Pod Insights The Moth Veterans Day: The Moth Podcast About this episode This episode originally aired on November 12, 2021.
This week, two stories honoring Veterans, and a can’t-miss interview with 98-year-old WWII Vet Tom Sitter. This episode is hosted by Jon Goode.
Storytellers:
Scott Young honors the legacy of his Vietnam Veteran father.
Tom Sitter retells a hair-raising tale from his WWII service.
If you've been moved by a story this year, please text 'GIVE25' to 78679 to make a donation to The Moth today.
Transcript 0:04 Speaker 00 Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm John Good, your host for this week. Originally coined as Armistice Day by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919, the day we now hold as Veterans Day is a day that elevates and celebrates those who stood a post around the world in defense of freedom. Every year, on November 11th, we remember and honor their commitment, service, and sacrifice. Our first story this week comes from Scott Young. Scott told this story at a Grand Slam in London, where the theme of the night was "Lost and Found." Here's Scott, live at The Moth.
0:53 Speaker 01 If I'm complimented at all in my physical appearance, it's usually one of two things: my thick, full beard or my beefy, muscular legs.
1:04 Speaker 01 I get both from my mother.
1:08 Speaker 01 She's only 5'2", but she is built thick and has a her suit-ness many men would envy. I grew up to the acrid smell of the wax she boiled mornings to remove the whiskers from her chin. Yet, all I ever heard growing up was, "Just like your father." Now, I knew that wasn't physical because my dad's 6'4" and had a baby-smooth face, and, as my mother liked to say, "Had to run around in the shower to get wet, he was so skinny."
1:37 Speaker 01 Not the genes I got. So what was it about me that made me like my father? It's hard being compared to a ghost. See, my father died fighting in the Vietnam War when I was only two. He was 21, and he had a choice. He could get released from active duty one month early, or he could spend a week on leave in Hawaii with my mother and I. He chose to get out of active duty early. He died a war hero, killed by mortar fire rescuing injured soldiers on the week he would have been in Hawaii with us, on my mother's birthday.
2:19 Speaker 01 If you wrote it as fiction, your editor would cut it because it's not believable.
2:24 Speaker 01 But it's my life.
2:26 Speaker 01 My father was drafted because he quit his job, left my mother and I, and took off to San Francisco for what he hoped to be the second summer of love. I can hardly blame him for that. He came back with a draft notice and said he was against the war, and he wanted to ditch the draft and for my mom and I to run away to Canada with him. My mother said, "No." My mother said, "Be a man and fight for your country."
2:58 Speaker 01 Her regret is deep. Now, when kids would ask me about my father, and I'd say, "He died in the war," they'd always say, "I'm sorry." And I'd say, "Don't be. I never knew him." I was super defensive, and I was... I resented their pity, but I was angry, and I didn't know why, so I just sort of buried those feelings. I did know that the Vietnam War veterans didn't get any parades. Nobody spoke with pride of serving in the one war America lost. And nobody, back then, honored my mother and I by calling us a gold star family. The Vietnam War was a mistake. It was an embarrassment. And there was no space for me to be proud of my father, this war hero. So I wasn't.
3:43 Speaker 01 I was 24 when I decided to go to Bill Clinton's inauguration, a kind of last-minute idea. And I was buoyed by his win, hopeful for the future. And I wanted to see this monument that they'd built for the Vietnam War veterans. And I knew my dad's name was on. And I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, so I purposely decided I wouldn't choose which day I would go there. So it was the third day. I was there, and I found myself standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking down at the black gash of granite, and decided it was time. And when you enter, you can give them the name of a person, and they'll print out a piece of paper that shows you the location so you can find it. And I couldn't believe what the paper said.
4:28 Speaker 01 It said, "Ronald L. Young, born January 19."
4:35 Speaker 01 It was January 19th. He died when I was two. We never celebrated his birthday. The only birthday I thought of with my dad really was my mother's, the day he died, which was always a miserable experience. But still, I randomly decided to go that day.
4:55 Speaker 01 I found my father's name on the wall.
5:00 Speaker 01 I ran my fingers over the etching. Facing the high, black gloss of the Vietnam War memorial is like seeing yourself through a mirror darkly. All of the complicated feelings around the Vietnam War are embodied
5:18 Speaker 01 in the monument designed by Myelin. It is a splendid visual metaphor. I could see the Washington Monument, proud, reflected, as though through a bleak haze.
5:30 Speaker 01 And I reflected, for the first time in my life, on my own loss. Standing there, in a sea of flowers, mementos, notes, American flags of all sizes, burning candles everywhere at my feet. I was overwhelmed. I suddenly realized, you know, all those times people said, "Sorry", and I said, "Don't be, I never knew him", was exactly why they were sorry. And why I was so sorry now.
6:05 Speaker 01 I wept.
