#150： Devotion： An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, we discuss a story from World War II, the Korean War, and why it is so important to tell the stories of our veterans and the lessons we can learn from them.
Transcript
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brett mckay here welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well one of my
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favorite writers is a guy by the name of adam makos he's a young guy in his 30s like me but
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since he was a teenager him and his brother have published this magazine that's been dedicated to
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telling the stories of world war ii veterans in particular since then it's grown into other
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wars as well korean vietnam war etc and adam has come across some amazing stories and with his
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interviews he's done with these veterans and last year he published a book called a higher call had
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him on the podcast about it incredible story about this german fighter pilot who escorts a damaged u.s
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bomber back to allied territory during world war ii after this chance encounter the two men as old men
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are able to meet each other and they become friends a really incredible story if you haven't
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already go check that podcast out and go get the book a higher call adam's got a new book out and
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it's really good this time instead of looking at the world war ii he takes a look at a story he found
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from the korean war the book is called devotion and it's about two men from completely different worlds
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one is a black son of a southern sharecropper the other is a young guy from connecticut blue-blooded
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supposed to go to harvard decided to enlist in the military instead and uh these two guys become
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fast friends and that friendship is put to the test when his plane goes down on a remote mountain in
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north korea and the other one goes after him and we're gonna get into the details of the story because
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it's just incredible what happens so that's we're gonna talk about the book today his new book devotion
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and we're also discuss like why adam thinks it's so important why he's so dedicated why he's dedicated
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his life and his career to uh telling and sharing these stories of these these world war ii and
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korean war veterans and also the other veterans who have served in other wars and the lessons we can
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learn from them to be better men uh great podcast great book without further ado adam make us and
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devotion adam make us welcome to the show thanks brett good to be with you well great to have you back
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so you were on our podcast this last year right yeah time is flying time is flying um so you're you
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know you're known to be like a world war ii guy that's been your thing uh but your latest book is about
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a story that's unbelievable that came out of the korean war um i'm curious before we get to the
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story let's give some backdrop for our listeners about the korean war because it's it's called the
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forgotten war people forget that we we fought this war in korea why is it that we that we forgot about
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this war that happened right after world war ii well brett i i think we americans like a victory a win
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we're not we're not ones for a tie um and i think a lot of people see the korean war as a tie
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it ended in a stalemate on the 38th parallel that stalemate continues to this day the war never
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really officially ended and so we didn't have the same kind of victory parades uh we don't even have
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like you can't even point to korean war books or movies i mean the last big movie was probably
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pork chop hill starring gregory peck back in 1959 and uh it's remained forgotten i think it's also
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the in the eyes of the american public it it lacks the romance i i use the word lightly but
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of say jumping into normandy on d-day in liberating french villages it was a it was a an ugly war i mean
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it was fought in the snow in the cold it was fought in the mud in the hills but the sacrifices
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were just as heavy yeah and can you know who who was involved in it because there were a lot of
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players when i i learned a lot about the korean war um so obviously you had communists in korea
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but also the chinese and russians were involved as well yeah it's it's an incredible little fact and
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i had to really teach myself about this war because going into this book i didn't know much about it i i mean
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when you tell the average american that we fought the chinese in the korean war it's like a it's like
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a slap across the face it's hard to believe it was originally the north koreans invading the south
