Bannon's War Room - May 29, 2023


Episode 2766: WarRoom Memorial Day Special


Episode Stats

Length

55 minutes

Words per Minute

147.36823

Word Count

8,181

Sentence Count

654

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

5


Summary

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.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 You
00:00:30.000 It's Memorial Day, 29 May in the year of our Lord, 2023.
00:00:54.980 I want to thank you for our Memorial Day special for the audience who's been with us.
00:00:58.860 I think it's our fourth Memorial Day here in War Room.
00:01:03.220 And, of course, we've been doing it many years before that at Breitbart News Radio.
00:01:08.660 We used to do it over at Sirius XM.
00:01:10.000 And then earlier than that, when I had the show in L.A. at WABC, the Victory Session.
00:01:14.600 So I've been doing this since 2011.
00:01:16.940 I guess it's 12 years now, 13 years?
00:01:19.920 No, 12 years. I don't know.
00:01:21.700 I want to bring in Patrick K. O'Donnell.
00:01:23.220 For 10 years, I've been doing it with Patrick K. O'Donnell, the finest combat historian of his day.
00:01:29.420 We're going to get into later in the C Block about Memorial Day.
00:01:32.680 We're in Washington, D.C., the nation's capital.
00:01:37.080 And we're going to take a while and break down exactly about memorials, about tombs of the unknown,
00:01:43.720 how France and other nations that have been our allies have commemorated that and how we picked up on it.
00:01:49.480 But the reason today, and we appreciate you for your time on the Saturday show.
00:01:57.380 But I want to get back into it.
00:01:58.660 I want to talk about it because I think the nation's kind of gotten off what Memorial Day is about.
00:02:05.980 And we try to reemphasize it here.
00:02:07.400 Memorial Day is not Veterans Day.
00:02:08.740 I'm a veteran.
00:02:09.280 Veterans Day is for thank you for your service.
00:02:12.520 And, you know, the veterans, it's on the, you know, the 11th hour, the 11th day of the, what,
00:02:19.820 the 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th hour with the armistice in France.
00:02:27.240 And Veterans Day, we commemorate that.
00:02:28.900 Memorial Day is not that.
00:02:30.100 Memorial Day is about the honored dead.
00:02:32.240 It's about those that gave, that were not wounded in combat, as bad as that is.
00:02:36.260 This is for really those who died and gave the ultimate sacrifice.
00:02:40.500 One of the reasons Patrick K. O'Donnell, it would look, he's a dear friend and a colleague,
00:02:44.380 but, and we got to know each other great, you know, over the last 10 years and done a lot together.
00:02:49.380 But the reason you've always resonated with our audience is that you are a combat historian
00:02:54.240 and you don't write these kind of mega thematic books about combat.
00:03:00.540 You always take it through the first person.
00:03:03.140 You either do it through interviews you did with the Battle of Fallujah or with, with World War II or Korea.
00:03:10.680 In fact, you started your whole thing of being a historian that would go back and actually do interviews with people as archives.
00:03:17.460 But 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,
00:03:25.040 you would spend years in archives to get the diaries, to get that.
00:03:28.440 So when you read your books, you're really getting the soldier's view of what went on and it's so powerful.
00:03:35.520 Have we gotten away, you think, as a country?
00:03:37.440 Because you're still a best-selling author.
00:03:38.880 Every book you put out, our audience loves.
00:03:41.460 They're, they're huge bestsellers.
00:03:43.380 Do 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?
00:03:51.800 I think to some degree that's true.
00:03:54.900 I mean, this Memorial Day is about honoring those that have fallen in all of our wars.
00:04:00.260 It's about, it's about Sean Stokes who was in the Battle of Fallujah or Michael Hanks who lost his life there,
00:04:08.520 who is only 22 years old in a, you know, firefight with Chechens in a house that I remember specifically that day like it was yesterday.
00:04:19.120 It was November 17th, 2004, and dragged, I dragged him out of the firefight along with, we, we.
00:04:28.760 You were embedded.
00:04:29.760 I was.
00:04:30.320 I was a civilian combat historian.
00:04:32.140 I was in uniform, though, and fought house to house in the Marine Corps and 3-1 Lima Company.
00:04:38.800 And that was a very powerful experience.
00:04:41.300 But it's, yeah, that's, that's touched me.
00:04:43.640 Those experiences, I've been touched by that fire and by those men that have died.
00:04:48.120 Did you get that same, when you go through the archives and see the first person accounts from like the Revolutionary War or.
00:04:54.300 There's a, there is a sameness to, to those, to the periods of time.
00:04:59.100 What do you mean by that?
00:05:00.220 In terms of what combat soldiers have gone through and the intensity of the combat.
00:05:06.680 And 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.
00:05:17.380 That'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.
00:05:27.520 Small groups of people.
00:05:29.040 Small unit combat.
00:05:29.760 Yeah, that have been in there at the right place at the right time, an inflection point that changed history through their actions.
00:05:36.660 Was it, was it, was it inflection points that they created by their agency and their actions?
00:05:42.660 And that's why when you look at it in the grand scope of things, you can see that it was an inflection point.
