The Art of Manliness - #94： A Higher Call With Adam Makos

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:19.080 four days before christmas in 1943 a badly damaged american bomber struggled to fly over

00:00:24.460 wartime germany at its controls was a 21 year old pilot half of his crew lay wounded or dead

00:00:29.880 and this was his very first mission that he was flying suddenly out of nowhere a german fighter

00:00:35.360 plane came up and lined up directly behind this bomber's tails and flying this german fighter was

00:00:42.540 a german ace pilot one of the best in the german air force and with just a squeeze of the trigger

00:00:47.840 this german pilot could have taken this bomber down but he didn't do that instead he just did

00:00:52.720 something that was absolutely incredible this incredible story became the the topic of a book

00:00:57.740 called a higher call an incredible true story of combat and chivalry in the war-torn skies of world

00:01:03.240 war ii and today on the podcast we have the author of that book adam makos we're going to talk about

00:01:08.340 this event that brought together two enemies and the unlikely story of how they became friends uh with

00:01:15.620 just this this chance encounter it's a fascinating and very touching podcast i think you're really

00:01:20.880 going to enjoy it uh so let's get on with the show adam makos welcome to the show thanks brett glad to be

00:01:29.720 with you all right so you have uh made your life's calling in a lot of ways to tell the stories of

00:01:37.280 the men and women who took part in world war ii um but before we get into your company valor studios

00:01:43.860 and some of the books you've written about world war ii what piqued your interest about world war ii

00:01:50.100 because you're you're a young person how old are you and uh and how did you get started being

00:01:54.300 interested in world war ii well brad i'm 33 and uh i've been studying world war ii pretty much as a

00:02:02.220 career for the last 15 years so i started very young um my grandfathers got me interested one was a marine

00:02:09.880 stateside and the other one flew in b-17 bombers in the pacific at the tail end of the war and growing

00:02:16.600 up around my grandfathers uh that really that did it we went to air shows together we went to museums

00:02:23.020 they showed me their photo albums and i was just so lucky that um that i was able to grow up with

00:02:29.300 them in my life my life and um that's pretty much where it came from i was just enamored with that era

00:02:34.940 for some strange reason i didn't understand at the time i was a teenager but now that i've i've come

00:02:40.640 to study them i know why it called to me and you didn't just let your interest sort of you know

00:02:46.460 stay as an interest you actually did something as a teenager with that interest uh and this led to the

00:02:53.040 formation of your company valor studios can you talk about how valor studios came to be because i think

00:02:59.700 the story is just just really fascinating and then what does valor studios do exactly well thank you it's

00:03:07.120 valor studios these days is a uh a publishing company that celebrates the heroes mostly from

00:03:14.360 world war ii from korea from vietnam a little bit and celebrates them by publishing we publish a

00:03:20.540 magazine we publish fine artwork and uh and we in many cases uh will take veterans back to the

00:03:27.180 battlefield anything to keep history alive it began as a as a small little newsletter on a rainy day

00:03:33.760 uh my brother my friend and myself were 15 years old 14 years old and um and it was a rainy day we

00:03:42.640 had our first computer and we said let's make a newsletter let's play journalist and we had to

00:03:49.060 decide what subject to write about do we write about ferraris do we write about um the wild west do we

00:03:54.540 write about football instead we decided let's write about our grandfathers let's write about world war ii

00:03:59.980 and this little newsletter that was one page it suddenly became two pages then it became 10 and

00:04:04.820 it sold to our family and our friends and then it started to sell to the public and the newsletter

00:04:10.180 over time became a magazine and through that magazine we were we were telling the stories of

00:04:16.940 world war ii veterans guys in our hometown and then it became very famous world war ii veterans and then

00:04:23.180 this little magazine eventually started to um publish artwork because we would use art to tell our

00:04:29.360 stories and we thought why not just commission paintings that that can vibrantly tell the stories of these battles

00:04:36.040 and and sell them then to the public so people could hang this on their wall and be reminded

00:04:41.680 365 days a year of these heroes that we had discovered and so valor studios is still in operation to this day

00:04:49.420 and it's kind of fueled my book uh publishing career which has uh really taken a lot of the recent years

00:04:56.040 um but working with these heroes has has shaped my life in a lot of ways so when you were a young man

00:05:01.700 what you would do is you just would you interview these world war ii veterans and then just write their

00:05:06.080 story in the newsletter we would and uh it was um again it was a sbd dive bomber pilot it was a p-51

00:05:14.720 pilot and then we started to discover that um we wanted to tell the story of men who served on

00:05:19.860 submarines we wanted to tell the story of marines in the pacific or a tanker in the european theater

00:05:25.600 and uh and so we worked with these men and at the time when we started they were 80 81 well now

00:05:32.000 you don't need a world war ii veteran who isn't 90 91 92 and so we've had i always say i grew up with

