The Art of Manliness - Episode #1： We Who Are Alive and Remain

00:00:00.000 welcome to the inaugural episode of the art of manliness podcast and i gotta say i'm really

00:00:22.260 excited about this i have been wanting to do a podcast for quite some time and we've been getting

00:00:27.040 emails from you all requesting that we start a podcast for the art of manliness and so here we

00:00:32.920 are we're doing it and to give you an idea of what we have in mind with the podcast we're going going

00:00:38.140 to do an episode once a week they're going to be between 20 and 30 minutes long and it's not going

00:00:43.740 to be me just pontificating and blabbering on about what i think is manly or whatever i wouldn't do

00:00:48.960 that to you all what we plan on doing is bringing in experts authors personalities and art of

00:00:56.100 manliness readers you all who read the blog and talk to them and discuss with them issues and

00:01:02.060 topics of interest to men ask them what manliness means to them and hopefully get some advice and

00:01:08.000 get some tips on how to be better husbands better fathers and all around better men so that's the

00:01:13.600 goal of the show and i'm looking forward to it so sit back relax and enjoy the first episode of the art

00:01:21.200 of manliness podcast during world war ii the united states army developed an experimental

00:01:35.400 fighting force that parachuted soldiers from c-47 transport planes behind enemy lines the 101st

00:01:41.780 airborne division or screaming eagles is one of america's most well-known military divisions

00:01:46.040 and within that division a company of soldiers called easy company took part in some of the most

00:01:50.660 famous events of the allied campaign in europe including but not limited to the d-day invasion

00:01:55.740 the battle of the bulge concentration camp liberations and taking over hitler's mountaintop

00:02:00.640 fortress the eagle's nest the men of easy company have been the subject of numerous books and also

00:02:05.940 the hbo miniseries band of brothers and our guest today has recently published a book about easy

00:02:11.400 company his name is marcus brotherton and his book is called we who are alive and remain untold

00:02:17.420 stories from the band of brothers marcus is a journalist and has written or co-written over 17

00:02:22.280 books including a memoir of easy company's lieutenant buck compton and marcus lives in the beautiful state

00:02:27.880 of washington with his family marcus welcome to the show thanks brett so marcus a lot has been

00:02:35.180 written about easy company the 101st division and you'd think there wouldn't be anything else to say

00:02:39.840 about them so what inspired you to take on this project and write the book that's a great question

00:02:46.100 brett at the start of dick winter's memoir he he says that he often receives letters from people

00:02:52.920 and they say things like you know tell us more and people are people are searching for as complete a

00:02:59.680 story as possible about this company for me personally it was uh it was just a chance to work

00:03:04.700 with great people you know these guys are are living history and legends and i knew i had much to learn

00:03:10.860 from these men yeah and you i remember you mentioned in your your book and i think in the epilogue

00:03:15.780 that you you were living in an apartment with uh this world war ii veteran i think it was nate miller

00:03:21.800 was his name yeah yeah well tell us about nate he sounds like he kind of inspired you to get you to

00:03:28.040 connect you with these men yeah that was it was back in graduate school and i moved down to la

00:03:33.320 and and i didn't know anybody and and he was my advisor's father he he just lost his wife and

00:03:39.100 and his son thought it might be good for him to uh to have some company in the house so i i rented a

00:03:45.060 room from this guy and he was really my my first introduction to do anybody from world war ii sort

00:03:51.100 of in in living color so to speak and uh nate was he was an amazing man he was uh he was very ornery

00:03:58.240 and uh slept with a loaded gun under his pillow wow and uh he he just had these these amazing stories

00:04:05.520 about um you know things he had done in in the war and it had it had really colored his world view

00:04:13.220 in so many ways he he saw much of his life through the grid of of what he what he had experienced

00:04:19.340 wow and so from there i mean i guess i guess he planted the seed for you to

00:04:24.480 to do these projects i mean you've written a book with lieutenant buck compton

00:04:28.260 his memoirs and now you've written this book so i guess he kind of planted the seed for you to do

00:04:32.480 this project yeah it's it's been really cool i i never i never thought i would write military

00:04:38.120 non-fiction i didn't major in history but it's i've been a journalist and collaborative writer and

00:04:43.320 and buck compton it's it's just great he he lives just about 40 minutes from my house

00:04:47.760 and so we connected uh a couple years ago to write his memoir one thing leads to another so

00:04:53.880 buck's book got me connected with this one so wow that's great how many men of easy company are still

00:04:58.300 alive yeah it's it's a good question brett it's there's probably about 30 although there's really

00:05:05.840 no way to know for sure you know after the war some of the men just sort of disappeared so they