00:05:46.940 But the reason it was is because of what they did at that moment, that defining moment for them.
00:05:51.100 Yes, exactly.
00:05:52.740 And a classic example is, is my book, Dog Company, which is on the 2nd Ranger Battalion.
00:05:59.560 And this is a small group of men, Dog Company, which is, you know, roughly a, about a little more than 100 men in a company of rangers.
00:06:08.660 And they threw pretty much everything they could against these large guns.
00:06:12.600 There were six main guns at Pointe de Hoc.
00:06:14.340 They were pointed at the invasion force and they could reach either beach or the ships outside, you know, in the channel.
00:06:22.820 And they had to be taken out at all costs.
00:06:24.420 They threw, you know, massive amounts of, of naval artillery at the, at the guns.
00:06:30.600 Naval bombardment.
00:06:31.560 Naval, and it was plastered with, with hundreds of sorties of bombers.
00:06:36.360 The place looked like the crater of a moon, but they, they did not take out these guns.
00:06:40.000 And 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.
00:06:52.040 There were IEDs that were suspended from old artillery shells.
00:06:55.500 Hand grenades were being thrown down upon these guys.
00:06:58.320 They threw everything at them.
00:07:00.300 And it was one.
00:07:01.000 And the 2nd Rangers had to scale.
00:07:02.860 They had to scale.
00:07:03.940 These are the boys in Pointe de Hoc.
00:07:05.100 They had to scale a 100-foot cliff?
00:07:06.820 They had to scale a 100-foot cliff under direct fire.
00:07:10.000 This is a, you know, suicide mission if there ever was one.
00:07:13.080 Did they know when you, did they know they're going to die?
00:07:15.620 Yeah.
00:07:15.800 They know they were told.
00:07:16.900 This is the last day of their life.
00:07:18.100 They understand that.
00:07:19.340 They actually, you know, about 10 or 12 days before the invasion, they brought out body bags.
00:07:25.040 And they told the men there that they were probably not going to survive.
00:07:28.140 That they were going to have about 80% casualties in the unit.
00:07:31.720 How did, how did, tell me, how do men, when they're told that in your research, how do they react?
00:07:38.480 Yeah, because that's, this is what Memorial Day is about.
00:07:40.400 Remember, you're going to have the president and other people go and they'll give these speeches this afternoon.
00:07:46.300 And they'll be at Arlington.
00:07:48.100 But when you look at the peace that's there, you look at the calm that's there, it's magnificent in its simple beauty.
00:07:54.260 And you've, just like at Normandy, you go to that, you go to that cemetery at Normandy above Omaha Beach.
00:08:00.900 It is so magnificent in its simplicity and its power of this grace.
00:08:05.380 But 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.
00:08:16.400 They knew that this was their last day on earth.
00:08:18.380 And some even had premonitions to that effect.
00:08:22.060 And they still went anyways.
00:08:24.380 And that's what's sort of, that's what's so extraordinary about it.
00:08:27.660 And several of the men, even in dog company, even had competitions on who would be the first up the cliff.
00:08:33.880 They could not, they were determined to fulfill their mission.
00:08:38.460 And they scaled that cliff against all odds.
00:08:42.960 And they got up there.
00:08:44.580 And the guns were removed from the casements.
00:08:47.400 But this is where the...
00:08:49.340 The Germans knew.
00:08:51.220 Why did the Germans remove the guns?
00:08:53.160 Because they, if they were in the casements, they were completely an easy target.
00:08:57.740 Because they could be seen and spotted by aerial observation.
00:09:01.680 So what they did is they moved the guns about 800 yards inland into an apple orchard and put nets over them.
00:09:07.640 And they were ready to go.
00:09:10.160 Could be moved back up and...
00:09:11.320 Yeah, they were, no, to stay where they were at.
00:09:13.300 They could be fired from the, in place.
00:09:15.600 And what...
00:09:15.880 Oh, from the apple orchard.
00:09:16.960 Yeah, exactly.
00:09:17.720 And what happened is Len Lamell, this is what is so amazing about the American combat soldier.
00:09:24.480 He wasn't, he didn't wait for orders to be told what to do.
00:09:28.520 On his own initiative.
00:09:30.220 Initiative.
00:09:31.460 On his own initiative, fulfills the mission.
00:09:34.680 And he finds tire tracks and follows those tracks.
00:09:37.620 And he has to go through a labyrinth on top, which is a series of bunkers that are heavily defended by the Germans.
00:09:45.020 With machine guns and hand grenades and everything else.
00:09:48.340 They make, they fight their way through there.
00:09:50.320 They follow the tire tracks and they find the apple orchard.
00:09:54.260 And these men are equipped with what's known as a thermite grenade.
00:09:57.860 And the thermite grenade is, it creates a molten metal at a very high temperature.
00:10:04.740 And they put the grenades on the gears of the guns and Len disabled five of them alone.
00:10:12.000 But he changed the course of history through his actions.
00:10:14.880 That's his agency.
00:10:15.920 He is agency, yes.
00:10:17.100 That's the key right there.
00:10:18.080 And wasn't told to do it.