00:05:40.320 100 grandfathers and uh and and they became my best friends and sadly they've been disappearing

00:05:45.800 one by one by one but but the the lessons remain and that's what i try to put in these books

00:05:51.460 everything i've learned from from these mentors that it is really sad um do you about the declining

00:05:57.980 number of world war ii veterans who are still around do you have any numbers on how many veterans

00:06:02.560 we still have who are alive oh goodness i had heard a new stat not long ago and i totally escapes my

00:06:10.460 mind but what i've what i've seen brett is that in a unit say let's talk about the band of brothers they

00:06:15.900 have two hundred men and officers at one time roughly and uh and we find that there's about a

00:06:22.880 dozen left um so so that's kind of the number you're facing in any given world war ii unit you

00:06:29.200 probably have about five percent or fewer of the men remaining these days and and it's it's a sobering

00:06:36.420 statistic and it makes it very hard to to write a future book um so so time is of the essence yeah

00:06:43.000 trying to get as many of them written down as you can so i'm curious you said that you um

00:06:49.600 you started this with a was it a paper newsletter that it started out with yeah it was it was yeah

00:06:55.640 just started out on an inkjet printer and then uh and then over time it became professionally published

00:07:01.100 and it's still published it's called valor magazine it's the official magazine of valorstudios.com

00:07:06.060 and um and and and through that time brett um we've worked with some of the most uh indelible

00:07:13.280 figures um one in particular dick winters was a very good friend uh leader of the band of brothers

00:07:20.920 and um and as well as how more the hero of vietnam and and len lamel of point the hawk and i don't know

00:07:29.320 if you want but i i have learned uh a common lesson from them i don't know i would love to hear

00:07:34.100 share that yes well well these men were uh of course we all know winners leader of the paratrooper

00:07:40.220 uh unit easy company uh we know how more you might have seen we were soldiers once

00:07:46.780 and young uh the movie the book uh he was played by mel gibson in that and then len lamel he's one

00:07:54.280 of those figures that man he should have had his own tv show he should have had his movie he was the

00:07:59.140 ranger who led uh one of the companies during the attack on point the hawk he was uh he was uh i guess

00:08:06.820 you could say saving private ryan was partially based on on him tom hanks's character was very

00:08:12.320 much inspired by len lamel and and the common thing that each one each one told me at one time or

00:08:18.320 another this is the only overlap i ever heard and it was about fairness and and they would say

00:08:25.520 it's so imperative to the success of a unit a military unit to a company uh to a family

00:08:34.160 uh len lamel once looked me in the eyes he said i'm going to tell you something you've got a good

00:08:38.220 family and it's important that you're fair to them fairness is everything and it's how i was successful

00:08:44.500 in war and in life and dick winter said the same thing you've got to be fair to your men if you want

00:08:49.920 respect and and how more the same principle and i and i i i guess that's one of the things that's

00:08:57.960 an ultimate challenge in this day and age because as you know so much of our careers and and our lives

00:09:04.480 are about american society is based around getting as far as you can for yourself it's a it's a very uh

00:09:11.760 inward inward focus that's promoted how how many friends can you get on facebook how many likes can

00:09:17.620 you get how much money can you make in your job and it's and and and what's the pretty who's the

00:09:22.780 prettiest girl you can date and it's also a self-based mindset and these men are saying no no no the way

00:09:32.100 to succeed in life is to be concerned about the people around you and to be fair to them and be good

00:09:38.540 to them and then those people will lift you up so it's kind of a reverse thing you don't lift yourself

00:09:43.700 up you're good to the people around you and they'll take care of you and and it's it's a good

00:09:48.140 lesson i try to practice this all the time that's a great a great lesson i'm uh you you mentioned

00:09:53.940 earlier that uh one of the things that valor studios does is you take soldiers or veterans to

00:10:01.180 battlegrounds do you have any stories where when you did that you accompanied a veteran to a battleground

00:10:09.040 and there was you know what sort of response do you see from the veterans do they some of them get

00:10:14.420 very um thoughtful or pensive or do some of them just start telling stories what happens when you do

00:10:19.540 that that's that's a fine question every every man reacts differently but but today on the anniversary

00:10:26.120 of the battle of the bulge uh 70th anniversary i think to a trip where we brought um shifty powers

00:10:33.640 earl mcclung uh bill garnier babe heffron uh buck compton and don malarkey back to the site of the battle

00:10:41.740 of the bulge and uh what we did we brought them originally to visit the troops of the um of the

00:10:47.780 first armored division who had just come back from iraq and so it was kind of our own little uso thing to

00:10:53.640 give back uh to our military this was a couple years ago and afterwards we toured the battlefields with

00:10:59.980 them and and um for shifty and earl to go back to those foxholes it was it was very eerie because

