The Art of Manliness - A World War II Story of Survival, Love, and Redemption

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

00:00:10.900 amidst the epic clashes of armies and navies that make war such a fascinating subject by the smaller

00:00:15.980 human interest stories that prove just as compelling one such story is that of world

00:00:19.820 war ii soldier joe johnson jr which is told by marcus brotherton in a newly published book called

00:00:24.860 a bright and blinding sun a world war ii story of survival love and redemption today on the show

00:00:30.540 marcus shares how joe sought to escape the pressures of the broken family and the great depression by

00:00:34.740 joining the u.s army at age 14 we discuss how joe ended up in the philippines fell in love with a

00:00:39.580 teenage prostitute named perpetua there and helped smuggle her out of her brothel we then get into 0.99

00:00:43.660 how joe was captured by the japanese and the harrowing experience he had to endure as a prisoner

00:00:47.360 of war including being locked up in a box smaller than a coffin we end our conversation with a

00:00:52.000 discussion of joe's life after the war and marcus shares what happened to perpetua how joe dealt all

00:00:56.240 the trauma he had experienced when he's really still just a kid and what lessons marcus has taken

00:00:59.800 away from joe's life after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash joe

00:01:04.280 marcus brotherton welcome back to the show thanks brett great to be here so uh here's a little aom

00:01:21.760 podcast trivia you were the very first guest on the aom podcast way back in september 2009

00:01:29.600 where we discussed your book we who are alive and remain it's about the band of brothers

00:01:34.300 that was 13 years ago man 13 years man it seems like uh it seems like just yesterday yeah no and i

00:01:40.900 wouldn't listen to it and i think we did it on the phone i didn't know what i was doing i think we did

00:01:45.920 over the phone my questions weren't that great i also i didn't have any kids now i got a middle

00:01:51.140 schooler i think i mean your kids like how old are your kids now i have three kids yeah my oldest

00:01:57.380 is 19 i've got a 19 year old daughter a 14 year old son and then a nine year old daughter so 10

00:02:02.480 years between the oldest and the youngest so nine so when your daughter when we started your daughter

00:02:06.060 was three or no six six should be six years that's crazy man time flies well you got a new book out

00:02:13.500 about world war ii and it's called a bright and blinding sun and it's this amazing story about

00:02:21.240 the exploits of a teenage boy who ended up fighting the pacific theater his name is joe johnson how do

00:02:28.240 you learn about joe and his story it all started during covid right when covid hit everybody hunkered

00:02:34.960 down including myself and you know we're sort of like figuring out what to do with our spare time so

00:02:40.340 when i hunkered down i had this stack of very obscure world war ii manuscripts to read because

00:02:46.240 you know who doesn't love a good obscure world war ii manuscript and kind of knee deep in the pile there

00:02:51.680 was this independently published manuscript by a guy named joe johnson who had fought in the pacific he

00:02:56.620 was a teenage soldier and i picked that out like first to read just caught my eye initially and read it

00:03:03.200 straight through in probably two nights amazing story and joe had passed away in 2017 age 91 so he

00:03:11.340 was no longer with us but his family kept this kind of very small facebook tribute page maybe 80 people

00:03:18.480 on it so i found this page i reached out to the family it just i wanted to convey my gratitude just

00:03:23.860 you know wow just thanks to your to your grandfather to your to your uncle for what he went through and

00:03:28.560 just i was just so in awe of his story so after i sent that message you know and i i sent it just

00:03:34.360 not expecting anything that was just did i just did it just to say thanks pretty soon after that the

00:03:40.320 executor of joe's estate his nephew reached out to me and said hey saw your message and i recognize your

00:03:46.600 name you know i read some of your books and let's talk because you know as the story goes joe had

00:03:51.880 independently published this manuscript to his memoirs and you know he'd sold a couple hundred copies out of

00:03:57.300 his garage type thing and his story is just so fantastic we want to bring it to a larger audience

00:04:02.080 can you help us can you you know redo a story rewrite it research it whatever you want to do and

00:04:08.060 and present it as your own book so i mulled this over i knew there was literary precedent for doing it

00:04:13.180 laura had done this with louis amperini's book and yeah i jumped at the chance i'd always wanted to

00:04:18.360 tell a story set in the pacific like this and and joe's proved just the uh the excellent vehicle to do

00:04:23.520 that all right so you based this off of joe's manuscript and what you did is you went through

00:04:28.180 and just added research to it you verified because like the story we'll talk about like it's it's like

00:04:32.660 you can't believe that it happened but you verified that all this stuff happened with people that he

00:04:37.900 knew other uh third-party resources as well yeah it's uh i mean it's it's robustly footnoted and

00:04:44.520 whatnot as as readers will see joe had actually written two different manuscripts and this is a

00:04:50.160 fascinating piece of the story as well so he had written the one that i had read and then he had

00:04:54.520 written one before that that was so rare even the estate didn't have it i think three people in the

00:05:00.820 world had a copy of this first manuscript that he had done i was able to track one of those down

00:05:05.820 fortunately and then compare and contrast the kind of various stories that he did in there

00:05:10.300 the interesting piece is that he had written his first manuscript the really really rare one he had

00:05:16.320 written that in a third person voice joe did this he did that and then he'd written the the second