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but the north koreans were armed with soviet tanks and soviet guns in fact soviet troops drew up the
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battle plans for the invasion of the south so so stalin had his hand in that and he said okay do this
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and kim il sung did it and at the same time the chinese in 1950 um surprised us nobody saw their
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intervention coming uh there was saber rattling but what happened was the war was just about over
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the united states jumped in the english um the un and we drove the north koreans all the way to the edge
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of their border we were about to kick them over the chinese border win the war and then we would have
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had that big world war ii like victory but instead under darkness hundreds of thousands of chinese
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troops snuck into north korea and they turned the tide of the war and they prolonged the war by three
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years and and everything changed overnight and suddenly we were at war with china north korea and
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in a way the soviet union yeah i thought you made this interesting point the very beginning of the book
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where you said that we often forget the greatest generation fought two wars because i i it really
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blew my mind when i read that but it was so obvious that you're right like we always think of the
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greatest generation as world war ii but a lot of these guys that fought in korea also or fought in
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world war ii also fought in korea yeah and and they they fought using the same aircraft so in the case of
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devotion we follow navy fighter squadron well they were flying corsair fighters built during world war ii
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they were shooting 50 caliber bullets they were dropping the same bombs our marines on the ground
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who we follow in this book they're wearing the same uniforms from world war ii it literally was
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the greatest generation being called back to war yeah so let's get back to let's get to the story the
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crux of the story because it is unbelievable it's about two individuals from two completely separate
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walks of life who develop a friendship and they go one of them goes to survive and help them so how did
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you discover this story about this uh crash landing rescue and on a on a mountain on a pasture in the
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middle of middle of korea where did you find the story well it was a legend in military circles uh
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what tom hudner the hero of the story did that day and so his reputation preceded him i i was working
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for a small magazine at the time a military history magazine that you know my brother and best friend and
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i published and i was in dc uh ready to leave the hotel and i saw tom hudner the medal of honor
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recipient sitting across the way reading his newspaper waiting for his car and i went over
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to him and and and i asked him if i could tell this story if i could interview him i thought i'll just be
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a little magazine article well he gave me his business card and he handed me the keys to this
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incredible tale and i soon determined i said this is too good for a magazine this needs to be a book
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and the reason i think no one else had ever tried to tell this as a book is simply because uh partially
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because of the nature of the forgotten war and as we'll discuss um the story it doesn't have that
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happy ending that everybody wants where you you know it's like the movies we watch where everybody
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everything ends in either a wedding or or a dance-off this doesn't end that way but it's still just as
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powerful okay so tom hudner he was the hero he's this man who crash landed uh a plane to to save his
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fellow comrade let's talk about the man that that needed the helping uh jesse brown um tell us about
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him he was the i guess he was the first black aviator in u.s navy history he was he was the first uh
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first confirmed uh known black uh fighter pilot carrier pilot uh pilot in general and and his his story
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is so incredible he came so far he grew up in hattiesburg mississippi in the deep south in the
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years just before world war ii and you know he he came from uh nothing he used to work in the fields
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barefoot he'd go home to a shack at night with holes in the roof that would leak when it rained
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and yet he had a dream to fly for his country so he wanted to serve a country that wouldn't even
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serve him in a bar if he walked into it not because of his age but because of his skin color
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and he said i want to be a naval aviator now everybody who heard this laughed at him the other
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farmhands they would say you know black people can't ride in an airplane let alone fly an airplane let
