2:24:43 Shawn Ryan? Where did you see the country changed? When?
2:24:47 Speaker 03 When did I see a change?
2:24:49 Shawn Ryan? When did it start?
2:24:50 Speaker 03 Oh, for the worse.
2:24:54 Speaker 03 I think that I saw this happen say around the 60s. Right in around the 60s. 50s were still good.
2:25:06 Speaker 03 50s were pretty good. Bella Graham was going hot and heavy with his evangelism. But something happened.
2:25:17 Speaker 03 We started sticking our nose in another buddy else's business and killing our boys.
2:25:22 Shawn Ryan? Vietnam.
2:25:23 Speaker 03 Vietnam, you name them all, Afghanistan. Stay the heck up. We don't belong in that place. The Arabs will never get along with anybody. All they've ever did was throughout their generation was fight, fight, fight. They fought Israel. And God saved Israel.
2:25:43 Speaker 03 It's not gonna stop.
2:25:48 Speaker 03 It's bad. We've got a man that sympathizes with all sorts of things that we would not agree with. He's the president for crying out loud. He doesn't care.
2:26:02 Speaker 03 He blames Trump for everything that's going on now. He's an imbecile. Something's wrong with his head. That man is sick. And they should not let him remain president. Democratic Party, if there were any kind of a decent, like it used to be, a good working man's party, then they would have said, "You need a hospital. You cannot be president anymore." That's it.
2:26:30 Speaker 03 They don't care. They don't love America anymore. They don't love America.
2:26:38 Speaker 03 Now, the Republicans say they do, but they're cowards. Two or three of them have done their best to speak up. They gave up and they're not saying a word at all.
2:26:47 Shawn Ryan? What do you think it's going to take to fix the country?
2:26:51 Speaker 03 To fix the country? Probably another battle.
2:26:55 Shawn Ryan? What kind of battle?
2:26:55 Speaker 03 Another war.
2:26:58 Speaker 03 Air, navy, with China.
2:27:01 Shawn Ryan? You think that'll bring people together?
2:27:04 Speaker 03 You know, it depends just how the war goes. It just depends on how the war goes.
2:27:13 Speaker 03 We're a strange kind of people.
2:27:18 Speaker 03 We're free people. All we gotta do is see other countries, travel around the world. Even though we have a bunch of culprits leading the country, we're still free.
2:27:30 Speaker 03 By gosh, I'm telling you right now, we are losing our democracy. We've lost being a republic. That's gone. We used to tell the government, because we paid them. Now they tell us and we still pay them.
2:27:45 Speaker 03 You ever hear a thing like, "You give me a job, but I'll tell you what I'm gonna do."
2:27:52 Shawn Ryan? I know what you mean.
2:27:56 Speaker 03 We're in bad shape. And the schools aren't doing anything about it either, though they're running scared.
2:28:05 Speaker 03 Yes. We have no real... And you know, our veterans that have come from... And I don't blame them. These are political wars. These are not honorable wars. None of them ever won a thing. They have not, none of us been won. Even Korea. We stopped at the, what do you call it? At the parallel, wherever it was. That's where it ended, right there. They outnumbered us. Massive Chinese told us to get off the monsoon evacuation. Marines dropped their weapons for the first time in history and got aboard ship.
2:28:47 Speaker 03 Ordered.
2:28:51 Speaker 03 We just don't keep our nose in our own affairs. We don't need any help if we could be the nation we once were.
2:29:02 Speaker 03 We know what fighting is. We've had to do it. Our history tells us that.
2:29:08 Speaker 03 We had it with the French, we had it with Britain.
2:29:13 Speaker 03 Yeah.
2:29:15 Shawn Ryan? Do you think we'll ever get back to...
2:29:19 Speaker 03 Being a republic again?
2:29:20 Shawn Ryan? What your generation was like in the 40s?
2:29:23 Speaker 03 I don't know. I sure hope so.
2:29:25 Shawn Ryan? I do too.
2:29:25 Speaker 03 I don't think I'll see it.
2:29:28 Speaker 03 I don't think I'll see it, not in the next five, six years.