00:10:19.160 Nobody was told to do it and he was wounded at the same time.
00:10:21.940 He was shot on the way up on the top of the cliff by a machine gun bullet in his side.
00:10:27.380 And he fought through all that without, you know, hesitating.
00:10:30.200 And you're at Point to Hawk.
00:10:30.740 Point to Hawk is a point at the very south of the beaches.
00:10:33.580 And you look up, you've got Omaha, you've got Utah.
00:10:37.060 But it's so strategic and so high.
00:10:41.660 How did, and having been up there, I actually filmed up there, the craters are still there.
00:10:46.580 They are.
00:10:47.040 You feel like you're on the moon.
00:10:48.600 I mean, being a naval officer and knowing what a naval bombardment, at least the sending side,
00:10:54.500 it's almost incomprehensible of the intensity of what caused that, that in the aerial bombing.
00:11:00.040 How did they train, how did they train to scale in all that, with everything going on,
00:11:04.900 to keep your concentration, to get up a hundred foot high cliff, under fire?
00:11:08.560 What they did is for six months, they trained in England on the biggest cliffs that they could find.
00:11:16.640 At Dover or?
00:11:17.360 At Dover, Dover, everywhere else.
00:11:19.500 And they did this without safety harnesses or anything.
00:11:22.140 They just used ropes.
00:11:23.660 And to make it added realism, the officers in the group would fire their M1 Garands directly at the men.
00:11:34.300 So they would obviously miss, but they would feel that sensation of live bullets as they went up.
00:11:40.440 Incredible.
00:11:41.220 Tell me about, who had a premonition?
00:11:42.720 There was one man that was really a striking story.
00:11:48.500 There were a number of men that the medical officer knew he was going to die, for instance.
00:11:53.920 And he felt, he wrote about it, and then the next day, he was dead.
00:12:01.900 And this was actually, that story was actually at a place called Hill 400.
00:12:08.060 And the rangers would always tell me, Pat, our toughest day was not point to hock.
00:12:13.100 It was at a place called Hill 400.
00:12:14.760 And Hill 400 was in the Hurricane Forest.
00:12:16.720 And it was the highest hill in the forest.
00:12:19.980 And this is an epic story.
00:12:21.360 It really should be a movie.
00:12:22.580 They used a bayonet charge to go across an open field.
00:12:26.820 And they assaulted Hill 400 with several ranger companies.
00:12:31.080 People don't know.
00:12:32.700 Hurricane Forest, if you look at the statistics, we talked about this on the Saturday show,
00:12:37.160 about the bloodiest engagements in American combat history.
00:12:41.920 Hurricane Forest always ranks like four or five.
00:12:44.200 I mean, it's kind of totally unknown, right?
00:12:48.460 But it is one of the most intense forms of combat.
00:12:53.440 And that's what we honor today.
00:12:54.600 What you honor on Memorial Day is the intense combat of those who knew they were sacrificing everything, right?
00:13:01.480 That's why they're the honored dead.
00:13:03.280 Absolutely.
00:13:03.760 They willingly did this in defense of their country.
00:13:08.680 Yeah, that's exactly right, Steve.
00:13:10.380 Hurricane Forest, Hill 400, Dog Company, the 2nd Ranger Battalion.
00:13:16.000 This is a months-long, five-, six-month-long battle, even longer.
00:13:20.800 And the casualties there rivaled those of the Korean War.
00:13:24.440 That's how many there were.
00:13:25.600 In the total Korean War, all three years of it.
00:13:27.560 Yes.
00:13:27.920 In the Hurricane Forest.
00:13:28.200 It was a massive, massive slaughterfest of a slaughter factory that just, the Germans had everything zeroed in for their artillery and their mortars.
00:13:39.060 There were bunkers that were hidden and camouflaged in pretty much every crossroads, every nook and cranny of the forest, heavily mined.
00:13:48.000 It was just practically impenetrable.
00:13:51.720 And 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.
00:14:02.260 Instead of, you know, surrounding it and bypassing it, we decided to take it piece by piece.
00:14:07.220 And it was a, you know, disaster.
00:14:09.260 Okay, we're going to take a short commercial break.
00:14:12.260 Patrick K. O'Donnell is here.
00:14:14.160 We're going to get into this show.
00:14:16.860 We're going to break down the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
00:14:19.520 We're going to break down Arlington National Cemetery, Memorial Day, all of it.
00:14:24.560 It's our Memorial Day special.
00:14:26.180 I want to thank Patrick for doing this.
00:14:28.380 It's an honor to be here.
00:14:29.180 For being with us on Saturday.
00:14:30.520 We're in the, I don't know, ninth or tenth year of doing this together on both radio, podcast, television, streaming, all of it.
00:14:37.240 So short commercial break.
00:14:38.140 We're going to be back in the War Room in just a moment.
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00:17:16.120 Okay, welcome back.
00:17:17.600 It's our Memorial Day special.
00:17:19.860 I'm here with Patrick K. O'Donnell.
00:17:21.840 No 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.
00:17:41.100 And your two books on the Revolution have been magnificent, all the way to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
00:17:48.140 And your book on Fallujah is still the best first-person account of Fallujah.