6:08 Speaker 01 A stranger came up to me and put their arm around me while I cried.
6:13 Speaker 01 When I finally looked, I was stunned to see it was just a young girl, too young to be the daughter of anyone on the wall.
6:21 Speaker 01 She bared witness to my grief.
6:25 Speaker 01 We didn't speak. We didn't have to.
6:31 Speaker 01 I've now lived 30 more years than my father did. I never fought in a war, and I don't think I'm anybody's hero, but people still say, well, honestly, mostly my mother, "You're just like your father."
6:46 Speaker 01 And now, now that makes me proud. Thank you.
7:05 Speaker 00 That was Scott Young. Scott has always been a storyteller. From spinning fantastical tales on the playground, to publishing articles about LA nightlife, to creating marketing narratives as a creative director, Scott believes that we find life's meaning through story. To see some photos of Scott's family and of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, head to our website, themoth.org/extras.
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8:31 Speaker 00 Our next storyteller is Tom Sitter. Tom told this story at a Story Slam in Madison, where the theme of the night was karma. Be sure to stick around after the applause to hear a one-of-a-kind conversation that I had with Tom, veteran to veteran. Here's Tom, live at The Moth.
8:53 Speaker 03 Thank you. Hi, my name is Tom Sitter. Ninety-three years old and still breathing.
9:03 Speaker 03 Now, during World War II, I found myself in France. Now, the Battle of the Bulge had started in December of that year and continued through January. We got there, it was pretty much over, but we were, I was in a medical battalion, and we had to clean up pretty much. We carried bodies and parts of bodies and prisoners to stationed hospitals and to the Eighth Sense. Now, over there, we ran into our arch enemies, the Ninth Armored Division. These guys were all tankers, and they were mean.
9:44 Speaker 03 And we had, both trained in Kansas during, near Fort Riley during World War II. And we, in the cavalry, I was in the cavalry at the time, we had these great uniforms, boots and breeches. And they really, really turned a lot of heads, and we knew it. We were pretty cocky. Anyway, we'd go into town, and when the tankers would be there, oh, by the way, in forty-two, they still had horse cavalry down in Fort Riley, in addition to the mechanized cavalry. So when we'd go into town, the tankers would be in these bars, we'd come walking in, and they'd say, "I smell horse shit. The Twenty-Ninth must be here."
10:26 Speaker 03 And we gave as good as we got. As a result, there were a lot of fights going on, a lot and a lot of them. And we would instigate fights, we'd sing a cavalry song. Bear with me. We'd say, "The cavalry, the cavalry, with dirt behind their ears. The cavalry, the cavalry, they drink up all the beers. The infantry and tankers and the corps of engineers, they couldn't whip the cavalry. In a hundred thousand years..." That created quite a...
10:59 Speaker 03 That created a lot of fights too. Anyways, when we got over to Europe, we ran into the Ninth Armored Division. I'll tell you how. When we first landed the Twentieth Armored Division, our 12,000 men, tanks and armored cars and jeeps and everything else. The first thing they did when we landed in France was to break us up into segments, and they put us with the First, the Third, and the Ninth Army. So we were part of the Ninth Army, and up near the Rhine, we were next to the British and Canadian troops. And during that time, we did ambulance duties and moved wounded and dead.
11:42 Speaker 03 But we noticed when we got up to, close to the Rhine, our hearts sank. We knew, first of all, the Germans, when they retreated after the battle, they blew up bridges all the way. And we knew that when we got to the Rhine, we saw that immense body of water, we knew our hearts sank. We knew we were going to have to cross it, probably in rubber rafts or tiny boats. So we didn't look forward to that. And my rosary got a pretty good workout during that time. Anyway, finally, by now it was February of 1945.
12:21 Speaker 03 Now, the Rhine River started as a trickle in the Swiss Alps, and when it goes north easterly flowing into the North Sea, it becomes a huge river, you know, hundreds of yards across. And we just were frightened at the thought of crossing that. By early March, we had good news. Someone had captured a bridge at Remagen. It was a railway trestle bridge, and it was captured by our old archenemies, the Ninth Armored Division. Great guys.
12:59 Speaker 03 So anyway, we finally reunited the 20th Army Division. Finally, we went to the point where we were going to cross. Now, the 9th Army Division had fought terribly hard to win that. The Germans tried to blow up the Tressele Bridge and what happened is some of the charges, for some reason, God only knows, that didn't go off. So the 9th Army had to go into that Tressele, crawl under fire, and to cut wires, remove charges that didn't detonate. At any moment, they thought the thing would go up into their face. And then, at top of it, the bridge now was intact, but it was tilted and very shaky. You couldn't get a vehicle across there. So the 9th Army, dismounted, had crawled under fire,
13:43 Speaker 03 went across that bridge one at a time, under fire, and established a bridgehead on the other side of the river. And they held that bridgehead, those luckies, those so-and-so's, held that bridge long enough for pontoon bridges to be built where we were. Well, the 20th Army Division finally was united, and we were going to cross at that point. Now, when we got in our ambulance, we started off with a pontoon, a very flimsy pontoon bridge. The big bridges, sturdy ones, were for tanks and trucks. But as we got onto this pontoon, I could tell it was shaking. We were swaying from side to side and dipping and everything else. And the water was choppy, and the water was black, and it was cold, it was in March.