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alone fly an airplane for the united states navy because that was the most elite um flying corps there
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was the tuskegee airmen broke through during world war ii and they in classes of upwards of 100 men at
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once became pilots but the navy never cracked until jesse brown came along and and he through his
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character through his um through his his personality everybody loved this guy and he broke through and
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became the first black pilot where so many others had failed and he tells them about tom's personality
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because this is amazing these are two guys who became friends you have jesse the son of a sharecropper
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uh tom uh is white but what was his background tom was from uh i always say they're men from different
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worlds because tom was from new england and he was from the country club scene his father and
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grandfather had run a very successful business grocery stores and they prospered during the great
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depression you know food was that one commodity everybody needed and so they had the hundred markets
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and tom was supposed to go to harvard like his father he was supposed to inherit the family
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business and he was supposed to have a comfortable life instead he like so many others said i want to
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serve my country and this was around the time of world war ii so he volunteered to to essentially join
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the navy went to the naval academy and he graduated just a little too late to fight in the war the war had
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ended and he became a fighter pilot so this is a you know this is a one percenter who becomes a
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fighter pilot so you have jesse who's a patriot who wants to serve a country that doesn't really love
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him and you have tom who throws away the silver spoon to fly for the navy and how did these guys
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become friends they uh they were by chance by fate um they were assigned to the same fighter squadron
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uh fighter squadron 32 up in quonset point rhode island and when they first went for their first
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flight together it was very awkward at first because when they met in the locker room they were
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suiting up jesse came over to tom and and tom greeted him and stuck out his hand uh to shake
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jesse's and jesse looked down at tom's hand for a minute in disbelief and then finally shook his hand
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and later on that day he explained to tom that he had become accustomed not to extending himself that
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way because back in flight training he would go up to a white cadet or a white instructor and he'd say
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hi i'm jesse brown and he'd stick out his hand and the other person would keep theirs at their side
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and so he'd been left hanging so many times it started to shape his personality and tom said you're
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never going to have to worry about that with me and so that day a friendship was born and it seems like
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from what i read in the book um that there really wasn't any problems with integrating jesse into the
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the squadron like the problems that he had was whenever they were interacting with people who
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weren't a part of the squadron exactly there was a strange sort of navy band of brothers
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and it existed um you know when because these men were all going to war together i think there's
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an interesting oh i don't know i don't want to say trend but i've seen where when when black and
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white people work together when they fight together the racism disappears look at a football team in the
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nfl you know everybody's on the same team everybody's striving toward the same thing
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and it was that way in the navy um the people on the ship respected jesse the squadron they respected
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him and and he didn't expect racism that was a funny thing they always said jesse brown
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didn't go looking for a racial problem he was just there to do his job and as it so happened
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no problem emerged so let's start the situation of when jesse crashes his plane this is phenomenal
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this i guess is the big battle that were uh thing like you said earlier uh things changed overnight
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like we were whooping the north koreans but then this happened so what happened um what was this battle
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that uh preceded jesse crashing his plane well it was called the battle the chosen reservoir and
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it was fought uh in northeastern north korea you had the army going up the west you had the marines
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going up the east and we were about to just just wipe the north koreans off the map literally push