00:17:52.500 Thank you.
00:17:52.840 What have you learned in that?
00:17:54.980 Tell 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.
00:18:19.400 I mean, you're at Pointe du Hoc, Hurricane Forest, you always go in.
00:18:24.280 What is the big takeaway that you have taken from that?
00:18:27.160 The books that I've written are largely on specialized units, elite units, special operations forces, but also average Americans that do extraordinary things.
00:18:39.240 Well, aren't they all average Americans when they go into that?
00:18:41.300 They're all volunteers at one point or another and just average Americans.
00:18:45.760 But I think that's the takeaway, that a person through their agency can change the course of history.
00:18:53.880 It doesn't matter.
00:18:55.160 Ordinary men doing extraordinary things.
00:18:56.900 And women in some cases with the OSS too.
00:18:59.240 Yes.
00:18:59.940 Ordinary men and women doing extraordinary things.
00:19:02.040 Absolutely.
00:19:02.400 Now, what – is it something about America as a country?
00:19:07.720 Is 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?
00:19:16.540 I mean, right now in Ukraine, they're fighting over their own territory, right?
00:19:20.100 But you're doing it on foreign battlefields most of the time?
00:19:24.000 Yeah.
00:19:24.340 For America, it's about an idea.
00:19:27.980 And the American idea is a powerful idea.
00:19:30.480 Ideas are more powerful than anything else in the world.
00:19:34.320 And the American idea of liberty and freedom resonated so much with the American Revolution that it changed the world.
00:19:42.760 It changed the world many, many times over through revolutions and everything else.
00:19:48.120 And 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.
00:20:03.280 It's the operating system that we have as Americans.
00:20:06.300 And right now it's under attack in so many ways.
00:20:11.000 What do you mean by that?
00:20:11.780 For you to say that means something important.
00:20:14.360 It means that in so many places, the ideas of what we believe are freedom and liberty are being changed.
00:20:24.320 And it's happening in so many places and so many levels.
00:20:32.860 And that's why I believe that our founding will be our salvation.
00:20:38.480 What do you mean by that?
00:20:39.480 It means that the way that we originated, our understanding of freedom and liberty will be our salvation in the end.
00:20:49.660 Because there's so many – in many ways it's also about power and control.
00:20:53.260 And the founders understood that and how to defuse it and with the Constitution and other things.
00:21:03.080 And that's why we have to constantly, I think, go back to that founding era, which I've interviewed over 4,000 Americans in World War II.
00:21:14.480 And many of them –
00:21:15.440 You've done oral histories.
00:21:16.640 Oral histories.
00:21:17.220 They were my closest friends in the 82nd Airborne Division, the 517 Independent Parachute Regiment.
00:21:25.080 I mean the 1st Special Service Force, the OSS, you name it, Merrill's Marauders.
00:21:30.020 But they would come back and say to me – I would sometimes say, are you the greatest generation?
00:21:34.700 No, Pat.
00:21:35.740 The greatest generation was our founding generation because of what they faced.
00:21:40.480 They faced the greatest army in the world at the time, and they also faced fellow Americans in our first Civil War.
00:21:48.060 And it became – that was, I think, the toughest test.
00:21:51.300 And they developed these ideas of freedom and liberty, which changed the world.
00:21:57.080 And they are just as important today as they were then.
00:22:00.640 Did that run through the bloodstream of the troops you fought with, you were assigned to?
00:22:07.740 Yes.
00:22:08.040 In Fallujah?
00:22:09.000 Yes.
00:22:09.680 In the 21st century?
00:22:10.720 I felt that that was – as I said, that was our next great generation.
00:22:15.260 I 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.
00:22:25.740 These – the men and women that I met in Iraq, in Fallujah, were exceptional.
00:22:32.160 And 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.
00:22:44.140 Because of that – when you do these small units, and yes, they're trained as elite troops, so they all start as normal Americans.
00:22:51.280 They're trained – is it the camaraderie of the unit?
00:22:53.680 Is it the cohesion of the small unit?
00:22:55.560 Is that what drives – is that what drives people?
00:22:57.160 Yes, they were fighting for each other, the men on their left and right.
00:23:01.380 They were – the men in 1st Platoon, for instance, were best friends.
00:23:07.320 And that was a most remarkable experience to be there in combat with them and see it.
00:23:18.120 And then I've also seen it from – go full circle.
00:23:22.320 I – 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.
00:23:41.560 And in the squad alone, there were four.
00:23:43.240 And in the squad, those four family members asked me to come to Washington, D.C. and meet them.
00:23:50.600 And they wanted to know what I was doing and how I was going to tell the story of 1st Platoon.
00:23:57.300 And 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 –
00:24:13.920 Friendly fire?
00:24:14.540 No, it wasn't the case at all.
00:24:15.840 It was just the case that, oh, my God, we had so much – I mean, so much coming at us at Fallujah.
00:24:21.380 It was house to house.
00:24:23.200 Oh, it was some of that – it was some already bitterness?
00:24:25.220 It was – yeah, there was – because we had four killed in the squad.
00:24:30.200 And 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.
00:24:41.120 And they were too, and he came up and he said, tell my son's story.