14:28 Speaker 03 And we knew that if we made one mistake, that ambulance was going to go into the water with us in it, and in doing so, we're going to wreck that pontoon bridge, which means that if we survived the water floating downstream, our own troops would have been shooting at us. And who were waiting to cross the bridge, of course. Well, we finally got across the bridge. We went over on the other side of the bridge. We reunited, and the 20th Army Division was attached to the 7th Army. And we swept through Germany. Now, we went through, down along Mannheim and Augsburg, and south and east, and finally got to Dachau. Now, that's another story, I won't go into.
15:12 Speaker 03 And we got to Munich, and finally we crossed the river and got into Bavaria. And as we headed towards the Austrian border, we almost reached it on May 7, 1945.
15:27 Speaker 03 And the war ended.
15:30 Speaker 03 Now, yesterday was May 7th.
15:35 Speaker 03 And, I mean, talk about 72 years. And to this day, I'm here telling that story because I wouldn't be here had it not been for those incredible bravery of those glorious bastards. The 9th Armored Division.
16:04 Speaker 00 Let's hear it for Tom Sitter.
16:16 Speaker 00 That was Tom Sitter. Tom was born on August 16th, 1923, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He's a retired building and fire inspector and World War II combat medic who served in the European Ryanland and Central Europe campaigns. In his 40-month Army service, he was a motorcyclist in both the mechanized cavalry and military police, a medic, bugler, boxer, and litter bearer. Litter bearer is not what it sounds like. In this instance, litter means stretcher. Tom currently resides in Madison, Wisconsin.
16:53 Speaker 00 In the conversation you're about to hear, it is my distinct honor and privilege to speak with Tom about his life and service in the Army.
17:09 Speaker 00 Hello, this is John. Is this Mr. Tom Sitter?
17:11 Speaker 03 This is he, yes.
17:13 Speaker 00 Fantastic. It is an honor and a pleasure to have this conversation with you. First off, as always, I'd like to thank you for your service, for all that you, you know, have done for this country and for us. I, myself, I was in the Marine Corps during the first Desert Storm.
17:29 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
17:30 Speaker 00 And guys like you definitely paved the way for guys like me to come along and just follow in your footsteps. You were a very young man when you joined the Army, like 20 years old, is that correct?
17:41 Speaker 03 I just turned, yeah, I just turned 19.
17:44 Speaker 00 Just turned 19.
17:45 Speaker 03 1942, yeah.
17:47 Speaker 00 Wow. So what inspired you to enlist?
17:52 Speaker 04 I had a Hollywood version of what the war was all about, you know. Yeah, I had no idea what war anything was really like, but we're all filled with enthusiasm in those days, young guys.
18:04 Speaker 00 Right. So, once you got in and got enlisted and, and, and did, did boot camp and went over, how did that change you as a person? Like, once you saw what war really was, um, how did that, I guess, inform these formative years of yours?
18:20 Speaker 04 Well, over, over a long period of time, it made me a pacifist.
18:24 Speaker 00 Hmm.
18:25 Speaker 04 And abhorred war. I wasn't till after, well, after I'd been in combat for a while and then I lost my very best friend, Roy Sanders, who was killed in thirty-sixth infantry. Uh, I gradually, it wasn't, it wasn't a sudden thing. It was like over the years, I, I just saw, I thought that war was so, so useless.
18:48 Speaker 00 Hmm.
18:49 Speaker 04 And nobody, nobody really wins in a war.
18:52 Speaker 00 What's one of your most vivid memories from your combat days?
18:56 Speaker 04 Our, uh, division was one of two that liberated that cowl, the concentration camp, and, uh, that is something I will never, never, ever forget. It was just mind twisting to, to see people treated like that.
19:12 Speaker 00 Hmm. Well, on, on, on May, uh, seventh of nineteen forty-five, when Germany surrendered, with all you had been through, like, how did that feel to you? Do you remember that day?
19:22 Speaker 04 Yeah, I tell you, uh, for one thing, the war was winding down. We knew the last week or so of the war, there was hardly any resistance at all. Germans were coming out of the woods with their hands up, hundreds and hundreds of Germans trying to surrender. Uh, I had to be very careful. Some of them would come out of the woods and get shot.
19:42 Speaker 00 Oh, wow. When you heard they surrendered, where, I mean, you knew ahead of time, but when you got the official word, was, was it just thoughts of like, oh, well, you know, we're heading home now?