00:11:06.540 we were there on the anniversary and suddenly this man uh crossed the street and walked out of the

00:11:11.840 mist he was another old man and he came and steps stepped into our midst and uh and sure enough he

00:11:17.800 was a german soldier uh now he's 88 years old or so just like our men and um and we started through

00:11:25.340 a translator talking to this man and he was there for the anniversary as well and and we found out

00:11:30.520 that he had fought across the street from them and um and shifty and earl said come here let's get a

00:11:37.080 photo together and and and the he this man had been a volks grenadier uh officer german soldier you

00:11:44.860 know shipped right out of germany to fight this battle his unit was all young young boys and old men

00:11:50.760 and um and he said you know we were so scared of you we would see the the white eagle on your

00:11:56.760 shoulder and we said oh the eagle heads are coming and and it terrified them well these men are getting

00:12:02.740 their photos together they're smiling and earl said hey to anyone who's gathered around because there

00:12:07.440 were soldiers with us it was my family and he said everyone take a picture this is not something

00:12:12.940 you're going to get to see every day you've got the good and he pointed himself to himself and he

00:12:18.800 pointed to the germany said you got the bad and then you got the ugly and he pointed to shifty

00:12:23.000 and everyone around just just got a laugh out of it and i think that was a that was a powerful moment

00:12:30.880 and later on i guess it would shape me because not only did i get to see the emotion that these men

00:12:37.440 still carried so many years later i got to see someone from the other side and and i got to see how

00:12:44.880 earl and shifty weren't afraid to put their arms around this man this was a man they had fought

00:12:50.260 he had probably tried to kill them they had tried to kill him earl had probably killed several of his

00:12:55.520 men because there was a big battle where earl ran across the road once and he killed uh four men in

00:13:01.240 one one one engagement and yet all these years later those men as shifty powers famously said

00:13:08.940 in band of brothers you know maybe we could have been friends that german and i maybe he liked to

00:13:14.820 fish maybe he liked to hunt like i do maybe we could have been friends and i think that that attitude

00:13:20.560 has um has shaped my work in recent years in this military field trying to understand both sides of

00:13:27.320 the same story continue on that sort of same line of american soldiers and german soldiers being friends

00:13:34.960 you uh wrote a new york times best-selling book it's been on the new york times best-selling list for

00:13:40.740 was it 23 weeks yes yes it did it was um outstanding uh beyond anyone's expectations right yeah really

00:13:48.820 incredible it was called a higher call and it's just an amazing amazing story and for listeners who

00:13:57.840 haven't who haven't heard about the story that the higher call is based on can you give us the gist of it

00:14:03.520 of of what happened how did this happen and why did it happen i'd be i'd be glad to it was uh

00:14:11.600 a higher call is the story i discovered when i was working for our small magazine see as a as the

00:14:16.940 editor a lot of stories would come across my desk people would say you need to do this story you need

00:14:20.800 to do that one and i kept hearing from world war ii veterans you've got to tell the story of the

00:14:25.060 german who let the american bomber go and i thought wait a second this is a tall tale this did not happen

00:14:30.820 because you know a lot of times you see sensational things and and if it's too good to be true it

00:14:36.020 usually is well i tracked down this story and i found out there was some truth to it this american

00:14:41.120 bomber pilot charlie brown uh was flying a b-17 back in december 1943 it was his crew's first mission

00:14:49.100 and reportedly uh they had been badly damaged they were just limping home trying to escape germany

00:14:56.280 when a german fighter ace came up flew alongside of them didn't shoot them down and more so he

00:15:01.980 saluted at them and flew away i thought it was too incredible until i called the american pilot charlie

00:15:09.060 brown i tracked him down in florida he was living in miami i said charlie is there any truth to this

00:15:14.960 and if so i got i've got to tell this story and he said adam let me tell you this he said you're

00:15:20.620 starting about it the whole wrong way he said in this story i'm just a character the german is the

00:15:27.440 hero and his name's franz stiegler and if you really want to do this right you're not going to

00:15:32.340 talk to me you're going to go talk to the german first he's still alive i'll put you in touch with

00:15:37.540 him and after you get his story then you can come get mine i'm just a character and so that's how it

00:15:44.100 started brent and i i went out to to interview this german a man named franz stiegler to discover

00:15:50.280 this incredible world war ii story well why did yeah i mean it's amazing that i mean what stiegler

00:15:57.240 did was he escorted the safety this american plane in a lot of ways that's an act of treason right

00:16:03.360 was that an act of treason that what stiegler did it certainly was and in that day and age and i spent

00:16:10.020 about a week with franz stiegler and then later on i interviewed him over years and years and years

00:16:14.400 and then i interviewed charlie and he gave me his story as he promised and and i discovered that this

