Feb. 17, 2025

The Power of Storytelling & Humor in WWII | Robert B. O’Connor on ‘Jeep Show’

The Power of Storytelling & Humor in WWII | Robert B. O’Connor on ‘Jeep Show’
The Power of Storytelling & Humor in WWII | Robert B. O’Connor on ‘Jeep Show’
Aging Today Podcast
The Power of Storytelling & Humor in WWII | Robert B. O’Connor on ‘Jeep Show’

"The extraordinary comes out of ordinary people." - Robert O'Connor


Join Mark and author Robert O’Connor as they dive into the themes of aging, World War II, and the power of storytelling. In this engaging discussion, Robert shares his journey from...

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Season 9

"The extraordinary comes out of ordinary people." - Robert O'Connor


Join Mark and author Robert O’Connor as they dive into the themes of aging, World War II, and the power of storytelling. In this engaging discussion, Robert shares his journey from marketing to writing and explores the impact of enlisted entertainers during the war. Discover how his book Jeep Show blends historical facts with fiction, bringing to life the experiences of soldiers, the importance of humor in wartime, and the lasting effects of the GI Bill on American society. Learn about Jim Tanzer’s transformation from dance instructor to soldier and the deep personal connections Robert has to WWII through his father and uncle.

🔹 Topics Covered:
✔️ The role of entertainment in boosting soldier morale
✔️ How humor helped soldiers cope with war
✔️ The real-life inspiration behind Jeep Show
✔️ The lasting impact of WWII on American society

📖 Interested in military history and storytelling?

Don’t miss this insightful conversation!👍

Like, share, and subscribe for more historical deep dives!

#WWII #History #Storytelling #MilitaryHistory

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www.AgingToday.us

WEBVTT

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The Army drafted, you know, wealthy people from New York.

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It was a cross section of America, and I think

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that was that was one of its great strengths. Was

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it represented, It represented America, and America was and is,

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you know, the greatest country on Earth. Those young men

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were also coming out of the Depression and that was

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very hard times for most people. So they were probably

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a little tougher and used to privation more than we

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you know, we would be today. But I think, you know,

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to me, the most striking thing is the Army represented

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America as a whole.

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On sixty.

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And now the podcast We're Together, we discussed proactive aging

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on your terms, connecting to the professional advice of our

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space guests while creating better days throughout the aging processing.

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Now here's your host, Mark Turnbull.

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to another lively discussion on aging.

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Today.

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We are the podcast where together we explore the many

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options to aging on your Terms. You can find Aging

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Today and our past nine years of programming on our

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website just go to agingtoday dot us. And I want

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to say thank you to all of our listeners out

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there over the years. What is You are the ones

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that make this show so successful, and so those of

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you that have been listening, you know, don't forget to

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follow us, because that's what is important. We need to

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know and to be able to monetize and also build

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upon our base. We're looking forward to having you follow

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us well.

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As you know, this is.

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A show about aging, and what we've been trying to

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do over the past years is to capture as many

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intriguing stories of our forefathers, especially those that have gone

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into battle into World War Two. And I know that

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that is that generation is leaving us on a daily basis.

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And I have always had an intrigue and an interest

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in World War Two. And as you know, we've had

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other people on our show in the past, you know,

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talking about their experiences in World War Two from a

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historical and an experiential perspective. Today, we're gonna stay along

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those same lines in genre, but we're gonna be talking

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about World War Two if it's even possible to talk

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about it in a fictional manner. But that's where we're

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gonna go. And here to guide us in our conversation

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is Robert O'Connor. He's an author and he has written

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an intriguing book called Jeep Snow jeep show. I always

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want to say snow, but it's Jeep show and a

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trooper at the Battle of the Bulge and Robert welcome,

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Welcome to Aging Today. And I'm so excited to get

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into your book and into the background and all the

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things that you did to pour into the research, into

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you know, writing this intrigue copy of a fictional but

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yet based on historical facts. So let's get into it.

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Thank you so much.

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Mark, it's really a privilege to be here talking with

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you and thus to your listeners. I will tell you

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the reason you probably say Jeep snow instead of Jeep

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show is there was so much snow.

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At the Battle of the Bulge that it.

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Just comes to mind it was a battle fought during

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a very bitter winter.

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Maybe a better title for your book would have been

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jeep Show in the Snow.

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Thankfully it's too late for that.

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Yeah, okay, maybe it wasn't a better one.

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All right.

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Well, one of the things I want to do is

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I do want to talk a little bit about you

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and your background. And we always want to start out

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each of our guests, well, you know what's in your story,

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and you know that has led you to be such

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a prolific writer. And you know, there's it's interesting. I

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would say that there's nothing humorous about war. However, humor

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can play a role in in lifting morale in a

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time of war. And that humor the way I could

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see it coming out of your book. And I'm really

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interested in you as a person because your personality is

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reflect in those words that you've written in that book.

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Ah, that's a very interesting point that I hadn't thought

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of other than I have heard that every novel is

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an autobiography, no matter.

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What it's about.

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So yes, there had to be some of me coming through.

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I was probably born with a modest gift for writing.

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Nothing genius level, but a modest gift. I made my

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living in the marketing trade, doing a lot of copywriting

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and business writing. About fourteen ten, thirteen years ago, I

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went to a very low period in my life. We all,

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you know, you live long enough, you're gonna hit some

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hard times. And I went to a very low period.

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I got extremely depressed, and yet I still had to

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go to work and sit at my desk. And so

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I would go to work and sit at my desk

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and I would just start to journal about how I

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got myself into this situation and how I might get

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myself out. I got better after about thirty days, and

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you know, it did make me empathetic because I know

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that there are many people that feel just as bad

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as I did, and they don't get better. They feel

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that way every day, and I'm full of admiration for them.

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I kept on journaling and turned it into my first book,

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which is a nonfiction book called Gumption Aid The Booster

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for your Self Improvement Plan. And of course it was

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my own self improvement plan that I had in mind.

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And I realized that writing was my work.

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It was not writing books, was not how I earned

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my living.

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I earned my living in the marketing trade, but writing

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books was my work. With my children grown, as with

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most of your audience, you know, we have to find,

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you know, we have to find what our work is,

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and for me, it became writing books. I was going

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to write a second non fiction book about a circus,

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a misadventure called the Oxidoll Circus, and your listeners, like

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I will remember that Oxidol was a brand of detergent

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back in the day. It's not very popular now. I

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started out at Procter and Gamble and was told the

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legend of the Oxidoll circus. In a nutshell, A circus

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promoter sold the Oxidol brand on sponsoring a traveling circus.

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It turned out to be a marketing disaster, humorous only

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in retrospect, and it became a Procter and Gamble legend.

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I was doing some basic research on that and managed

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to locate the daughter of the circus promoter, a gentleman

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named Jim Hetzer. She said, oh, yeah, my dad was

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a circus promoter after the war, and yes he did.

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He did.

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He did run the Oxideal circus for better or for worse.

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But she said, did you also know that my dad

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was an enlisted entertainer in World War two Military Occupation

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Specialty four four two. And I said, I didn't know

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there were enlisted entertainers in World War.

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Two, and to and to be fair to that, yeah,

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I didn't know that either. But right, but we've all

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we all grew up with Bob Hope and the USO

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and you know all of that. So right, there's a

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little bit of a difference between the USO and this.

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There's a big difference because the enlisted entertainers were under orders.

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So you know, Bob Hope and the other USO people,

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especially Bob Hope, did brilliant work. Brilliant work. I'm full

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of admiration these enlisted entertainers, uh, and this real person,

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Jim Hetzer, did several things, one of which was jeep

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shows from the title of the book, and jeep shows

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were sort of portable. They were k ration versions of

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a variety show. So three enlisted entertainers and by the way,

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Jim Hetzer, this real person, was in Mickey Rooney's jeep

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show squad Mickey Rooney the number one Hollywood box office

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star of the late thirties. And they would get in

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a jeep with a driver and they would go to

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just behind the front lines. And these were places that

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the USO and the Red Cross could not go for

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obvious reasons. They would go just behind the front lines

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and then combat infantry would be sent back for a

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day to get a hot meal, possibly a uniform exchange,

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and they would do shows for them. And the shows

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would be just almost a classic vaudeville variety show, you know, singing, dancing,

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telling jokes, doing impressions, and they would always pull a

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soldier out of their audience. You know, his buddies are saying, hey,

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you know, Joe does an Edward G. Robinson imitate, you know,

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and the soldier would be terrible, but it was It

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made it even more fun. So I found out about

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this real thing, and Bob came. Bob.

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What came first, the four forty two, the Jeep Show

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or the USO? Did one grow out of the other.

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No, they're completely independent, completely independent organizations. I you know, frankly,

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I can't tell you when the USO started. I'm pretty

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sure it wasn't in World War One, but the Morale

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Corps existed in the army before the war. It was

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just greatly expanded after the war. So they were completely separate.

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The USO is a civilian organization. Uh, you know, they

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cooperate with the military. Whereas the enlisted entertainers were under orders.

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You know, if they had been ordered instead of doing

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a show to pick up bazookahs and go, you know,

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go take on tiger tanks, well they would have had

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to do that.

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So completely safe to.

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Say then that is it safe to say that the

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morale boosters, those entertainers. Yeah, the four forty two were

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behind enemy or you know, on the front lines. And yes,

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then the USO was in a safer zone because you

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had a lot of private individuals and they had to

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be safe, so they were in the rear echelona.

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We call that in the rear echelon. And you know, interestingly,

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one of the things that soldiers, you know, soldiers in

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World War Two, these were citizen soldiers. You know, they voted,

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their wives and their parents, wrote their congressmen. You know,

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they were citizen soldiers. And one of the things they

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disliked about the USO shows is the after the show,

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the officers would hog the celebrities and the enlisted men

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wouldn't get a chance to, you know, get an autographer

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talk to a pretty pretty young high Hollywood starlet. Yeah,

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the the morale called the Morale Corps soldiers were operating

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in frontline environments within artillery range and sniper range.

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So completely different.

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And and the USO shows were pretty big productions and

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quite excellent. And again these Morale Call Corps soldiers were

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doing a small variety show. Although you know, if you

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were sitting on the German border and you got to

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see Mick set ten feet away from Mickey Rooney doing

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his routine.

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You saw the best show in World War Two.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. For those the younger people in our

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listening audience that may not know who Mickey Rooney is,

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and I mean he was. He was a top dog,

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you know when it came he wasn't He right up

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there with some of the biggies like Bing Crosby, Sammy

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Davis Junior, Junior.

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Uh In eighteen thirty eight and nineteen thirty nine, he

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was bigger than everybody. He was the number one Hollywood

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box office star. He was doing a series of movies

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and this is before all our times, but we've heard

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of them, the Andy Hardy movies where he was playing

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a American teenager learning life lessons in kind of comedy drama.

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So he was huge.

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In the late thirties. He had a problem. Well, there

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are a couple of things. First of all, he was

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a genius the directors that worked with him. One of

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the directors said, other than Charlie Chaplin, Mickey Rooney is

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the most talented actor I've ever worked with. Mickey Rooney

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could do anything. He was an excellent drama, dramatic actor.

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He was an excellent comedian. He could do stand up,

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he could sing, he could play the drums. He learned

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to play the banjo in a day. But you know

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the problem with being a genius is where there are

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great strengths, there corresponding great weaknesses. And Mickey Rooney's weakness

226
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was his private life was just one everlasting party.

227
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You know.

228
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He was his first wife was Ava Gardner, but the

229
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most beautiful woman in Hollywood, and he cheated on her.

230
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Oh I didn't know that.

231
00:14:16.200 --> 00:14:20.759
Well, yes, yes, and you know, yes, she was a

232
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beautiful and quite talented in the end.

233
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And and you know he had a posse.

234
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He partied every night, you know, went through Hollywood starlets

235
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like a hot knife through butter. And you know that

236
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that's not a good way to live over the long term.

