The Art of Manliness - #150： Devotion： An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well one of my

00:00:18.720 favorite writers is a guy by the name of adam makos he's a young guy in his 30s like me but

00:00:23.440 since he was a teenager him and his brother have published this magazine that's been dedicated to

00:00:28.060 telling the stories of world war ii veterans in particular since then it's grown into other

00:00:33.600 wars as well korean vietnam war etc and adam has come across some amazing stories and with his

00:00:39.480 interviews he's done with these veterans and last year he published a book called a higher call had

00:00:45.240 him on the podcast about it incredible story about this german fighter pilot who escorts a damaged u.s

00:00:50.280 bomber back to allied territory during world war ii after this chance encounter the two men as old men

00:00:56.260 are able to meet each other and they become friends a really incredible story if you haven't

00:01:00.460 already go check that podcast out and go get the book a higher call adam's got a new book out and

00:01:05.120 it's really good this time instead of looking at the world war ii he takes a look at a story he found

00:01:09.680 from the korean war the book is called devotion and it's about two men from completely different worlds

00:01:15.460 one is a black son of a southern sharecropper the other is a young guy from connecticut blue-blooded

00:01:22.760 supposed to go to harvard decided to enlist in the military instead and uh these two guys become

00:01:28.120 fast friends and that friendship is put to the test when his plane goes down on a remote mountain in

00:01:33.280 north korea and the other one goes after him and we're gonna get into the details of the story because

00:01:37.100 it's just incredible what happens so that's we're gonna talk about the book today his new book devotion

00:01:41.860 and we're also discuss like why adam thinks it's so important why he's so dedicated why he's dedicated

00:01:46.780 his life and his career to uh telling and sharing these stories of these these world war ii and

00:01:52.580 korean war veterans and also the other veterans who have served in other wars and the lessons we can

00:01:57.940 learn from them to be better men uh great podcast great book without further ado adam make us and

00:02:03.680 devotion adam make us welcome to the show thanks brett good to be with you well great to have you back

00:02:16.840 so you were on our podcast this last year right yeah time is flying time is flying um so you're you

00:02:24.420 know you're known to be like a world war ii guy that's been your thing uh but your latest book is about

00:02:30.060 a story that's unbelievable that came out of the korean war um i'm curious before we get to the

00:02:37.920 story let's give some backdrop for our listeners about the korean war because it's it's called the

00:02:44.240 forgotten war people forget that we we fought this war in korea why is it that we that we forgot about

00:02:50.620 this war that happened right after world war ii well brett i i think we americans like a victory a win

00:02:57.460 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

00:03:04.400 it ended in a stalemate on the 38th parallel that stalemate continues to this day the war never

00:03:10.540 really officially ended and so we didn't have the same kind of victory parades uh we don't even have

00:03:16.960 like you can't even point to korean war books or movies i mean the last big movie was probably

00:03:21.640 pork chop hill starring gregory peck back in 1959 and uh it's remained forgotten i think it's also

00:03:30.280 the in the eyes of the american public it it lacks the romance i i use the word lightly but

00:03:37.020 of say jumping into normandy on d-day in liberating french villages it was a it was a an ugly war i mean

00:03:46.020 it was fought in the snow in the cold it was fought in the mud in the hills but the sacrifices

00:03:51.980 were just as heavy yeah and can you know who who was involved in it because there were a lot of

00:03:56.600 players when i i learned a lot about the korean war um so obviously you had communists in korea

00:04:02.120 but also the chinese and russians were involved as well yeah it's it's an incredible little fact and

00:04:08.820 i had to really teach myself about this war because going into this book i didn't know much about it i i mean

00:04:15.000 when you tell the average american that we fought the chinese in the korean war it's like a it's like

00:04:21.040 a slap across the face it's hard to believe it was originally the north koreans invading the south 0.99

00:04:26.400 but the north koreans were armed with soviet tanks and soviet guns in fact soviet troops drew up the

00:04:33.800 battle plans for the invasion of the south so so stalin had his hand in that and he said okay do this