00:05:22.760 one the one that was independently published he'd written that in a first person voice i did this i did

00:05:27.300 that and so it was almost like when he initially sat down to write his story he you know it's just

00:05:32.680 sort of so horrific that he had to detach himself a little bit to first just barf it out just get

00:05:40.460 that story out and then once it was out then he could kind of uh enter into the the trauma again

00:05:47.000 himself so you'll notice in my book there are pieces written in first person and pieces written

00:05:52.920 in third person most of the book is written in third person but i wanted to reflect that dynamic

00:05:57.540 of joe's and in initially getting his story out and the the choices that he chose well let's talk

00:06:03.160 about joe's early childhood because that early childhood influenced how he ended up in the army

00:06:07.840 as a well you know like he was 14 years old when he ended up there he grew up in the depression how

00:06:12.260 did the depression affect joe and his family yeah he's born in 1926 it's the height of the great

00:06:17.020 depression there's a lot of pressure on this young family his parents two more siblings are born after

00:06:23.220 joe his parents are very young they're out of work they move to the big city jobs are scarce money is

00:06:30.360 tight a lot of pressure on the family the father he leaves the home looking for work

00:06:37.220 and he never returns the parents divorce so this is a this is a tough piece of the story right away

00:06:42.980 joe finds himself the man of the family just as a as a kid and he's out there scrounging coals so they

00:06:49.360 can heat their house in the winter he's the one who's hauling government food from the center of the

00:06:55.100 city in his red wagon so the family can eat he's looking after their younger siblings he's the man of

00:07:01.020 the house joe's mother edna she gets lonely and so she takes up with this out of work barkeep by the

00:07:08.400 name of mr jake mr jake ends up moving into their tiny little shotgun shack and the pressure is even

00:07:14.200 more increased mr jake's out of work as well he spends most of his days lounging on the couch

00:07:18.820 and joe as a kid goes oh fantastic one more mouth to feed and he's the responsible guy he's got to do it

00:07:25.700 and there's tension mr jake's biological sons go to the same school that joe goes to and and these

00:07:31.820 biological sons kind of accuse joe and taunt him of breaking up their their parents marriage and so 0.93

00:07:37.900 there's just it's tough for this kid and finally he goes i need to find my dad and so he steals out of

00:07:45.080 the house late one night boards this freight car looking for his dad a couple states away he doesn't

00:07:51.600 know where he is all that he wants to do is just find his dad he's 12 years old no that's insane

00:07:57.880 yeah so uh 12 my son's 12 or he's going to be 12 here in a few months i couldn't imagine my my kid

00:08:04.180 like i'm just gonna jump on a freight train and go from tennessee to to san antonio texas yeah it's just

00:08:10.140 it's just crazy what he does at such a young age as well my my son is 14 and and uh to picture my son in

00:08:15.380 that situation i brett i think and this is why why art of manly is just so great joe's story speaks to

00:08:21.260 how much boys need their biological fathers yeah he had that thought like we talked people talk

00:08:26.260 about father hunger he had that father hunger so yeah he he gets takes a freight train he gets there

00:08:31.660 safely he ends up with his dad what was his time like with his father was it everything he thought

00:08:36.440 it would be initially it's great he and his father get along well his father has found work is this kind

00:08:42.020 of itinerant horse trader and uh life is good joe is helping out around the stables he gets this this

00:08:48.900 dog this puppy he names it mippy he's got a friend this other boy his age who's working in the

00:08:54.820 stables he's not going to school you know he's got the seventh grade education but life is good

00:08:59.920 joe and his dad move again from texas to california because his dad's got a line on a different job in

00:09:06.420 california again at a at a stables and once they move to california pressure begins to mount again

00:09:13.160 track officials find out that this boy is living at the track he's really he's supposed to be 16 and

00:09:18.700 he's not and so eventually the track officials go to joe's dad and they say they they you know the

00:09:25.160 the boy's got to go uh he's too young to beat the track so there's a lot of discussions between joe and

00:09:30.660 his dad a lot of them are kind of angry and finally the father gives this ultimatum you can go here here

00:09:37.640 here but you can't live with me what's it going to be so joe in in kind of his frustration in kind

00:09:44.340 of his his hurt he goes fine well maybe i'll just run away and join the army now this is a bluff he

00:09:51.380 has no intention of doing that but he goes to bed that night he sleeps on it the more he begins to

00:09:55.900 sort of think about this idea he's going you know i'm a hard worker um at least i'll be eating three

00:10:00.780 times a day so sure enough the next morning he gets up early he steals across town he finds this

00:10:05.860 recruiter's office open and walks up the front steps intent on joining the army and again he's only

00:10:12.560 14 years old at this point right yeah he he sort of he swears on a stack of bibles that he's 18

00:10:17.880 and uh and you know it's the days before the internet so there's he says yeah i don't have

00:10:23.900 my birth certificate with me and uh you know it's back in memphis where i was born now he actually

00:10:29.680 wasn't born in memphis he was born in louisiana which is part of his ruse he figures by the time that

00:10:34.920 the army catches up with them he'll be you know deep in the system so sure enough the recruiter

00:10:40.280 doesn't the recruiter has his suspicions right he's like i don't really think you're 18 but he

00:10:45.220 says look fill out this paperwork and go stand in this line which joe does joe keeps his head down