237
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And I will give him credit though, when he enlisted

238
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in nineteen forty four, and there was some public pressure

239
00:14:45.080 --> 00:14:48.960
on younger male celebrities to enlist, he could have stayed

240
00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:52.279
in Hollywood and worked at the hal Roach Studios, ten

241
00:14:52.320 --> 00:14:57.279
minutes from his house. Lieutenant Ronald Reagan did admirable service

242
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there making films for the army. Rooney chose to go

243
00:15:01.840 --> 00:15:03.840
all the way to go over to the European Theater

244
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of Operations, join the morale corps and do these jeep shows,

245
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putting himself in in in, you know.

246
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In dangerous way.

247
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I hypothesized that, and nobody has told me this. I

248
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haven't written this, and Mickey Rooney didn't say this, but

249
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I think some unconscious part of him felt he really

250
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needed to get away from the Hollywood lifestyle if he

251
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was going to survive over the long term. So, yes,

252
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Mickey Rooney was a massive star. Perhaps his star was

253
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starting to fade by the mid forties, and certainly it

254
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faded after he got back, although he stuck with his

255
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profession acting and you know, in the end came out

256
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fine but fascinating, fascinating character.

257
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And I think the key for all of us to

258
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remember is that the men that were on the front lines,

259
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that were fighting the battles, they knew who Mickey Rooney was,

260
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and so when they were around him, their morale was lifted,

261
00:16:06.879 --> 00:16:10.639
or they were at least allowed to escape into another

262
00:16:10.799 --> 00:16:15.919
world and build up some you know, just to get

263
00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:19.000
a reprieve from all of the horrors of war.

264
00:16:19.519 --> 00:16:22.519
Yeah, the violence, and also the discomfort. You know, it's

265
00:16:22.600 --> 00:16:27.360
freezing cold and they were sleeping outside and they other

266
00:16:27.440 --> 00:16:30.399
than you know, ammunition and gasoline. They didn't get a

267
00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:33.360
lot of the supplies that were on the rear echelon.

268
00:16:34.519 --> 00:16:37.720
I think a very important point that I came to understand,

269
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and I came to understand that by reading some of

270
00:16:39.919 --> 00:16:45.039
the letters from entertainers is and this has kind of

271
00:16:45.120 --> 00:16:48.840
gotten to my fundamental understanding of morale and how we

272
00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:53.919
build morale for each other. The show was fine, you know,

273
00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:57.840
Mickey Rooney was incredibly talented, so it was a fine show.

274
00:16:58.320 --> 00:17:01.240
But it wasn't the show as much as it was

275
00:17:01.639 --> 00:17:06.880
these enlisted entertainers being present, you know, coming up to

276
00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:10.640
the front line doing it, doing the show in person.

277
00:17:11.359 --> 00:17:15.039
Then afterwards, you know, cigarettes and coffee, sign autographs, you know,

278
00:17:15.160 --> 00:17:18.960
tell more jokes, hang out for a while. There is

279
00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:24.319
something about when we are in an when we feel isolated,

280
00:17:24.440 --> 00:17:28.359
and believe me, frontline combat infantry feels isolated.

281
00:17:29.319 --> 00:17:29.519
You know.

282
00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:34.599
Uh, there is something about when we feel isolated when

283
00:17:35.079 --> 00:17:39.160
when somebody, somebody we know or like or respect just

284
00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:42.880
is present for us, just you know, spends time with us.

285
00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:46.839
You know, after if we if we if we have

286
00:17:46.920 --> 00:17:49.720
a terrible reverse in our life, Let's say somebody we

287
00:17:50.039 --> 00:17:53.000
really cherished dies, or we lose our job or you know,

288
00:17:53.079 --> 00:17:56.680
something terrible happens. You know, we need our family and friends.

289
00:17:56.920 --> 00:18:00.400
We don't need them to give us wise advice. What

290
00:18:00.559 --> 00:18:03.960
we need from them is just to be present. And

291
00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:09.039
to me, that's what I learned was the most meaningful

292
00:18:09.079 --> 00:18:12.839
for these frontline combat soldiers was the fact that these

293
00:18:12.880 --> 00:18:17.480
guys were just coming out there and being present for them.

294
00:18:17.880 --> 00:18:22.000
Yeah, you know, I'm so grateful that you had shared

295
00:18:22.039 --> 00:18:24.559
that because I don't know if you know this, but

296
00:18:24.599 --> 00:18:27.839
I own an in home care agency and a hospice

297
00:18:27.880 --> 00:18:33.599
agency and we tell the stories on the podcast, and

298
00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:38.839
you know, I think the greatest attribute that any kind

299
00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:41.319
of a caregiver, doesn't matter whether you're a doctor or

300
00:18:41.440 --> 00:18:45.599
nurse or a CNA or whatever type of caregiver you are,

301
00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:50.559
is not so much about what you say, but it's

302
00:18:51.039 --> 00:18:57.759
it's about being present in that person's life and that

303
00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:02.480
that speaks volumes and it's hard to convey that to people.

304
00:19:02.559 --> 00:19:05.799
But it's interesting how you brought that up. Is that

305
00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:09.960
we all want to be acknowledged and we all want

306
00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.519
to feel validated. We all want to be identified and

307
00:19:14.599 --> 00:19:19.920
validated and in our lives, and when your lives, your

308
00:19:19.960 --> 00:19:23.920
life is on the line, it really comes out and

309
00:19:24.039 --> 00:19:25.599
we're talking about the front lines.

310
00:19:26.359 --> 00:19:29.839
Yeah, I want to along that line. I want to

311
00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:32.279
if you don't mind, Mark, I'll expand on that thought.

312
00:19:33.519 --> 00:19:36.039
I had I created a character in the in the

313
00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:40.400
book called the War Correspondent, and the war correspondent served

314
00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:43.279
a neat purpose in fiction, which is he could explain

315
00:19:44.119 --> 00:19:46.920
big things like, you know, how the battle, the things

316
00:19:46.920 --> 00:19:49.440
that the frontline soldiers knew nothing about, you know, the

317
00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:52.559
big strategic issues of the Battle of the Bulge and

318
00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:56.319
all that. I had him write a column after the

319
00:19:56.359 --> 00:20:00.839
war about how things had turned out. And you know,

320
00:20:01.720 --> 00:20:04.680
they in the end Germany surrendered, but they really had

321
00:20:04.680 --> 00:20:07.400
to let a lot of the Nazis continue to run

322
00:20:07.400 --> 00:20:10.839
the country because almost everybody who was a Nazi in Germany.

323
00:20:11.079 --> 00:20:13.640
So there were many kind of disillusions at the end

324
00:20:13.680 --> 00:20:16.400
of the war, although the goal, the main goals had

325
00:20:16.400 --> 00:20:19.039
been achieved. But I had him write this column, and

326
00:20:19.079 --> 00:20:20.680
I just want to read you the last couple of

327
00:20:20.680 --> 00:20:25.599
sentences because it gets right at morale and right at

328
00:20:25.759 --> 00:20:28.680
the topic. You know, you know so much about that

329
00:20:28.759 --> 00:20:32.319
we're talking about, of being present with people who are

330
00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:37.799
under great strain. So the last paragraph of this fictional

331
00:20:37.960 --> 00:20:43.519
column newspaper column America fielded millions of citizen soldiers who

332
00:20:43.559 --> 00:20:48.119
disliked the goddamn army, were ambivalent about their officers, and

333
00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:52.680
resisted the trappings of military hierarchy, also known as chicken shit.

334
00:20:53.519 --> 00:20:56.920
Yet many of them will remember their service as the

335
00:20:57.079 --> 00:20:59.119
ennobling experience of their lives.

336
00:20:59.799 --> 00:21:00.640
If you ask.

337
00:21:00.559 --> 00:21:03.160
Them, they will tell you they fought not for their

338
00:21:03.240 --> 00:21:09.039
country or for lofty ideals, but for each other, for

339
00:21:09.119 --> 00:21:12.480
their buddies to get the job done and get home.

340
00:21:13.400 --> 00:21:18.000
And that's the other. Uh, that's the that's the excerpt.

341
00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:23.240
You know, I realized so many of these, these frontline soldiers,

342
00:21:23.240 --> 00:21:25.559
and it would be the same for sailors or airmen

343
00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:30.920
who were in combat situations. They fought for each other.

344
00:21:31.039 --> 00:21:35.160
They you know, when when sold infantry soldiers were wounded,

345
00:21:35.640 --> 00:21:37.799
if they weren't sent back to England, if they were,

346
00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:41.400
you know, wounded enough, they would literally leave the hospital

347
00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:44.319
on their own to get back to their unit because

348
00:21:44.359 --> 00:21:48.640
they identified so much with their buddies in their unit

349
00:21:48.759 --> 00:21:52.279
and being there for their buddies. And you know, somewhere

350
00:21:52.279 --> 00:21:54.680
in the Bible it says, you know, greater love hath

351
00:21:54.759 --> 00:21:57.880
no man, but that he laid down his life for another.

352
00:21:58.079 --> 00:22:02.319
And these men will it. These men would, And that

353
00:22:02.599 --> 00:22:04.960
is that is morale.

354
00:22:05.759 --> 00:22:11.839
That is morale that I understand intellectually. I don't understand

355
00:22:11.880 --> 00:22:14.680
it in my gut, but I am full of awe

356
00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:17.319
and admiration about it.

357
00:22:17.480 --> 00:22:18.799
Full of awe.

358
00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:23.519
Yeah, there's a corporate structure that doesn't appeal to me

359
00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:26.319
at all as a human being, in the military and

360
00:22:26.759 --> 00:22:33.960
in corporate America as well. Yes, However, underneath that umbrella,

361
00:22:34.039 --> 00:22:40.559
that corporate structure is opportunities to meet incredible people. And

362
00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:44.920
I love the movie Band of Brothers because it's speaking

363
00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:48.000
to exactly what you're talking about there, is that these

364
00:22:48.039 --> 00:22:54.279
are ordinary people that have come together under extraordinary circumstances

365
00:22:54.319 --> 00:22:59.680
and now the extraordinary comes out of them as brothers

366
00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:01.119
and sisters.

367
00:23:01.599 --> 00:23:05.799
You know, absolutely, Yeah, there is a brotherhood the World

368
00:23:05.839 --> 00:23:06.279
War two.

369
00:23:06.519 --> 00:23:09.079
You know, name was my Buddies, But yes, there is

370
00:23:09.119 --> 00:23:12.759
a brotherhood. You know, Captain Winter's the hero of the officer,

371
00:23:12.839 --> 00:23:15.559
hero of Bandit Brothers. You Know, what I found is

372
00:23:15.960 --> 00:23:20.240
there were many officers that the enlisted men respected, and

373
00:23:20.279 --> 00:23:25.880
there were many officers that they just tolerated that were

374
00:23:26.720 --> 00:23:29.559
they called them brass hats, brass hats that you know,

375
00:23:30.279 --> 00:23:32.680
they didn't look up to, but there were many officers

376
00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:33.119
they did.

377
00:23:34.119 --> 00:23:36.440
And that's true in life in general. I mean, I

378
00:23:36.799 --> 00:23:42.000
think about how many times in my career, whether it

379
00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:44.279
was in the ministry or whether it was in the

380
00:23:44.279 --> 00:23:49.960
corporate world, there were always people. It's just inevitable. There's

381
00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:52.480
going to be people that you highly respect and then

382
00:23:52.519 --> 00:23:55.720
you highly disrespect or you're just like, oh my goodness,

383
00:23:55.720 --> 00:23:59.960
how did you get into this position of authority and power.

384
00:24:01.680 --> 00:24:04.960
It's interesting anyhow, but it all flushes out in the

385
00:24:05.079 --> 00:24:09.559
end and it shapes us. It shapes us as individuals.

