Best-selling author and combat historian Patrick K. ODonnell joins us to remember those who lost their lives in the line of duty on Memorial Day, 29 May, in the year of our Lord, 2023.
00:02:30.100Memorial Day is about the honored dead.
00:02:32.240It's about those that gave, that were not wounded in combat, as bad as that is.
00:02:36.260This is for really those who died and gave the ultimate sacrifice.
00:02:40.500One of the reasons Patrick K. O'Donnell, it would look, he's a dear friend and a colleague,
00:02:44.380but, and we got to know each other great, you know, over the last 10 years and done a lot together.
00:02:49.380But the reason you've always resonated with our audience is that you are a combat historian
00:02:54.240and you don't write these kind of mega thematic books about combat.
00:03:00.540You always take it through the first person.
00:03:03.140You either do it through interviews you did with the Battle of Fallujah or with, with World War II or Korea.
00:03:10.680In fact, you started your whole thing of being a historian that would go back and actually do interviews with people as archives.
00:03:17.460But then even when you went back in those things in the, in the First World War or in the Civil War or in the Revolution where you can't do,
00:03:25.040you would spend years in archives to get the diaries, to get that.
00:03:28.440So when you read your books, you're really getting the soldier's view of what went on and it's so powerful.
00:03:35.520Have we gotten away, you think, as a country?
00:03:37.440Because you're still a best-selling author.
00:03:38.880Every book you put out, our audience loves.
00:03:43.380Do you think the country's losing the, the understanding of really Memorial Day and that it is set up to, to, in remembrance of the honored dead?
00:05:00.220In terms of what combat soldiers have gone through and the intensity of the combat.
00:05:06.680And what you do see is a difference in sometimes the period, but there is a sameness of, of that combat, that closeness and close quarter battle.
00:05:17.380That's, the books that I've written have all been about individuals and people that have, in many cases, changed the course of history through their actions.
00:06:31.560Naval, and it was plastered with, with hundreds of sorties of bombers.
00:06:36.360The place looked like the crater of a moon, but they, they did not take out these guns.
00:06:40.000And they relied upon the 2nd Ranger Battalion, you know, roughly a little more than 200 men, to scale 90-foot cliffs under direct machine gun fire.
00:06:52.040There were IEDs that were suspended from old artillery shells.
00:06:55.500Hand grenades were being thrown down upon these guys.
00:07:48.100But when you look at the peace that's there, you look at the calm that's there, it's magnificent in its simple beauty.
00:07:54.260And you've, just like at Normandy, you go to that, you go to that cemetery at Normandy above Omaha Beach.
00:08:00.900It is so magnificent in its simplicity and its power of this grace.
00:08:05.380But you have to put your mind to the thing that this came at a carnage that's almost unbelievable in that most of the men that are dead there knew they were going to die.
00:08:16.400They knew that this was their last day on earth.
00:08:18.380And some even had premonitions to that effect.
00:13:28.200It was a massive, massive slaughterfest of a slaughter factory that just, the Germans had everything zeroed in for their artillery and their mortars.
00:13:39.060There were bunkers that were hidden and camouflaged in pretty much every crossroads, every nook and cranny of the forest, heavily mined.
00:13:51.720And instead of bypassing the forest, they were concerned that the forest would be used to, you know, sally out forces to attack the U.S. forces as we went into Germany.
00:14:02.260Instead of, you know, surrounding it and bypassing it, we decided to take it piece by piece.
00:17:21.840No one has – there's no combat historian that has covered from a first-person perspective of going through journals, diaries, interviews, oral histories, which you saw as a specialist, that has gone from the Revolutionary War.
00:17:41.100And your two books on the Revolution have been magnificent, all the way to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
00:17:48.140And your book on Fallujah is still the best first-person account of Fallujah.
00:17:54.980Tell me, what's the metanarrative of your dedication of your life, not to American soldiers or American sailors, but to really those at the – every one of your stories, you're at the tip of the tip of the spear in each situation, whether it's in the Revolution, whether it's in World War I, Korea, Chosin Reservoir.