00:05:11.480 didn't keep in contact with any of the associations or the friends in fact just this past week i sent a

00:05:16.760 newspaper article about a guy named ed mauser he's an easy company veteran he's still alive and

00:05:22.660 living in omaha 92 years old going strong he had never connected with any of his buddies from after

00:05:28.400 the war so he's he's planning on coming to this year's easy company reunion for the first time in

00:05:34.600 you know 60 plus years he's going to connect with his buddies so wow that's great it'll be cool to meet

00:05:38.720 him yeah yeah that's something else i thought was interesting in the book that a lot of these men

00:05:42.320 didn't start going to the reunions until the band of brothers book was written or the series was

00:05:47.660 put on hbo a lot of them didn't have much to do with it but somehow this brought them back together

00:05:52.700 yeah you know some of it was a was a coping mechanism dewitt lowry he his method of coping was

00:06:01.240 really to forget he really chose to to purposely not think about the war at all i don't think he's ever

00:06:08.220 been through to a reunion although he's connected with dick winters and some of the other men

00:06:12.800 so and some of it it was it was just a family thing where you know they came home and and started

00:06:18.920 working and raising their families and whatnot and you know life gets busy yeah uh so yeah a variety of

00:06:25.140 reasons for doing that yeah so you know marcus after talking to these men did you notice any

00:06:29.840 characteristics that they all had in common that made them such a successful military company

00:06:34.860 they were an elite highly trained fighting unit and and definitely the training definitely their

00:06:42.020 drive uh i would say the the single shared characteristic was probably determination

00:06:47.940 many of them said some things like you know we were just just doing our jobs and we didn't quit and

00:06:55.440 we didn't give up i yeah i think one of the men forrest goof who uh you know he just passed away a

00:07:01.300 couple weeks ago here but when when forrest was jumping into holland for operation market garden

00:07:07.140 his his parachute malfunctions so he's he's jumping out of the plane and because the man had jumped so

00:07:13.220 low on that jump uh below 500 feet there wasn't enough time to open his reserve chute so he lands

00:07:18.620 and he hits hard and he just lands with a thud knocks him out when he comes to he can't move his

00:07:23.420 back or his legs wow so they they ship him to a hospital in england and uh take x-rays and whatnot

00:07:30.120 discover he's got a broken disc in his back and and that was it that was his golden ticket home if

00:07:35.700 you wanted it he he could have been you know excused from the war but anyway he uh he stays in the

00:07:43.260 hospital for a while uh regain some feeling in his legs and his back and although he's still under a

00:07:49.360 great deal of pain he makes the choice to go back to the front and and continue the battle with his

00:07:55.880 buddies you know he just didn't quit that's determination we're gonna take a quick break

00:08:00.600 for your words from our sponsors and now back to the show yeah i actually noticed that there

00:08:06.800 were several men that that happened to they would get injured and be their golden ticket home they

00:08:10.720 could go home but like they would go awol from the hospital and find any way to get back to the

00:08:15.080 front lines with their their company yeah yeah ed ed joint was another another man who did that and

00:08:21.580 yeah they would rather fight than not wow and you know marcus one of the things we actually wrote a

00:08:28.140 post about world war ii vets being the greatest generation and it's a it's a i guess some title

00:08:34.220 that tom brokaw came up with and a lot of people have criticized this moniker for these men who fought

00:08:40.720 in world war ii do you think the title greatest generation is appropriate for these men

00:08:44.920 uh yeah it's a good question i think you know the term greatest it's sort of compared to something

00:08:50.660 else and you know what is compared to i think of one of the book's contributors uh god by the name

00:08:57.320 of clancy lyle he he talks about how when he was engaged in combat anytime he could shoot to wound

00:09:06.340 an enemy as opposed to shoot to kill that was always what he chose to do uh one time he's uh he's

00:09:12.880 fighting in normandy in the town of saint mary glise uh you know german pops out from behind the 0.99

00:09:18.740 street and clancy's got a clean shot he can take him out he chooses to shoot him in the leg simply

00:09:24.000 just to take him out of the battle and he says you know as far as as far as it was up to me that was

00:09:29.220 fine as long as he was not shooting back at me a couple days later clancy's fighting in another town

00:09:36.160 called karentan and if you can picture picture it it's close quarters street to street fighting

00:09:42.340 clancy is running around the corner of a building obviously you can't see around the other side and

00:09:47.600 as he runs around the corner of this building he runs smack dab into an enemy soldier who's got his

00:09:53.300 rifle outstretched and his bayonet fixed on the end you can picture the weapon just sticks fast

00:09:59.840 in clancy's gut he runs straight into it wow so clancy describes this scene how both he and the