00:10:52.000 sure enough he gets lost in the shuffle he successfully joins the united states army he is

00:10:56.900 not 18 he is 14 years old um you've done a lot of uh research and writing about world war ii did this

00:11:02.300 happen a lot were there a lot of like teenage boys who were able to sign up for the the army even

00:11:06.420 though they were underage a surprising amount yeah you had to be 18 without a parental signature

00:11:11.840 you could be 17 if you got a note from your parents but there was a lot of guys particularly

00:11:16.860 after pearl harbor who just went i've got to do my job i've got to do my duty i might be 16 but man

00:11:23.500 this is i i've just got to get in this now this is before pearl harbor about a year before pearl harbor

00:11:28.640 joe does it anyway he is not thinking globally he's just thinking very pragmatically i got to go

00:11:34.320 somewhere i don't want to go back and live with my mom and and the the freeloader mr jake so the army

00:11:40.820 provides three hots and a cot i'm gonna do it so thanks to like the bureaucracy he's able to sneak

00:11:46.860 in how did he manage in boot camp he did just fine yeah he's he was a good worker he applies himself

00:11:54.100 well he shoots expert marksmen on on the riflery range he fits in well he's he's made an assistant

00:12:01.360 machine gun loader and eventually he becomes a bugler and army life suits him pretty well did he

00:12:07.920 fit in with the men like the other guys like think man this is just a kid they were they in on it

00:12:11.780 he makes friends with two guys ray and dale and they have their suspicions too but they're good guys

00:12:19.020 they're affable dudes and and they're kind of like yeah you know hang out with us we'll look out for

00:12:23.720 you it's kind of a big brother approach and they they have an idea that joe is younger they don't

00:12:28.900 quite have an idea of how young it really is and the thing too like joe he was able to sort of do

00:12:34.580 like the he did like the alpha move like he was able to like there's some bullies basically and he

00:12:39.080 stood out he held his own with these guys and like beat the crap out of them he had vowed early on in

00:12:44.280 life never to give into fear and so yeah there's this one uh instance in the story where a guy insults

00:12:51.340 him and this is a grown man and uh joe responds to that and and the two get into a fight joe actually

00:12:57.760 beats up the older guy and he's got to be pulled off him so it's it's a traumatic thing i mean imagine

00:13:04.120 being i think he's he's just 15 by the time this fight happens but when you're 15 and you're fighting

00:13:09.340 a 22 23 year old man i mean there can be a big difference between a 15 year old and a 23 year old

00:13:14.580 joe holds his own he's not a big kid by this point he's uh he's five foot seven he weighs 135 pounds

00:13:21.020 but he is scrappy and he's independent and he is not going to back down from a fight

00:13:25.600 all right so he's holding his own his boot camp eventually he gets his assignments he gets shipped

00:13:29.760 off to the philippines how did he end up there yeah it's um he volunteers and and it's kind of

00:13:35.880 on a whim he's like why not i'm in the army i may as well see the world uh keep in mind that america is

00:13:41.700 not in the war at this point and and joe is he's reading the news but pretty sporadically so he's like

00:13:47.280 you know philip hey i'm gonna go there i'm gonna eat some coconuts there's gonna be girls in bikinis i 0.99

00:13:52.200 mean it's very much on a lark on a whim let's go to the philippines sure well you know what what

00:13:56.720 could happen that's his attitude so yeah the first thing he does he think of like coconuts girls in 1.00

00:14:01.440 bikinis him and his buddies they're these army guys u.s army guys with you know money they can go to 0.82

00:14:07.020 go on leave in manila and one of the things they do is they end up at this brothel where joe meets a

00:14:12.720 girl that will change his life can you tell us about perpetua and how she and joe met yes as part of

00:14:20.860 army life joe is being influenced by his sphere of peers right which is what happens to us today as

00:14:27.980 well some of the influence is really positive and good and then other parts of the influence are not

00:14:35.100 that positive and not that good as part of kind of the negative experience here some of the older guys

00:14:41.480 incite joe to go to a brothel now certainly we don't condone this type of activity but it happens

00:14:46.880 and it happened in real life so joe goes to this brothel he meets this girl who's working in the

00:14:53.220 brothel named perpetua the tragic piece of the story is that she is actually a year younger than 0.83

00:15:00.920 joe he's 15 by that point and she is 14 so they do constantly the relationship once and only once and

00:15:08.320 then over the next several months joe goes back to visit her several times and the cool thing there is

00:15:14.560 they never consummate the relationship again but they become genuine friends and this genuine empathy

00:15:20.200 begins to develop in joe where he asks questions of her he begins to see himself in her shoes and he

00:15:26.940 learns that she is an orphan and that female orphans who are on the streets just didn't have a whole lot

00:15:32.760 of options if they want to keep eating and so joe begins to devise this plan with her consent to help

00:15:39.500 get her out of there and help get her to a better place of opportunity no that's a you did a good job

00:15:45.060 of pointing that out that joe he didn't have a lot of good positive male influences in his life dad was

00:15:50.860 out of the picture for most of his childhood he had a small experience with him the mr jake guy

00:15:55.760 not that great his army buddies you know they were they were good dudes they looked out for him but they

00:16:01.420 also they had their vices that rubbed off on joe but was interesting joe's managed even though he was in