00:04:39.980 and kim il sung did it and at the same time the chinese in 1950 um surprised us nobody saw their

00:04:49.060 intervention coming uh there was saber rattling but what happened was the war was just about over

00:04:54.520 the united states jumped in the english um the un and we drove the north koreans all the way to the edge

00:05:02.220 of their border we were about to kick them over the chinese border win the war and then we would have 1.00

00:05:06.700 had that big world war ii like victory but instead under darkness hundreds of thousands of chinese

00:05:14.400 troops snuck into north korea and they turned the tide of the war and they prolonged the war by three

00:05:20.780 years and and everything changed overnight and suddenly we were at war with china north korea and

00:05:27.040 in a way the soviet union yeah i thought you made this interesting point the very beginning of the book

00:05:32.280 where you said that we often forget the greatest generation fought two wars because i i it really

00:05:39.280 blew my mind when i read that but it was so obvious that you're right like we always think of the

00:05:42.640 greatest generation as world war ii but a lot of these guys that fought in korea also or fought in

00:05:46.980 world war ii also fought in korea yeah and and they they fought using the same aircraft so in the case of

00:05:54.460 devotion we follow navy fighter squadron well they were flying corsair fighters built during world war ii

00:06:00.440 they were shooting 50 caliber bullets they were dropping the same bombs our marines on the ground

00:06:06.220 who we follow in this book they're wearing the same uniforms from world war ii it literally was

00:06:11.660 the greatest generation being called back to war yeah so let's get back to let's get to the story the

00:06:16.920 crux of the story because it is unbelievable it's about two individuals from two completely separate

00:06:22.860 walks of life who develop a friendship and they go one of them goes to survive and help them so how did

00:06:29.720 you discover this story about this uh crash landing rescue and on a on a mountain on a pasture in the

00:06:38.020 middle of middle of korea where did you find the story well it was a legend in military circles uh

00:06:44.360 what tom hudner the hero of the story did that day and so his reputation preceded him i i was working

00:06:50.880 for a small magazine at the time a military history magazine that you know my brother and best friend and

00:06:55.880 i published and i was in dc uh ready to leave the hotel and i saw tom hudner the medal of honor

00:07:01.840 recipient sitting across the way reading his newspaper waiting for his car and i went over

00:07:06.760 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

00:07:11.620 a little magazine article well he gave me his business card and he handed me the keys to this

00:07:17.180 incredible tale and i soon determined i said this is too good for a magazine this needs to be a book

00:07:22.800 and the reason i think no one else had ever tried to tell this as a book is simply because uh partially

00:07:29.460 because of the nature of the forgotten war and as we'll discuss um the story it doesn't have that

00:07:36.920 happy ending that everybody wants where you you know it's like the movies we watch where everybody

00:07:41.560 everything ends in either a wedding or or a dance-off this doesn't end that way but it's still just as

00:07:48.000 powerful okay so tom hudner he was the hero he's this man who crash landed uh a plane to to save his

00:07:54.960 fellow comrade let's talk about the man that that needed the helping uh jesse brown um tell us about

00:08:02.280 him he was the i guess he was the first black aviator in u.s navy history he was he was the first uh

00:08:08.500 first confirmed uh known black uh fighter pilot carrier pilot uh pilot in general and and his his story

00:08:16.340 is so incredible he came so far he grew up in hattiesburg mississippi in the deep south in the

00:08:21.640 years just before world war ii and you know he he came from uh nothing he used to work in the fields

00:08:29.400 barefoot he'd go home to a shack at night with holes in the roof that would leak when it rained

00:08:34.620 and yet he had a dream to fly for his country so he wanted to serve a country that wouldn't even

00:08:42.260 serve him in a bar if he walked into it not because of his age but because of his skin color

00:08:46.600 and he said i want to be a naval aviator now everybody who heard this laughed at him the other 0.98

00:08:51.640 farmhands they would say you know black people can't ride in an airplane let alone fly an airplane let 0.99