2:29:36 Speaker 03 It's serious business. We've got to be thinking about it. The schools aren't doing anything about it at all. They're confused. I get in there, the teachers... They're just putting their time in, collecting the money. What are they gonna do? They went to college to learn to be a teacher. What are they gonna do? Where are they going?
2:29:58 Shawn Ryan? Let's wrap this up on a positive note.
2:30:00 Speaker 03 Oh, let's wrap it up.
2:30:02 Shawn Ryan? What does it mean to you to be an American?
2:30:06 Speaker 03 What does it mean, Dmitri?
2:30:08 Shawn Ryan? After everything you've seen, you're 98 years old. You were born. You went through the Great Depression. You went through World War II. You've seen the country. I mean, you have a hundred view, a hundred-year view of the journey of this country. If, with everything you've experienced, what does it mean to you to be an American today?
2:30:36 Speaker 03 I don't say it was in vain. Some of the stuff we had to do. But probably the way we went about doing it. I don't foresee any help. I don't see any changes, any real desire to change. We're too busy making money. We're too busy wanting material things. We're material crazy. We've got so much material thing, we don't know where to put us. In the attics, in the garage. Look at the garage. You go down our street where I live, garages are open. When they open them up, the car sits outside in the weather. The walls touching the stuff that's in the garage.
2:31:21 Speaker 03 And they're still getting more. Do you know that people... I drove a school bus before I came this way. I had some time and I volunteered to run a bus for a few months. Did I ever get an education?
2:31:41 Speaker 03 Where kids really are. There's one boy, here's an example. He gets out in the morning. "Good morning, buddy."
2:31:54 Speaker 03 Okay, I drive on. Evening, school's over. "So long, pal." Oh, he goes. Goes to the mailbox and gets the mail out. Reaches up above the door and grabs the key and goes in the house. What does he do when he gets in that house? There's nobody there. What does he do? Who knows? Can you understand why there's suicide with teenagers today? Because Ma's not there. She isn't at home anymore. "Don't worry about it, kids. You'll go to McDonald's. We'll go out for dinner Saturday."
2:32:39 Speaker 03 I go to a restaurant. Saturday and Sunday, that place is packed. School out in the summertime, they have credit cards, high school kids. They use credit cards in that restaurant.
2:32:56 Speaker 03 And we wonder why they're not thinking seriously of what our country's doing. Let it go on by, we're doing all right. As long as they leave us alone, let us leave, that's it. People don't like us. They believe we're greedy, conceited people. We got too much, we've been too fortunate. I have no doubt about that. Do you know that-- have you been to Japan?
2:33:30 Shawn Ryan? I haven't.
2:33:32 Speaker 03 If you went there to get a good education.
2:33:36 Speaker 03 After the war,
2:33:39 Speaker 03 after everything calmed down and the Bolsheviks were out of there, Japan started a new government. Democratic. They are more democratic than we are. All you've got to do is go to that country. I stopped off there for about five, six hours, going to Iwo Jima on a visit, just to, just on a tour.
2:34:09 Speaker 03 Well, they meet you at the, when you come into the airport, they have clerks, women dressed up beautiful in uniforms and the men, and they bow, and they shake your hand, and they lead you to where you want to go.
2:34:27 Speaker 03 That's the way they treat us.
2:34:30 Speaker 03 I was on a, that same trip, we're heading from, from, from California to Tokyo. Twelve hours, we lose a day. Tired, legs hurting, everything, body's hurting. It was awful, cramped in. Loaded with families. It was break time in March. Japan here, America's there, back and forth.
2:34:57 Speaker 03 There was a family sitting there, right over there. And there was one seat empty. And I, I'd like to, I wanted to get acquainted with them, I did. So I got up and I had this cap on.
2:35:11 Speaker 03 I sat down next to the little girl and she smiled at me and I smiled at her. The mother leaned forward, the father was sleeping. The mother leaned forward like that, she said, "You?