386
00:24:09.720 --> 00:24:13.079
And I think that, you know, looking why I'm so

387
00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:18.720
intrigued by veterans and the time frame of World War

388
00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:22.359
Two in the forties and the fifties. These were the thirties,

389
00:24:22.440 --> 00:24:26.799
forties and fifties. That's kind of that era era. Yeah,

390
00:24:27.240 --> 00:24:32.519
it was. It was interesting the character the people and

391
00:24:33.279 --> 00:24:38.200
how they came together and had one common cause. And

392
00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:42.480
you know, I think Brokaw said it exactly right, the

393
00:24:42.519 --> 00:24:46.279
world's greatest generation. And I'm just so intrigued by that

394
00:24:46.359 --> 00:24:51.400
generation self sacrificing. And I'm sure there was individuals that

395
00:24:51.759 --> 00:24:53.279
you know, weren't but oh yeah.

396
00:24:53.319 --> 00:24:57.839
In generally in Yeah, punny, what did they say, go,

397
00:24:57.960 --> 00:25:00.519
I think that the term of art was go bricks,

398
00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:06.400
plenty of gold bricks everywhere, even not sure, Yeah, well, Mark,

399
00:25:06.440 --> 00:25:10.400
one of the things to expand on your point. The

400
00:25:10.440 --> 00:25:15.400
American Army was unique in that it was it was

401
00:25:16.079 --> 00:25:18.839
much larger than the other the Navy, the Marine Corps,

402
00:25:18.880 --> 00:25:22.880
and the American the Army Air Force much larger combined.

403
00:25:22.960 --> 00:25:27.400
So the American Army had to rely completely on the draft,

404
00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:31.799
whereas the Marines and the Navy didn't even use the

405
00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:36.119
draft until somewhere in mid nineteen forty four. So the

406
00:25:36.400 --> 00:25:40.279
Army was the only branch of the service that represented

407
00:25:40.279 --> 00:25:43.720
the nation as a whole. It was a classic cross

408
00:25:43.759 --> 00:25:47.920
section of the nation. So the Army drafted PhDs out,

409
00:25:48.240 --> 00:25:51.680
you know, out of college. The Army drafted men who

410
00:25:51.799 --> 00:25:55.319
did not speak English. You know, they had immigrated from

411
00:25:55.400 --> 00:25:58.480
Italy or Germany or somewhere you know in the middle

412
00:25:58.519 --> 00:26:01.359
in nineteen thirty five, and the Army had to teach

413
00:26:01.400 --> 00:26:04.799
them English so they could understand their orders. The Army

414
00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:10.759
drafted poor, poor young men from the South. My father

415
00:26:10.839 --> 00:26:13.119
told me there was a young man and his barracks

416
00:26:13.160 --> 00:26:16.359
in nineteen forty three who said, these boots are the

417
00:26:16.359 --> 00:26:20.559
first pair of shoes I've ever owned by myself. The

418
00:26:20.680 --> 00:26:24.279
Army drafted, you know, wealthy people from New York. It

419
00:26:24.440 --> 00:26:27.839
was a cross section of America, and I think that

420
00:26:28.039 --> 00:26:31.079
was that was one of its great strengths. Was it

421
00:26:31.240 --> 00:26:36.319
represented It represented America, and America was and is, you know,

422
00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:41.319
the greatest country on Earth. Those young men were also

423
00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:45.640
coming out of the Depression, and that was very hard

424
00:26:45.720 --> 00:26:51.640
times for most people, so they were probably a little

425
00:26:51.880 --> 00:26:58.480
tougher and used to privation more than we you know,

426
00:26:58.680 --> 00:27:01.799
we would be today. They probably had a different attitude

427
00:27:01.799 --> 00:27:05.480
about that. But I think, you know, to me, the

428
00:27:05.640 --> 00:27:11.839
most striking thing is the Army represented America as a whole. M.

429
00:27:13.039 --> 00:27:16.720
Yeah, it was a good cross section of all the

430
00:27:16.759 --> 00:27:23.119
different classes of career people. And it didn't just it

431
00:27:23.400 --> 00:27:26.160
It didn't distinguish, you know, the upper class from the

432
00:27:26.200 --> 00:27:27.839
lower class. I mean, we were all.

433
00:27:27.799 --> 00:27:31.279
Want right, absolutely not it, you know, they It did

434
00:27:31.319 --> 00:27:36.960
distinguish the officers from the enlisted men. But yeah, which

435
00:27:37.799 --> 00:27:43.559
you know was divided pretty much along educational lines, you know,

436
00:27:43.599 --> 00:27:46.759
which would you know, divide across class lines. But there

437
00:27:46.839 --> 00:27:51.680
was many many enlisted men that became officers, which must

438
00:27:51.680 --> 00:27:54.000
have been quite an interesting experience.

439
00:27:54.799 --> 00:27:59.720
Yeah, Yeah, And I love the way you capture a

440
00:27:59.799 --> 00:28:04.559
lot of the culture in your book from really what

441
00:28:04.759 --> 00:28:08.680
was transpiring or what was going on in nineteen in

442
00:28:08.680 --> 00:28:12.960
the nineteen forties, as you just mentioned, you know, many

443
00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:16.920
of these men you had to share shoes with their

444
00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:20.960
brothers at home, or didn't have shoes or right, I

445
00:28:20.960 --> 00:28:24.640
mean right, And that's a concept that today I don't

446
00:28:24.640 --> 00:28:28.200
think many people even understand that that's what took place

447
00:28:28.279 --> 00:28:30.599
in America, right, right, And.

448
00:28:31.200 --> 00:28:35.480
The average GI gained about twenty pounds within the first

449
00:28:35.519 --> 00:28:38.599
three or four months of being in the army because

450
00:28:39.920 --> 00:28:42.759
for many of them they hadn't been getting three square

451
00:28:42.799 --> 00:28:46.480
meals a day, and the army provided three square. The

452
00:28:46.599 --> 00:28:51.680
army also fixed the teeth of millions of soldiers who,

453
00:28:51.759 --> 00:28:55.039
if they had ever been to the dentists, hadn't been recently. So,

454
00:28:55.839 --> 00:29:01.240
you know, the the change in the American population as

455
00:29:01.279 --> 00:29:04.880
a result of World War Two and so many young

456
00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:10.119
men being in the service. It fundamentally changed America.

457
00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:13.559
And then the GI Bill.

458
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:19.440
Fundamentally changed America. Most of your listeners know the GI

459
00:29:19.599 --> 00:29:23.720
Bill offered gis loans to very favorable loans to buy

460
00:29:23.720 --> 00:29:28.519
a house or start a business, or free college. And

461
00:29:28.839 --> 00:29:33.640
you know, and so many many soldiers from blue collar

462
00:29:33.720 --> 00:29:38.559
backgrounds became after the war became the first people in

463
00:29:38.599 --> 00:29:41.440
their family to graduate from college. And of course when

464
00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:44.920
you graduate from college, you then you know, earn more

465
00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:48.200
for the rest of your life. So it paid off.

466
00:29:48.440 --> 00:29:51.000
It paid off big time for the government on their

467
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:53.240
tax receipts for the next forty years.

468
00:29:53.839 --> 00:29:54.680
And on a.

469
00:29:54.599 --> 00:29:58.200
Personal note, my father, who came Robert O'Connor also who

470
00:29:58.319 --> 00:30:03.279
came from a blue collar Irish ethlic family in Waterbury, Connecticut,

471
00:30:03.480 --> 00:30:07.680
ended up going to Yale on the GI Bill and graduate.

472
00:30:07.759 --> 00:30:09.440
I think he was a little bit out of his

473
00:30:09.480 --> 00:30:13.599
element there, but he managed to graduate and then was

474
00:30:13.640 --> 00:30:17.480
a financial executive for most of his life. And you know,

475
00:30:17.759 --> 00:30:23.359
sent all his children to college. So yes, the US Army,

476
00:30:23.400 --> 00:30:27.559
not just in the war, but afterwards, dramatically changed the

477
00:30:27.559 --> 00:30:33.319
social fabric of America.

478
00:30:33.519 --> 00:30:37.440
Did you know that the RMS Queen Mary, designed to

479
00:30:37.519 --> 00:30:42.000
carry two one hundred and thirty nine passengers in luxury accommodations,

480
00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:45.200
was used as a troop ship in World War Two

481
00:30:45.759 --> 00:30:51.039
and carried sixteen thousand soldiers at a time. This did

482
00:30:51.079 --> 00:30:54.119
you know, moment was provided by today's guest and is

483
00:30:54.160 --> 00:30:56.920
brought to you by Royal Hospice of Oregon.

484
00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:05.240
Yeah, and it's interesting because, as you described, the army

485
00:31:05.839 --> 00:31:10.519
back in nineteen forty played a larger role not only

486
00:31:10.599 --> 00:31:15.559
inside you know, the military complex, but also in general

487
00:31:15.640 --> 00:31:20.680
in our society. And yet today, I mean most people

488
00:31:20.720 --> 00:31:23.319
when they enlist, they don't list in the Army. The

489
00:31:24.160 --> 00:31:27.920
shift has gone towards the Navy, or the Air Force,

490
00:31:28.079 --> 00:31:32.039
or even the special forces like the Marines. I mean,

491
00:31:32.079 --> 00:31:36.000
it's more attracted to be. In my opinion, if I

492
00:31:36.079 --> 00:31:39.039
was gonna had to be boots on the ground, I'd

493
00:31:39.079 --> 00:31:44.079
be a marine versus an Army guy. It's interesting how

494
00:31:44.079 --> 00:31:45.200
all that has changed.

495
00:31:45.640 --> 00:31:47.880
Yeah, the Marine, you know, with the Marines are a

496
00:31:47.920 --> 00:31:50.920
little more intense, a little more intense about it. And

497
00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:55.319
certainly back during the war where the Army was mostly

498
00:31:55.440 --> 00:31:59.960
draftees and the Marines was mostly volunteers. Yeah, the different

499
00:32:01.079 --> 00:32:05.319
in outlook was probably pretty great. I'm obviously full of

500
00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:07.279
respect for the Marines as well.

501
00:32:08.160 --> 00:32:12.240
Yeah, so did you know that loneliness is one of

502
00:32:12.279 --> 00:32:16.119
the major health problems today. The average age of widowhood

503
00:32:16.240 --> 00:32:19.039
is fifty seven years old. For women and sixty five

504
00:32:19.119 --> 00:32:22.440
years old for men. Book, Yeah, this leaves many potential

505
00:32:22.519 --> 00:32:26.799
years of living without a partner or companionship. Being open

506
00:32:26.839 --> 00:32:29.680
to love can broaden opportunities, so you don't have to.

507
00:32:29.599 --> 00:32:30.960
Be alone, Outlander.

508
00:32:31.200 --> 00:32:33.240
This did you Know segment was brought to you by

509
00:32:33.240 --> 00:32:36.400
this Much Guest and sponsored by Royal Hospice.

510
00:32:35.960 --> 00:32:39.759
Oregon Historical Times, and it's just a fascinating story and

511
00:32:39.880 --> 00:32:42.440
yours as much like it. So I'm hoping that your

512
00:32:42.480 --> 00:32:48.480
book will hit the screen someday. But I'm fascinated about

513
00:32:48.599 --> 00:32:53.240
you as a writer and how much of your personality

514
00:32:53.880 --> 00:32:58.000
is injected into the words that are written on those pages.

515
00:32:58.079 --> 00:33:02.839
Because when you think about a four forty two a

516
00:33:03.039 --> 00:33:07.759
jeep show, these were like vaudeville actors, if you will,

517
00:33:07.839 --> 00:33:09.960
I don't know if that's the right word, but these

518
00:33:09.960 --> 00:33:13.759
were funny people. These were talented people. And for you

519
00:33:14.079 --> 00:33:17.799
and I never heard about anything like this. We all

520
00:33:17.880 --> 00:33:20.240
know you know the USL, but we didn't know anything

521
00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:24.640
about the Jeep Show, right, and yet you've got some

522
00:33:25.480 --> 00:33:31.000
there's something about you that if it was nineteen forty two,

523
00:33:31.240 --> 00:33:35.480
you probably would have been right there alongside of Mickey Rooney.