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them into china and all these chinese troops showed up one night and surrounded us and so that what
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happened in the west to the army they were routed completely and in the east the marines the first
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marine division now these are the the heroes of guadalcanal and pelelu just five years earlier
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suddenly these 10 000 men were surrounded in a valley there at the chosen reservoir and um we
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were facing uh the destruction of an entire marine division back home the papers were calling them the
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lost legion and they were preparing the american people for the worst defeat in military history
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but the marines had an advantage on their side not only did they have better weapons and better
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training despite being outnumbered 100 000 against 10 000 so so there were 10 000 of our boys
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surrounded 10 to 1 were their odds they had air power the chinese did not bring anti-aircraft guns
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the chinese did not bring fighter planes into the korean war because they were there surreptitiously
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they were volunteers they called themselves kind of like how you watch putin send his russian
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soldiers into the ukraine well they're not russian they're they're volunteers or their other nations
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you know they they have all these different terms well same way in the korean war and so the marines
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had air power and that's where tom and jesse came in to save the day and to tip the scales well listen
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can you talk about some of the marines because not only do you talk about jesse and tom but
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simultaneously you're talking about what's going on on the ground and there were some really phenomenal
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men on the ground who were doing extraordinary things to to win this battle can you talk about a few of
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those marines sure they um in order to really appreciate tom and jesse's story i decided very
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early on when writing devotion we had to follow the guys on the ground and we found just two incredible
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marines uh one of whom john parkinson was um was a young uh gosh 22 year old at the time of the battle
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fighting in an icy creek literally with their backs to the water um as these chinese human waves
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overwhelmed them and and so you see this desperate fighting in this book we had to show the suffering
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of the men on the ground to appreciate who tom and jesse were fighting to protect the other marine we
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follow his name was ed cordera and ed a real life person again he lives up in massachusetts these days
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he was one of the few men captured at the chosen reservoir and and so we show what happens when ed's
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hilltop position is overrun his buddies are knocked out or killed or routed and he wakes up the next
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morning a prisoner of the chinese and so we're able to show you the cold of the chosen reservoir
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it was negative 20 degrees in some spots we're able to show you the viciousness of it and the
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hopelessness and yet we show you how the american spirit can prevail against all that i thought it was
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interesting um when the the fighting first started uh the marines were confused because they were hearing
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tommy guns uh which were american guns like guns the paratroopers used during world war ii how did that
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happen how did the chinese get american weapons in their their hands well this was uh this was a very sad
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tragic element to the chosen reservoir battle and and and i i wavered a little bit brett i didn't know
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if i should put this in the book because it really it sympathizes or it humanizes uh the enemy uh the
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chinese soldiers we fought at the chosen reservoir were largely um nationalists and now during of course
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world war ii you had the communists and nationalists chinese and they put aside their weapons and they put
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aside their strife and they fought the japanese together well the united states armed them we
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supplied them they were our buddies they were our allies as soon as the war ends they go to war with
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each other the nationalists get pushed out to taiwan the communists take over all of china and all
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these national soldiers that they captured in their civil war well what do they do they suddenly have
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this battle going on in north korea so they send their the former nationalists into these frozen
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conditions wearing basically tennis sneakers without gloves without food without air support and they
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send them there to die now they're led by communist officers and if the nationalists ran from a flight
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they'd be mowed down but literally at the chosen reservoir our marines were fighting men who five years