2:35:25 Speaker 03 Iwo Jima?" I said, "Yes, ma'am." She turned like this and woke her husband up. And he goes, "Oh, what, what, what, what?" Like that, he didn't know what was happening. She said, like that. And he leaned like that over and he looked at me and he said, "You on Iwo Jima?" I said, "Yes, sir."
2:35:50 Speaker 03 That's what he gave me.
2:35:53 Speaker 03 Great.
2:35:55 Speaker 03 We killed 22,000 just on Iwo Jima of their boys. They killed more than us, but I mean, that's what we killed. Why would he have done that? I think he realized that they lied to the people and said they were on a holy war and they lost their boys on these, on those islands because their own leaders lied to them. Well, the leaders got out and they turned like we were, democratic. And that's what they are now. They're more democratic than we are. No more will the, will the group, the people run that country. The people run that country.
2:36:35 Shawn Ryan? Do you think we can get back to that?
2:36:37 Speaker 03 We could have, the people wanted to. It's our country. We pay them their salary, we can fire them if we'll do it. No one will do it. No. If, if the bullies keep saying, "Sit down or I'll bounce you on the head." You're gonna sit down. Unless you say, "Well, you're gonna bounce me on the head."
2:37:01 Speaker 03 Yep.
2:37:03 Speaker 03 But in, and I talked to a lot of people, a lot of people don't agree with me. They think that's starting wars.
2:37:11 Shawn Ryan? I think a lot of people do agree with you, Don.
2:37:13 Speaker 03 They do.
2:37:15 Speaker 03 They don't want to do, they, look at Russia right now. Putin doesn't scare me at all. He's got his hands, he doesn't know what to act to do now. They're trying to arrest him. Now, he's got his Bolsheviks fighting them. They've got something going on in the country now. Because he attacked them and do you know that Biden just sent 3,000 of our boys over there? Why? I'll tell you why. Because it's just like everything else, Afghanistan, you name it. They're gonna be in there entangled in that thing and we're gonna pay a terrible price for it.
2:37:54 Speaker 03 I don't know what it's gonna take. It's gonna take the people. The people will have to run our country again.
2:38:04 Speaker 03 We have to elect, put in honest, God-fearing men to run our country like we used to have. That's what made us such a great nation. I see, that's what you learn, and we learned in school.
2:38:19 Speaker 03 These kids don't know what you're talking about.
2:38:23 Speaker 03 You don't know what you're talking about.
2:38:25 Shawn Ryan? I wish I could have seen those days.
2:38:29 Shawn Ryan? I hope my son sees them.
2:38:33 Speaker 03 We gotta love our country again.
2:38:38 Speaker 03 Makes me hurt.
2:38:43 Shawn Ryan? Me too, Don.
2:38:47 Shawn Ryan? Me too.
2:38:52 Speaker 03 Sit down. Take it easy, don't get so doggone excited.
2:39:01 Shawn Ryan? Well, how about we end this with a message from you
2:39:07 Shawn Ryan? on what the American flag means
2:39:11 Shawn Ryan? to you.
2:39:11 Speaker 03 You know, it's one thing for me to end... And we did something tonight that I don't normally do because I'm not asked to do it. It's not that I don't want to. It's that I just want any more trouble on my hands, and maybe it's not the proper place.
2:39:30 Speaker 03 You know, what do I think about the country? What do you think should happen?
2:39:35 Speaker 03 Don't talk about those things. All you do is start problems. You know?
2:39:43 Speaker 03 Republicans, Democrats. I spoke at our own roll call. And we had a great crowd. And a couple got up over there and started walking out. I said, "Folks, are you leaving? We didn't come here to hear politics." I never talked about any politi... I talked about getting our country straightened out. I didn't talk about politics.
2:40:09 Speaker 03 I said, "Sorry."
2:40:12 Speaker 03 A fellow sitting there said in a low voice, "Don't let the door bang you when it went out."
2:40:20 Speaker 03 I said to him, "Why didn't you shout that out?" He said, "I didn't want to do that."
2:40:35 Speaker 03 Oh, gosh. Well, all I can do is do what I know I have to do and and just wait and see what happens and say, "Well, God, I did the best I could." Yeah.