524
00:33:35.640 --> 00:33:38.839
That's my guess. I don't know. I don't think.

525
00:33:38.960 --> 00:33:43.359
I don't think I have a gift for that, although

526
00:33:43.519 --> 00:33:46.519
you know the protagony, I will say the protagonist in

527
00:33:47.640 --> 00:33:52.319
jeep Show was inspired by this real life person, Jim Hetzer.

528
00:33:53.079 --> 00:33:55.680
And Jim Hetzer tried to make it in show business

529
00:33:55.759 --> 00:33:58.799
and failed in New York in the late thirties, and

530
00:33:58.839 --> 00:34:03.000
then was it dancing instructor. And then in the book,

531
00:34:03.119 --> 00:34:06.519
I you know, he he Jim Hetzer did volunteer at

532
00:34:06.519 --> 00:34:08.800
the age of twenty nine when he had a rock

533
00:34:08.880 --> 00:34:14.519
solid deferment, and so I have the main character volunteer

534
00:34:14.559 --> 00:34:17.159
and he tries for paratrooper, but he's too short, he's

535
00:34:17.159 --> 00:34:21.079
too tall, and they notice his show business background and

536
00:34:21.119 --> 00:34:28.840
they stick them in in the morale cores. I I'm

537
00:34:28.880 --> 00:34:32.440
not I don't think I am, you know, as funny

538
00:34:32.599 --> 00:34:37.119
as some of the jokes in Jeepshow. One of the

539
00:34:37.159 --> 00:34:41.079
things about writing about these jeep shows is I get

540
00:34:41.079 --> 00:34:44.320
to write about the actual performance. So you know, I

541
00:34:44.480 --> 00:34:47.880
researched the jokes that Mickey Rooney and Groucho Marx and

542
00:34:48.400 --> 00:34:51.800
you know, standup comedians would tell at the time, and

543
00:34:52.639 --> 00:34:56.039
they're still funny, by the way, So so you know,

544
00:34:56.239 --> 00:34:59.800
I got to put them in. I'm not I'm not

545
00:35:00.159 --> 00:35:06.199
spontaneously funny. Usually I'm and i'm you know, although I'm

546
00:35:06.320 --> 00:35:09.840
very pleased to be here this morning, I'm a bit introverted,

547
00:35:09.880 --> 00:35:14.400
which is, you know, actually a normal characteristic for a writer.

548
00:35:16.760 --> 00:35:21.840
So yeah, there's there's a lot of my outlook in

549
00:35:21.880 --> 00:35:25.880
the book, but it is really based on my research

550
00:35:26.119 --> 00:35:30.119
telling the story. And then you know, my father was

551
00:35:30.320 --> 00:35:33.599
in the army overseas in World War Two. My uncle,

552
00:35:33.639 --> 00:35:36.679
his younger brother, George, was in the Navy in the

553
00:35:36.679 --> 00:35:41.480
Pacific in combat. And so there is some i guess

554
00:35:41.639 --> 00:35:46.280
unconscious drive I had for writing this book to understand

555
00:35:46.320 --> 00:35:48.519
a little bit more about what it was like for them,

556
00:35:48.639 --> 00:35:52.719
because my father never talked to or my uncle George,

557
00:35:52.760 --> 00:35:56.599
never talked about their experiences, and you know, I was

558
00:35:56.760 --> 00:36:01.360
too young and too self centered to ask them, you know.

559
00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:06.119
You know, one of my lessons I would tell you know,

560
00:36:06.239 --> 00:36:12.199
any middle aged person is ask your parents the question.

561
00:36:12.360 --> 00:36:15.320
You know, stop and ask your parents questions about their life,

562
00:36:15.320 --> 00:36:19.280
because you're gonna have questions and if they're gone, there'll

563
00:36:19.320 --> 00:36:23.280
be nobody to answer them. So this was a way

564
00:36:23.360 --> 00:36:26.280
perhaps for me to try to get some answers about

565
00:36:26.320 --> 00:36:28.480
what it had been like for my dad and what

566
00:36:28.519 --> 00:36:31.719
it had been like for my uncle in their service,

567
00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:36.559
and they were just kids, like so many soldiers on

568
00:36:36.639 --> 00:36:40.079
all sides, you know, on all sides of the war,

569
00:36:40.760 --> 00:36:44.280
they were just kids and they were put into such

570
00:36:44.400 --> 00:36:49.920
extreme circumstances. One example of kind of trying to understand

571
00:36:50.559 --> 00:36:53.679
my dad's experience is there's a chapter in the book

572
00:36:53.679 --> 00:36:57.039
where the protagonist, along with Mickey Rooney, is shipped to

573
00:36:57.199 --> 00:36:59.239
Europe on the Queen Mary.

574
00:37:00.079 --> 00:37:00.480
They had.

575
00:37:00.519 --> 00:37:03.159
The British turned the Queen Mary into a troop ship

576
00:37:04.039 --> 00:37:07.360
during the war, and in peacetime, the Queen Mary carried

577
00:37:07.400 --> 00:37:10.840
twenty three hundred passengers. During the war, it carried sixteen

578
00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:15.119
thousand gis over to I think they usually landed in

579
00:37:15.119 --> 00:37:19.679
Scotland because the the Queen Mary was so big, but

580
00:37:20.119 --> 00:37:23.199
carried sixteen thousand and one of those was my dad

581
00:37:23.599 --> 00:37:29.440
in nineteen forty three. So by researching what that voyage

582
00:37:29.480 --> 00:37:34.519
was like for the soldiers, I got to understand something

583
00:37:34.639 --> 00:37:37.440
my dad had been through, and it made me feel

584
00:37:37.880 --> 00:37:42.559
closer to them, you know. They couple of examples they

585
00:37:42.599 --> 00:37:46.199
were put They were put in mostly in cabins that

586
00:37:46.320 --> 00:37:51.719
fit two tourists and there would be eighteen soldiers put

587
00:37:51.760 --> 00:37:55.960
in that cabin. In these bunk beds, isn't the right term?

588
00:37:56.000 --> 00:37:59.320
What's the term for beds that are six six beds

589
00:37:59.519 --> 00:38:02.480
high where the guy on the top, his nose is

590
00:38:02.559 --> 00:38:05.880
literally about three inches from the pipes above him.

591
00:38:06.679 --> 00:38:09.079
Well, I think that brings new meaning to the phrase

592
00:38:09.199 --> 00:38:10.760
packed in there like sardines.

593
00:38:10.880 --> 00:38:11.960
Oh absolutely.

594
00:38:12.079 --> 00:38:15.039
And most of these cabins were below the water line.

595
00:38:15.519 --> 00:38:20.840
So you've got you know, eight yeah, claustrophobia. You've got

596
00:38:20.880 --> 00:38:25.400
eighteen young men. They're not getting showers every day. They're smoking,

597
00:38:25.679 --> 00:38:28.519
of course, because they were given a carton of lucky

598
00:38:28.519 --> 00:38:31.079
strikes or camels on the way on the way up

599
00:38:31.119 --> 00:38:35.920
the gangplank. So the protagonist has to escape from time

600
00:38:35.960 --> 00:38:38.719
to time to what's called the weather deck, you know,

601
00:38:38.880 --> 00:38:41.639
the exposed deck, just to just to be able to

602
00:38:41.679 --> 00:38:45.000
breathe after a while. Made me think of my made

603
00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:47.079
me think of my dad. And they got fed twice

604
00:38:47.119 --> 00:38:51.519
a day. They probably wait in line for about an

605
00:38:51.559 --> 00:38:56.199
hour to be fed. They were all fed English army food,

606
00:38:56.719 --> 00:39:01.880
which took some adjusting, bully beef. There was no coffee

607
00:39:01.920 --> 00:39:05.880
on board, it was tea and they ate a lot

608
00:39:05.920 --> 00:39:10.400
of bully beef and hard boiled eggs, and so anyways,

609
00:39:10.639 --> 00:39:15.039
I really got a kick out of researching that because

610
00:39:15.239 --> 00:39:18.679
I knew my father had experienced that for himself.

611
00:39:19.480 --> 00:39:22.719
Before I forget. I want to ask the question. You know,

612
00:39:22.760 --> 00:39:27.480
we're talking about jeep shows and these are acts that

613
00:39:28.199 --> 00:39:33.079
increased the morale on the front lines. Yeah, did the

614
00:39:33.239 --> 00:39:37.920
movie White Christmas? Was that a jeep show? It?

615
00:39:38.239 --> 00:39:41.400
You know, it's such a good question, and it's funny

616
00:39:41.440 --> 00:39:45.920
because I only stumbled on that movie within the last year.

617
00:39:46.119 --> 00:39:48.039
You know, it's one of the best movies of the

618
00:39:48.079 --> 00:39:49.760
twentieth century all around.

619
00:39:49.760 --> 00:39:50.920
Oh yeah, what they.

620
00:39:51.079 --> 00:39:54.320
They open up with what is very very helpful and

621
00:39:54.440 --> 00:39:57.559
understanding a jeep show, which is, you've got a bunch

622
00:39:57.599 --> 00:40:01.400
of gis that looked about that looked about a company size,

623
00:40:02.519 --> 00:40:05.559
a group maybe a platoon. Platoon was somewhere between seventy

624
00:40:05.559 --> 00:40:09.119
and ninety. So let's say you've got a platoon seated

625
00:40:09.159 --> 00:40:14.280
on the ground and there's two soldiers up there doing

626
00:40:14.280 --> 00:40:19.719
a show where it diverted? Is that show became very Hollywood?

627
00:40:19.880 --> 00:40:22.719
You know, production there was as I recall, you know,

628
00:40:23.840 --> 00:40:26.440
what is it? It's Danny Kay and Bing Crosby two

629
00:40:26.559 --> 00:40:27.920
giant talents.

630
00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:28.440
Oh my god.

631
00:40:28.760 --> 00:40:31.719
And by the way, Danny Kay was an enlisted entertainer.

632
00:40:31.800 --> 00:40:34.280
He was an Mos four four two in World War Two.

633
00:40:34.719 --> 00:40:37.000
So Danny k and Bing Crosby are doing it basically

634
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:39.760
a two man acts, some singing, some dancing, some jokes.

635
00:40:39.960 --> 00:40:43.360
That is a jeep show. Then when you get then

636
00:40:43.400 --> 00:40:46.360
when the chorus comes on and there's fifty gis marching

637
00:40:46.400 --> 00:40:51.360
and singing, that's not a jeep show. That's Hollywood. That yeah,

638
00:40:51.400 --> 00:40:55.320
that's Hollywood. But the setting is absolutely right. And they

639
00:40:55.360 --> 00:40:59.400
were within artillery range. So I am sure that some

640
00:40:59.480 --> 00:41:00.159
jeep show.

641
00:41:00.679 --> 00:41:03.840
They were bombed in the beginning of the movie. Yeah,

642
00:41:03.880 --> 00:41:07.840
and when they were doing their their act, and and

643
00:41:07.880 --> 00:41:10.480
I was thinking about, you know, in your book you're

644
00:41:10.559 --> 00:41:13.800
right with you know what a jeep show is four

645
00:41:13.960 --> 00:41:19.119
forty two. It's it's three personnel. You got your, your, your,

646
00:41:19.599 --> 00:41:22.719
somebody that had plays musical instruments, study the dances, and

647
00:41:23.199 --> 00:41:25.880
then you've got the third person is the jeep driver.

648
00:41:27.079 --> 00:41:32.119
And in White Christmas, those three pieces came out loud

649
00:41:32.159 --> 00:41:32.639
and clear.