00:18:19.400I mean, you're at Pointe du Hoc, Hurricane Forest, you always go in.
00:18:24.280What is the big takeaway that you have taken from that?
00:18:27.160The books that I've written are largely on specialized units, elite units, special operations forces, but also average Americans that do extraordinary things.
00:18:39.240Well, aren't they all average Americans when they go into that?
00:18:41.300They're all volunteers at one point or another and just average Americans.
00:18:45.760But I think that's the takeaway, that a person through their agency can change the course of history.
00:19:02.400Now, what – is it something about America as a country?
00:19:07.720Is it something about the values we've taught that from the Revolution all the way to Fallujah, you see that time and time and time again on foreign battlefields?
00:19:16.540I mean, right now in Ukraine, they're fighting over their own territory, right?
00:19:20.100But you're doing it on foreign battlefields most of the time?
00:19:27.980And the American idea is a powerful idea.
00:19:30.480Ideas are more powerful than anything else in the world.
00:19:34.320And the American idea of liberty and freedom resonated so much with the American Revolution that it changed the world.
00:19:42.760It changed the world many, many times over through revolutions and everything else.
00:19:48.120And the first two books that I've written have been about that liberty and freedom and that idea that these men and women put down and then changed the world through it.
00:20:03.280It's the operating system that we have as Americans.
00:20:06.300And right now it's under attack in so many ways.
00:22:10.720I felt that that was – as I said, that was our next great generation.
00:22:15.260I mean they were – I think every generation in many ways, the World War I generation, the Korean War generation, World War II, Spanish-American war generation, Civil War generation.
00:22:25.740These – the men and women that I met in Iraq, in Fallujah, were exceptional.
00:22:32.160And I saw Marines that were wounded and couldn't – would bail out of the aid station just to get back to fight with the platoon.
00:22:44.140Because of that – when you do these small units, and yes, they're trained as elite troops, so they all start as normal Americans.
00:22:51.280They're trained – is it the camaraderie of the unit?
00:22:55.560Is that what drives – is that what drives people?
00:22:57.160Yes, they were fighting for each other, the men on their left and right.
00:23:01.380They were – the men in 1st Platoon, for instance, were best friends.
00:23:07.320And that was a most remarkable experience to be there in combat with them and see it.
00:23:18.120And then I've also seen it from – go full circle.
00:23:22.320I – when I came home from Iraq, I – I'll never forget, I was – it was here in Washington, D.C., and the families of the fallen, we had five or six in the platoon, which was an enormous number.
00:23:41.560And in the squad alone, there were four.
00:23:43.240And in the squad, those four family members asked me to come to Washington, D.C. and meet them.
00:23:50.600And they wanted to know what I was doing and how I was going to tell the story of 1st Platoon.
00:23:57.300And it was a – at first, one of the individual's father fought in Vietnam, and he accused another man of killing his son, and that wasn't the case because it was –
00:24:23.200Oh, it was some of that – it was some already bitterness?
00:24:25.220It was – yeah, there was – because we had four killed in the squad.
00:24:30.200And it was just a situation of how intense that fire was and how – in the end of this, the whole thing, I'll never forget, I was in tears.
00:24:41.120And they were too, and he came up and he said, tell my son's story.
00:24:45.880And it was one of the most powerful moments I think I've ever had.
00:24:49.200Because at first, he did not want the story told, and he thought he'd been killed by friendly fire?
00:25:51.680And I had this flashback of hitting my conversation with that World War II vet.
00:25:57.760Patrick K. O'Donnell, why don't you give – I want to make sure everybody goes to your website and to the degree they want to, enjoys your writings, because in the span of the books –
00:26:06.540Yeah, the one they were talking about as we were one, it's also on the Commandant's reading list.
00:26:25.980We're going to pivot here when we come back.
00:26:28.060We can't do it any better than we did it.