00:10:07.180 enemy are just absolutely frozen for a minute staring at each other and fortunately for clancy's

00:10:14.400 sake he uh raises his rifle and gets gets off the first shot as the enemy is falling over backwards

00:10:20.260 the enemy pulls the bayonet out of clancy's stomach and clancy as he's telling me the story he jokes he

00:10:26.260 says you know i wasn't shooting to wound just then so but you know that's that's the type of men these

00:10:32.760 guys were and that's the type of situations they were they were encountered they they were uh you

00:10:38.600 know placed in these these extraordinary situations where they put their lives at risk and it wasn't for

00:10:45.280 fame or for recognition but because they knew it was the right thing to do is for the sake of

00:10:50.000 future generations and our liberty yeah so certainly that's admirable yeah definitely and you

00:10:56.200 one thing i liked about your book as opposed to a lot of you know other non-fiction military history

00:11:00.740 books it's not it's different that you're basically just interviewing these veterans and they're like

00:11:06.460 you're letting them tell their stories and you're not really editing it you're not you're not trying

00:11:10.840 to format it you're just letting them speak and basically just transcripts of them telling their

00:11:14.960 stories why did you go with this approach as opposed to you know a typical steven ambrose

00:11:18.620 history book where you try to come up with a you know cohesive uh storyline right right

00:11:26.020 yeah it's uh it's an oral history book for sure um and it's funny it's uh the book has received uh

00:11:33.900 you know good reviews and really great acclaim across the board i've received a couple of

00:11:38.460 criticisms uh from guys who basically say you know look you're you're not an author basically all you

00:11:43.340 did was just you know sort of turn on a tape recorder and and type in what you heard and not to

00:11:49.380 defend myself here but i can assure you that the project took more editorial work than that you know

00:11:53.360 yeah i'm sure to kind of achieve that oral history effect really i i i want i want to take myself out

00:12:00.520 of the way as as an author uh steven ambrose says always let the men speak for themselves i wanted i

00:12:07.640 wanted to connect readers uh directly with a man it's it's kind of this feeling that they're sitting

00:12:12.320 down in the living room uh together with you and and and just you know telling their stories and

00:12:18.180 and you're getting to know these guys you know watching a football game together yeah yeah and

00:12:23.760 so marcus i i can imagine i mean after talking to these men you you can't walk away from this

00:12:29.660 unchanged you know listening to these stories how did writing this book and taking part in this

00:12:34.680 project change you as a man you know thinking about the men of easy company training at at camp

00:12:40.580 to coa and georgia they're running up mount curahee every morning every evening sometimes uh three and

00:12:46.580 a half miles up three and a half miles down and you know if they can do that then i can certainly

00:12:51.380 go for my morning jog without my usual amount of complaining uh so yeah it helps me be less of a

00:12:58.580 of a whiner basically yeah it helps me see my life's challenges and and problems in perspective i'm i'm not

00:13:06.620 sleeping outside in the snow i'm not getting shot at yeah and uh yeah it definitely it helps me be

00:13:13.080 more grateful the fact that i can write books for a living today instead of working in some factory for

00:13:19.260 one of hitler's descendants you know that's that's due in part to the the veterans of world war ii

00:13:23.860 wow and marcus i mean after you know talking to these men and i'm sure you kind of gleaned some

00:13:31.160 characteristics that they had what are what do you think are some lessons that today's men of

00:13:36.960 today's generation can take from the men of easy company uh stephen ambrose said uh all men ultimately

00:13:43.620 want to know two things uh to whom do i owe thanks that i should live in such opportunity is the first

00:13:50.960 thing and the second is will i have the courage when the time comes and uh studying about the men of

00:13:58.100 easy company helps us answer those questions they have given much so that we can live for what

00:14:03.460 matters as as men today we're we're often told to uh you know seek lives of entertainment or leisure or

00:14:11.560 or you know misguided sensuality and the big lesson for us is to to live courageously to live

00:14:18.140 selflessly to think of our communities and families the invitation is to to man up and and and stop

00:14:24.940 playing video games all day and put our pants on and basically go do something amazing with our

00:14:30.860 lives well our guest today was marcus brotherton his book is called we who are alive and remain

00:14:37.000 untold stories from the band of brothers marcus thank you for talking with us it's been a pleasure

00:14:41.720 thank you brett and that wraps up this edition of the art of manliness podcast make sure to check

00:14:47.740 back at the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com for more manly tips and advice

00:14:52.900 and until next week stay manly

00:14:55.440 you

The Art of Manliness - April 03, 2014

Episode #1： We Who Are Alive and Remain

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript