Speaker 1: Pushkin. I'm Malcolm Glawell and this is Medal of Honor.
Speaker 1: Stories of Courage our podcast about the heroes who have
Speaker 1: won America's highest military decoration. In the last episode, we
Speaker 1: met Tyber Rubin, or Ted as he renamed himself. Born
Speaker 1: in Hungary, he survived a Nazi concentration camp when he
Speaker 1: was just a teen. He was liberated by American gis
Speaker 1: and made a vow that someday, God willing, he would
Speaker 1: become one of them, and he did. He joined the
Speaker 1: US Army and was sent to Korea. When we last
Speaker 1: saw him there, he had held off an entire enemy
Speaker 1: force by himself at night. He survived, but he was
Speaker 1: horrified by what he had done. He hadn't gone to
Speaker 1: the army to kill people, he wanted to say of them.
Speaker 1: But on the day after Ted's one man stand, his
Speaker 1: commanding officer surveyed the scene. He knew that Ted's battle
Speaker 1: was more than just a bloodbath. He hadn't only safeguarded
Speaker 1: a valuable cache of weapons. He had kept the enemy
Speaker 1: from reaching the main and only road, the one that
Speaker 1: led directly to the US troops. Yes, he had taken lives,
Speaker 1: but he had saved countless more.
Speaker 2: I kept down town. I say, hey, Hevvy, if you
Speaker 2: don't kill them, you're gonna get killed. Not only you
Speaker 2: get killed, your friend said. Everybody said, that's what it shall.
Speaker 1: The CEO thought he deserved the Medal of Honor, but
Speaker 1: one thing stood in the way. Ted's supervisory officer, Sergeant A,
Speaker 1: the bigoted man who'd put him in that hopeless position
Speaker 1: on the ridge in the first place. So even though
Speaker 1: the CEO ordered Sergeant A to write up the paperwork
Speaker 1: to recommend Ted for the Medal of Honor, Sergeant A
Speaker 1: never did. He wasn't going to see a Jewish soldier
Speaker 1: get that kind of recognition, Not on my watch, he said.
Speaker 1: And Ted kept getting sent into the worst imaginable situations.
Speaker 1: Sergeant A made sure of that.
Speaker 2: Every time he needed a volunteer, so called valanteer, they
Speaker 2: always called for me. Say get me that fucking sort
Speaker 2: of a bitch having got a jew That was me,
Speaker 2: So perishon. I forget my real name. I figured in
Speaker 2: the corn I said, I'm a bitch ruck it's me.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: I was only twenty year old.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It became clear to everyone that Sergeant A wouldn't be
Speaker 1: happy until he had gotten Ted killed.
Speaker 2: He actually made a hero out.
Speaker 1: Of me, because every dangerous mission Ted got sent on
Speaker 1: just showcased his bravery, his resourcefulness, and his compassion. Even
Speaker 1: more than that, Ted never lost his optimism, his hope,
Speaker 1: his belief in the goodness of others. He risked his
Speaker 1: life to rescue a fellow soldier, Leonard Ham, from the
Speaker 1: battlefield against Sergeant A's orders. Re saved him. Then Sergeant
Speaker 1: A sent Ted into the forest alone on a deadly
Speaker 1: scouting mission. He zigzagged from tree to tree, trying to
Speaker 1: stay hidden, but suddenly right in front of him were
Speaker 1: three armed North Korean soldiers. Once again Ted was outnumbered,
Speaker 1: but then he noticed something. They were holding a white flag.
Speaker 1: One of them, a lieutenant, asked Ted who he was.
Speaker 1: Ted's mind raised. If they knew he was a private,
Speaker 1: a soldier of minimal importance, they might kill him, so
Speaker 1: he lied. He said he was a commanding officer, a major,
Speaker 1: and he didn't stop there. He told them that North
Speaker 1: Korea had lost the war. Kim Olsung was in Tokyo
Speaker 1: right that very moment, in peace stocks with General MacArthur,
Speaker 1: and that's how he got two full companies of enemy soldiers,
Speaker 1: several hundred men to surrender to him.
Speaker 2: It was a miracle. You know what I meant. I
Speaker 2: was stocking broken anguish. There was stocking broken English. I
Speaker 2: was a sharp looking soldiers. I told them our Major
Speaker 2: Rubin and they gave up. They captured over four hundred
Speaker 2: prisoner with horter firing anything.