00:16:07.660 this situation where he was being pressured to do things that were not great somehow he's able to

00:16:14.140 there was something in him that said you know what uh i don't need to do this i can i can do something

00:16:19.640 better it's an application to all of us for sure i mean do we make mistakes in life yes all of us make

00:16:27.460 mistakes in life particularly in our youth right i mean you know when you look back on your teenage

00:16:32.360 years you go how many knucklehead things did i do and yet the great thing about joe and the great

00:16:36.880 thing for all of us is that we can learn from our mistakes we can learn how to be wise through them

00:16:41.640 you know we can uh you know to to admit that you made a mistake yesterday is to be that much more

00:16:47.160 wiser today and to go i don't want to go down that road again certainly that's what happens in joe's

00:16:52.120 life and so yeah as you said they consummated the relationship the first time after that it just

00:16:56.260 became this really sweet friendship like joe would just go there so they could talk perpetua would cry

00:17:01.780 he would even cry like and it was it was what was so heart-wrenching about it like these are just two kids

00:17:06.560 these are kids that should be in you know ninth or tenth grade right now but here we are like

00:17:11.300 there's they're in conflict they're in a brothel and it's just it's one of those heart-wrenching

00:17:16.900 things about human existence like sometimes you can end up in this place yeah yeah absolutely she

00:17:21.820 she becomes his only female peer 8 000 miles away from home and the two joe is kind of the only 0.89

00:17:28.820 the only guy who treats her well and she says that several times like you are so kind to me what's up

00:17:34.480 with this i just don't experience kindness in my life it's a tragic commentary on on the human

00:17:39.880 existence and yet it does happen so he comes with this plan to break her out of the brothel

00:17:45.000 this was this was he was taking a big risk here like what were the consequences if he would have

00:17:50.040 gotten caught so the brothel is run by a madam and then she answers to basically her pimp who's this 0.93

00:17:56.980 thug by the name of manny tang a real life character and and manny tang will slit your throat if you

00:18:02.920 cross him so joe ends up yeah getting perpetua out of there and uh he he well i won't tell the i

00:18:10.080 won't tell the full story you've got to read the book for that but um yeah it gets her to a place

00:18:13.820 of safety and it could have been his life for sure manny tang eventually does come and confront joe's

00:18:19.720 superior officers and but this is part of his ruse joe has made a deal with the guard at the base he's

00:18:25.380 at and and the records line up to his ruse so he's able to uh to confirm his his story so okay so he's

00:18:34.080 able to get perpetua out and we'll he did the story is amazing what he did it was some like uh some tv

00:18:39.200 show stuff going on there after that this is starting to lead the it's starting to get hot in the

00:18:44.220 philippines pearl harbor gets bombed when did the conflict start arriving in the philippines like when

00:18:49.860 did joe first start seeing action yeah pearl harbor december 7th 1941 10 hours later the philippines

00:18:56.120 are attacked joe is thrust in the midst of this horrific battle it takes a while for him to do so

00:19:00.480 only because different units get into battle different times but eventually he's right in the

00:19:05.560 thick of it and uh the u.s troops yeah they they fight courageously for four months five months for

00:19:10.940 some of them on carregidor but they they're outgunned outmanned japanese troops are highly experienced by

00:19:17.420 that point the u.s troops are cut off from being resupplied most of the ships are destroyed back at

00:19:22.960 pearl harbor so it is a slow battle of starvation and being um catching these jungle diseases bari bari

00:19:32.660 and and pellagra and just everything that that a jungle holds and uh the men are gradually starving

00:19:39.160 joe is is machine gun loader during this time um he's also a runner so he's running between

00:19:45.980 headquarters and the front lines some pretty horrific stories i mean he um because the japanese

00:19:51.380 are often behind the front line or ahead of the front line and so joe is traversing enemy territory

00:19:58.000 he does have his first kill during this time he's carrying a rifle and several horrific events

00:20:04.120 happening during this time troops they fight until april 9th 1942 the peninsula of bataan falls that

00:20:11.080 leads to the largest ever surrender of u.s troops the atrocity of the bataan death march joe is

00:20:15.740 actually in corregidor at this time corregidor fights for another month they fall may 6 1942

00:20:21.060 all of the troops in the philippines are surrendered general jonathan wainwright runs up the white flag

00:20:27.260 and it's a horrible situation joe finds himself as a soldier and then he is a pow and it's it is not

00:20:34.640 a good time is this one macarthur like escaped to is that is this am i am i mixing something up there

00:20:41.460 yeah yeah that's a controversial piece of macarthur's story uh he is ordered to go to

00:20:46.720 australia yeah he's macarthur is is leading the troops initially and then he's ordered to go to

00:20:52.400 australia escapes by pt boat and plane and then wainwright is put in charge and it's it's a mixed bag

00:20:59.280 the troops were on the ground doing the fighting some of them understand uh why macarthur goes but any

00:21:04.800 number of the other troops they're like yeah we are abandoned our our leader just left us what gives

00:21:09.780 us so it's it's a controversial piece of u.s history for sure we're gonna take a quick break

00:21:14.960 for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show and how old was joe at this point was he

00:21:22.100 still 15 or is he about to turn 16 yeah 16 yeah 16 all right so still a kid like still a kid and