00:24:45.880 And it was one of the most powerful moments I think I've ever had.
00:24:49.200 Because at first, he did not want the story told, and he thought he'd been killed by friendly fire?
00:24:53.200 Yeah.
00:24:53.460 Well, it was just sort of – it wasn't a friendly fire thing.
00:24:56.340 It was just a situation of just the intensity of it that didn't quite understand it.
00:25:02.180 And it's – but now –
00:25:04.660 Is it hard for the parents to understand?
00:25:06.400 I think it is, of course.
00:25:07.840 Nobody ever – nobody ever goes through that and ever gets over it.
00:25:12.460 Well, you prepared – you went over as a combat historian.
00:25:13.920 You had spent your life at that time writing books and doing oral interviews and reading archives and diaries.
00:25:21.900 Did it prepare you for actually being assigned to a –
00:25:25.120 Yeah, I was actually prepared by the World War II men that I interviewed.
00:25:31.880 I'll never forget – one of them said to me, you know when a bullet whizzes and snaps and the difference?
00:25:38.720 I felt that firsthand.
00:25:40.440 I never – I'll never forget.
00:25:41.720 I was in a ditch, and direct sniper fire was almost – was right at my ear, and one went right in front of my face.
00:25:49.340 It was intense.
00:25:51.680 And I had this flashback of hitting my conversation with that World War II vet.
00:25:57.760 Patrick 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 –
00:26:06.540 Yeah, the one they were talking about as we were one, it's also on the Commandant's reading list.
00:26:11.660 Of the Marine Corps.
00:26:12.380 Of the Marine Corps.
00:26:13.200 It was required reading for NCOs of what life was like.
00:26:17.680 Non-commissioned officers, the backbone of the Marine Corps.
00:26:19.860 Exactly.
00:26:20.220 It was required reading for non-commissioned officers.
00:26:22.740 For many, many years.
00:26:24.260 Yeah.
00:26:24.940 For many Commandants.
00:26:25.980 We're going to pivot here when we come back.
00:26:28.060 We can't do it any better than we did it.
00:26:30.280 It 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,
00:26:41.740 the Honored Guard over at Arlington, the Army, that stays in eternal vigilance.
00:26:53.960 Arlington National Cemetery, I would say, is the most sacred ground in this country, you would say?
00:27:00.660 No doubt?
00:27:01.220 There's no doubt about it.
00:27:02.600 Arlington National Cemetery, the former home of General Robert E. Lee.
00:27:06.940 Of course, that was changed during the Civil War.
00:27:09.100 We're going to walk you through all the way from the battlefields of France.
00:27:12.100 And 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.
00:27:21.800 The 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.
00:27:30.740 Mues-Argonne is the largest battle in American history.
00:27:33.300 The 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.
00:27:40.820 In fact, people were dying right up to that.
00:27:43.240 And from that, we got the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and really this very special observation over at Arlington National Cemetery.
00:27:52.060 So we're going to take a break.
00:27:53.600 We'll come back.
00:27:54.300 We'll go through all of that.
00:27:55.260 I want to thank you.
00:27:55.860 We're here at our Memorial Day special, May of 2023.
00:28:00.000 We'll be back in the warm in just a moment.
00:28:10.820 We'll be back in the warm in just a moment.
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00:30:31.580 Welcome back.
00:30:55.860 I'm a Memorial Day Special.
00:30:56.900 So 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.
00:31:17.860 Let'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.
00:31:30.920 And, 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.
00:31:44.420 I 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.
00:31:59.780 Absolutely.
00:32:00.440 He 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.
00:32:14.420 It'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.
00:32:29.600 And 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.
00:32:42.000 Instead, we had a separate army that would be a decisive, play a decisive role in World War I.
00:32:48.840 But 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.
00:33:02.600 And it was a cost issue to basically disintern all of the bodies and then carefully bring them back in an honorable manner.
00:33:13.100 It was an enormous expense.
00:33:15.620 Eventually, Congress authorized it, the removal of anybody that wanted their family members returned home.
00:33:24.980 And then there was the issue of the over 3,000 Americans that were still unknown and unaccounted for.
00:33:31.980 Initially, the War Department claimed that they could identify those Americans, and that was a pipe dream.
00:33:38.620 And there was also this under...
00:33:42.620 This was at the very beginning of even DNA or any of that kind of testing.
00:33:47.840 Correct.
00:33:48.300 But they felt that they had the scientific expertise and medical expertise to actually identify everybody.
00:33:56.660 That was a going in bed, correct?
00:33:59.500 I think that was the surface argument.
00:34:02.500 But I think in reality, there was also cost that was associated with this that they didn't want to necessarily bear.
00:34:11.860 And what happens is an interesting movement, a grassroots movement, springs up.
00:34:19.400 And our boys are brought home.
00:34:21.740 That's the first step.
00:34:22.680 And then a movement by a woman editor, the delineator.
00:34:29.440 She has a paper in New York City.
00:34:31.080 It's very powerful.
00:34:32.400 And she started to write that we need a tomb of the unknown like France and Great Britain.
00:34:39.960 And this caught a lot of attention around the country.