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earlier had been our allies yeah there was a scene uh in the book where one of the soldiers has an
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encounter with some chinese nationalist soldiers saying that they'd fought with the marines during
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world war ii it was one of the most remarkable things and they shared a cigarette on the hilltop
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um as as they're suffering in the cold together and it sounds like something a novelist would create it
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sounds like something a screenwriter would invent but it really happened when ed cordero woke up and he
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was taken prisoner he finds that the men who took him prisoner yeah they carried tommy guns
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for a reason they were nationalists they spoke english and they didn't hate him and so that's
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really one of the conflicts the reader goes through in this in this book you you want the americans to
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survive so desperately you want them to escape this trap you want tom and jesse to kill all the enemy
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but then when you get to know the enemy you say my god this is a lose lose yeah they're thrown into it
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um exactly so how does jesse get shot down because like if the um the chinese didn't have anti-aircraft
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um arsenal like what happened how did he get how did he crash into the mountain well what what
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happened it was um it was a december day december 4th around uh 1 p.m or so when he and tom and a flight
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of of upwards of 10 corsairs were ripping around the valleys and they were looking for the enemy see the
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chinese often hid during the day and they attacked at night to deny us the our our air power advantage
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so they were trying to find the enemy and kill them before nightfall came and the chinese were known to
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do several things one is when an airplane would come they would sometimes crouch in a ball and from above
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they would look like a series of boulders on the landscape and they would they they were known to
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stay motionless even while being strafed and it's absolutely almost superhuman they would even hide
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in the snow bury themselves and that's what happened to jesse he flew over an unseen group of chinese
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soldiers hiding in the snow and all they would do is fire one volley all at once they put up 30 50 100
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bullets and one of those bullets found the underside of jesse's aircraft it punctured his oil tank
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and before he knew it his aircraft was going down his engine was seizing up and the only spot they
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could find was the side of him basically a pasture high in the mountains they they always say a bowl
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shaped valley and he crashed on this high mountain pasture it looks soft it looks snow covered but
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beneath it was rock and he was in a very violent violent crash so tom had a choice to make and i guess
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before uh the instructions they were given about if someone crashed these were all the naval pilots
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that they weren't supposed to go after them because you know two dead soldiers is worse than one
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um but tom decided to take action what did tom decide to do well tom saw uh jesse down there in his
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aircraft everybody was waiting for jesse to get out there they're saying what are you waiting for you
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know it's it's smoking and they're they're calling him on the radio he's not responding suddenly they see
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his canopy open and he's waving at them now his aircraft when he hit it buckled at the nose almost
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uh i don't want to say 90 degrees rightward but very severe maybe 50 or 60 degrees and he was pinned
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inside by his right knee it was crushed against the instrument panel and so jesse had taken off his helmet
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he'd taken off his gloves in his hurry to escape the aircraft before he realized he was pinned so
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suddenly he has no communication because he dropped his helmet down below his feet he's stuck in an
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aircraft and there's smoke coming from the nose there's a 230 gallon fuel tank about five feet in
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front of him and a fire is threatening to envelop the entire aircraft tom is orbiting overhead along with
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at that time another four aircraft and he looks down he's and he sees his friend now jesse's not just
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his friend he knows jesse has a wife he knows jesse has a two-year-old baby girl and he's about to burn
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alive on a on a north korean mountain far from home and that's when tom simply radios the rest of the
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flight i'm going in and the other men were stunned they didn't encourage him they didn't dissuade him
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some probably didn't even know what he meant but they knew as soon as they watched him tom made a pass