00:16:19.680 this story was larger than life and it was true franz stiegler had had been uh shot down an american

00:16:26.420 bomber that day and he had landed to rearm refuel when this b-17 flew overhead and he saw it and he

00:16:32.860 jumped in his messerschmitt 109 fighter and tracked down the b-17 and when he came up behind it he

00:16:39.580 was poised to shoot it down but but something changed in him something clicked and and he had

00:16:45.640 decided to spare it um the uh gosh i i guess i could would you like to know why i guess the moral

00:16:54.900 moral well franz's moral uh explanation took place earlier in africa he he was a young fighter pilot um

00:17:04.120 he had joined because his brother was killed in world war ii as a pilot franz would have been happy to

00:17:09.040 have stayed out of the war he was a flight instructor for the german air force but when his brother died

00:17:14.860 everything changed and he went to war seeking revenge and in africa before his first mission

00:17:20.980 his squadron commander was a man named rodel and this rodel uh gustav rodel said franz what are you

00:17:27.560 going to do today if you shoot down a plane and you see a man in a parachute are you going to hold

00:17:32.160 your fire are you going to shoot him what are you going to do and franz said i don't know sir i'm

00:17:37.040 i'll figure it out when when it happens and rodel said well let me tell you what you'll do he said

00:17:42.440 if you end up shooting a man in a parachute and i hear of it or i see it i'm going to shoot you

00:17:48.580 myself and this is before franz's first mission and he's already scared to death and rodel said

00:17:54.680 listen let me tell you why i say this he said you fight by the rules of war not for yourself you fight

00:18:00.940 by the rules for you not i'm sorry not for your enemy you fight by the rules for yourself so that

00:18:08.280 someday if you survive this war you can live with yourself you can look yourself in the mirror and

00:18:13.800 someday when you face god you can you can face him with the clean conscience that's why you fight

00:18:19.000 by the rules of war and so franz learned that lesson that day and he carried it into his career

00:18:24.800 because he was very lucky had he reported right to the eastern front where where the fighting was

00:18:32.180 so violent and so hateful uh he may have never learned such a lesson and he may have killed

00:18:37.900 charlie brown and his crew that day instead because he went to the desert there was a strange sort of

00:18:43.960 war being fought in early 1942 and it was the british and the germans were fighting by the rules of

00:18:49.900 world war one where you showed respect to your adversary where chivalry was still practiced so

00:18:56.400 if a man was shot down behind the enemy lines uh a german doctor would care for a british soldier

00:19:02.520 or a british airman uh the british showed the same courtesies a lot of times a shot down pilot

00:19:07.960 or captured pilot would be hosted at a dinner by his captors um there's a story of a british pilot who

00:19:15.180 was shot down and badly burned later a german pilot flew over the british lines and dropped a letter

00:19:21.380 to the man's comrades to say uh i'm i'm sad to report that your friend has died of his wounds we did all

00:19:29.160 we could and so that was africa and franz was very lucky and and that's what that's what made franz

00:19:37.120 make that decision on december 20th 1943 why was it that africa had that that chivalry mindset as

00:19:44.700 opposed to the other arenas of war i would say it was uh it was several things it was the common

00:19:51.500 hardships these men were thrown out in the desert it was the same enemies from world war one

00:19:56.520 so they had fought each other before and uh everyone was suffering we're all alone in the desert we're

00:20:02.760 all forgotten back home our girlfriends are probably dating someone else um you know we miss our families

00:20:09.600 they were all suffering the same hardships and it wasn't personal between them you know the the

00:20:15.160 churchill sent that the british to the desert hitler sent the germans to the desert nobody wanted to be

00:20:21.060 there and uh and also this sounds a little strange but um we hadn't entered the war yet the americans

00:20:28.980 weren't in the desert at that point and um and when we came into the war i think we brought a different

00:20:34.780 attitude and it was we don't want to be here we're here to fix your mess for the second time in

00:20:40.340 in 20 years you know we're going to win this war and we we brought a new level of um i guess you could

00:20:47.100 say pragmatism and and certain and certain sort of savagery to the air war uh we said we're just going

00:20:53.600 to destroy the german nation we're going to destroy every fighter pilot we can we're going to win this

00:20:59.240 war and so whereas the british and the germans couldn't afford to be sportingly at the beginning of

00:21:04.700 the war when we came in it was the gloves the gloves were off and so i think that's what that's

00:21:09.700 what created a different theater and also it was very different from the eastern front where

00:21:14.240 there was um there was another sort of um there was a the the propaganda and the and the racial

00:21:21.680 savagery where it was the germans and and and russians looked at each other as inhuman whereas

00:21:28.960 in the desert the british and germans had that attitude that said well you know we might have been

00:21:34.120 friends if it if we weren't born on the wrong side so stiegler a german pilot escorted charlie brown