650
00:41:33.559 --> 00:41:38.199
Yeah, fascinatingly the drivers and I have this in the book,

651
00:41:39.039 --> 00:41:41.960
as you know, as as most of us know, the

652
00:41:42.119 --> 00:41:45.719
Army was segregated in World War Two. It wasn't until

653
00:41:45.719 --> 00:41:49.400
Harry Truman desegregated the army in forty eight that the

654
00:41:49.559 --> 00:41:55.119
army became you know, desegregated, uh black soldiers. Although there

655
00:41:55.119 --> 00:41:59.000
were some in combat units, not many Black soldiers were

656
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:02.840
put in support units. And in particular they were used

657
00:42:02.880 --> 00:42:07.159
as truck drivers and jeep drivers. So these jeep shows

658
00:42:07.320 --> 00:42:12.079
would be that driver would would often be an African

659
00:42:12.119 --> 00:42:18.840
American soldier, you know, reflecting what life was like back then.

660
00:42:18.960 --> 00:42:20.679
They didn't show that in the movie. By the way,

661
00:42:20.719 --> 00:42:23.960
I want to mention you mentioned Sammy Davis Junior. He

662
00:42:24.079 --> 00:42:27.079
was an unknown in he was too young in the

663
00:42:27.159 --> 00:42:30.800
late thirties. He was an enlisted entertainer. He was an

664
00:42:30.880 --> 00:42:34.119
Mos four four to two and I'm intrigued. I haven't

665
00:42:34.159 --> 00:42:38.920
asked any historians, but he may be the first a

666
00:42:38.960 --> 00:42:42.480
soldier to integrate the United States Army because Sammy Davis

667
00:42:42.519 --> 00:42:45.320
Junior was a black man. He was an MOS four

668
00:42:45.360 --> 00:42:49.159
four to two entertainment specialist and he did jeep shows

669
00:42:49.199 --> 00:42:51.559
and so he was doing you know, he was in

670
00:42:51.599 --> 00:42:55.440
a squad with white soldiers doing jeep shows, so that

671
00:42:55.840 --> 00:42:58.199
he may have been the first soldier to integrate the

672
00:42:58.320 --> 00:43:01.880
US Army to add to add to his already you know,

673
00:43:02.079 --> 00:43:05.159
legendary status. Quite a guy, quite a guy.

674
00:43:06.039 --> 00:43:08.559
Explain what MOS stands for?

675
00:43:08.880 --> 00:43:14.480
Yes, Military occupation Specialty. So, okay, the day after, and

676
00:43:14.559 --> 00:43:16.599
I'm sure they this is still done. But you know,

677
00:43:16.679 --> 00:43:21.679
the day after the citizens soldiers you know, arrived at

678
00:43:21.840 --> 00:43:24.559
what was called reception camp. You know, they literally arrived

679
00:43:24.599 --> 00:43:28.719
in their civilian clothes and got haircuts and injections and

680
00:43:28.760 --> 00:43:31.320
all that. The very next day you would take a

681
00:43:31.360 --> 00:43:35.679
long you'd answer a long quiz about your experience, and

682
00:43:35.800 --> 00:43:39.639
the army would use that to decide where they wanted

683
00:43:39.679 --> 00:43:44.000
to deploy you. So if you had you know, if

684
00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:47.000
you were a plumber that was your life experience, the

685
00:43:47.480 --> 00:43:50.199
army may have put you in a mechanics type job.

686
00:43:51.280 --> 00:43:53.599
If you as we know from the book and this,

687
00:43:53.920 --> 00:43:57.760
if you had some entertainment background, the army might have

688
00:43:57.840 --> 00:44:02.000
put you in the morale corps to you know, to

689
00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:06.880
to entertain soldiers. So so that's that's military occupation specially

690
00:44:06.960 --> 00:44:10.480
came from the army putting you where they thought they

691
00:44:10.519 --> 00:44:14.119
needed you. And you know, if you were a baker, uh,

692
00:44:14.360 --> 00:44:16.400
you know, and there were already the army already had

693
00:44:16.519 --> 00:44:23.000
enough bakers. They put you in the infantry. Muh, the army.

694
00:44:23.039 --> 00:44:25.199
You know, you would go where the army thought they

695
00:44:25.239 --> 00:44:28.679
needed you. But they did find they did find out

696
00:44:28.800 --> 00:44:30.119
what you had done before.

697
00:44:31.079 --> 00:44:34.440
Yeah, yeah, which which is smart because I mean, why

698
00:44:34.519 --> 00:44:37.000
teach somebody that doesn't know how to bake and yet

699
00:44:37.039 --> 00:44:39.039
you got to feed the troops.

700
00:44:38.840 --> 00:44:40.800
Exactly makes it exactly a.

701
00:44:40.760 --> 00:44:47.119
Lot of sense. I was thinking, you know, about your story,

702
00:44:47.840 --> 00:44:50.440
and I think maybe this is a really good time

703
00:44:50.519 --> 00:44:53.679
to get you know, we got a good foundation as

704
00:44:53.719 --> 00:44:59.280
to what MS for forty two means. Now, let's get

705
00:44:59.280 --> 00:45:04.480
into your book. In the inspiration behind the fictional story

706
00:45:04.679 --> 00:45:13.480
that is woven into historical time frame and facts tell

707
00:45:13.559 --> 00:45:17.440
us a little bit about the character her main character.

708
00:45:19.679 --> 00:45:24.960
The main character, Jim Tanser, despite a fatherhood deferment, a

709
00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:27.960
thirty year old dance instructor, Jim Tanser enlists in the

710
00:45:28.079 --> 00:45:32.519
army in nineteen forty three. Stella, his wife and partner

711
00:45:32.559 --> 00:45:39.320
in their dance act, regrets his choice. She felt somewhat abandoned.

712
00:45:39.920 --> 00:45:43.440
The book has flashbacks to Jim's childhood, including his time

713
00:45:43.519 --> 00:45:47.280
in the Civilian Conservation Corps. A hitch as a circus

714
00:45:47.280 --> 00:45:51.320
clown and his difficulties trying to make it in show

715
00:45:51.360 --> 00:45:55.119
business in New York in the late nineteen thirties, Jim

716
00:45:55.199 --> 00:45:58.079
and Listen goes for paratrooper. He's assigned to the Morale

717
00:45:58.159 --> 00:46:02.280
Corps because of his show business back. After training camp,

718
00:46:02.400 --> 00:46:05.239
he's shipped to the European Theater of Operations and assigned

719
00:46:05.239 --> 00:46:10.440
at jeep shows, which we've talked about. Jim and Mickey

720
00:46:10.480 --> 00:46:15.719
Rooney and do a jeep show right on the German

721
00:46:15.800 --> 00:46:19.760
border on December fifteenth, because by that time the American

722
00:46:19.920 --> 00:46:23.960
Army had pushed to the German border and was kind

723
00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:29.159
of waiting there. They had outrun their supply lines largely,

724
00:46:29.360 --> 00:46:32.320
and so they were kind of put on the German

725
00:46:32.360 --> 00:46:37.679
border for almost rest and recuperation, but also guarding the

726
00:46:37.679 --> 00:46:41.159
German border. So Jim and Mickey Rooney do a jeep

727
00:46:41.199 --> 00:46:47.559
show on the December fifteenth. Something happens in that area

728
00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:51.159
and a soldier needs to be evacuated and takes Jim's

729
00:46:51.639 --> 00:46:54.440
seat on the jeep. Jim is, of course just going

730
00:46:54.519 --> 00:46:56.760
to come back the next day on a supply truck,

731
00:46:56.800 --> 00:46:59.639
but the next day the Germans begin the Battle of

732
00:46:59.679 --> 00:47:02.239
the Boat. So the next day Jim, who is in

733
00:47:02.280 --> 00:47:08.360
a front line position. That position is overrun by German

734
00:47:08.440 --> 00:47:12.480
soldiers and Jim makes his way back, and this is

735
00:47:12.599 --> 00:47:16.239
very historically accurate. The Battle of the Bulge was fought

736
00:47:16.280 --> 00:47:22.400
over about ninety miles of Luxembourg and Belgium border with Germany.

737
00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:26.679
Three German armies attacked, one in the north, one in

738
00:47:26.719 --> 00:47:29.679
the south, and one in the middle. The only one

739
00:47:29.679 --> 00:47:33.519
that made progress because of the resistance of American soldiers

740
00:47:33.519 --> 00:47:36.599
who were caught by surprise. But in the north and

741
00:47:36.639 --> 00:47:41.239
the south, the American soldiers were successful in slowing down

742
00:47:41.360 --> 00:47:44.880
the German armies greatly. The German army in the middle,

743
00:47:45.119 --> 00:47:49.519
which is where Jim Tanzer was, makes tremendous progress for

744
00:47:49.559 --> 00:47:55.280
a few days. So Jim is given a captured German

745
00:47:55.400 --> 00:47:58.800
map on the front lines and told to retreat to

746
00:47:59.039 --> 00:48:04.079
clare Vaux, which regimental headquarters. Jim gets to Claivou clairevo

747
00:48:04.280 --> 00:48:08.000
is then overrun. The next day, Jim has given more materials,

748
00:48:08.039 --> 00:48:12.400
including some letters home, and is told to move west,

749
00:48:13.639 --> 00:48:16.280
and this happens in three or four places where there

750
00:48:16.360 --> 00:48:19.880
were significant battles during the Battle of the Bulk, so

751
00:48:20.599 --> 00:48:25.400
his path the fictional protagonist path is exactly what a

752
00:48:25.559 --> 00:48:30.119
soldier would have taken who was staying one step ahead

753
00:48:30.159 --> 00:48:33.880
of the Germans as they moved west. And then Jim

754
00:48:34.039 --> 00:48:38.920
ends up in Best Stone, made famous by the legendary

755
00:48:38.920 --> 00:48:42.079
one hundred and first Airborne and in our time Band

756
00:48:42.119 --> 00:48:45.960
of Brothers. As you said that excellent miniseries, Jim ends

757
00:48:46.039 --> 00:48:50.840
up in Best Done and as really happened, Jim and

758
00:48:51.039 --> 00:48:57.079
other rear echelon soldiers and survivors of overrun infantry companies

759
00:48:57.239 --> 00:49:01.920
are organized into a fighting unit called Team snaff who

760
00:49:03.079 --> 00:49:06.880
SNAFO of course stands for situation normal all ft up.

761
00:49:07.000 --> 00:49:09.039
This is a family show, so I won't give it,

762
00:49:09.119 --> 00:49:13.599
you know, the complete army treatment, but there and Team

763
00:49:13.639 --> 00:49:17.199
snaffho's job was to support the one hundred and first Airborne.

764
00:49:17.239 --> 00:49:23.360
Airborne divisions have four regiments, and thus the one hundred

765
00:49:23.519 --> 00:49:27.920
first made kind of a square around best Owned to

766
00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:32.400
defend it, and the Snaffho soldiers their job was to

767
00:49:32.440 --> 00:49:36.840
get in the in between these forces and plug holes

768
00:49:36.920 --> 00:49:41.000
as needed. So these rare echelant soldiers again we're talking

769
00:49:41.039 --> 00:49:46.800
about bakers and telephone operators and mechanics and soldiers whose

770
00:49:46.920 --> 00:49:49.960
job was to play in the division band and then

771
00:49:50.039 --> 00:49:54.320
this entertainment. Soldier were organized into a fighting unit, and

772
00:49:54.400 --> 00:49:57.000
of course they had been to basic training, so they

773
00:49:57.079 --> 00:49:59.880
knew how to shoot their M one Grand rifle. But

774
00:50:00.719 --> 00:50:02.840
so the.

775
00:50:02.719 --> 00:50:04.599
Plot follows.

776
00:50:05.760 --> 00:50:11.400
Exactly what what a soldier would have experienced in this situation.

777
00:50:12.079 --> 00:50:14.880
And of course I can call on some historical figures.