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over jesse he assessed the terrain and next thing you know he did this event that had never happened
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before it has never happened since he crash landed a perfectly good aircraft right next to his friend
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on that north korean mountain and i mean was he able to save jesse did he did he get the jesse before
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the plane the plane exploded or anything like that well he he did and um tom as soon as he opened his
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canopy the cold rushed in and he his first thought was what the heck am i doing here and then he he
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shook and shook his head and woke up again he said oh my god i've got to get to jesse and he ran through
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the snow he had hurt his back to some degree in the crash it had been a hard landing and so tom was in
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pain himself and when he got to the cockpit uh jesse said tom we have to find a way out of here
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and tom remembers being shocked at how calm jesse was and tom said he calmed me me down so suddenly
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tom finds himself relaxed and said all right jesse let's try something and the first thing tom did
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he tried to pull jesse out and he had to use one hand on jesse's shoulder and the other hand he had
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to grip the canopy with and pull as they might jesse was pushing tom was pulling they couldn't free him
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he was pinned so badly so tom set about trying to do the next thing he had to buy them some time
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so he went to the front of the aircraft and he shoveled snow onto the fire and it abated he then
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went back to the cockpit and he saw that jesse's hands were freezing his ears were freezing so tom
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always carried a spare cap with him so he pulled that cap down over jesse's head and then he wrapped
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he took the scarf from his own neck and he wrapped jesse's hands and they ended up waiting there together
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waiting hoping a rescue helicopter would come hoping the chinese soldiers wouldn't beat the
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helicopter to it and put a bullet in both of their heads and as it was time passed and the sun was
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setting and uh jesse's life was slowly slipping away and what was the aftermath i mean did were they
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able to recover his body or did tom eventually just have to leave it was very sad brett um jesse in
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one of his last moments of consciousness he said tom i need you to give a message to my wife
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and he said just tell daisy how much i love her and tom said i'll do that and tom knew jesse was
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going to die and and it ends tragically when the helicopter comes the the pilot comes out and he
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says is that jesse brown in the cockpit and tom said yeah it is and the helicopter pilot just cursed
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because everyone who met jesse loved him and so he and tom then tried to use an axe to cut through
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the corsair fuselage desperately trying to pull jesse out one last time and the the axe just
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bounced off the aluminum it wouldn't cut through that frozen metal and the helicopter pilot then gave
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tom a choice he said tom you can stay here with jesse and you're going to freeze to death or we have to go
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now because i can't fly in the dark and so tom made this last promise at jesse you know jesse had
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already slumped over he had probably passed and tom said jesse we have to leave we don't have the
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tools to free you but we'll be back someday for you and tom left and it was the hardest moment of his
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life that's yeah when i read that it was just heartbreaking that he had to do that um so what was
00:25:59.140
the aftermath of this battle uh so you had this tremendous ground force operation air force
00:26:05.900
operation going uh the first marine division almost being wiped out uh what what happened
00:26:11.620
well it actually um the american spirit prevailed and in the end thanks to the sacrifice of the
00:26:20.040
pilots and men like jesse the marines broke out of the chinese trap and they marched to the sea
00:26:25.540
and they were picked up on ships and taken down to south korea essentially the first marine division
00:26:31.500
escape to fight another day and they were back on the battle lines one month later as it was so our
00:26:39.100
guys were battered but they weren't broken whereas the chinese forces they fought most of them never
00:26:46.520
went back into battle they were decimated so the marine corps came out as survivors and they consider
00:26:52.920
the chosen reservoir to be one of their finest hours um the aftermath for tom he expected to be
00:26:59.220
court-martialed because as you had said earlier he had been warned you do not destroy navy property
00:27:05.380
pulling some sort of stunt you don't risk two lives to try to save one and instead when he got back to
00:27:12.360
his carrier the captain of the ship who was from the deep south and everybody thought oh you know he is
00:27:18.420
his father had been a uh a proponent of segregation well captain sisson instead said tom what you did was the
00:27:27.220
most wonderful thing to try to save jesse it was the most uh he said there's been no finer act of
00:27:34.380