00:21:42.400 an american pilot did stiegler suffer any consequences for his action or did he did it just this fly under

00:21:49.100 the radar he he was very lucky brent he never mentioned it to a single soul um back in that day

00:21:57.720 uh that summer of 1943 for example a woman who was working in a munitions plant had told a joke

00:22:04.560 about hitler and she said hitler and goering were up on top of the berlin radio tower and hitler said

00:22:10.160 i want to put a smile on the faces of the people of berlin and goering said well then why don't you jump

00:22:15.000 and that was the joke and she told it and someone overheard her and they reported her to the gestapo and

00:22:20.480 she had her head cut off by the guillotine that summer so from stiegler escorts an american bomber

00:22:26.560 out of german territory he he salutes the pilot flies away that would have been treason times 10

00:22:34.480 and he would have been shot and um and he could never speak of it and that's why this story laid

00:22:40.580 quietly for so long he couldn't speak of it during the war after the war he put the memories behind him

00:22:47.100 and it stayed dormant for 50 some years wow so you mentioned that charlie brown and stiegler were

00:22:55.360 friends like brown knew how to get in contact with stiegler but how did that happen because

00:23:00.400 for brown i'm sure he looked across he's just you know stiegler was just some random german pilot

00:23:05.560 right how did brown track down stiegler uh and get in touch with him well this was this was a second

00:23:14.220 one in a million or one in a billion happenings and that's why i was so lucky with the higher call

00:23:20.100 that both men were alive because i could i could examine this uh charlie only saw this man's face

00:23:26.880 and inside of his cockpit franz was saying good luck you're in god's hands and then he flew away he said

00:23:31.900 i've done all i can do and um and he had done a lot you know he had escorted him out of germany when he

00:23:38.300 could have just flown away he didn't have to stay with this bomber but franz knew if another german

00:23:43.760 fighter pilot came along they wouldn't molest this bomber with him there with him flying alongside of it

00:23:50.020 but if they found it alone they would they would knock it into the sea because the plane was defenseless

00:23:54.720 so all these years later charlie brown realizes that he's alive because of this german and at a bomb

00:24:01.580 group reunion he told his buddies he said you know what i remember that one time i was saluted by a german

00:24:07.840 fighter pilot and everyone just laughed at him and once they were done laughing they said

00:24:11.700 seriously and he said yeah and he told the story well a man named joe jackson one of the pilots that

00:24:17.700 day said charlie you owe it to this man to try to find him you owe it to yourself and charlie said how

00:24:23.080 am i going to do this 50 years have passed this is like 1988 and uh and so charlie begins he puts ads

00:24:30.140 in magazines he searches the archives and he gets lucky he gets very lucky he places an ad

00:24:37.200 in a german fighter pilot magazine called jaeger blot and it was read by any of the german fighter

00:24:42.900 pilots since world war ii so you have cold war guys you had you know men of all ages and the ad said

00:24:50.600 looking for the german pilot who saved my life over bremen if you know the details 1943 if we we flew

00:24:57.120 together if you know the details contact charlie brown well franz knew had moved to vancouver canada

00:25:03.380 to work in the lumber industry after the war he couldn't live in his hometown anymore he had lost

00:25:08.940 his family he had lost his friends he had lost his country effectively he had seen his city bombed

00:25:14.320 and and he knew that hitler was the cause of all that and he and he and he hated that part of his

00:25:19.520 people so he left and he lived in vancouver and he got that ad he got his magazine he found that ad

00:25:26.820 and he wrote charlie a ladder and all he said in this letter was i'm just glad it was worth it i

00:25:32.980 wondered all these years if your bomber made it back to england and if you survived the war

00:25:37.280 or if you crashed and ended up in a watery grave i'm glad it was worth it well charlie brown got this

00:25:43.340 letter and he went crazy and he called the vancouver operator and he said find me franz stiegler and the

00:25:49.960 two men talked and they agreed to meet and charlie flew all the way to seattle and franz came down

00:25:56.240 and the two hugged and they cried and there's a really cool video brett that um that people can

00:26:01.600 find if they just go to youtube or you're welcome to post it it's uh their first reunion someone

00:26:06.640 filmed franz and charlie meeting and during this meeting they tell their side of the story and then

00:26:13.520 franz franz said i love you charlie and this is this hardened german fighter pilot on camera

00:26:20.700 sniffling and saying i love you charlie that to me was an incredible thing and that tells anyone who

00:26:28.040 sees it this is not just a tall tale this story is the real deal wow that's an amazing story um

00:26:34.720 one of the uh things i found interesting about a higher call is that you really humanize the german

00:26:42.940 pilots uh instead of and it's not just franz stiegler it's all of them and instead of painting

00:26:48.260 them as terrible villains a lot of these pilots they just come off as guys doing their job and