00:08:58.640 alone fly an airplane for the united states navy because that was the most elite um flying corps there

00:09:05.240 was the tuskegee airmen broke through during world war ii and they in classes of upwards of 100 men at

00:09:13.720 once became pilots but the navy never cracked until jesse brown came along and and he through his 0.81

00:09:21.420 character through his um through his his personality everybody loved this guy and he broke through and

00:09:29.200 became the first black pilot where so many others had failed and he tells them about tom's personality

00:09:33.860 because this is amazing these are two guys who became friends you have jesse the son of a sharecropper

00:09:38.760 uh tom uh is white but what was his background tom was from uh i always say they're men from different

00:09:46.000 worlds because tom was from new england and he was from the country club scene his father and

00:09:51.700 grandfather had run a very successful business grocery stores and they prospered during the great

00:09:57.200 depression you know food was that one commodity everybody needed and so they had the hundred markets

00:10:02.680 and tom was supposed to go to harvard like his father he was supposed to inherit the family

00:10:08.400 business and he was supposed to have a comfortable life instead he like so many others said i want to

00:10:14.160 serve my country and this was around the time of world war ii so he volunteered to to essentially join

00:10:19.580 the navy went to the naval academy and he graduated just a little too late to fight in the war the war had

00:10:24.580 ended and he became a fighter pilot so this is a you know this is a one percenter who becomes a

00:10:30.980 fighter pilot so you have jesse who's a patriot who wants to serve a country that doesn't really love

00:10:35.100 him and you have tom who throws away the silver spoon to fly for the navy and how did these guys

00:10:40.440 become friends they uh they were by chance by fate um they were assigned to the same fighter squadron

00:10:49.060 uh fighter squadron 32 up in quonset point rhode island and when they first went for their first

00:10:55.120 flight together it was very awkward at first because when they met in the locker room they were

00:10:59.460 suiting up jesse came over to tom and and tom greeted him and stuck out his hand uh to shake

00:11:06.580 jesse's and jesse looked down at tom's hand for a minute in disbelief and then finally shook his hand

00:11:12.620 and later on that day he explained to tom that he had become accustomed not to extending himself that

00:11:20.240 way because back in flight training he would go up to a white cadet or a white instructor and he'd say

00:11:25.960 hi i'm jesse brown and he'd stick out his hand and the other person would keep theirs at their side

00:11:31.440 and so he'd been left hanging so many times it started to shape his personality and tom said you're

00:11:36.900 never going to have to worry about that with me and so that day a friendship was born and it seems like

00:11:42.200 from what i read in the book um that there really wasn't any problems with integrating jesse into the

00:11:49.300 the squadron like the problems that he had was whenever they were interacting with people who

00:11:53.740 weren't a part of the squadron exactly there was a strange sort of navy band of brothers

00:11:59.260 and it existed um you know when because these men were all going to war together i think there's

00:12:05.640 an interesting oh i don't know i don't want to say trend but i've seen where when when black and

00:12:12.400 white people work together when they fight together the racism disappears look at a football team in the

00:12:18.960 nfl you know everybody's on the same team everybody's striving toward the same thing

00:12:23.860 and it was that way in the navy um the people on the ship respected jesse the squadron they respected

00:12:30.020 him and and he didn't expect racism that was a funny thing they always said jesse brown

00:12:35.500 didn't go looking for a racial problem he was just there to do his job and as it so happened

00:12:42.820 no problem emerged so let's start the situation of when jesse crashes his plane this is phenomenal

00:12:49.220 this i guess is the big battle that were uh thing like you said earlier uh things changed overnight

00:12:55.180 like we were whooping the north koreans but then this happened so what happened um what was this battle

00:13:02.700 that uh preceded jesse crashing his plane well it was called the battle the chosen reservoir and

00:13:09.340 it was fought uh in northeastern north korea you had the army going up the west you had the marines

00:13:15.000 going up the east and we were about to just just wipe the north koreans off the map literally push 1.00