00:21:28.460 what's crazy so he was a corregidor he he wasn't a part of the baton death march but he got really

00:21:33.200 close to being a part of like he just escaped barely basically got dragged in the water by a boat to get

00:21:38.920 out of to get away from that right yeah the kind of the luck of the draw he's hurt his back while

00:21:44.240 fighting on batan and so he and a buddy are they're fighting independently by that point because they've

00:21:49.920 been separated from their their outfit and they're they are given a choice by a random commanding

00:21:56.480 officer you can join us as we go into the hills and try and fight as gorillas or you can you know try

00:22:03.460 and find a boat and escape to this little island off the coast of batan called corregidor and because

00:22:08.800 joe's back is so bad they go man i don't think i don't think we can make it across the mountains

00:22:14.140 let's try and catch a boat so they do find a boat the boat is overloaded they can't take any more

00:22:19.340 guys on board so the the guys on board just throw joe and his buddy a line and they get dragged through

00:22:25.480 the water several hours cold frigid water over to the island of corregidor and that's uh and that's

00:22:31.820 where they make their last stand yeah and they eventually get captured and he's you know even

00:22:35.640 though he escaped the batan death march which was we all know is awful as a prisoner of war joe still

00:22:41.900 didn't have a great experience like what was his experience like as a pow joe soon finds out that

00:22:47.780 he's he shuttled from one camp to another and he discovers that all the camps are bad but some of the

00:22:54.920 camps are slightly better than others so for a while he's in this camp called bilibit prison

00:22:59.640 bilibit prison relatively speaking is one of the better places to be a pow the guys are eating 0.97

00:23:05.720 at least twice a day they're working they're being forced to work work is brisk but it's not

00:23:11.720 backbreaking there are some american surgeons and doctors and medics who are in bilibit they're still

00:23:18.540 allowed to practice now they don't have any supplies hardly at all but there's a little bit of medical

00:23:22.840 care that can be given bilibit is not too bad so from bilibit and i and i i say that very carefully

00:23:28.900 bilibit is is incarceration it's it's not it's not it's horrible but relatively speaking it's one of

00:23:35.040 the better camps to be in from bilibit joe gets shuffled around a couple times he eventually lands

00:23:39.680 at this camp called nickels field now by contrast nickels field is one of the worst places to be

00:23:45.620 it is dawn to dusk backbreaking labor in the broiling sun the prisoners are being ordered to build

00:23:51.500 this airstrip or actually extend this airstrip by hand so it's picking shovel work they're loading

00:23:56.780 boxcars with dirt and rocks and the pressure has been upped by then by the japanese commanders we've

00:24:03.620 got to get this airstrip finished and finished quickly and so the japanese commandant of nickels

00:24:10.140 field is feeling that and he is just whipping these prisoners to a frenzy guys are getting killed right

00:24:16.220 and left beheaded shot you name it joe at this point he's been in in this system for quite a while

00:24:22.880 he's still a teen but he is he's not doing well physically he's got several diseases he's running

00:24:29.360 this constant fever from malaria every day every night he's got open sores on his legs keep in mind

00:24:36.260 that he is still a growing boy so he starts the war at five seven 135 pounds eventually he gets to six

00:24:42.600 foot four hundred and nine pounds he's not doing well one day he commits this small infraction of

00:24:48.580 the rules the rules are arbitrary there's a lot of rules and for that infraction he gets beaten

00:24:53.700 pretty savagely he survives the beating but he begins to realize i'm not going to survive nickels 0.99

00:24:59.660 field i have got to get out of nickels field i've got to get out of here if i can just get sent back 0.73

00:25:04.120 to billiwood prison maybe i'll stand a chance of surviving this thing so he begins to think and he's

00:25:11.660 like okay back at billiwood there was this ward that housed mentally insane prisoners maybe i can

00:25:18.720 i can fake insanity and maybe the the japanese will just go oh whatever send him back to billiwood to

00:25:25.160 that to that uh you know mental health unit so he's got just a few possessions with him in his

00:25:31.860 canteen kit he's got this spoon he begins to sharpen the spoon on a stone in the latrine every time he

00:25:37.880 goes to the bathroom he sharpens the spoon eventually it's razor sharp and then his his kind 1.00

00:25:43.360 of his big day comes his big act he takes his spoon he runs into this group of guards he slices his arms

00:25:50.740 until they're bleeding he takes the blood with his hands and he smears it on his face and this all

00:25:56.220 happens pretty quickly and he begins to just shout that he's gone crazy so the guards are kind of

00:26:01.700 unnerved at this site and they hogtie him uh he's at the work site they they leave him hogtied in the

00:26:08.740 dirt in the sun and and he's bleeding all day long and then they march him back to the pesay schoolhouse

00:26:15.380 where where the troops are are staying while they're working at at nickels field uh but instead of putting

00:26:21.640 him in his barracks and this is the tough part of this story they put him in what's called an iso

00:26:25.920 an iso is a small slatted wooden container it's smaller than a coffin a man can't stand a man can't 0.99

00:26:33.900 sit upright joe is stripped naked he's put in this he's got a huddle in a fetal position he's bleeding

00:26:39.260 still fairly profusely they don't give him any food and most importantly they don't give him any water