00:34:44.460 And it was spearheaded in Congress by Congressman Hamilton Fish from New York.
00:34:51.860 And he had an extraordinary service record.
00:34:54.640 He was with the Harlem Hellfighters as a white officer that fought with a black unit.
00:35:00.460 And they were one of the most...
00:35:02.500 They had some of the longest service in France.
00:35:04.940 These men were in France for over 190 days in combat.
00:35:10.120 And, you know, highly distinguished in many cases.
00:35:13.760 But they had to fight against racism.
00:35:16.740 And they fought a lot of times with the French army.
00:35:19.900 And there's some incredible stories of World War I heroes, Medal of Honor recipients that I document in the unknowns in that book.
00:35:28.580 But Fish sees this tomb of the unknown as an opportunity to recognize his men who had not gotten...
00:35:40.480 That had sort of the short end of the stick in many cases.
00:35:43.900 But also to recognize all Americans that had fought in World War I.
00:35:49.100 And it gains a tremendous amount of ground.
00:35:51.720 And there's bipartisan support.
00:35:56.100 And it moves forward in 1921.
00:36:00.000 Hang on a second.
00:36:01.000 Who is the female editor who became...
00:36:03.700 She was a firebrand.
00:36:04.940 I mean, she really took this...
00:36:05.680 Her name is Marie Maloney.
00:36:06.860 She's sort of lost to history.
00:36:08.220 But she's got an enormous story.
00:36:12.880 As she runs a newspaper called...
00:36:16.180 A magazine called The Delineator.
00:36:17.640 And she is a New Yorker.
00:36:23.180 Her husband is a publisher as well.
00:36:27.840 So she has quite a bit of clout.
00:36:31.460 And she uses it for good.
00:36:33.400 To really foster this grassroots movement for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
00:36:41.740 And in 1921, what happens then?
00:36:45.540 Actually, they get legislation passed?
00:36:47.640 They get legislation passed to fund the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
00:36:52.480 And then the process begins.
00:36:55.300 And it's October 1921.
00:36:59.200 And the Graves Registration Service with the U.S. Army goes to France.
00:37:05.320 And they go to several of the major cemeteries in France.
00:37:10.560 Which also correspond with the great battles that the American Expeditionary Force fought in.
00:37:17.640 They go to the Mew Sargon, which I mentioned earlier is the largest battle in American history.
00:37:24.260 And also one of the bloodiest.
00:37:26.740 They go to Bella Wood, the cemetery outside of that.
00:37:31.500 They go to San Mahal.
00:37:33.080 And they take four individuals that they know are not identifiable.
00:37:45.020 They have no dog tags.
00:37:47.340 They have no identity discs.
00:37:50.000 They have no papers that identify them as soldiers.
00:37:52.800 They go through the bodies very carefully to make sure that there's no identifying features that can identify these individuals.
00:37:59.980 And then they bring these bodies back to France.
00:38:04.440 And they drive to Chalonne, France.
00:38:08.000 And they place the bodies in state and kept flag-draped coffins in the city hall at Chalonne's.
00:38:16.340 And then that night before is when the Tomb of the Unknown is selected.
00:38:22.720 And this is the final portion of my book, The Unknowns.
00:38:29.520 It deals with not only the ceremony, but the man who selected it, but also the body bearers that actually brought him home.
00:38:38.780 Which are Pershing's most decorated heroes of the war.
00:38:42.780 And each one of those individuals was assigned to come up with, to tell the story of the American Expeditionary Force.
00:38:55.400 So walk us through the selection process when they got to the, I think it was in a town hall.
00:39:03.720 And they kind of changed it up on what they thought they were going to do, how they selected it.
00:39:08.780 And 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.
00:39:20.820 Absolutely.
00:39:21.580 And they were hand-selected by General Pershing himself.
00:39:24.260 But the night that the Tomb of the Unknown soldier was selected for America is really an interesting story in and of itself.
00:39:33.240 There was a general officer that was selected to choose our unknown.
00:39:38.780 And 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.
00:39:50.900 And it was here that the younger, Edward Younger, Edward is selected.
00:40:02.180 He's one of the men that still remained in Europe at the time.
00:40:05.960 And he had some of the most distinguished combat experience of all the men that were there in Shalom at that time.
00:40:14.060 And he was just a dough boy.
00:40:16.820 But it was perfect.
00:40:18.040 It 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.
00:40:26.880 They were near Bellawood.
00:40:29.860 They had fought at the Great Counteroffensive later.
00:40:33.660 They were at Muse Argonne.
00:40:37.300 They were at some of the most difficult and bitter battles of the war.
00:40:42.560 And he was combat wounded multiple times.
00:40:46.560 And really kind of a perfect choice in many ways.
00:40:49.380 And it was stunning for him to receive the honor.
00:40:53.780 He was very much taken back.
00:40:56.660 You didn't expect it.
00:40:58.380 And I found his original handwritten notes at the National Archives.
00:41:04.640 And 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.
00:41:17.160 And he walks into the room and there's a dirge of music in the background.
00:41:23.160 And he carefully moves through the various flag draped coffins.
00:41:29.000 And he says in his handwritten notes that his hand literally moved as he placed the flowers on the casket.