00:13:20.380 them into china and all these chinese troops showed up one night and surrounded us and so that what

00:13:27.240 happened in the west to the army they were routed completely and in the east the marines the first

00:13:32.760 marine division now these are the the heroes of guadalcanal and pelelu just five years earlier

00:13:38.960 suddenly these 10 000 men were surrounded in a valley there at the chosen reservoir and um we

00:13:47.140 were facing uh the destruction of an entire marine division back home the papers were calling them the

00:13:53.180 lost legion and they were preparing the american people for the worst defeat in military history

00:13:58.840 but the marines had an advantage on their side not only did they have better weapons and better

00:14:03.420 training despite being outnumbered 100 000 against 10 000 so so there were 10 000 of our boys

00:14:10.140 surrounded 10 to 1 were their odds they had air power the chinese did not bring anti-aircraft guns 0.90

00:14:18.360 the chinese did not bring fighter planes into the korean war because they were there surreptitiously 0.68

00:14:23.820 they were volunteers they called themselves kind of like how you watch putin send his russian

00:14:29.400 soldiers into the ukraine well they're not russian they're they're volunteers or their other nations

00:14:34.660 you know they they have all these different terms well same way in the korean war and so the marines

00:14:40.180 had air power and that's where tom and jesse came in to save the day and to tip the scales well listen

00:14:45.840 can you talk about some of the marines because not only do you talk about jesse and tom but

00:14:49.500 simultaneously you're talking about what's going on on the ground and there were some really phenomenal

00:14:53.360 men on the ground who were doing extraordinary things to to win this battle can you talk about a few of

00:14:58.980 those marines sure they um in order to really appreciate tom and jesse's story i decided very

00:15:05.600 early on when writing devotion we had to follow the guys on the ground and we found just two incredible

00:15:11.460 marines uh one of whom john parkinson was um was a young uh gosh 22 year old at the time of the battle

00:15:19.180 fighting in an icy creek literally with their backs to the water um as these chinese human waves 1.00

00:15:26.760 overwhelmed them and and so you see this desperate fighting in this book we had to show the suffering

00:15:33.280 of the men on the ground to appreciate who tom and jesse were fighting to protect the other marine we

00:15:39.520 follow his name was ed cordera and ed a real life person again he lives up in massachusetts these days

00:15:46.560 he was one of the few men captured at the chosen reservoir and and so we show what happens when ed's

00:15:53.760 hilltop position is overrun his buddies are knocked out or killed or routed and he wakes up the next

00:16:00.320 morning a prisoner of the chinese and so we're able to show you the cold of the chosen reservoir 0.99

00:16:05.820 it was negative 20 degrees in some spots we're able to show you the viciousness of it and the

00:16:11.680 hopelessness and yet we show you how the american spirit can prevail against all that i thought it was

00:16:18.000 interesting um when the the fighting first started uh the marines were confused because they were hearing

00:16:24.240 tommy guns uh which were american guns like guns the paratroopers used during world war ii how did that

00:16:32.300 happen how did the chinese get american weapons in their their hands well this was uh this was a very sad

00:16:39.520 tragic element to the chosen reservoir battle and and and i i wavered a little bit brett i didn't know

00:16:46.900 if i should put this in the book because it really it sympathizes or it humanizes uh the enemy uh the

00:16:54.580 chinese soldiers we fought at the chosen reservoir were largely um nationalists and now during of course

00:17:03.080 world war ii you had the communists and nationalists chinese and they put aside their weapons and they put

00:17:07.920 aside their strife and they fought the japanese together well the united states armed them we

00:17:12.320 supplied them they were our buddies they were our allies as soon as the war ends they go to war with

00:17:17.240 each other the nationalists get pushed out to taiwan the communists take over all of china and all

00:17:22.940 these national soldiers that they captured in their civil war well what do they do they suddenly have

00:17:28.680 this battle going on in north korea so they send their the former nationalists into these frozen

00:17:35.020 conditions wearing basically tennis sneakers without gloves without food without air support and they