00:26:45.620 now you can survive i don't know 45 50 days maybe without food but just maybe three days four days at

00:26:51.060 most without any water so joe knows he's got to have water and he also knows and this is the the

00:26:57.800 troubling thing he knows that uh nobody that he knows has ever survived the iso experience

00:27:03.280 so life is really difficult to hear and a couple days go by and the troops are taking sticks and

00:27:10.220 they're prodding him through this iso joe is not a person of faith at this point in his life at all

00:27:15.160 but this is where joe begins to to pray and he's learned this kind of a snippet of a of a

00:27:20.280 a methodist prayer back as a boy god have mercy and one of the cool pieces of the story is that

00:27:25.920 night the the sky opens up and it begins to rain and joe is able to stick his mouth between the

00:27:32.380 slats of the board and drink and drink his fell on this rainwater keeps him alive eventually sure

00:27:37.720 enough he's thrown in the back of the truck and he makes it back to bill but his his audacious plan

00:27:42.580 eventually does work and he's able to survive that just horrific experience and during this time too so 0.95

00:27:47.340 you know he's he's a prisoner of war but joe besides getting you know the crap beat out of 0.75

00:27:51.220 him and almost dying he's losing his friends and that's that's hard for anybody but i imagine it

00:27:57.060 was really hard for him as a kid yeah it is yeah two of his close friends ray and dale eventually

00:28:04.240 don't survive the experience and then joe has no idea where perpetua is by this point of the war

00:28:09.760 and so he is isolated he's all alone and troops are being shuffled around so they don't they don't have

00:28:15.780 the same group of guys all the time this point of the story i think really got me because it's joe

00:28:21.580 makes this decision he's been hurt so many times by other people he makes this conscious decision not

00:28:28.120 to not to befriend anybody basically he just goes into himself and that's something he comes to

00:28:33.260 reevaluate later in his life you know he comes to realize when he's older and it's after the war

00:28:39.040 that he does need other people in his life so at this time joe gets put back into the not so bad

00:28:45.860 prison camp and then he gets kind of shuffled around again when was he finally liberated yeah

00:28:51.900 right at the end of the war he is he's actually he sent to japan at one point on one of one of

00:28:57.280 they call them hell ships which is another just horrific story where its conditions are really really bad

00:29:02.800 and about a third of the troops actually survive that experience joe does he's sent to work in the

00:29:08.260 mines in in japan he gets in an accident there and his leg is pretty badly mangled so he's he's in

00:29:14.660 the infirmary at the end of the war and not doing well at all at all and that's one of the big questions

00:29:20.520 is is can he make it to medical care before his his time runs out but he eventually gets to medical

00:29:26.880 care but this it was a long and slow road to recovery like i mean what was the state of his health

00:29:32.080 like when he finally got to the hospital and how long did it take him to recover physically

00:29:35.840 yeah he's just about dead and again by that point six foot four hundred and nine pounds

00:29:41.880 badly mangled leg he's got several tropical diseases severe malnutrition so he's in the hospital for

00:29:49.680 several months before he's finally shipped stateside and and then after that he's in the hospital for

00:29:54.560 some more and then really begins this fascinating story of what happens what happens when you've been

00:30:01.280 through all this trauma i mean the body keeps the score right and and joe has got to it really

00:30:08.420 becomes this lifelong journey of figuring out how to how to deal with all the anger that's inside him

00:30:14.140 how to deal with all this hate how to deal with all this horror and trouble that he's seen well yeah so

00:30:19.560 he he gets he gets back to the states and then but what he does doesn't he signs up again like he

00:30:25.000 uh he he's back in the military right he does yeah he reenlists he sent to korea he actually

00:30:31.300 reenlists because he wants just to play baseball and he's promised that he can play baseball for the

00:30:35.480 for the regiment team which he does for a while and then korea breaks out and then he's uh he's

00:30:40.820 promptly sent to korea where he's almost immediately shot in the stomach and he kind of jokes in later

00:30:45.960 life i was able to to view uh videotapes of him and audio tapes and whatnot and joe jokes in several

00:30:51.640 places he just goes yeah my my war in korea lasts like half an hour and then i was done

00:30:55.620 but he's upset at that too because he didn't want to he never wanted to return to combat that

00:31:01.280 certainly was never his plan but post world war ii yeah he's in a hard place he struggles in a couple

00:31:07.420 marriages he struggles to hold a job he the whole korea thing happens and he is one angry hurt guy

00:31:14.740 for many many years how did the ptsd manifest itself in his life yeah yeah back then they called it

00:31:21.220 combat fatigue many of the veterans yeah i've interviewed veterans for a number of years now

00:31:26.140 and many of them talk about how when they first came back from world war ii nobody was really

00:31:31.600 encouraged to talk about the hard things that went on there was kind of this spirit in america of

00:31:37.120 well we've just won the war and now let's get on with our lives so it's time to you know it's happy

00:31:43.020 days it's let's buy that house and get married and settle down and buy a new refrigerator and get that 1.00

00:31:48.580 chevy we've always been dreaming of and you know good times are here and yet many of the guys were

00:31:54.180 really really hurting so joe is experiencing nightmares tons of anger which comes out in any

00:32:00.800 number of ways he is struggling to relate to people he's not a very good father at first he's kind of a