Speaker 1: The North Korean soldiers lay down their arms and Ted
Speaker 1: told them to wait where they were until they could
Speaker 1: bring reinforcements. He ran back to camp with the news.
Speaker 1: Once again, nobody believed him until they went out and
Speaker 1: saw the hundreds of unarmed surrendered North Korean soldiers, and
Speaker 1: once again Sergeant A was told to fill up the
Speaker 1: paperwork for a medal of honor, and because of Bigot
Speaker 1: is nothing if not predictable, he did no such thing.
Speaker 1: Then came the worst battle Ted's units saw. Unbeknownst to
Speaker 1: the American troops on the ground, the Chinese had entered
Speaker 1: the war, sending thousands of soldiers to join the North Koreans.
Speaker 1: Three US Army battalions, including Ted's, were sent to the
Speaker 1: small city of Unsand, where the attacks were constant and merciless.
Speaker 1: Ted was there behind a line defended by a single
Speaker 1: machine gun way out in the open. One machine gunner
Speaker 1: after another was killed while operating it. Three men died,
Speaker 1: and then nobody wanted to go out and hold the
Speaker 1: line anymore.
Speaker 2: Nobody wanted to get on and because it was dangerous.
Speaker 1: But it was necessary to save their lives. So Ted
Speaker 1: stepped forward.
Speaker 2: And I'm not because I'm a hero or anything, but
Speaker 2: I figured that's the only thing we have left, so
Speaker 2: that's slow them down.
Speaker 1: Ted held the position until the ammunition was gone. He
Speaker 1: took shrapnel to his hand, his chest, his leg, but
Speaker 1: he wouldn't leave his position. Meanwhile, Sergeant A had retreated
Speaker 1: behind the lines, telling no one and taking no one
Speaker 1: with him. He'd run away to safety. The good news
Speaker 1: for Ted was that his tormentor was finally gone. More
Speaker 1: reason for optimism, right, But in fact Ted's run of
Speaker 1: luck was about to end. The Americans were massively outnumbered.
Speaker 1: First came defeat, then came capture. Ted and a straggling
Speaker 1: group of survivors were rounded up by the Chinese command
Speaker 1: and marched north. Initially there were a handful of soldiers
Speaker 1: in the line with Ted. Soon they were hundreds. It
Speaker 1: was November nineteen fifty, the start of a particularly brutal winter.
Speaker 1: Ted took breaks from marching to remove his boots and
Speaker 1: massage his toes. He had seen toes turn black and
Speaker 1: fall off from frostbite at Mathhausen. The lessons from the
Speaker 1: camp were coming back to him. The men walked for
Speaker 1: days through knee deep snow. Finally they saw it, a
Speaker 1: dozen single story shacks with a creek running past them,
Speaker 1: surrounded by loops of barbed wire. They had arrived at
Speaker 1: the place they would soon call death Valley.
Speaker 2: Why they collected dead welly because the guys started dying dead.
Speaker 1: Ted couldn't have known, but he was heading into a
Speaker 1: system of notoriously brutal pow camps. Of the American servicemen
Speaker 1: who went into these camps, thirty eight percent would die.
Speaker 1: If the American soldiers thought they had seen death and
Speaker 1: cruelty in combat, they hadn't seen anything like what was coming.
Speaker 1: But Ted had more on that after this quick break.
Speaker 2: When you become captured, you become a nothing that can't
Speaker 2: take you out. Any second they shoot you, and that's it.
Speaker 2: You're just the dead man that can beat you up.
Speaker 2: I guess start of you that can finish you. And
Speaker 2: you know more a Yoman bin.
Speaker 1: Life in pow Camp five was like this. You got
Speaker 1: two tiny cups of grain twice a day, and when
Speaker 1: it was cooked in water please note clean water not available,
Speaker 1: it turned into a porridge that kept a soldier hovering
Speaker 1: just above the starvation point. There was no hospital for
Speaker 1: all the wounded and sick. Well. There was something they
Speaker 1: called the hospital, but if you went in, you didn't
Speaker 1: come out. Soldiers knew to avoid it at all costs.