00:17:43.480 send them there to die now they're led by communist officers and if the nationalists ran from a flight

00:17:49.080 they'd be mowed down but literally at the chosen reservoir our marines were fighting men who five years

00:17:55.980 earlier had been our allies yeah there was a scene uh in the book where one of the soldiers has an

00:18:02.440 encounter with some chinese nationalist soldiers saying that they'd fought with the marines during

00:18:07.540 world war ii it was one of the most remarkable things and they shared a cigarette on the hilltop

00:18:13.700 um as as they're suffering in the cold together and it sounds like something a novelist would create it

00:18:20.320 sounds like something a screenwriter would invent but it really happened when ed cordero woke up and he

00:18:25.360 was taken prisoner he finds that the men who took him prisoner yeah they carried tommy guns

00:18:30.640 for a reason they were nationalists they spoke english and they didn't hate him and so that's

00:18:37.520 really one of the conflicts the reader goes through in this in this book you you want the americans to

00:18:43.240 survive so desperately you want them to escape this trap you want tom and jesse to kill all the enemy

00:18:47.940 but then when you get to know the enemy you say my god this is a lose lose yeah they're thrown into it

00:18:54.780 um exactly so how does jesse get shot down because like if the um the chinese didn't have anti-aircraft 0.78

00:19:03.120 um arsenal like what happened how did he get how did he crash into the mountain well what what

00:19:09.800 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

00:19:18.180 of of upwards of 10 corsairs were ripping around the valleys and they were looking for the enemy see the

00:19:23.720 chinese often hid during the day and they attacked at night to deny us the our our air power advantage 1.00

00:19:29.880 so they were trying to find the enemy and kill them before nightfall came and the chinese were known to

00:19:37.920 do several things one is when an airplane would come they would sometimes crouch in a ball and from above

00:19:44.840 they would look like a series of boulders on the landscape and they would they they were known to

00:19:50.900 stay motionless even while being strafed and it's absolutely almost superhuman they would even hide

00:19:58.360 in the snow bury themselves and that's what happened to jesse he flew over an unseen group of chinese

00:20:03.820 soldiers hiding in the snow and all they would do is fire one volley all at once they put up 30 50 100

00:20:10.500 bullets and one of those bullets found the underside of jesse's aircraft it punctured his oil tank

00:20:17.000 and before he knew it his aircraft was going down his engine was seizing up and the only spot they

00:20:23.840 could find was the side of him basically a pasture high in the mountains they they always say a bowl

00:20:29.480 shaped valley and he crashed on this high mountain pasture it looks soft it looks snow covered but

00:20:36.860 beneath it was rock and he was in a very violent violent crash so tom had a choice to make and i guess

00:20:43.620 before uh the instructions they were given about if someone crashed these were all the naval pilots

00:20:49.420 that they weren't supposed to go after them because you know two dead soldiers is worse than one

00:20:54.400 um but tom decided to take action what did tom decide to do well tom saw uh jesse down there in his

00:21:03.540 aircraft everybody was waiting for jesse to get out there they're saying what are you waiting for you

00:21:07.720 know it's it's smoking and they're they're calling him on the radio he's not responding suddenly they see

00:21:12.560 his canopy open and he's waving at them now his aircraft when he hit it buckled at the nose almost

00:21:18.740 uh i don't want to say 90 degrees rightward but very severe maybe 50 or 60 degrees and he was pinned

00:21:25.040 inside by his right knee it was crushed against the instrument panel and so jesse had taken off his helmet

00:21:32.160 he'd taken off his gloves in his hurry to escape the aircraft before he realized he was pinned so

00:21:37.800 suddenly he has no communication because he dropped his helmet down below his feet he's stuck in an

00:21:42.940 aircraft and there's smoke coming from the nose there's a 230 gallon fuel tank about five feet in

00:21:49.980 front of him and a fire is threatening to envelop the entire aircraft tom is orbiting overhead along with