00:32:06.900 horrible husband even though he he deeply loves his the first wife he barely knows the second wife he

00:32:12.520 deeply loves her they actually get married and divorced and then they remarry for a while and then and they

00:32:17.360 divorce again they just can't make it work joe eventually goes on to a third marriage and the

00:32:21.540 third marriage does work fortunately to maryland and she's a pretty compassionate person who who

00:32:27.120 goes through a lot with joe as well so how did joe start coming to peace with what happened when he was

00:32:33.720 a boy in the philippines it gets darker before it gets lighter and in joe's case his his anger and his

00:32:42.940 rage comes to a boiling point in his kind of his middle age to the point where he is he checks

00:32:49.720 himself into a mental health unit in a psychiatric hospital in california it actually proves to be one

00:32:55.520 of the best things that he does the counselors and psychiatrists there are really good and they

00:33:01.720 begin to counsel him that he's got to learn how to forgive or at least extend forgiveness you got to

00:33:07.320 leave leave that trouble behind you if you're not forgiving if you're sort of mad and storming

00:33:12.980 around all the time then that only keeps hurting you and joe realizes that he's like yeah i'm not

00:33:18.720 going to spend the rest of my life filled with rage so he he decides yeah i'm not going to harbor hate

00:33:24.860 it's it's this deliberate choice to set down the hurt and joe talks about how he's he's got to set

00:33:30.740 down that hurt and set it down and set it down again it's it's it takes more than one choice to learn

00:33:35.800 how to forgive it becomes a way of life however for joe where he's like i am i am that war is behind

00:33:44.040 us and certainly there was wrongs done but i'm not going to hold it against my former enemy

00:33:49.180 and it works it works for joe and joe says in his vernacular yeah those doctors they got a hold of my

00:33:56.060 brain and they straighten my butt out and um joe later in life in fact he would never he would he would 0.54

00:34:03.280 always use the term japanese to describe the enemy he would never refer to them in the derogatory term 0.53

00:34:07.980 and that was just one indication that he had truly learned to forgive his enemies

00:34:11.260 what happened with his relationship with perpetua because during this time he would always think

00:34:15.720 about her after the war he was thinking about her i mean she was like his first love but that can

00:34:20.840 have a that had a big impact on him and that she was very connected to his experience with the war

00:34:24.780 so what was he able to find her again would they they have a connection after the war

00:34:28.800 yeah it's a fascinating piece of this story and toward the end of the book there are some

00:34:33.620 interactions between them again which uh i'll let your viewers and readers read joe never never does

00:34:40.140 forget his first love he eventually goes he returns to the philippines in the 1970s with the blessing of

00:34:47.320 his third wife marilyn and he goes looking for perpetua and and her family and joe has some

00:34:54.860 suspicions that part of her family may be part of his he does not find her he he finds her grave

00:35:02.020 and finds this this gravestone where he just weeps and and and kind of kicks himself that he had not

00:35:08.600 gone back to look for her earlier it's believed that she died in the in the marcos regime which was kind

00:35:14.660 of a horrific situation as well but joe's able to track down a priest who knew her and he does discover

00:35:20.900 that her life was indeed lifted she got out of the brothel things went well she was able to have a

00:35:26.720 baby because she was pregnant at the time she became a nurse and and trained in this in this you know

00:35:32.860 obviously better occupation and the priest describes how she was a caring and benevolent person and really

00:35:39.120 just uh turned out to be an upstanding person all around well you mentioned joe perpetua they had

00:35:44.540 some interactions after the war and how they ended up meeting again while joe was still in the

00:35:49.400 philippines is a another amazing story in the book and people got to read that to see that story but

00:35:55.100 when they're talking they they really did consider maybe being together you know maybe getting married

00:35:59.820 and then after joe went back to the united states and went their separate ways again they kept writing

00:36:04.400 each other but then eventually joe stopped getting letters from perpetua and so he thought okay well i mean

00:36:11.800 i guess she's moved on but then joe found out later that she had kept writing him but his mom

00:36:19.280 had been hiding the letters from him what do you think was going on there why did joe's mom do that

00:36:24.820 yeah his mother is really an interesting person and i've had readers actually write to me about the

00:36:31.860 mother and some are pretty upset they're like man that mom just didn't care for her kid and what was

00:36:36.660 she thinking and and people are genuinely angry toward her and then others are like wow that was

00:36:41.880 some some weird stuff that went on but i get why his mother did it the the mother describes how joe came

00:36:48.820 back from the war and here he is writing this this girl in the philippines and you know at the time

00:36:54.300 race relations are just different in america and joe's mother believes that it's going to be really

00:36:59.960 difficult if joe does indeed take this war bride if he does return to the philippines and marry perpetua

00:37:05.760 and so joe is using his mom's address to get all his mail and joe's mom intercepts the mail and she

00:37:13.820 hides the mail and joe doesn't know this he just concludes that perpetua has lost interest in him

00:37:19.900 or maybe she's found some other guy or maybe she doesn't want to get involved with a with his former 0.59

00:37:24.180 pow or you know what's the deal hey i gotta get on with the life it's it's happy days i gotta buy that

00:37:29.400 refrigerator so that's when he he gets married to his this this american girl who he doesn't really

00:37:34.320 know that well but he does just he does describe in later in life how and i think this is real for