Speaker 1: The three thousand prisoners had dysentery, pneumonia, untreated wounds, and
Speaker 1: they had the dreaded and give up itis, what they
Speaker 1: called it when an inmate would just stop eating, stop moving,
Speaker 1: and seemingly lose the will to live. Winter was viciously cold,
Speaker 1: and the prisoners were dressed in rags that didn't keep
Speaker 1: out the chill. They stood in the snow shivering while
Speaker 1: the captors did roll call. Everyone was starving. They would
Speaker 1: sleep squeeze next to each other like sardines. Often they'd
Speaker 1: wake up next to someone who had died in the night.
Speaker 1: For the American soldiers, this was an unimaginable nightmare. For Ted,
Speaker 1: it was all too familiar. Remember, he had been in
Speaker 1: a Nazi concentration camp just five years earlier. But there
Speaker 1: were key differences between Camp five and Mathausen. For one thing,
Speaker 1: they looked very different. At Mothhausen, the prison fortress had
Speaker 1: been designed to last. Camp five was just a series
Speaker 1: of hastily built mud huts. And Ted would tell you
Speaker 1: there was another key difference too. For the Nazis, mass
Speaker 1: murder was the whole point. But while the Chinese didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily care if a soldier died, death wasn't the ultimate
Speaker 1: goal indoctrination was. This was the Cold War communism versus democracy.
Speaker 1: The Chinese desperately wanted these Americans to buy into their
Speaker 1: way of life, even if it happened by force. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you've heard of the movie The Manchurian Candidate. It's a
Speaker 1: classic nineteen sixties film starring Frank Sinatra. The whole plot
Speaker 1: revolves around an American Gi, who is brainwashed in a
Speaker 1: North Korean pow camp. That Gi wins the Medal of Honor,
Speaker 1: and then because he's been brainwashed, he tries to kill
Speaker 1: the Conservative Party's presidential nominee. The film is a psychological
Speaker 1: thriller with a hefty dose of political satire and surrealism,
Speaker 1: and camp.
Speaker 4: His brain has not only been washed as they say,
Speaker 4: it has been dry clean.
Speaker 1: The gii's mother is in on the assassination plot. She's
Speaker 1: played by Angela Lansbury, who was at the time thirty seven.
Speaker 1: The actor playing her son was thirty five. It's all
Speaker 1: completely nuts anyway. This is all to say brainwashing, or
Speaker 1: the attempt at brainwashing, was an actual thing in the camps.
Speaker 1: In Camp five, the soldiers days were filled with information
Speaker 1: sessions lectures about the ills of American society. They could
Speaker 1: be tortured if they resisted their re education or engaged
Speaker 1: in debate with their captors. Agreeing with the doctrine, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, might get them cigarettes or food layered
Speaker 1: on top of the painful hunger, the cold, and the deprivation.
Speaker 1: The idea was to break the soldiers down and rebuild
Speaker 1: them as compliant comrades. But Ted had a way to
Speaker 1: avoid all of this misery. His Chinese captors realized, Hey,
Speaker 1: here's a guy who can't really speak English. Sorry, Ted,
Speaker 1: He's not even an American citizen. He's from Hungry, which
Speaker 1: is under the influence of the USSR, which is our
Speaker 1: communist ally. So they came to Ted and said comrade,
Speaker 1: you don't have to stay here. We'll send you home
Speaker 1: to hungry. The other soldiers were blown away by Ted's
Speaker 1: incredible good luck, and they were equally blown away when
Speaker 1: Ted said no, he would stay with his men, thank
Speaker 1: you very much. The other guys couldn't believe it. Why
Speaker 1: would anyone stay in this god forsaken place? But they
Speaker 1: didn't realize something essential about Ted. He hadn't become a
Speaker 1: soldier to gun down hundreds of men on a ridge
Speaker 1: to take life. He'd become a soldier to give life.
Speaker 1: And he realized that he could do that in the camp,
Speaker 1: not just keep people alive, but keep them human.
Speaker 2: I would help anybody. If I am Abro and my
Speaker 2: mother was a SEMBI I'll show my friend there was
Speaker 2: a semi. And that's one thing she teach us that
Speaker 2: I through help your fellow men, the regardless the black yellow,
Speaker 2: but they were a nationality.