00:21:58.800 at that time another four aircraft and he looks down he's and he sees his friend now jesse's not just

00:22:05.620 his friend he knows jesse has a wife he knows jesse has a two-year-old baby girl and he's about to burn

00:22:11.820 alive on a on a north korean mountain far from home and that's when tom simply radios the rest of the

00:22:19.740 flight i'm going in and the other men were stunned they didn't encourage him they didn't dissuade him

00:22:27.000 some probably didn't even know what he meant but they knew as soon as they watched him tom made a pass

00:22:33.240 over jesse he assessed the terrain and next thing you know he did this event that had never happened

00:22:38.560 before it has never happened since he crash landed a perfectly good aircraft right next to his friend

00:22:44.920 on that north korean mountain and i mean was he able to save jesse did he did he get the jesse before

00:22:53.000 the plane the plane exploded or anything like that well he he did and um tom as soon as he opened his

00:22:59.880 canopy the cold rushed in and he his first thought was what the heck am i doing here and then he he

00:23:05.340 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

00:23:10.360 the snow he had hurt his back to some degree in the crash it had been a hard landing and so tom was in

00:23:16.000 pain himself and when he got to the cockpit uh jesse said tom we have to find a way out of here

00:23:21.020 and tom remembers being shocked at how calm jesse was and tom said he calmed me me down so suddenly

00:23:28.920 tom finds himself relaxed and said all right jesse let's try something and the first thing tom did

00:23:33.580 he tried to pull jesse out and he had to use one hand on jesse's shoulder and the other hand he had

00:23:38.560 to grip the canopy with and pull as they might jesse was pushing tom was pulling they couldn't free him

00:23:45.360 he was pinned so badly so tom set about trying to do the next thing he had to buy them some time

00:23:51.620 so he went to the front of the aircraft and he shoveled snow onto the fire and it abated he then

00:23:59.100 went back to the cockpit and he saw that jesse's hands were freezing his ears were freezing so tom

00:24:04.800 always carried a spare cap with him so he pulled that cap down over jesse's head and then he wrapped

00:24:11.040 he took the scarf from his own neck and he wrapped jesse's hands and they ended up waiting there together

00:24:17.300 waiting hoping a rescue helicopter would come hoping the chinese soldiers wouldn't beat the 1.00

00:24:22.880 helicopter to it and put a bullet in both of their heads and as it was time passed and the sun was

00:24:28.820 setting and uh jesse's life was slowly slipping away and what was the aftermath i mean did were they

00:24:38.520 able to recover his body or did tom eventually just have to leave it was very sad brett um jesse in

00:24:46.680 one of his last moments of consciousness he said tom i need you to give a message to my wife

00:24:51.740 and he said just tell daisy how much i love her and tom said i'll do that and tom knew jesse was

00:24:58.540 going to die and and it ends tragically when the helicopter comes the the pilot comes out and he

00:25:04.920 says is that jesse brown in the cockpit and tom said yeah it is and the helicopter pilot just cursed

00:25:11.160 because everyone who met jesse loved him and so he and tom then tried to use an axe to cut through

00:25:18.300 the corsair fuselage desperately trying to pull jesse out one last time and the the axe just

00:25:25.040 bounced off the aluminum it wouldn't cut through that frozen metal and the helicopter pilot then gave

00:25:31.360 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 0.56

00:25:36.920 now because i can't fly in the dark and so tom made this last promise at jesse you know jesse had

00:25:42.320 already slumped over he had probably passed and tom said jesse we have to leave we don't have the

00:25:47.100 tools to free you but we'll be back someday for you and tom left and it was the hardest moment of his

00:25:52.920 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 0.95

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 0.91

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 0.56

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.99

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

00:39:35.420 check it out you will not be disappointed

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

00:39:59.380 telling you to stay manly

00:40:01.240 thank you

00:40:12.060 you

00:40:12.620 you

00:40:17.120 you

00:40:19.120 Thank you.

The Art of Manliness - October 27, 2015

#150： Devotion： An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice

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