00:26:30.280It was – as you're going to see, Patrick K. O'Donnell and myself, we go through really what Memorial Day is and what – not just what it means to America, but the structure of Memorial Day, the Tomb of the Unknown,
00:26:41.740the Honored Guard over at Arlington, the Army, that stays in eternal vigilance.
00:26:53.960Arlington National Cemetery, I would say, is the most sacred ground in this country, you would say?
00:27:02.600Arlington National Cemetery, the former home of General Robert E. Lee.
00:27:06.940Of course, that was changed during the Civil War.
00:27:09.100We're going to walk you through all the way from the battlefields of France.
00:27:12.100And I don't think American people quite appreciate the carnage of the First World War and how the United States Army came in at the end and really tipped the scales.
00:27:21.800The reason the First World War ended really the bloodiest battle, I think, in American history is from August, the Battle of the Argonne, Mues-Argonne.
00:27:30.740Mues-Argonne is the largest battle in American history.
00:27:33.300The largest battle in American history goes from basically the middle of August all the way to the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, right up to Armistice.
00:27:40.820In fact, people were dying right up to that.
00:27:43.240And from that, we got the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and really this very special observation over at Arlington National Cemetery.
00:27:55.860We're here at our Memorial Day special, May of 2023.
00:28:00.000We'll be back in the warm in just a moment.
00:28:10.820We'll be back in the warm in just a moment.
00:28:40.820In my younger days, I was a naval officer on a destroyer.
00:29:06.920In fact, I was the A-gang officer in charge of all the engineering systems that were not main propulsion.
00:29:13.640And one of those was air purification.
00:29:16.080And I can tell you the standards of the United States Navy are second to none.
00:29:19.600If all home air purifiers are the same, why did the U.S. Department of Defense select EnviroCleanse to protect and purify the air on board our Navy ships?
00:29:29.820Because EnviroCleanse, advanced mineral technology goes beyond ordinary HEPA filters to destroy airborne illness causing cold and flu viruses, including COVID.
00:29:40.880EnviroCleanse is the new science in air purification.
00:29:45.300And now you can order one for your home.
00:29:47.880This is how you help stop colds and flus from taking your whole family down.
00:29:52.220This is how you destroy allergy-inflaming toxins and mold from the air your family breathes.
00:29:56.640In fact, this hospital-grade technology is so powerful that it promises far fewer colds and allergies and better sleep.
00:30:56.900So Patrick K. O'Donnell, the trauma of World War I, all these casualties in a manner with this highly mechanized warfare, gas, the perfection of the machine gun, really combined arms for the first time, heavily entrenched, shocked America.
00:31:17.860Let's talk about what happened afterwards in trying to even get the war dead back and this whole concept of the unknown soldier, even how it started, you know, in France and in the United Kingdom.
00:31:30.920And, of course, General Pershing, this, you know, you've had, what, Washington, Jackson, but that wasn't even a formal army, you know, Grant and Pershing.
00:31:44.420I guess General Marshall, that he wasn't a field commander, Pershing considered probably in the top, General Lee, probably in the top two or three generals who's ever had, but a shadow, a guy that just really dominated the entire army when he was there.
00:32:00.440He was an incredible commander, a dominant force, and also somebody that could deal with an alliance, which is something up until that point we had not had until, except for General Washington.
00:32:14.420It's an incredible skill to have, to be able to work that and that finesse, and also to follow Wilson's orders, which would be to keep the American Expeditionary Force separate and fighting on its own, so that we would not lose our identity as Americans.
00:32:29.600And also that the role of America would not be downplayed in these negotiations, had we just put our troops in with the French or the British, they would have been cannon fodder.
00:32:42.000Instead, we had a separate army that would be a decisive, play a decisive role in World War I.
00:32:48.840But going back to the issue of all of these Americans that were buried there, initially, they did not want to bring back those American boys that we had lost.
00:33:02.600And it was a cost issue to basically disintern all of the bodies and then carefully bring them back in an honorable manner.
00:38:08.000And they place the bodies in state and kept flag-draped coffins in the city hall at Chalonne's.