778
00:50:16.639 --> 00:50:20.280
General mccauliffe, the famous general who was in charge of

779
00:50:20.320 --> 00:50:24.480
the forces in Bass down well, the protagonist, he ends

780
00:50:24.599 --> 00:50:28.840
up through a subordinate asking uh, the protagonist to put

781
00:50:28.840 --> 00:50:32.000
on a little variety show for the wounded soldiers in

782
00:50:32.079 --> 00:50:35.440
the basements of in beast done because there were many, many,

783
00:50:35.760 --> 00:50:39.199
many wounded and they did not have, you know, sufficient

784
00:50:39.239 --> 00:50:44.079
medical supplies to really treat them. And so you know,

785
00:50:44.159 --> 00:50:49.400
I made up this conversation between mccauliffe and and uh,

786
00:50:50.079 --> 00:50:53.800
the protagonist Jim Tanzer. And McAuliffe is looking at the

787
00:50:53.800 --> 00:50:56.039
the bill for the show, you know, what the acts are,

788
00:50:56.079 --> 00:50:59.039
and he notices a one of the one of the

789
00:50:59.079 --> 00:51:01.559
players as it journal a name, and and he says,

790
00:51:01.599 --> 00:51:05.480
well what about this, this this Willie, And Jim says, well,

791
00:51:06.119 --> 00:51:09.079
he's actually a pow He was He's an American, but

792
00:51:09.400 --> 00:51:12.239
his family moved to Germany in nineteen thirty seven. And

793
00:51:13.039 --> 00:51:16.800
so he's a pow but he's he's very talented at

794
00:51:17.320 --> 00:51:24.440
at singing. And mccauliffe says to him, you know about

795
00:51:24.480 --> 00:51:30.800
the Geneva Convention, don't you private And the protagonist, Jim Tanser, says, yes,

796
00:51:30.880 --> 00:51:33.800
I won't put him on after an animal act. And

797
00:51:33.840 --> 00:51:36.360
that's a that's a bit of an insight joke for

798
00:51:36.679 --> 00:51:41.119
for it, one of the things that vaudeville players never

799
00:51:41.239 --> 00:51:45.599
wanted to do for obvious reasons, was to follow an animal.

800
00:51:45.199 --> 00:51:46.679
Act on stage.

801
00:51:46.760 --> 00:51:51.960
So, uh, the plot follows, you know, very realistic. Uh,

802
00:51:52.760 --> 00:51:55.239
you know, a path that happened during the war. I

803
00:51:55.639 --> 00:52:00.039
took no liberties with history, you know, I did. I

804
00:52:00.079 --> 00:52:04.599
did involve Jim in many, many, many many battles and

805
00:52:04.639 --> 00:52:08.840
then after the war and again this is based on

806
00:52:08.880 --> 00:52:12.360
a real life occurrence. Jim and Mickey Rooney do a

807
00:52:12.440 --> 00:52:18.480
command performance for a Russian one of the large highest

808
00:52:18.559 --> 00:52:22.119
ranking Russian generals and his staff. And this was an

809
00:52:22.159 --> 00:52:25.880
actual event put on by Omar Bradley, the very high

810
00:52:25.960 --> 00:52:30.119
ranking American general, where he had a luncheon for the

811
00:52:30.199 --> 00:52:35.880
Russian general Koniev. And in real life, the inspiration for

812
00:52:35.920 --> 00:52:39.039
the book actually performed there. I failed to mention an

813
00:52:39.079 --> 00:52:44.400
important thing to your audience and to you mark this

814
00:52:44.559 --> 00:52:49.000
real person. His older sister saved every letter he wrote

815
00:52:49.000 --> 00:52:52.960
home from training camp and from Europe in the war,

816
00:52:53.679 --> 00:52:56.880
and I had access to these letters, so I got

817
00:52:57.480 --> 00:52:59.960
you know, I had one hundred and fifty letters primary

818
00:53:00.119 --> 00:53:03.719
sources that showed me exactly what he was going through.

819
00:53:04.199 --> 00:53:06.639
They could get past the censors because they did. They

820
00:53:06.639 --> 00:53:11.719
did censor some things, so I knew that he had

821
00:53:11.760 --> 00:53:15.840
been in this command performance. I also put him as

822
00:53:15.880 --> 00:53:19.960
so many soldiers, including Wally Reets, who you interviewed a

823
00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:22.840
few weeks ago. I also put him in the liberation

824
00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:27.320
of a concentration camp, because that is such an important

825
00:53:27.639 --> 00:53:32.239
part of the story of World War two, is the

826
00:53:32.320 --> 00:53:36.440
liberation by the Americans and the Russians coming from the east.

827
00:53:36.800 --> 00:53:40.159
But the liberations of these concentration camps were which were

828
00:53:40.199 --> 00:53:44.119
at the time called murder camps, which is completely appropriate,

829
00:53:45.159 --> 00:53:50.559
and and I wanted to capture the disbelief and the

830
00:53:50.599 --> 00:53:54.079
shock that these battle hardened soldiers. I mean, they had

831
00:53:54.360 --> 00:53:58.840
they had seen terrible things, but when they got to

832
00:53:58.960 --> 00:54:03.480
the concentration camps, this was they couldn't believe their eyes

833
00:54:04.119 --> 00:54:06.840
they could not believe there. So I wanted to capture that.

834
00:54:07.039 --> 00:54:10.519
So I did put him in the liberation of a

835
00:54:10.599 --> 00:54:14.559
concentration camp, and then I which did not happen in

836
00:54:14.599 --> 00:54:17.519
real life, and then I did put him in occupy

837
00:54:17.719 --> 00:54:20.840
Germany after the war because you know, we had I

838
00:54:20.880 --> 00:54:23.880
don't know, something like nine million men in Europe and

839
00:54:24.039 --> 00:54:27.079
the war ended and we didn't have enough transport to

840
00:54:27.519 --> 00:54:30.679
bring the men home very quickly, and we had to

841
00:54:30.719 --> 00:54:35.599
occupy Germany, so many many soldiers ended up in Germany

842
00:54:35.719 --> 00:54:39.039
for a year even longer after the war ended, and

843
00:54:39.119 --> 00:54:42.639
I wanted to show that what that experience would have

844
00:54:42.760 --> 00:54:45.880
been like because Germany, you know, I have him in Berlin,

845
00:54:46.039 --> 00:54:50.280
and Berlin has been you know, bombed to rubble pretty

846
00:54:50.320 --> 00:54:53.719
much by first the Americans and then the then the Russians.

847
00:54:53.760 --> 00:55:00.559
So I'm following historical facts, but I'm involving, you know,

848
00:55:00.920 --> 00:55:05.400
one man at the center of them all. And that's

849
00:55:05.440 --> 00:55:07.400
you know, that's what you can do with fiction. And

850
00:55:07.639 --> 00:55:10.760
I should say, you know, I decided I wanted to

851
00:55:10.800 --> 00:55:14.000
write fiction because I just, first of all, wanted to

852
00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:17.239
see if I could, and second of all, I wanted

853
00:55:17.239 --> 00:55:19.719
to tell there are people that I want to.

854
00:55:19.639 --> 00:55:20.559
Read this story.

855
00:55:20.679 --> 00:55:24.480
Who will not read historical nonfiction about World War Two?

856
00:55:24.519 --> 00:55:27.639
You know, they're just they just prefer a story. And

857
00:55:27.719 --> 00:55:30.880
so what I have tried to do is capture in

858
00:55:30.960 --> 00:55:34.559
an interesting story factually what it was like to be

859
00:55:34.639 --> 00:55:37.679
in the army, you know, in nineteen forty four, what

860
00:55:37.760 --> 00:55:40.599
it was like to be frontline combat, what it was

861
00:55:40.719 --> 00:55:43.719
like to liberate a murder camp, what it was like

862
00:55:43.800 --> 00:55:46.800
to be in Germany post war Germany, and really just

863
00:55:46.840 --> 00:55:50.079
wanting to get home as fast as you could. And

864
00:55:50.599 --> 00:55:52.880
you know, I think I've I think I've captured that

865
00:55:53.039 --> 00:55:55.679
in a in an interesting story, or I hope I have.

866
00:55:55.840 --> 00:55:59.679
Mark, will you I can say firsthand that you have.

867
00:56:00.239 --> 00:56:02.880
I did read the story, and it's a fascinating read,

868
00:56:03.400 --> 00:56:09.000
very fascinating. And the thing I like about it is

869
00:56:09.039 --> 00:56:13.280
that there's enough historical facts and really what was going

870
00:56:13.320 --> 00:56:18.000
on you captured, I mean, just even the vocabulary of

871
00:56:18.079 --> 00:56:21.840
that day. You've captured that in the story to make it,

872
00:56:22.440 --> 00:56:25.559
you know, which is what helps make it real. Yeah,

873
00:56:25.960 --> 00:56:30.920
I And a lot of times in fictional stories, you know,

874
00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:35.400
the author is sometimes using the language of today rather

875
00:56:35.480 --> 00:56:37.280
than the language of that day.

876
00:56:37.960 --> 00:56:40.239
Right, it's very important. I have a note in the

877
00:56:40.280 --> 00:56:43.360
forward to the book. You know, I use words that

878
00:56:43.440 --> 00:56:48.199
Americans use to describe black people, or Italian Americans, or

879
00:56:48.239 --> 00:56:51.960
Polish Americans or Irish Americans. You know, I use the

880
00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:55.280
words that people used at the time. They are offensive

881
00:56:56.119 --> 00:57:00.000
in twenty twenty five. So I wanted my readers to understand.

882
00:57:00.000 --> 00:57:02.880
And I'm using this because I want them to hear

883
00:57:02.960 --> 00:57:06.960
how people talked and people did talk that way. Also,

884
00:57:07.639 --> 00:57:09.559
you may get a kick out of this speaking of

885
00:57:09.760 --> 00:57:10.800
you know, older movies.

886
00:57:10.800 --> 00:57:12.239
We were talking about White Christmas.

887
00:57:12.480 --> 00:57:15.880
I watched several movies from the late thirties to pick

888
00:57:15.960 --> 00:57:19.639
up on slang and how people talked. And then I

889
00:57:19.719 --> 00:57:25.360
read several great detective stories, The Maltese Falcon and The

890
00:57:25.400 --> 00:57:27.960
Big Sleep that were written in the late thirties, just

891
00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:32.199
to pick up this over the top dialect and slang.

892
00:57:32.920 --> 00:57:36.440
And I put in a fair amount of slang and

893
00:57:36.559 --> 00:57:39.880
dialect when you're when the English characters are talking, you're

894
00:57:39.920 --> 00:57:43.800
getting English accents. But you have to be you have

895
00:57:43.880 --> 00:57:46.440
to be judicial. I wanted to put that in for realism,

896
00:57:46.480 --> 00:57:49.400
but you have to be judicious because if you put

897
00:57:49.440 --> 00:57:52.239
in too much slang or too much English, you know,

898
00:57:52.320 --> 00:57:58.000
British dialect or German dialect. The readers have a struggle

899
00:57:58.039 --> 00:57:59.880
through it, you know, they it takes them out of

900
00:58:00.119 --> 00:58:03.159
the story. And when you're trying to tell a story.

901
00:58:03.440 --> 00:58:06.280
You don't want the reader to be in, you know,

902
00:58:06.519 --> 00:58:07.079
you don't.

903
00:58:06.920 --> 00:58:08.679
Want to read to be taken out of the story.

904
00:58:08.719 --> 00:58:11.559
You want to just keep stringing them along and stringing

905
00:58:11.599 --> 00:58:14.239
them along, you know, so they can't put it down.

906
00:58:15.199 --> 00:58:15.480
Yeah.

907
00:58:15.639 --> 00:58:18.119
Yeah, who should be reading this book?

908
00:58:20.519 --> 00:58:24.199
I would say, first of all, the number one target

909
00:58:24.239 --> 00:58:27.159
audience I thought was people that are interested in World

910
00:58:27.199 --> 00:58:27.599
War Two.

911
00:58:28.800 --> 00:58:29.760
So many.