00:26:54.040 they oftentimes don't even support the nazi government was it difficult for you personally

00:26:58.580 to get past the tendency i think many americans have right to villainize germans and get to know more

00:27:06.360 about the men on a human level it certainly was because i had spent my whole career interviewing

00:27:14.060 my american buddies you know these old bomber pilots and gunners and i thought wow these germans were

00:27:19.580 trying to kill my friends uh and and i thought they were reprehensible only when i started to write

00:27:25.320 this book um did i step into the shoes of franz stiegler i had to charlie made me do it he said you

00:27:31.400 have to talk to the german first you have to understand his side so then i go back into franz's

00:27:36.380 uh you know hit into his shoes and he's just this young man who loves flying gliders in in the in the

00:27:42.520 30s and and he considered becoming a priest at one time and his dream was to fly well suddenly this

00:27:48.160 hitler guy comes to power franz is like 16 years old most of the germans who fought in world war ii

00:27:54.000 when hitler came to power they're 12 years old they're 15 or they're 13 they don't follow politics

00:28:00.020 they don't know who this guy is and then i had to look at it and i said well what did franz know

00:28:05.360 about this what part did he play in bringing this evil to power and i find out that really in this

00:28:11.640 last election that germany had 1933 when everyone voted uh hitler the nazi party won the election

00:28:20.960 effectively with 44 percent of the vote and so they uh the farmers party took votes the catholic party

00:28:28.420 the democrat party the communist party everybody split the votes the only true bloc was the nazis

00:28:35.920 so 56 percent of germany was against them 44 percent was for them and this is this is in 1933

00:28:42.860 and so when i i came to realize that if you want to just paint things in black and white you know

00:28:50.300 photos or black and white uh imagery half of germany liked hitler and half of them were against him from

00:28:56.440 the start and franz's parents had voted for the catholic party they were they were bavarian catholics

00:29:02.440 and and so i came to realize that when this guy came to power he soon took over the postal service

00:29:09.300 he took over the military he took over the roads he took over the pensions he took over the media

00:29:14.080 he took over every facet of government so by the time these german boys are fighting world war ii in

00:29:19.380 1942 1943 you know they they had been born into hitler's germany for all effective purposes there

00:29:26.200 was no freedom of choice and so uh although some you know some were truly evil let's just say half

00:29:34.140 the country was truly evil guys like franz were just born in the wrong place at the wrong time

00:29:39.300 and a lot of fighter pilots i found i couldn't have written this book about an ss company i couldn't

00:29:45.000 have even written this book about say a wehrmacht company on the eastern front because the horrors

00:29:50.420 were true for fighter pilots these were independent thinking men uh they were mavericks and and they

00:29:58.500 were on the outs with the nazi party from from very early on because in the battle of britain when

00:30:03.920 the german fighter pilots failed to defeat the british royal air force hitler and goering and goebbels and

00:30:11.520 all the the nazi big shots said hey german people do you know why we lost the battle not because not

00:30:18.180 because we're we're not superior we lost the battle because the fighter pilots lack courage because the

00:30:25.300 fighter pilots let you down and so the fighter pilots came to hate largely hate the nazi party hate

00:30:32.240 their own government very early in world war ii and and from that point on they were just flying

00:30:38.200 to defend their country and to to see the end of the war and they knew they were going to lose the

00:30:43.700 war and so there was a great deal of bitterness so when i got to know these germans on a on a human

00:30:49.320 level i learned that amid the fighter fighter units yeah you had your bad apples but largely those guys

00:30:56.620 were no different than our fighter pilots they're no different than our fighter pilots today no different

00:31:01.180 from our fighter pilots for the beginning of time they're a lot like us what did you personally

00:31:07.700 learn from writing a higher call about being a good man

00:31:12.140 the the big lesson that franz was taught as a boy uh he was uh he loved to fly gliders and his dad was a

00:31:21.400 world war one pilot and one day they had wrecked the glider and franz was repairing it in the wood shop

00:31:27.180 and his father came in and he said franz you're using a lot of glue on these parts you're being

00:31:32.480 sloppy and franz said oh don't worry father it's it'll be covered with canvas you're never going

00:31:37.280 to see this part of the of the machine and his father said franz i have to tell you something

00:31:42.540 he said take the glue off do it all over again you even if no one sees it you do the right thing

00:31:50.280 especially when no one sees it because you'll know it's there you'll know you did it wrong

00:31:56.780 you know you were sloppy and it was it was a quite a lesson for a 14 year old kid to learn

00:32:03.360 you know to do the right thing when no one's looking even if no one will see it and i think

00:32:08.800 that's a very important important lesson uh for franz it had a faith component it was that god is

00:32:14.740 watching you and he sees everything he was a catholic but uh i think it it just comes down to also a