00:41:36.220 And after he had prayed, he had felt that that was a man that he had served in combat that had died, that he knew.
00:41:45.820 And placed the flowers on that unknown.
00:41:48.760 And that is our unknown soldier.
00:41:50.280 And it's brought back.
00:41:52.760 It'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.
00:42:11.500 And this is Admiral Dewey's flagship during the Spanish-American War.
00:42:17.840 And the cruiser, the casket itself is so large that they have a hard time bringing it below decks.
00:42:24.740 So, isn't it an honor?
00:42:27.880 And also for the fact that they can't bring it below decks.
00:42:32.120 They keep it up on deck, flag draped.
00:42:35.540 And the cruiser goes across, you know, makes it a voyage across the Atlantic.
00:42:42.620 And it's not smooth sailing.
00:42:44.000 They hit a massive storm.
00:42:46.640 And 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.
00:42:58.900 But the Olympia makes it to Washington Navy Yard.
00:43:05.460 The remains of the dock are still there on the 9th of November, 1921.
00:43:11.780 And the casket is brought off the ship.
00:43:15.060 And it's the body bearers that are the portion of the unknowns, the book that I wrote, that is the heart of the story.
00:43:23.800 And 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.
00:43:36.120 But they're symbolic in the sense that these are all enlisted men that are chosen.
00:43:42.140 They're handpicked by General Pershing because they had seen the toughest of the tough.
00:43:46.680 Most, many have the Medal of Honor or the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, and their stories are inner service.
00:43:56.900 It's not just the Army.
00:43:58.380 It's the Marine Corps, and it's the U.S. Navy, and it's different specializations within each.
00:44:04.920 It's the heavy artillery, for instance, which is known as the coastal artillery, the big guns, the rail guns.
00:44:11.940 I tell you, hangover section, Patrick, Captain Banner, Patrick K. O'Donnell is also going to join us on the other side of the break.
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00:46:33.340 Okay, welcome back.
00:46:36.860 We are talking about the Arlington National Cemetery.
00:46:40.080 The service today will be around the Tomb of the Unknown,
00:46:44.140 which is very simply has known but to God.
00:46:47.960 Captain Bannon, give us the overview of the number of cemeteries here
00:46:52.780 for our fallen and for veterans in the United States,
00:46:56.260 and then how many of the American Battlefield Commission,
00:46:58.740 how many throughout the rest of the world.
00:47:02.960 The Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration
00:47:06.460 maintains 155 national cemeteries in 42 states and Puerto Rico,
00:47:12.620 as well as 34 soldiers' lots and monument sites.
00:47:16.780 And then, as of today, there are 26 cemeteries
00:47:22.180 and 32 memorials, monuments, and markers under the care
00:47:25.300 of the American Battle Monument Commission.
00:47:27.780 And there are more than 140,000 U.S. Service men and women
00:47:33.840 interred at the cemeteries and more than 94,000 MIA
00:47:39.080 or lost or buried at sea.
00:47:41.060 Well, the 94,000 includes, I think it's 40,000 of the famous 8th Air Force
00:47:49.600 over the Nazi Germany and Europe.
00:47:54.180 Never recovered the airmen.
00:47:55.520 Just incredible sacrifice.
00:47:57.260 I want to also say, because we're not going to get to all of the different books he writes,
00:48:00.980 and every time we come on we try to feature a couple of them.
00:48:03.140 But we're really doing the unknowns today, and hopefully we'll get to maybe one or two others
00:48:07.460 in the second hour.
00:48:09.420 But here's the reason Patrick K. O'Donnell, I think, separates himself out
00:48:13.420 and the reason these books have gotten such a, I don't want to call it a cult following,
00:48:18.860 but such a strong following.
00:48:19.920 It's the level of research you see here about the unknowns.
00:48:24.120 Patrick goes to the archives.
00:48:26.240 It's all archival work or interviews.
00:48:29.560 He's done thousands of interviews with actual, before the greatest generation passed away.
00:48:36.680 And it takes, Patrick, what is it, an average of four?
00:48:39.780 You've got a couple of books working every one time,
00:48:41.740 but it's essentially four or five years from the idea, the gestation of that,
00:48:45.740 your research, and actual the writing.
00:48:47.800 It takes you about four or five years to complete a book.
00:48:51.180 That's right, Steve.
00:48:52.260 All the books that I've written have found me in one way or another.
00:48:56.240 Either I'm walking down a road and I find an old rusted sign or I, you know,
00:49:02.940 I'm talking to somebody and the idea comes to me.
00:49:08.260 And then it's from there, these are all hand-done books.
00:49:12.560 I do all the research.
00:49:13.840 I do all the writing, everything.
00:49:15.520 I walk the battlefields.
00:49:17.900 And I spend years in the archives to find the primary sources.
00:49:24.560 Or, as you said, I've written seven books on World War II.
00:49:28.040 I've interviewed over 4,000 World War II veterans from the elite units,
00:49:32.360 the 82nd Airborne, 101st, Rangers, paramarines, OSS.
00:49:37.760 This is my passion and specialty.