912
00:58:31.079 --> 00:58:34.280
Mark people our age, you know, as you said, we're

913
00:58:34.320 --> 00:58:37.280
we are losing our World War two veterans, and you

914
00:58:37.280 --> 00:58:41.280
know they're mostly lost because just old age. So many

915
00:58:41.559 --> 00:58:44.719
men and women of our age, you know, boomers, if

916
00:58:44.760 --> 00:58:48.840
you will, mid mid tier boomers. Our fathers served in

917
00:58:48.920 --> 00:58:51.519
World War Two, and thus, you know, we have an

918
00:58:51.559 --> 00:58:54.920
interest in what that was like. So I would say,

919
00:58:55.000 --> 00:58:57.559
first of all, anyone with an interest in World War two,

920
00:58:58.239 --> 00:59:02.880
anyone with an interest in military history. And then perhaps

921
00:59:03.599 --> 00:59:06.880
people that just like a really good yarn because it,

922
00:59:07.119 --> 00:59:09.559
you know, it is a it is a story.

923
00:59:10.400 --> 00:59:17.480
Yeah, because I'm in senior communities all day long, I

924
00:59:17.559 --> 00:59:22.400
think that even seniors would appreciate this book themselves, you know,

925
00:59:23.440 --> 00:59:27.159
you know, eighty year olds, ninety year olds. Because the

926
00:59:27.280 --> 00:59:31.320
thing that I appreciate so much about music or literature

927
00:59:31.760 --> 00:59:35.159
is that it transports us back into time. Yes, and

928
00:59:36.199 --> 00:59:40.639
I think seniors, especially from that era, or we're very

929
00:59:40.760 --> 00:59:45.239
young in the forties, maybe they were born in nineteen thirty,

930
00:59:45.880 --> 00:59:49.880
you know, between nineteen thirty and nineteen forty, would appreciate

931
00:59:49.920 --> 00:59:56.440
this book because they didn't really experience maybe the actual

932
00:59:56.719 --> 01:00:01.039
war on the battlefield, but they were experienced the war

933
01:00:01.559 --> 01:00:04.199
here in the States and all the things that were

934
01:00:04.239 --> 01:00:08.440
going on through their parents' eyes and what they experience.

935
01:00:08.960 --> 01:00:13.000
And so for me, being able to read what you

936
01:00:13.159 --> 01:00:18.519
have written transported me back into the times when my

937
01:00:18.639 --> 01:00:22.280
dad would tell his stories or my grandfather would tell

938
01:00:22.679 --> 01:00:26.280
his stories of being in World War even World War One.

939
01:00:26.840 --> 01:00:31.239
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah, that's a very good thought.

940
01:00:31.400 --> 01:00:34.039
You know, I consider myself a senior. You know, I'm

941
01:00:34.079 --> 01:00:37.920
sixty eight, so you know, I'm right there much to

942
01:00:38.000 --> 01:00:39.199
learn from other people.

943
01:00:39.400 --> 01:00:39.559
You know.

944
01:00:39.559 --> 01:00:42.280
I want to touch back on something you said that's

945
01:00:42.360 --> 01:00:46.960
really important and it relates to morale and relates to

946
01:00:47.000 --> 01:00:49.880
these jeep shows. You know, there was quite a lot

947
01:00:49.880 --> 01:00:53.519
of humor in these jeep shows, whether you know, impromptu,

948
01:00:53.880 --> 01:01:00.199
you know, jokes, impressions. To me, humor is such an

949
01:01:00.239 --> 01:01:06.119
important part of keeping up one's spirits of morale because

950
01:01:06.639 --> 01:01:10.280
you know, at any age, you know, awkward teenage years

951
01:01:10.639 --> 01:01:14.639
or senior years, where we're having to you know, surrender

952
01:01:14.679 --> 01:01:19.880
many of the gifts we've been given because life, life

953
01:01:19.880 --> 01:01:25.159
has its ridiculous components, and you know, we each as

954
01:01:25.280 --> 01:01:29.960
human beings, have our ridiculous things we've done. And part

955
01:01:30.079 --> 01:01:34.440
of humor is being able to laugh at ourselves. And

956
01:01:34.519 --> 01:01:38.000
laugh at life is so important because if we don't

957
01:01:38.079 --> 01:01:41.320
laugh at ourselves, we tend to get ashamed of things

958
01:01:41.360 --> 01:01:44.239
we've done, you know, stupid things we've done. And and

959
01:01:44.400 --> 01:01:46.559
once we get ashamed of things, you know, they become

960
01:01:46.639 --> 01:01:51.840
worse and darker. And laughing at stupid things we've done

961
01:01:52.639 --> 01:01:57.599
or the absurd things about life is also a very

962
01:01:58.719 --> 01:02:01.440
bonding you know, you're saying around with your buddies, you're

963
01:02:01.480 --> 01:02:03.480
sitting around with people at the lank and you know,

964
01:02:03.599 --> 01:02:09.599
laughing at something absurd is a very supportive bonding experience.

965
01:02:09.679 --> 01:02:12.679
So I don't want to discount the importance of the

966
01:02:12.760 --> 01:02:16.840
humor and the jeep shows and the importance of humor

967
01:02:17.119 --> 01:02:23.519
to these frontline soldiers. Probably some of your audience will

968
01:02:23.679 --> 01:02:29.000
remember or know of the cartoons that were published in

969
01:02:29.079 --> 01:02:33.079
Stars and Stripes. They were called Willy and Joe, and

970
01:02:33.199 --> 01:02:36.960
this was done by an enlisted, a sergeant named Bill Malden,

971
01:02:37.039 --> 01:02:40.039
and Bill Malden ended up being a Pulitzer Prize winning

972
01:02:40.559 --> 01:02:46.159
editorial cartoonist. He developed two infantry men characters in World

973
01:02:46.239 --> 01:02:51.119
War Two called Willy and Joe, and they encapsulated the

974
01:02:51.159 --> 01:02:59.559
citizens soldier experience. They were usually unshaven, they were usually

975
01:03:00.800 --> 01:03:03.719
a mess, you know, their uniforms were covered with dirt,

976
01:03:04.280 --> 01:03:07.480
they were usually smoking, and they had a very skeptical

977
01:03:07.519 --> 01:03:13.119
attitude towards their officers. And these these cartoons were published

978
01:03:13.119 --> 01:03:17.840
in Stars and Stripes and beloved of enlisted men, and

979
01:03:17.960 --> 01:03:21.920
some of the generals, and particularly General Patton, were outraged

980
01:03:21.960 --> 01:03:25.960
by these cartoons because he thought they, you know, undermined discipline.

981
01:03:26.320 --> 01:03:30.159
But they didn't. They just captured the spirit of the

982
01:03:30.199 --> 01:03:34.719
citizen soldier. And I hung over these cartoons as I

983
01:03:34.840 --> 01:03:40.760
was researching the book because they really communicated to me that,

984
01:03:41.559 --> 01:03:48.400
you know, classic American citizens soldier mentality, and that made

985
01:03:48.440 --> 01:03:51.559
the American forces unique because you know, the British, you know,

986
01:03:52.239 --> 01:03:56.320
fine army and gallant, they had their class system, you know,

987
01:03:56.400 --> 01:03:59.719
they had The British have this class system and aristocracy

988
01:03:59.760 --> 01:04:03.119
that really made their army a different thing. The German

989
01:04:03.239 --> 01:04:07.239
army was very much until the end professional soldiers, not

990
01:04:07.480 --> 01:04:10.239
and of course not citizen soldiers, because that, you know,

991
01:04:10.840 --> 01:04:15.559
the Germany was a dictatorship. The Japanese army was almost

992
01:04:15.679 --> 01:04:21.599
medieval in its you know, devotion to their officers and

993
01:04:21.679 --> 01:04:25.960
their willingness to do terrible things to other people but

994
01:04:26.039 --> 01:04:30.559
also to endure terrible things themselves. The American army, I found,

995
01:04:30.639 --> 01:04:35.079
was completely unique in this way, and it was completely

996
01:04:35.119 --> 01:04:40.400
embodied by these irreverent cartoons that ran in Stars and Stripes,

997
01:04:40.440 --> 01:04:45.440
the newspaper of our military. So that to me, if

998
01:04:45.480 --> 01:04:49.599
anyone wants to look up Willie and Joe and see

999
01:04:49.639 --> 01:04:52.840
some of these cartoons, it's just it's absolutely wonderful.

1000
01:04:53.760 --> 01:04:57.079
Well, I think the correlation is so similar today. I mean,

1001
01:04:57.119 --> 01:05:00.239
we may not think of ourselves in a war, but

1002
01:05:00.280 --> 01:05:03.559
I think our culture was is still I think it

1003
01:05:03.760 --> 01:05:07.159
was in a war over the last four years in particular,

1004
01:05:07.199 --> 01:05:10.039
but over maybe the last ten to twenty years, where

1005
01:05:10.039 --> 01:05:14.760
our culture has changed, and where we've taken, you know,

1006
01:05:14.880 --> 01:05:19.039
humor out of our society, out of our culture, We've

1007
01:05:19.119 --> 01:05:23.360
censored it and that's scary. I mean, think about all

1008
01:05:23.400 --> 01:05:28.440
throughout history, even in the courts, and you know, if

1009
01:05:28.480 --> 01:05:31.639
you go back into time in the king's court, they

1010
01:05:31.679 --> 01:05:35.840
had a gester and the gesterre was allowed to tell

1011
01:05:36.280 --> 01:05:41.880
jokes about the king. Well, you knew how the society

1012
01:05:42.079 --> 01:05:45.239
was moving when the gesture was allowed to tell the

1013
01:05:45.280 --> 01:05:47.760
stories and make fun of the king. But when the

1014
01:05:47.840 --> 01:05:50.639
kings no longer thought it was funny, then became more

1015
01:05:50.679 --> 01:05:54.079
of a dictatorship and the jester's head was cut off.

1016
01:05:54.360 --> 01:05:57.400
And that's exactly what we've done over the last especially

1017
01:05:57.480 --> 01:06:00.719
the last Foard to you know, ten years yours is

1018
01:06:00.840 --> 01:06:04.400
we've cut the gester's head off and I'm hoping that

1019
01:06:04.719 --> 01:06:08.519
and even in World War Two, they allowed the gester

1020
01:06:08.639 --> 01:06:11.360
to go onto the front lines, right, and they knew

1021
01:06:11.400 --> 01:06:15.360
how important humor was to lift up our morale. And

1022
01:06:15.800 --> 01:06:18.119
hopefully we're going to get back to that in our

1023
01:06:18.159 --> 01:06:18.960
culture today.

1024
01:06:19.320 --> 01:06:21.639
Yes, And you know, you think back to you know,

1025
01:06:21.719 --> 01:06:24.199
the gester and the role of the fool, where the

1026
01:06:24.280 --> 01:06:27.880
capital left the fool in shakes. Some of Shakespeare's plays.

1027
01:06:28.440 --> 01:06:32.320
It's very important because the fool, the gester, is the

1028
01:06:32.360 --> 01:06:35.480
only one that can safely tell the king he's full

1029
01:06:35.519 --> 01:06:38.920
of crap. You know, he's not wearing any clothes, and

1030
01:06:39.039 --> 01:06:40.480
the king needs to know that.

1031
01:06:41.000 --> 01:06:42.239
The king needs to know that.

1032
01:06:43.440 --> 01:06:46.559
And yes, you're right if we don't have that now,

1033
01:06:47.239 --> 01:06:52.880
because we're so divided that, you know, if we're you know,

1034
01:06:53.079 --> 01:06:56.039
very much on the right, you know, well, we don't

1035
01:06:56.039 --> 01:06:58.360
think Saturday Night Live is funny, even though they have

1036
01:06:58.440 --> 01:07:00.760
a message for us. If we're very much on the left,

1037
01:07:01.400 --> 01:07:03.719
we don't think Fox News is fine. You know, we

1038
01:07:04.719 --> 01:07:08.199
are not getting as you say, I hadn't thought about this, Mark,

1039
01:07:08.840 --> 01:07:13.719
but we're not getting those messages that humor can provide

1040
01:07:13.880 --> 01:07:18.639
in a way that's not so confrontational. And yet, now

1041
01:07:18.679 --> 01:07:22.360
that we talk about it, these Willie and Joe cartoons

1042
01:07:22.480 --> 01:07:30.360
showing the experience, the humorous and somewhat skeptical experience of

1043
01:07:30.480 --> 01:07:34.880
the common soldier of the infantryment, we're very important in

1044
01:07:35.000 --> 01:07:40.760
portraying to the officers and the high level politicians what

1045
01:07:40.800 --> 01:07:43.159
it was really like, what it was really like on

1046
01:07:43.199 --> 01:07:43.599
the ground.