Speaker 1: Ted had already endured the Holocaust. This would be a
Speaker 1: central fact of his life, as it was for all
Speaker 1: who survived it. But almost none of those fellow survivors
Speaker 1: had to live it again. Ted did, and then he
Speaker 1: chose to stay there and put what he had learned
Speaker 1: to work. He started mapping the camp. When the guards
Speaker 1: took the prisoners up the mountainto chop wood, Ted stared
Speaker 1: back at the prison buildings, scanning them. This is where
Speaker 1: the storehouses are, This is where the guards sleep. When
Speaker 1: they needed prisoners to bury dead bodies, and they were
Speaker 1: always dead bodies. Ted's hands shot up, I'll go. He
Speaker 1: took every opportunity to get the lay of the land.
Speaker 1: The moment he figured out where they were keeping the food,
Speaker 1: he started stealing it. Every night, he snuck into the
Speaker 1: storehouses and stuffed the legs of his uniform with bits
Speaker 1: of bread and meat or potatoes, whatever he could find.
Speaker 1: Then he brought his loot back and shared it with
Speaker 1: everyone he could. The men were grateful, but they were
Speaker 1: terrified on his behalf. They all understood that if Ted
Speaker 1: were caught, he would be killed. The men in his
Speaker 1: camp called him brave. Ted thinks it was something else.
Speaker 2: They have to be notch and I all of this
Speaker 2: was match, you know, rather than Jewish Michigan.
Speaker 1: I love that word with Sugarno. Leo Cormier was one
Speaker 1: of the men in Ted's hut. Years later, he remembered
Speaker 1: what Ted did.
Speaker 4: Theysed have grinding mills for flowering, stuffed his pants pull
Speaker 4: of flower to chank for all the guys in camp
Speaker 4: they eat. Yeah, he rested his wife in it, but
Speaker 4: I'm stealing out flower, cut the neck off, and uh
Speaker 4: we didn't take grass and well regular grass and make
Speaker 4: soup out of it.
Speaker 5: And I shouldn't help a lot of guys or make
Speaker 5: sure they got their food rounding.
Speaker 1: Just like he learned back in Mathausen, Ted convinced his
Speaker 1: bunk mates to strip down and pick every single louse
Speaker 1: and bed bug off their bodies. He knew what would
Speaker 1: happen if they let the vermin take over.
Speaker 5: I seen them one night spend the whole night checking
Speaker 5: lice off one of the guys that then had the
Speaker 5: stunt to look to head up. And Ted's stayed there
Speaker 5: all night picking lice off the guy on that charcoal fire.
Speaker 5: So yeah, what now would do that a.
Speaker 1: Man like Ted?
Speaker 2: I was not just a soldier, not just a funny
Speaker 2: looking jew. I was there of and they need me,
Speaker 2: I feed them. I was dead handy man doctor nurse friend.
Speaker 1: Ted desperately tried to keep POW's out of the so
Speaker 1: called hospital where the weakest were sent to die. So
Speaker 1: he'd find sick men and watch them carefully. He brought
Speaker 1: them hot water in his helmet and washed their wounds.
Speaker 1: When they were too weak to get up and were
Speaker 1: lying in their own filth, he cleaned them. He did
Speaker 1: that for Leo.
Speaker 4: He got so bad.
Speaker 5: I had dysentery and I couldn't go to the bathroom.
Speaker 5: Ted would kick me up. I don't want to hell.
Speaker 5: He got the shrink to carry me, but I don't
Speaker 5: really waiting about paid homes daily natty pounds on it.
Speaker 5: He cary me down to the river or wash me.
Speaker 1: So why did Ted do it? Maybe because he remembered
Speaker 1: the feeling of holding his brother's hand in the concentration
Speaker 1: camp and how that fleeting moment of connection restored his
Speaker 1: sense of humanity. Maybe because after all of those enemy
Speaker 1: soldiers he killed on the ridge, he wanted to even
Speaker 1: the tally make up for the lives he'd taken. But
Speaker 1: I think it's even bigger than that. It's because Ted
Speaker 1: Rubins saw the possibility of greatness in every single man
Speaker 1: he saved.
Speaker 2: They all be saved, and you save alife, you save
Speaker 2: maybe a nation.