00:32:21.800 character thing it comes down to that same reason that rodel said you you you uh spare a man in a

00:32:28.680 parachute for your soul you know the way we today live our daily lives is a reflection of what we

00:32:35.940 think about ourselves and and and and the person we believe ourselves to be well if you do nasty

00:32:42.620 corrupt things and if you do evil things other people may not catch on you may not get in trouble

00:32:48.740 but you know it and it corrupts your soul slowly man like franz stiegler he spared charlie brown that

00:32:54.500 day when he had the power because he realized the importance of looking after his character

00:33:00.400 yeah higher call it's just an amazing story and for all of you who are listening right now i i

00:33:06.480 hardly recommend you go out and get pick up the book um but that's not the only book about world war ii

00:33:12.300 you've written um after that you co-wrote a book with uh art of manless contributor marcus brotherton

00:33:17.960 voices of the pacific or voices from the pacific what made you want to do about a book about the

00:33:25.340 stories of the men who fought in the pacific theater during world war ii well brett i i had long wanted

00:33:32.400 to write about them i as a young boy i had read about the battles of tarawa and pelu and um tarawa was

00:33:39.980 like the the opening scene in saving private ryan the normandy beach scene for hours and hours and hours

00:33:46.540 and days it was just that kind of slaughter and um you know all and the marines you know everybody

00:33:53.220 was at the time everyone was so fascinated by the paratroopers in europe because it was kind of a

00:33:58.400 romantic thing the idea of liberating a french town and and um fighting your way into germany to

00:34:05.420 to end hitler and the the pacific was still forgotten and yet these men had endured

00:34:12.660 uh an unthinkable hell because they faced elements that were um were just they would they would drive

00:34:20.040 a man insane normally and so uh they fought an enemy who was so savage and so sadistic that you

00:34:27.620 know you would surrender to a german and and the german mortality rate in pow camps was about four

00:34:33.180 percent if you surrendered to the japanese the mortality rate was over 25 percent in their camps

00:34:39.040 and that's if you got to a camp uh if you were not tortured at first if you were not um beheaded

00:34:45.340 so i had a lot of respect for the marines and luckily this miniseries the pacific came along

00:34:51.560 hbo's story and it was okay it wasn't great um it it didn't the men who were who were there said you

00:35:00.840 know some of this was embellished uh some of this this movie was oh i don't know there was some

00:35:06.880 trashiness to it that the men of that era did not believe in um and so they weren't exactly

00:35:12.680 sid phillips wasn't exactly thrilled by the pacific but i marcus and i decided to write this book

00:35:17.900 to give the marines who were there the final say all right the spotlight of popular culture is on the

00:35:25.140 pacific right now let's not let a tv series be the final word let's let the men have their voice

00:35:31.760 and so we interviewed oh well over a dozen marines who fought on the various islands in the pacific and

00:35:38.160 this was a very cool book because instead of me as a writer taking their stories and weaving them

00:35:43.960 together i i just inject a line here a line there and we let their stories flow from one to the next

00:35:50.580 to the next and they're all short little vignettes but they fall into this beautiful sequence where they

00:35:55.980 tell you the story of the the war in the pacific without some young editor like myself coming in

00:36:02.740 and editorializing their words it's like a it's like a crab cake if you go out for a dinner or

00:36:08.700 you know at a restaurant you want a crab cake with all meat and minimal filler and and i consider their

00:36:15.240 voices to be the meat and and i keep the filler out of this one yeah what i love about uh that book is

00:36:20.860 that you when you read it you you feel like you're sitting around a kitchen table just listening to

00:36:26.540 these old these veterans telling them their stories that's that's how it feels when you read it that

00:36:31.560 that was the goal brett it was it was exactly that it was a bunch of veterans you know late night

00:36:37.660 they're sitting around the table maybe they have a beer maybe they're playing cards and you know what

00:36:42.500 they're they're they're just feeding off each other and and and it's they're not censoring it that was

00:36:48.220 one of the big things because uh my friend sid phillips who was one of the marines in the pacific

00:36:52.660 he he censored his stories for his grandkids he said oh no i wouldn't tell them that i don't want

00:36:57.900 to give them nightmares well i said sid for this book you know let's take off the filter let's pretend

00:37:02.720 it's just you and your buddies and and it's it's a very brutal book it's very raw but it's it's inspiring

00:37:09.120 because you you you say to yourself could i have survived the island of pelu could i have survived

00:37:15.280 nearly a month on that island in 105 degree heat without water with the enemy uh shooting at me

00:37:22.660 on the beach and shooting at me across the airfield and then i have to go into the hills into these

00:37:26.660 coral hills and into these mangrove swamps to try to root them out am i tough enough and you know i

00:37:34.680 think i don't think i am i don't think in today's world i think i've been raised too soft