19:52 Speaker 04 Yeah, we were down in Bavaria, very close to the, um, Austrian border. And, uh, Berchtesgaden, which was, which was Hitler's mountain retreat. Uh, I had the privilege of going through that place too.
20:08 Speaker 04 Uh, that was, that was really something that I'll never forget. Uh, I, uh, uh, we're going through, we got, everybody was on a rush. See, everybody assumed that Hitler was hiding down there. When we, when the war was ending, we were on a race after we left that cow to get to, to Berchtesgaden to capture Hitler and Martin Bormann.
20:29 Speaker 00 Oh, wow. Okay.
20:30 Speaker 04 The French were also headed in that direction and the one hundred and first airborne. The one hundred and first airborne got there first. So they took over at Berchtesgaden. So when we got there, we were swarming through the place like a bunch of locusts, you know, trying to get souvenirs. I did pick up a couple, but anyway. Uh, I heard, heard a couple of guys, hey, sitter, sitter, come in here. I walked in this big bathroom. It was the largest bathroom and we assumed it was Hitler's. And they're both taking a leak into bathtub and I went with them. So, uh, I, I want to be known as somebody that pissed in Hitler's bathtub.
21:12 Speaker 00 Listen, I think you should get, uh, business cards and that should be.
21:16 Speaker 04 Yeah, I, I was, I thought I, they had that show on TV years ago. I've got a secret. I thought, I'd get on that show. They'd never guess in a million years what I did.
21:29 Speaker 00 Oh, so after you, um, you know, a- after your, your, your enlistment was over, after you, um, got out of the army, how was your adjustment back to civilian life?
21:40 Speaker 04 We got back a customer, here's millions and millions of young guys looking for jobs. Jobs are really hard to find and you didn't have much choice. But we got out early enough in, uh, in January of nineteen forty-five. And the bulk of the guys getting discharged were still, still in service. So we got ahead of a lot of guys. So, but there weren't, we were unskilled, you know? We, we had to take what, whatever job was offered. But I was struggling along with a lot of other guys. It didn't, you know, the skills that we had learned in service were not helpful.
22:14 Speaker 00 Right. So now, you know, at the age of ninety-eight years young, uh, having, you know, lived through, uh, World War Two and having served and having seen everything that's come since, all of the other wars, uh, what advice do you have for like the younger generation or, or the world at large today?
22:34 Speaker 04 Oh, boy. Probably all the things that my mother taught me. Try to be honest. Never, never lie to yourself. Many of us have done that. We've done things that were wrong and we lied to ourselves to do it. Treat people like you would treat themselves. And I've learned to hate bigotry. I don't, I don't have much hate for a thing, but there's a lot of disgust for people that are bigoted.
23:02 Speaker 00 Which is something because, you know, World War II, I mean, part of what's at the root of that war is bigotry. You know, the root of bigotry is ignorance. And then, you know, once you're around a group of people and you get to know them, then you're like, oh, wow, most of what I've been told isn't true.
23:15 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah.
23:17 Speaker 00 And, and, and, you know, in the military, they would, they would always say, you know, we're, we're all the same in a foxhole. There is no, no black, no white. We're just, we're in here together trying to push toward the same goal. And
23:28 Speaker 04 Yeah, right.
23:29 Speaker 00 Speaking of goals, I heard that a few years back, you won the Story Slam in Madison.
23:34 Speaker 04 Yeah, I won.
23:35 Speaker 00 Fantastic. That's, that's the best experience.
23:39 Speaker 04 I guess I, I'm bragging now, but I was probably the first one ever to get a 10.
23:43 Speaker 00 Oh, I love it. I love it. You should put that on your business card. I, I, urinator in Hitler's tub and the first person to get a 10 at the Madison Story Slam. Well, Tom, thank you so much for your time today. We greatly appreciate it.
23:58 Speaker 04 Nice talking to you.
23:59 Speaker 00 All right. Bye-bye.
24:00 Speaker 04 That was easy.
24:06 Speaker 00 To see some photos of Tom, head to our website, themoth.org/extras. That's all for this episode. From all of us here at The Moth, have a story worthy week.
24:21 Speaker 05 John Good is an Emmy nominated writer, raised in Richmond, Virginia, and currently residing in Atlanta, Georgia. John's work has been featured on CNN's Black in America, HBO's Deaf Poetry Jam, and TV1's Verses in Flow. He has written a collection of poetry and short stories entitled Conduit and a novel entitled Midas. John is a fellow of Air Serenby and current host of The Moth, Atlanta.
24:47 Speaker 05 This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson, Julia Purcell, and me, Davy Sumner. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Katherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cluchet, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski, and Aldi Kazza. All Moth stories are true as remembered by storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, visit our website, themoth.org.
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