Speaker 1: When you save a life, you save a nation. Ted
Speaker 1: didn't see men who were skin and bones, crusted in filth,
Speaker 1: beaten down. He saw future fathers, community leaders, people who
Speaker 1: had the potential to do good in the world. He
Speaker 1: saw the American life he had always dreamed about, even
Speaker 1: when the worst America had to offer spat in his face.
Speaker 1: So he put his own life on the line to
Speaker 1: safeguard that dream for everyone else.
Speaker 5: Oh my life to him, and you know I would
Speaker 5: have just perished in that clearing camp and the mid
Speaker 5: of Ted. Okay, I'm not sugar a lot quite a
Speaker 5: few other guys whom frown without Ted and gave them
Speaker 5: the courage to go on living.
Speaker 1: Which brings us back to Johnny. You remember him from
Speaker 1: the last episode. He was a dying soldier on the
Speaker 1: floor of the mud hut, the young serviceman with give
Speaker 1: up itis, too sick to move or eat or keep going.
Speaker 2: You don't want to eat. He was just giving off.
Speaker 2: I see, Johnny, I say a red Cross us. Yes, there,
Speaker 2: you bring us new medication. I will gave chamoum, but
Speaker 2: only one thing I ask you, And that's all you
Speaker 2: have to promise. Johnny, You've gonna help you shall because
Speaker 2: your parent's waiting for you. Your brother is she stare
Speaker 2: waiting for you. What's gonna be, Johnnie? You wanna die
Speaker 2: or you wanna help? You shed?
Speaker 1: Johnny promised to help himself, and Ted kept giving him
Speaker 1: that medicine. He visited Johnnie three times a day for
Speaker 1: a week, carrying those little brown pills. After five days,
Speaker 1: Johnny was sitting up and talking again. Two weeks later,
Speaker 1: he was on his feet thanks to the amazing medicine
Speaker 1: that Ted had given him. But here's the thing. There
Speaker 1: was no medicine in the camp. The Red Cross hadn't
Speaker 1: been there. Those little brown balls were And I think
Speaker 1: this is beautiful. So I'm sorry for what I'm about
Speaker 1: to say. Goat poop. Ted fed him goat shehit. He
Speaker 1: knew that what Johnny really needed was something to believe in.
Speaker 1: What the hell? It worked?
Speaker 2: So when he was completely recovered, event you sat on
Speaker 2: my bet. You make meat all the shit. But thank
Speaker 2: god I'm alive. He kiss me and everything. You are
Speaker 2: so happy.
Speaker 1: Ted's special medicine didn't save Johnny's life. Hope did. Finally,
Speaker 1: after thirty months in Camp five, the men started to
Speaker 1: go home.
Speaker 3: Red officers come forward to deliver another consignment of you
Speaker 3: and prisoners to the custody of Allied officials, a total
Speaker 3: of six hundred and eighty four.
Speaker 2: From then on, red.
Speaker 3: Ambulances disgorged the stark proof of man's inhumanity to man.
Speaker 1: The conflict was slowly reaching its end.
Speaker 3: Even as these fortunate ones turn their steps homeward, thousands
Speaker 3: of others remained to an unknown fate. But for those
Speaker 3: who can smile again, all America is thankful.
Speaker 1: They sent the sick home first, and by then Ted
Speaker 1: was one of them. That old shrapnel wound in his
Speaker 1: knee had become infected. He arrived in the US on
Speaker 1: a stretcher. Thousands of men had died in Camp five,
Speaker 1: but Ted had managed to save at least thirty of them.
Speaker 1: He had kept them alive, and he had kept Hope
Speaker 1: alive too. When Ted got back to the States, he
Speaker 1: became an American citizen. He reconnected with his siblings, who
Speaker 1: had finally gotten permission to immigrate to the US and
Speaker 1: who had been waiting for him. And in the final
Speaker 1: strange twist to his story, he became famous. His picture
Speaker 1: made the papers. Remember what I said about how handsome
Speaker 1: he was. Hollywood saw that too. He was invited to
Speaker 1: Premier's in publicity events, Starlet's on his arm. There was
Speaker 1: talk of turning his life story into a movie, but
Speaker 1: Ted was uninterested. He didn't want to talk about his
Speaker 1: experiences in Modhausen or in Korea. Like so many survivors
Speaker 1: of his generation, he preferred to put it behind him
Speaker 1: focus on his American life. He got married, he had kids,
Speaker 1: He settled down in California. He worked at his brother
Speaker 1: Emory's liquor store, And even though he had been told
Speaker 1: on two separate occasions on the battlefield that he had
Speaker 1: been recommended for the Medal of Honor, he had never
Speaker 1: thought about the fact that no medal had ever materialized.