2:40:54 Speaker 03 I don't go out and speak, and I didn't do it here tonight, today, just to hear, to be talking and to be heard. You know, Madsen and I are general, Mad Dog Madsen. Mm-hmm. Madsen.
2:41:10 Speaker 03 He and I had a lot of good talks. We appeared at Marine Corps ball, and he was speaker and I was singer.
2:41:17 Speaker 03 And because I'm from the old corps, the we were the new corps, but the old corps taught us, now I'm talking to the new corps, I'm the old corps.
2:41:30 Speaker 03 But he's, he, we got along so darn good. He's, you know, he says, "Lot of these not-faced young Marines." He said, "Not-faced young Marines, you can't talk to them. They won't listen to you."
2:41:45 Speaker 03 He had a pity party going on.
2:41:50 Speaker 03 But he's the one that told Donald Trump about me, because that's why Donald, but Donald Trump sent me that, I thought that was good. What did he send you? Huh? What did he send you? Did I tell you about it? No. Oh, Donald Trump sent me a birthday greeting. No kidding? Beautiful. I got it, I got it right on my display. Well, the mail, the mail rang, or the door rang, and my daughter went and got the mail, and she said, "Hey, this is an express mail from Washington, DC." So I said, "Go ahead, open it up." So she opened it up. She said, "Oh, my gosh, Dad." "What?" She gave it to me. Here it was in a frame, a beautiful...
2:42:35 Speaker 03 Washington's certified document and Donald J. Trump cited said, "Dear Brother Graves." And he talked. It was beautiful. I got a copy of it in the car. I use it. Right away, I run and get a substitute copy, you know, so I can show people. But the other one's on the wall.
2:43:01 Shawn Ryan? Good.
2:43:03 Speaker 03 I thought that was nice of him. But then I said to the kids, I said, "Trump doesn't know me." Then I said, "Wait a minute. Mad Dog, Secretary of Defense."
2:43:20 Shawn Ryan? Well done.
2:43:21 Speaker 03 I could say to my friends, "Trump sent you a letter. Yeah, we're good friends."
2:43:33 Shawn Ryan? Well, Don, I just want to thank you for coming.
2:43:36 Speaker 03 Oh, no. Thanks for the invitation. Right? Right, Kelly? Are you awake? You were sleeping. You didn't hear me, did you? Not at all, sir.
2:43:49 Shawn Ryan? But I just want to say again, it was a real honor to have you sitting here and there's not a lot of you guys left from the greatest generation that this country's ever seen, the World War II veteran generation. And this just means the world to me. Thank you for being here.
2:44:11 Speaker 03 No, it's my pleasure and we've enjoyed every bit of it. I chalk it down as another one of our good meetings.
2:44:21 Shawn Ryan? I hope to see you again.
2:44:23 Speaker 03 Yep, yep.
2:44:24 Shawn Ryan? And Don, I know you're a singer. Do you want to end this with a certain song?
2:44:29 Speaker 03 Huh?
2:44:30 Shawn Ryan? Do you want to end this singing a certain song?
2:44:32 Speaker 03 Sure.
2:44:35 Speaker 03 Shall we do "God Bless America"?
2:44:38 Shawn Ryan? Let's do it.
2:44:40 Speaker 03 Kelly, you gonna sing with me?
2:44:42 Speaker 04 Yes, sir.
2:44:43 Speaker 03 Alright, better. I'll go back there and scold you.
2:44:49 Speaker 03 Thank you.
2:44:53 Speaker 03 God bless America. Land that I love. Stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above. From the mountain to the prairie to the ocean, who I will form. God bless America. My home sweet home.
2:45:37 Speaker 03 God bless America. My home sweet home. I've added something to that when I sing it, no, I just wanna do it. America, America, America.
2:46:11 Shawn Ryan? Beautiful, beautiful. God bless America.
2:46:15 Speaker 03 Yep.
2:46:16 Shawn Ryan? God bless you, Don.
2:46:17 Speaker 03 Oh, he has.
2:46:18 Shawn Ryan? Thank you for that.
2:46:19 Speaker 03 I don't deserve it, but he has.
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