unselfish heroism in military history he put that out in a press release back to the united states
00:27:40.500
and he nominated tom for the medal of honor and and it is an award that tom several months later was given
00:27:48.240
by president truman he was summoned to washington and awarded this but for tom he felt although he earned
00:27:55.360
the award he felt he could still do more for jesse's legacy and jesse's family and uh what happened
00:28:01.880
to jesse's family so yeah he had a a wife and a two-year-old daughter and it just like i mean i
00:28:05.840
started crying when he talked about we wrote about how uh when jesse's two-year-old daughter you know
00:28:11.340
they they the family knew that jesse was dead but the two-year-old daughter would hear a plane fly by
00:28:15.520
and she'd start yelling daddy daddy daddy god that got me really that that i'm getting choked up right
00:28:20.640
now thinking about that um but what happened to jesse's family well it brett it's a highly emotional
00:28:26.320
story because you really love this guy and you follow his wife daisy see there's something in the
00:28:31.180
in devotion for women and for men because as i say in the beginning this is an american story that that's
00:28:37.200
how i want it to be seen it's simply a story of america and and so we see jesse's widow she's now
00:28:43.640
a widow at age so 23 or so and she has to find the courage to go on and to and and the first
00:28:52.080
challenge for her comes when they say will you come to the white house tom is about to get the
00:28:56.800
medal of honor and so daisy's this young black girl in mississippi and she's being asked to come to the
00:29:03.280
white house to be essentially the only black person in this gathering she's never been to something so
00:29:08.680
fancy she's never been to the capital city and yet she goes to represent jesse and and part of the
00:29:15.620
story is about how we watch her grow from jesse's influence we watch tom grow from jesse's influence
00:29:22.540
and everybody who knew jesse became a better person because of him and and so there is this emotional
00:29:28.740
moment and um jesse had prepared daisy for his death he had said i you know i may die and if so i want
00:29:36.320
you to i've taken out insurance policies to make sure you're cared for and he said i want you to
00:29:42.060
become a teacher he said promise me you'll go to school and become a teacher because i don't want to
00:29:46.940
see you end up in someone's kitchen well daisy had every intention of doing that if it came to it
00:29:54.540
and but then another tragic thing happened several weeks after jesse's death his mother collapsed and
00:30:01.140
just died she had a stroke so they say jesse jesse's death killed his mother as well
00:30:05.980
as they say she's a victim of the korean war well suddenly daisy who had these great plans to go to
00:30:11.380
college and to carry on and care for their daughter suddenly she has to care for jesse's father because
00:30:18.020
he's now devastated by the loss of his son and his wife so daisy says i'm not going to college i have
00:30:25.420
to care for mr brown well an incredible thing happens brett uh tom hudner goes home to fall river
00:30:32.460
and his hometown throws him a big parade and at the end they present him with a check for a thousand
00:30:38.620
dollars raised from all the citizens and they say tom this is for you go out and buy yourself a new car
00:30:44.660
you know do something with us go on vacation and tom the next day he takes the check he signs it over
00:30:52.420
to miss mrs daisy brown and he sends it down to hattiesburg mississippi it was the equivalent of about
00:30:58.680
nine thousand dollars and with that money daisy ended up going to college tom hudner essentially
00:31:05.980
put jesse's widow through college that's amazing um so you mentioned there that you know the last
00:31:13.300
thing that tom said was i'm coming back for you and he made good on that promise he's making good on it
00:31:20.520
can you tell us about what's happened recently what tom has been doing in order to make good on that
00:31:25.400
promise sure it was um so not only has he worked the rest of his life to keep jesse's memory alive
00:31:32.960
and he and daisy stayed great friends by the way they after that day at the white house when they met
00:31:38.080
tom gave daisy jesse's last words they stayed in touch and they did speeches together and and and they
00:31:44.920
were friends up till daisy's death um just a year ago well tom remembered this promise and when i was
00:31:52.180
writing the book i got to that chapter and i said tom did you ever try to go back to north korea i mean
00:31:59.020
you you say it right here in the story and he said no i he said nobody goes to north korea and i said well
00:32:04.980
i know i know some people let me let me see if we could get you there and sure enough we got permission
00:32:11.560
to go to north korea much because tom is a medal of honor recipient and so he's revered in the united
00:32:18.080
states but also the north koreans respect that they respect their elders um as is their tradition
00:32:24.180
and they respect the military and so they welcomed tom hudner and it was amazing brett
00:32:30.600
in 2013 july at age 89 tom hudner boarded a plane flew all the way from massachusetts to beijing china
00:32:41.420
then flew into north korea and i was fortunate to accompany him
00:32:45.160
i mean most people at that age are worried about their golf scores or bouncing their grandkids on
00:32:51.340
their knees and instead tom went there and he sat down with the north korean army in this boardroom
00:32:58.200
and these three senior colonels just like the guys you see on television they're sitting across from
00:33:03.820
us with the green uniforms with the red shoulder boards and they're stern looking and he said i i come
00:33:09.740
this far to ask you to search for the the crash site of my friend jesse brown he's on a mountain
00:33:15.520
in the chosen reservoir can you find him for us because our military can't come look for him
00:33:21.300
but will yours do it and it was amazing the response the north korean colonel said i have a message for you
00:33:28.640
from kim jong-un the supreme leader and they they explained that kim jong-un had been appraised of tom's
00:33:35.960
trip and he admired tom for coming so far after so long to keep a promise to a friend
00:33:42.240
and kim jong-un authorized his army to resume the search for american mia's beginning with jesse brown
00:33:50.620