00:38:16.340And then that night before is when the Tomb of the Unknown is selected.
00:38:22.720And this is the final portion of my book, The Unknowns.
00:38:29.520It deals with not only the ceremony, but the man who selected it, but also the body bearers that actually brought him home.
00:38:38.780Which are Pershing's most decorated heroes of the war.
00:38:42.780And each one of those individuals was assigned to come up with, to tell the story of the American Expeditionary Force.
00:38:55.400So walk us through the selection process when they got to the, I think it was in a town hall.
00:39:03.720And they kind of changed it up on what they thought they were going to do, how they selected it.
00:39:08.780And then how they passed that to actually this guard of honor, which the body bearers are really a guard of honor of the toughest of the tough, the bravest of the brave in Pershing's army.
00:39:21.580And they were hand-selected by General Pershing himself.
00:39:24.260But the night that the Tomb of the Unknown soldier was selected for America is really an interesting story in and of itself.
00:39:33.240There was a general officer that was selected to choose our unknown.
00:39:38.780And it was the French that interceded and said that you need to use an enlisted man because they had done the bulk of the fighting to select the unknown soldier.
00:39:50.900And it was here that the younger, Edward Younger, Edward is selected.
00:40:02.180He's one of the men that still remained in Europe at the time.
00:40:05.960And he had some of the most distinguished combat experience of all the men that were there in Shalom at that time.
00:40:18.040It was quintessential in the sense that he'd been through all the major battles with the second division, which saw the toughest of the tough, Steve.
00:40:58.380And I found his original handwritten notes at the National Archives.
00:41:04.640And he takes us back in time to that moment in France that morning where he's given a bouquet of white roses and told to select the unknown.
00:41:17.160And he walks into the room and there's a dirge of music in the background.
00:41:23.160And he carefully moves through the various flag draped coffins.
00:41:29.000And he says in his handwritten notes that his hand literally moved as he placed the flowers on the casket.
00:41:36.220And after he had prayed, he had felt that that was a man that he had served in combat that had died, that he knew.
00:41:45.820And placed the flowers on that unknown.
00:41:52.760It's quite an extraordinary story that the caisson goes through the streets of Shalom, moves by rail to Lahar, where the casket is placed on the great cruiser, the Olympia.
00:42:11.500And this is Admiral Dewey's flagship during the Spanish-American War.
00:42:17.840And the cruiser, the casket itself is so large that they have a hard time bringing it below decks.
00:42:46.640And the Marine guards on board the Olympia literally lashed themselves with ropes to the casket to prevent it from going overboard during these massive storms and gales.
00:42:58.900But the Olympia makes it to Washington Navy Yard.
00:43:05.460The remains of the dock are still there on the 9th of November, 1921.
00:43:11.780And the casket is brought off the ship.
00:43:15.060And it's the body bearers that are the portion of the unknowns, the book that I wrote, that is the heart of the story.
00:43:23.800And these men are given the honor of bringing the casket and the remains first to the capital, where it lays at Lisen State, and then to Arlington.
00:43:36.120But they're symbolic in the sense that these are all enlisted men that are chosen.
00:43:42.140They're handpicked by General Pershing because they had seen the toughest of the tough.
00:43:46.680Most, many have the Medal of Honor or the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, and their stories are inner service.
00:44:38.080Crime continues to plague our communities, and those in charge do not seem to care.
00:44:43.900There's something empowering about knowing that you have the skills to defend yourself, and that's why I endorse iTarget Pro.
00:44:51.680This revolutionary system allows you to drive fire practice with your actual firearm at any time in the safety and privacy of your own home.
00:45:02.360No more inconvenient trips to the range, and you will save a ton of money on practice ammo.
00:45:09.060Just download iTarget's proprietary app, load the laser bullet into your firearm, and start your training experience.
00:45:16.160Improve muscle memory, increase reaction speed, sight alignment, trigger control, and much more.
00:45:22.700iTarget comes in all the major calibers, including .223, so you can stay sharp with almost any firearm.