00:37:39.800 all of us it's like you never forget your first love whoever that person is and you know it's okay

00:37:44.780 it's like you don't have to marry that girl but she's a piece of your life and and hopefully a warm

00:37:48.900 piece of your life and and a good and positive memory in the sense that she helped form you

00:37:52.900 you helped form her and maryland is aware of this his his third wife and yeah joe always describes

00:37:59.940 perpetua warmly in how he in how he talks about her when he went back to the philippines uh and he

00:38:07.560 found out that perpetua died how did that influence his you know trying to come to terms with what

00:38:12.600 happened to him in the philippines did he go did it help did it like take him to a dark place again and

00:38:17.300 and he had to deal with that and on top of the other stuff yeah he's really kicking himself for

00:38:23.880 a lot of reasons really beating himself up and finally as the story goes maryland sits him down

00:38:29.400 and just says you know look life throws curves at everybody and you know it's it's a it's a it's not

00:38:35.920 a it's not a great thing what happened to this to this woman that you cared about and yet at the

00:38:40.280 same time the good thing is that you were in each other's lives you were able to help each other

00:38:45.960 and uh just imagine where perpetua would have been if you hadn't been in the story like you

00:38:52.360 you helped her get out of a really bad situation and in that there's some consolation and from here

00:38:58.860 on out get on with life and quit beating yourself up and and yes you made mistakes but those mistakes

00:39:04.940 are behind you and you're a wiser person because of them have you personally taken away any life

00:39:10.800 lessons from joe's story he's a fascinating character in in so many levels and i i did find

00:39:17.380 myself identifying with him in the sense that yeah we all make mistakes in our youth and yet we've got

00:39:23.160 we've got to learn from them and and grow and and keep going forward i think joe's resolve he makes it

00:39:29.580 pretty early on in life never never to give in to fear i think that's something we can all learn from

00:39:34.500 as well like yeah life throws us any number of difficult and challenging situations and fear

00:39:42.780 often holds us back you know when i started writing books about world war ii i had been trained as a

00:39:48.740 journalist and and i had a lot of training i'd done my master's degree and worked in a newspaper for a

00:39:52.960 number of years i really didn't know anything about world war ii and yet this opportunity came

00:39:59.300 literally fell into my lap do you want to work with lieutenant buck compton from the band of brothers i

00:40:03.680 jumped at that chance mostly because my agent knew buck and then i was like in a quieter moment

00:40:09.200 my goodness what have i done i don't know anything about world war ii and i'm trying to compete against

00:40:13.040 books here that are written by just masters in the profession and if i had let fear hold me back from

00:40:19.380 that decision so many years would would have been affected by that unfortunately i didn't i went forward

00:40:25.280 i threw myself into the work i read books by the dozen i talked to every veteran i could i talked to

00:40:31.060 guys in the military i immersed myself in the subject and yes books plural have come from that

00:40:37.540 one decision not to give into fear i think it's encouragement for all of us as as uh as man today

00:40:43.920 do what you fear the most and you know for me personally i think the big takeaway is you know how

00:40:49.600 joe dealt with the after effects of the war so i mean if any guys go he's got some demons whatever

00:40:56.240 they are it might feel like it's hopeless like this is never going to get better but joe says no it's

00:41:01.920 possible it might take till you're in your 70s or 80s but you don't give up like you just you keep

00:41:07.420 trying to get better yeah absolutely yeah joe describes how the adversity that we go through

00:41:14.180 actually can help form our lives in really good ways if we so work with it and allow it to

00:41:20.920 and we we learn more from adversity than we do from ease so as you said you've written multiple

00:41:27.920 books about world war ii what continues to draw you to that event in time period you know some guys i

00:41:34.460 think who read world war ii are very interested in um facts and figures and sort of this army position

00:41:41.640 on this flank and very technical things you know i like that because i am kind of a history nerd

00:41:47.100 but what really intrigues me is the humanity you take these ordinary guys and you throw them into

00:41:54.140 these extraordinary events and if it it prompts this big question what would i do in a similar

00:42:01.860 situation i think that's the that's the real intrigue for readers today what would i do if i was thrown

00:42:09.360 into a horrific situation would i have the fortitude to overcome that or what would it take to develop

00:42:16.100 the fortitude that's probably the better question because we we all encounter fearful and challenging

00:42:22.240 situations and yet it's rising above that it's overcoming that really separates us and it keeps

00:42:29.220 us going forward and helps us find that better life well mark this has been a great conversation

00:42:33.760 where can people go to learn more about the book and your work yeah my website marcusbrotherton.com

00:42:39.500 the book is available in many bookstores it's on amazon on barnes and noble if you want to get it

00:42:44.560 online it's called a bright and blinding sun fantastic well marcus brotherton thanks for your

00:42:49.500 time it's been a pleasure thanks brett always always great to connect with you my guest today

00:42:54.240 was marcus brotherton he's the author of the book a bright and blinding sun it's available on amazon.com

00:42:58.320 and bookstores everywhere you can find more information about his work at his website marcusbrotherton.com

00:43:02.460 also check out our show notes at awim.is slash joe where you can find links to resources

00:43:06.260 we delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the a1 podcast make sure to

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The Art of Manliness - September 12, 2022

A World War II Story of Survival, Love, and Redemption

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