1047
01:07:43.760 --> 01:07:48.039
Really good point, Mak, Yeah, yeah, well, there's nothing humorous

1048
01:07:48.079 --> 01:07:52.639
about war. Right, But humor can play a role in

1049
01:07:52.719 --> 01:07:55.440
the time of war to lift all of our morale.

1050
01:07:55.920 --> 01:08:00.239
And you know, I think war's come in and go,

1051
01:08:00.400 --> 01:08:04.320
they change in how they look. And I think that

1052
01:08:04.800 --> 01:08:09.360
definitely our culture has been through war. Hopefully we're coming

1053
01:08:09.440 --> 01:08:12.559
out of that, and who knows where it's going to lead,

1054
01:08:13.199 --> 01:08:16.479
But you know, I just I hope that we can

1055
01:08:16.520 --> 01:08:22.159
get back to to appreciating the value of humor in

1056
01:08:22.239 --> 01:08:26.279
our lives. And you know, let's not take ourselves so seriously.

1057
01:08:26.960 --> 01:08:29.159
There's a lot of things that are funny about me

1058
01:08:30.199 --> 01:08:33.800
that right, right, you know that I have to laugh

1059
01:08:33.840 --> 01:08:35.880
at myself. And if you can laugh at yourself, I

1060
01:08:35.880 --> 01:08:37.359
think that's a really good place to be.

1061
01:08:38.319 --> 01:08:40.279
I couldn't agree more. Humor.

1062
01:08:40.479 --> 01:08:44.920
Humor and finding the lighter side of life, I think

1063
01:08:45.039 --> 01:08:46.880
is a fundamental survival tool.

1064
01:08:47.960 --> 01:08:51.199
Yeah. Absolutely, And you've captured that on the pages of

1065
01:08:51.319 --> 01:08:51.920
G Show.

1066
01:08:52.520 --> 01:08:53.399
Thank you, And.

1067
01:08:54.840 --> 01:08:58.000
I encourage every one of our listeners to get out

1068
01:08:58.000 --> 01:09:01.359
there and to purchase the book. What's the best way

1069
01:09:01.399 --> 01:09:03.119
for someone to acquire it?

1070
01:09:03.560 --> 01:09:06.399
Yeah, And let me add one other thing about.

1071
01:09:06.119 --> 01:09:08.680
Our veterans and then also, do you have a website?

1072
01:09:08.800 --> 01:09:10.640
You know, I do want people to know where they

1073
01:09:10.680 --> 01:09:14.359
can go because I found your website actually, especially under

1074
01:09:14.359 --> 01:09:17.439
the column I think it was events. Yeah, there was

1075
01:09:17.479 --> 01:09:20.359
all kinds of pictures and maps, you know, where you

1076
01:09:20.359 --> 01:09:23.760
could trace the character throughout. I thought that was fascinating.

1077
01:09:23.960 --> 01:09:27.560
Yes, first, I want to say that I'm giving a

1078
01:09:27.680 --> 01:09:32.640
dollar per copy sold to an organization that helps veterans

1079
01:09:33.279 --> 01:09:37.279
going through troubled times called Shields and Stripes Veterans and

1080
01:09:37.319 --> 01:09:40.479
First Responders. And I wanted to do that because in

1081
01:09:40.520 --> 01:09:43.840
this process it made me think about my dad's service,

1082
01:09:43.840 --> 01:09:46.159
but it made me think about all our veterans quite

1083
01:09:46.199 --> 01:09:50.119
a bit. So, and I did joke with the people

1084
01:09:50.159 --> 01:09:52.760
at Shields and Stripes and I said, you know, I'm

1085
01:09:52.760 --> 01:09:55.520
going to give you a dollar per copy sold. I

1086
01:09:55.520 --> 01:09:58.600
would give you all the profits from the sales of

1087
01:09:58.640 --> 01:10:01.399
the book, but a dollar per copy will be way, way,

1088
01:10:01.520 --> 01:10:06.439
way more money. So the book is available on Amazon

1089
01:10:06.600 --> 01:10:10.319
just entered Jeepshow Book in the search box, or on

1090
01:10:11.039 --> 01:10:15.359
bookshop dot Org. If you don't like Amazon, it's available

1091
01:10:15.600 --> 01:10:19.000
in an audiobook. And by the way, I will tell

1092
01:10:19.039 --> 01:10:21.760
you if you write a book mark. If you write

1093
01:10:21.760 --> 01:10:24.720
a book and you want to catch all the typos

1094
01:10:24.800 --> 01:10:28.079
that you made, you hire an actor to read the

1095
01:10:28.079 --> 01:10:30.359
book for an audiobook and you sit in the studio

1096
01:10:30.479 --> 01:10:33.199
with him, because every three pages he stops, he looks

1097
01:10:33.279 --> 01:10:36.199
up at me and he says, did you mean did

1098
01:10:36.279 --> 01:10:38.960
you mean to say this? Did you mean to repeat

1099
01:10:39.000 --> 01:10:42.600
this word three times on this line? So it's available

1100
01:10:42.600 --> 01:10:45.079
in an audiobook, it's available at as an ebook and

1101
01:10:45.119 --> 01:10:50.920
of course as a printed book. The website is jeepshowbook

1102
01:10:51.039 --> 01:10:55.319
dot com. And you know, I reference this column, this

1103
01:10:55.479 --> 01:10:59.680
fictional column from the war correspondent looking back on the

1104
01:10:59.720 --> 01:11:03.039
war with some regrets and some great pride in the

1105
01:11:03.079 --> 01:11:05.239
American soldiers.

1106
01:11:05.640 --> 01:11:06.640
It was I had.

1107
01:11:06.840 --> 01:11:08.439
I had put it at the end of the book,

1108
01:11:08.479 --> 01:11:11.880
but my editor made me take it out because she said,

1109
01:11:11.920 --> 01:11:15.199
even though it's great, the book has to end with

1110
01:11:15.319 --> 01:11:18.399
your main character. You know, the book shouldn't end with

1111
01:11:18.560 --> 01:11:24.439
this very interesting column looking back. So I couldn't bear

1112
01:11:24.520 --> 01:11:26.720
to part with it. So I put it on the website,

1113
01:11:26.720 --> 01:11:29.359
and I want to recommend that it gives a good

1114
01:11:29.439 --> 01:11:32.640
overview of how someone on the spot would think about

1115
01:11:32.680 --> 01:11:36.159
the war in nineteen forty six. So that's how the

1116
01:11:36.159 --> 01:11:39.119
book is available, and also on the website, I be

1117
01:11:39.159 --> 01:11:42.199
able to get comments from any of your listeners or questions,

1118
01:11:42.600 --> 01:11:45.319
and I would love to have questions or comments. So

1119
01:11:45.560 --> 01:11:48.319
that's also another reason to go to the website, which

1120
01:11:48.359 --> 01:11:52.600
is again Jeepshow book dot com.

1121
01:11:53.920 --> 01:11:57.560
All right, what a fascinating conversation, what a fascinating book.

1122
01:11:58.880 --> 01:12:04.279
You're an intriguing individual. There's just so many more things

1123
01:12:04.319 --> 01:12:08.279
beneath the surface, and you can see your personality coming

1124
01:12:08.279 --> 01:12:10.960
out in the book. So I highly highly appreciated that

1125
01:12:11.119 --> 01:12:14.119
and encourage all of our listeners to go out there

1126
01:12:14.159 --> 01:12:19.520
and purchase a Jeep Show and it will transport you

1127
01:12:19.600 --> 01:12:23.000
back into time. It will transport you back into the

1128
01:12:23.119 --> 01:12:26.119
nineteen forties and during the war and what it must

1129
01:12:26.199 --> 01:12:29.800
have felt like through maybe even though it was a

1130
01:12:29.800 --> 01:12:34.119
fictional character, it will transport you to actually know what

1131
01:12:34.159 --> 01:12:36.600
it was like to live back then in war.

1132
01:12:38.079 --> 01:12:38.399
Martine.

1133
01:12:38.439 --> 01:12:41.439
So thank you, indeed, you are gracious, indeed, and it's

1134
01:12:41.520 --> 01:12:42.600
really been a privilege.

1135
01:12:42.960 --> 01:12:46.439
Thanks thank you Robert O'Connor for being on Aging Today.

1136
01:12:46.479 --> 01:12:50.800
We truly appreciate it. And this is Mark Turnbul your host,

1137
01:12:50.800 --> 01:12:52.840
and I want to thank all of you for tuning

1138
01:12:52.880 --> 01:12:56.439
into Aging Today. We are the podcast where together we're

1139
01:12:56.479 --> 01:13:00.560
exploring the many options to aging on your terms. Join

1140
01:13:00.640 --> 01:13:03.840
us every Monday when we release a new conversation on

1141
01:13:03.960 --> 01:13:07.720
Aging Today to your favorite podcast channel, and remember this,

1142
01:13:08.439 --> 01:13:11.279
We're all in the process of aging, and as we age,

1143
01:13:11.560 --> 01:13:14.880
we really are better together. So stay young at heart.

1144
01:13:16.000 --> 01:13:17.479
You make me feel so young.

1145
01:13:19.119 --> 01:13:22.720
He made me feel like spring as from and every

1146
01:13:22.760 --> 01:13:28.000
time I see your face, I'm such a happy individual.

1147
01:13:28.520 --> 01:13:32.800
The moment that she speak, I want to go play

1148
01:13:32.960 --> 01:13:36.600
hide and see. I want to go and bounce the

1149
01:13:36.720 --> 01:13:43.640
moon just like toy balloon. Well you and I I'll

1150
01:13:44.039 --> 01:13:50.159
just like couple of times running cross the middle. They

1151
01:13:50.399 --> 01:13:54.039
get up lots of agat midnight. So you made me

1152
01:13:54.119 --> 01:13:58.159
feel so young. He made me feel there are songs

1153
01:13:58.199 --> 01:14:02.239
to me. Sound you run and under the things to

1154
01:14:02.399 --> 01:14:03.279
be fun.

1155
01:14:04.560 --> 01:14:06.399
And even when I'm olding gray.

1156
01:14:06.560 --> 01:14:10.399
You've been listening to Aging Today, where together we explore

1157
01:14:10.439 --> 01:14:14.000
the options to aging on your terms. Join Mark and

1158
01:14:14.039 --> 01:14:17.840
his guest next week for another lively discussion on proactively

1159
01:14:18.239 --> 01:14:22.159
aging on your terms, connecting you to the professional advice

1160
01:14:22.399 --> 01:14:25.399
of his special guests with the goal of creating better

1161
01:14:25.479 --> 01:14:29.680
days throughout the aging process. Your host has been Mark Turnbull.

1162
01:14:30.159 --> 01:14:32.800
Join Mark and his guests every week on Aging Today,

1163
01:14:33.159 --> 01:14:37.600
your podcast to exploring your options for aging on your terms.

1164
01:14:37.600 --> 01:14:38.399
And even when.

1165
01:14:38.359 --> 01:14:44.920
Old gray, you make me feel happy today goes.

1166
01:14:45.359 --> 01:14:50.520
You make me feel so you make me feel so

1167
01:14:51.720 --> 01:14:57.760
You make me feel so yung, so yung.

1168
01:14:59.479 --> 01:15:03.039
You make me feels so young, You make.

1169
01:15:02.920 --> 01:15:03.960
Your feel so young.

1170
01:15:07.920 --> 01:15:07.960
M