Speaker 1: In fact, he had been recommended four times, four practically
Speaker 1: unheard of. Good Old Sergeant A had refused to file
Speaker 1: the paperwork for two of those recommendations, and two others
Speaker 1: from the battle at a Sane and from his heroism
Speaker 1: at Camp five, had gotten lost in a shuffle. But
Speaker 1: the men who remembered, including Leo Cormier, spent years advocating
Speaker 1: on his behalf. They knew what he deserved. Then in
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties, the military started looking back through the records.
Speaker 1: They wanted to see if any Jewish serviceman had been
Speaker 1: overlooked because of anti Semitism. Right at the top of
Speaker 1: the list was Ted. In September of two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: he finally got his medal awarded by President George W.
Speaker 6: Bush, and by awarding the Medal of Honor to Corporal
Speaker 6: Reuben Today, the United States acknowledges the debt that time
Speaker 6: has not diminished. By repeatedly risking his own life to
Speaker 6: say brothers corporate, Ruben exemplified the highest ideals of military
Speaker 6: service and fulfilled a pledge to give something back to
Speaker 6: the country that had given him his freedom. And he
Speaker 6: knew that the America he thought for did not always
Speaker 6: live up to his highest ideals. Yet he had enough
Speaker 6: trust in America's promise to see his commitment through.
Speaker 1: Ted still didn't think he deserved a medal. Ted just
Speaker 1: did the thing he thought human beings were supposed to do.
Speaker 2: I said, listen, yesterday, I was just a schmock. Today
Speaker 2: they called mesaur and to get a medal of all,
Speaker 2: you know, that's a big thing. I never know that
Speaker 2: I gonna be a superchu. I'm joking. No, I'm not
Speaker 2: superd I'm just a regular guy.
Speaker 1: Between his actions in combat and at the camp. The
Speaker 1: Army puts the number of people that ted Reubin saved
Speaker 1: that close to one hundred. I think he was able
Speaker 1: to do that because he valued the humanity in every
Speaker 1: person he met, even those who treated him with bigotry
Speaker 1: or scorn, even those who saw him as a funny
Speaker 1: foreigner with a crazy accent and of religion, they didn't understand.
Speaker 1: He was taught the value of life when he was
Speaker 1: only fourteen, in a place that didn't value life at all.
Speaker 1: He learned the power of hope and compassion that he
Speaker 1: kept those lessons with him. They gave him strength, and
Speaker 1: with that strength he gave strength to others. Ted Rubin
Speaker 1: died in twenty fifteen at the age of eighty six.
Speaker 1: Proud of his service and proud most of all to
Speaker 1: be a citizen of the United States of America.
Speaker 2: It is the best count in the world, and I'm
Speaker 2: part of it now.
Speaker 1: Medal of Honor. Stories of Courage is written by Meredith
Speaker 1: Rollins and produced by Meredith Rollins, Constanza Gallardo, and Izzy Carter.
Speaker 1: The show was edited by Ben daph Haffrey, Round design
Speaker 1: and additional music by Jake Gorski. Recording engineering, by Nita Lawrence,
Speaker 1: fact checking by Arthur Gombert's original music by Eric Phillips.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and
Speaker 1: the book Single Handed by Daniel Cohen. If you want
Speaker 1: to learn more about our Medal of Honor recipients, follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram and Twitter. We'll be sharing photos and
Speaker 1: videos of the heroes featured on this show. We'd also
Speaker 1: love to hear from you dm us with a story
Speaker 1: about a courageous veteran in your life. If you don't
Speaker 1: know a veteran, we would love to hear a story
Speaker 1: of how courage was contagious in your own life. You
Speaker 1: can find us at Pushkinbods. I'm your host, Malcolm Grappler