00:49:44.420 I've been trying to, you know, preserve and share American history since I graduated from college in 1992.
00:49:53.540 Hold it.
00:49:54.140 So for oral histories, I just want people to understand this.
00:49:56.420 So in 92, what, 30, 40 years you've been doing this.
00:50:01.300 And you have 4,000 interviews.
00:50:05.960 And you've got the notes and the recordings of those.
00:50:08.420 You essentially have an oral history of some of these elite units, do you not?
00:50:13.020 I do.
00:50:13.600 I probably have the largest archive in the world.
00:50:16.880 And it's not only, it's video, it's audio, and it's also electronic.
00:50:23.280 I kind of, at the beginning of the Internet, I created the Drop Zone Virtual Museum,
00:50:30.020 which was the first oral history project for World War II.
00:50:33.640 This is back in, like, mid to early 90s.
00:50:37.700 And I created a community of World War II veterans.
00:50:40.300 So I was gathering their e-histories, as I call them, their histories through email.
00:50:47.760 And, yeah, I was capturing the elite airborne units, the 11th Airborne 503 Airship Infantry Regiment.
00:50:57.140 Just, these were my friends.
00:51:00.080 I, it's, my daughter grew up having, like, all these uncles from World War II.
00:51:07.940 And it's, it's an amazing thing to have the legends of D-Day go to your birthday parties and things and have, you know,
00:51:18.940 people that were true American heroes that you can call a friend and that really changed the world.
00:51:27.880 And, you know, at the same time, just regular people.
00:51:32.780 That's what I wanted to, these are just regular, ordinary Americans in everyday life, correct?
00:51:39.720 The most extraordinary fighting men, maybe in world history, as far as their sacrifice for others.
00:51:44.840 But just, just, if you met them, they were just, they were, they were your next-door neighbor, correct?
00:51:51.420 That's right.
00:51:52.220 And, and that's what, one of the things that I've always wanted to do with the books that I've written,
00:51:57.780 is to sort of inspire other people to look into your own family, to, to capture the stories of the individuals in your family,
00:52:09.220 to capture your personal history, and, and record it.
00:52:12.740 And it's, it's an incredible, it's an incredible piece of American history.
00:52:17.800 It's often largely unknown or forgotten.
00:52:20.620 Okay, I tell you what, we're going to take, we're going to take a break here to start the second hour.
00:52:28.520 We're going to continue with Patrick K. O'Donnell.
00:52:30.520 We're going to put up, Patrick, what's the site they go to, your personal site, to get to all your, all your writings?
00:52:37.480 And I tell, you know, Patrick was embedded during the Iraq War, wrote an amazing book about Fallujah.
00:52:44.320 I think the best eyewitness account of the Battle of Fallujah,
00:52:47.980 which is one of the toughest battles in Marine Corps history, as the Marines will tell you.
00:52:53.580 And it's extraordinary.
00:52:55.720 Patrick, there's not one book you can't pick up of his that you won't be mesmerized,
00:53:00.260 and you're going to want to read them all.
00:53:01.480 That's the thing.
00:53:02.060 And now he's gone through all the way from the Revolution, all the way up to the Iraq conflict.
00:53:07.760 And it's just, you know.
00:53:08.420 The book you mentioned about Fallujah is called We Were One.
00:53:12.320 And that is a book that's on the Commandant's reading list, it's required reading.
00:53:16.500 And that is the platoon that I was in, embedded in, in Fallujah.
00:53:21.980 I fought with those Marines house to house, pulled out a Marine that was in a firefight with the Chechens.
00:53:30.220 They almost killed me.
00:53:32.540 It was a, it's one thing to write about military history, it's another to experience it.
00:53:38.980 And that's, Patrick, hang on one second.
00:53:44.000 We're going to take a short break.
00:53:45.120 We'll be right back with the Combat Historian, Patrick O'Donnell.
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00:54:11.140 Yes, heart disease is the number one killer every year, year in and year out.
00:54:14.960 Heart disease builds over time.
00:54:16.960 Hypertension, high blood pressure, bad cholesterol, diabetes, all of it affects our heart.
00:54:21.460 A healthy heart is key to being energetic as we get older.
00:54:26.780 It is never too early to take care of your heart.
00:54:30.940 You see, heart disease sneaks up on us.
00:54:32.980 You can start in your 30s, and when this happens, you're at serious risk by the time you turn 60.
00:54:36.680 If you want to take care of your heart and those you care about, please go to warroomhealth.com.
00:54:43.220 That's warroomhealth.com.
00:54:45.840 All one word, warroomhealth.com.
00:54:48.020 Use the code warroom at checkout to save 67% of your first shipment.
00:54:53.220 That's code warroom at checkout to save 67%.
00:54:56.200 Do it again.
00:54:57.600 Warroomhealth, all one word, warroomhealth.com.
00:55:01.000 Go there today.
00:55:02.520 If you're going to be part of the posse, you need a strong heart.
00:55:05.540 You need a lion's heart.
00:55:07.300 How we're going to do that is with Salty.
00:55:09.620 Go there.
00:55:10.220 Do it today.
00:55:10.860 Check it out.
00:55:11.300 I'll see you next time.