00:37:40.160 i think we all care too much about our lives our lives are too precious to us uh sacrifice

00:37:46.160 was something that men back then didn't they didn't fear it like we do today um and so you ask

00:37:54.080 yourself when you read this book could i have survived the pacific could i have fought alongside

00:37:58.300 these men and that's a question each of us can answer what uh projects can we expect to see you from

00:38:05.320 you in the future adam well i i'm working on i i just finished a book that's that's it's right

00:38:12.340 along the line of a higher call it's incredible story it's called devotion and devotion is a story

00:38:18.380 from this forgotten war the korean war and i always thought i go into all these things brad just from

00:38:24.680 the same standpoint as a lot of readers uh it's just like with from stiegler oh i don't want to learn

00:38:29.260 about the germans you know i don't they're the bad guys then i immerse myself and i say holy cow

00:38:33.480 same thing with this korean war book i i didn't think much of the korean war it seemed kind of

00:38:38.980 muddy and it seemed kind of dirty and it was like mash and then you know mad men kind of flashes to

00:38:44.340 it and and and so i i didn't know anything about it and then i discovered this story of

00:38:49.280 of these marines who who marched into this frozen hell uh in northern korea and we thought the war was

00:38:56.220 about to be won right on the chinese border we're about to destroy the north koreans we're gonna

00:39:00.980 come home and it's just like world war ii we're gonna be heroes and then suddenly the chinese

00:39:05.860 attacked and they entered the war well most americans don't even know that the chinese fought

00:39:09.980 in the korean war but one day our marine division woke up and and some 20 000 americans were surrounded

00:39:17.420 by a hundred thousand or more chinese and devotion tells the story of these two pilots who who flew

00:39:25.560 into combat to try to save these marines so we follow the marines on the ground outnumbered um

00:39:32.300 20 and i just uh 10 to 1 and then we follow the pilots and above and we follow two pilots in

00:39:40.060 particular one is a man named tom hudner uh he grew up a white kid from massachusetts grew up in the

00:39:46.980 country club scene he had his whole life planned ahead of him he could have had beautiful wives and

00:39:51.540 ivy league education and just anything he wanted uh the other pilot we follow is jesse brown the first

00:39:59.980 black pilot in the navy jesse came from a sharecropper shack in mississippi dirt poor and he believed he

00:40:06.520 could be the first navy pilot and he did and so we follow this uncommon friendship for 1950 for that

00:40:12.620 era of segregation and and we follow these two men into battle and eventually i won't ruin this story

00:40:19.900 it's a true story one of these two men is shot down behind enemy lines on the side of a mountain

00:40:26.260 in the snow he's trapped in his aircraft and his aircraft is catching on fire and the other one said

00:40:32.300 i'm going in and all the people in the air that day thought what does he mean you're going in you're

00:40:38.220 you know this this fellow's on the side of a mountain and the other man crashed his perfectly

00:40:43.460 good corsair fighter alongside of his friend on the mountainside to try to save him and so again it's

00:40:51.020 that common common story of sacrifice and and the courage of that generation because we forget the

00:40:57.040 korean war was fought by the greatest generation the the marines were wearing the same helmet covers in

00:41:02.780 world war ii they were wearing the same dungarees they were shooting the same m1 garands the pilots were

00:41:07.840 flying the same corsairs they were dropping the same bombs it was it was a five years after world

00:41:13.520 war ii it was practically an extension of world war ii it was just a new battle where the allies of

00:41:19.520 world war ii the force of democracy and the forces of communism turned against each other and went to

00:41:26.620 war on this nasty frozen peninsula so it was like a world war it was a world war fought in korea

00:41:33.860 and it's going to be a pretty epic book it comes out in uh in may uh brett it's called devotion and um

00:41:40.580 and we're expecting really big things from it yeah well we look forward to that well adam make us thank

00:41:46.080 you so much for this conversation it's been an absolute pleasure hey it's it's it's a it's great to

00:41:52.400 talk to you and and i enjoy art of manliness myself i'm a follower i'm a fan and so it's nice to

00:41:57.680 talk to my uh my fellow um my fellow friends uh so thank you so much brett thank you our guest

00:42:05.000 today was adam makos he's the author of the book a higher call you can find that on amazon.com and

00:42:10.180 bookstores everywhere also make sure to check out adam's business valor studios.com where you can find

00:42:16.080 the finest military art prints collectibles and signed books you'll find uh historical treasures

00:42:21.560 signed by major dick winters from the band of brothers general hal moore fran stiegler who

00:42:27.140 was the german pilot that helped out charlie brown it's just a really cool thing so go check

00:42:33.100 it out well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and

00:42:38.600 advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com

00:42:42.320 and until next time this is brett mckay wishing you a very manly christmas and stay manly

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#94： A Higher Call With Adam Makos

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