wow so that that search is going on right now it is going on now it's uh it's a it's a difficult
00:33:57.220
situation because the north koreans there are 7 000 american mia's nearly 7 000 still in north
00:34:05.480
korean soil still missing from that war and the north koreans are willing to look for them now of
00:34:11.620
course for them they make money basically uh when we send over our doctors and scientists
00:34:17.500
to help with this process of course money comes into north korean economy so they love it they want to
00:34:23.740
help us um our government however doesn't want to put any money in there until they abandon their
00:34:30.080
nuclear ambitions and so it's it's a terrible situation because it's it's a mission that
00:34:35.800
could benefit both countries it's a humanitarian mission it's good for the families of the korean war
00:34:40.840
it's good for people like the brown family to see these these remains come home except the american
00:34:46.900
government links this issue to the north korean nuclear program and so we're not going to go over
00:34:53.480
there and bring back our own boys until they abandon their their quest for the bomb and it seems like
00:34:59.420
these two powers just can't can't find a compromise i'm curious is there an organization that uh
00:35:06.160
that's like fundraising or that people can donate to to help with the the project
00:35:09.940
that's a great question i've never heard of a private group doing this um it's mostly the north
00:35:16.200
korean army and and there's some thought brett that that they probably have already recovered
00:35:20.840
hundreds and hundreds of american remains we're just not talking with them right now we we will
00:35:26.960
not discuss this issue so they're probably looking for our boys right now they're probably finding them
00:35:33.060
and they're cataloging them because erosion the mountains are eroding you know there's industrial
00:35:39.340
growth there's so many things that are disturbing these grave sites and so it really is a battle against
00:35:44.840
time and i bet you one day when our countries figure out how to talk to one another
00:35:50.000
you're going to see a whole bunch of uh american soldiers come home all at once and we hope jesse
00:35:56.380
brown will be the first among them adam i mean this is a this is an incredible story um and i'm sure
00:36:04.520
researching this working with tom working with the other families of the surviving veterans or the of
00:36:12.200
the veterans uh changed you i mean how did you become a better man in the course of writing this book
00:36:18.860
well i brett i would say one of the biggest issues facing our generation is selfishness
00:36:27.120
and you know the narcissism that comes with the facebook generation i mean i think we're all
00:36:33.540
becoming i don't we have such an inward focus you know and and we all fall victim to it oh how many
00:36:39.060
likes can i get oh how many how many people uh you know comment on my birthday we're you know we
00:36:45.040
see these girls who become instagram models and we're basically a generation that's taught to
00:36:50.920
promote ourselves and build our own brand and become celebrities whereas tom's generation and
00:36:57.880
jesse's was all about helping other people and being part of a bigger community so if anything i've
00:37:03.740
learned you know tom's captain of the aircraft carrier said it best there has been no finer act of
00:37:09.180
unselfish heroism in military history and that says everything about tom hudner he would do anything
00:37:16.120
to help anyone else you know to the point where he crashed lands a plane on a mountain to save a
00:37:22.500
friend if you and i were driving or you know we have to ask ourselves imagine you're you're driving
00:37:27.840
with your buddy and he's in the car ahead of you and you're crossing a bridge and his car goes off
00:37:32.180
into an icy river and he's trapped in his car and the river is swelling and he can't get out how many
00:37:41.320
of us would drive our car off the bridge into the icy river to get out and swim over and save our
00:37:46.300
friend that's effectively what tom did you know he was willing to throw away his life for his buddy
00:37:51.400
and so all i can learn from that is i can become a better man if i study these guys and if i take their
00:37:59.580
lessons to heart and if i remind myself of it consistently that you know the the way to be a
00:38:06.000
better person is to look outside yourself well adam where can people uh find out more about the book
00:38:12.540
well devotion is uh it's going to be available on uh well obviously starting october 27th but then
00:38:20.560
onward at bookstores everywhere um it's on amazon and uh and we're hoping for big things from this book
00:38:28.020
there's a couple movie studios already interested in taking the story of tom and jesse to the big
00:38:33.080
screen i think they deserve it i think the korean war deserves it um you know we all have a korean war
00:38:39.840
veteran in our family but somewhere in our family tree we have one and when we see that veteran that
00:38:45.900
has a hat a ball cap that says korea on it it behooves us as americans to know what that stands for
00:38:52.800
so that we can say to that guy thank you for your service like we say to the world war ii veterans
00:38:57.780
like we say to the iraqi veterans but we can actually understand a little bit about what they
00:39:03.140
did and what they fought for and i and i hope this book accomplishes that fantastic well adam thank you
00:39:09.180
so much for your time it's been a pleasure great talking with you again brett i'm glad to be
00:39:13.320
a follower and fan of art of manliness thank you so much my guest today was adam mickos he's the
00:39:19.300
author of the book devotion it is out now it just came out today so go out and get it it's on
00:39:24.680
available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere really you're not going to regret this it's a
00:39:28.680
just a fantastic read and when you're done you're going to feel uplifted edified and inspired so go
00:39:36.820
well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice
00:39:44.440
make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy
00:39:48.200
this podcast i'd really appreciate it if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher
00:39:51.760
that'll help us get the word out about the podcast and also give us feedback on how we can
00:39:55.640
improve the show thank you for your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay