Speaker 1: Welcome to a special two part episode of Service, Stories
Speaker 1: of Hunger and War, a production from I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Me your host, food writer and veteran family member
Speaker 1: Jaquelin Reposo. As Churchill said, never has so much been
Speaker 1: owned by so many to so few, And so I
Speaker 1: decided in I wanted to I directed to take the
Speaker 1: g I bill. I was gonna go to college, and
Speaker 1: I was going to set the world on fire. This
Speaker 1: season on Service, we've been following World War Two veterans
Speaker 1: as they traverse land and sea, finding sustenance and feeding
Speaker 1: others along the way. Thanksgiving that was our kp the
Speaker 1: size and says, let's through something special cigarette, No little
Speaker 1: kids like that cigarette. With fewer than four hundred thousand
Speaker 1: veterans of this era left, making space for these conversations
Speaker 1: is more important now than ever. I was going to
Speaker 1: go to one school. That's D Day Army veteran John Bistrica,
Speaker 1: and the history teacher he didn't want to hear about it.
Speaker 1: That hurt me pretty bad. Every single one of us
Speaker 1: owes a huge debt of gratitude to these greatest generation veterans.
Speaker 1: So let's slow down and explore a little of the
Speaker 1: history behind why some of them have or have not
Speaker 1: talked about their service until recently. And then we'll hear
Speaker 1: from younger veterans and volunteers, creating communities that keep conversations rolling.
Speaker 1: Everybody fanning up. Now the boys go on the way?
Speaker 1: Can you hear the music? The ban here? It come
Speaker 1: here that Tom come. This is a ninety five clip
Speaker 1: from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show Welcome Home, letther com
Speaker 1: Bug of the marvelous things the now light Well, we've
Speaker 1: dubbed World War two the last good War. There were
Speaker 1: clear good guys, the Allies, and bad guys, the Axis triumphant.
Speaker 1: We haven't had a world war since. Returning veterans like
Speaker 1: New York Yankees Catcher, Yogi, Bearra, actor Jimmy Stewart and
Speaker 1: director Mel Brooks contributed to a cheery post war Tinseltown.
Speaker 1: The newly minted g I Bill helped millions embrace their
Speaker 1: future at colleges and in starter homes, and the economy flourished.
Speaker 1: Soon followed a record number of marriages and the notorious
Speaker 1: baby boom. But then there were the lesser spoken of realities.
Speaker 1: It will seem odd when, at some given hour the
Speaker 1: shooting stops and everything changes again. It will be odd
Speaker 1: to drive down an unknown road without that little not
Speaker 1: of fear in your stomach. Odd not to listen with
Speaker 1: animal like alertness for the meaning of every distant sound.
Speaker 1: Odd to have your spirit released from the perpetual weight
Speaker 1: that has compounded of fear and death and dirt and anguish.
Speaker 1: We have won this war. That's Bob Hope, reading a
Speaker 1: letter from beloved war journalist Ernie Pyle, known for capturing
Speaker 1: frontline humanity in an almost folk style, before he was
Speaker 1: killed by Japanese machine gun fire less than five months
Speaker 1: before World War Two ended. This last Good War was
Speaker 1: also the deadliest in human history, causing seven times more
Speaker 1: casualties than US troops would later meet in the horrors
Speaker 1: of Vietnam. These veterans came home to start new businesses
Speaker 1: and raise a prosperous generation, but they also had to
Speaker 1: digest and make sense of what they had faced while deployed.
Speaker 1: Our Air Corps veteran Harold bud Long returned to Upstate
Speaker 1: New York with memories of breaking down concentration camp gates.
Speaker 1: We had k rashes with when we started breaking open
Speaker 1: and say don't We'll kill them. It's ay ate too
Speaker 1: much at once, give him a little bit time. Coast
Speaker 1: Guard veteran Frank Davida remember so many details of Omaha
Speaker 1: Beach on D Day from there. Having overfed the troops
Speaker 1: that morning about two o'clock, we started feeding them eggs, sources, pancakes,
Speaker 1: ice cream, everything that you could think of. It was
Speaker 1: the worst thing we out them. We overfend them. To
Speaker 1: his last thoughts before sleeping that night, I sat down
Speaker 1: on the cold deck and I said to myself, what
Speaker 1: that would just happen to you you? And why am I alive?
Speaker 1: Interviewing Frank and his quiet New Jersey home, it seems
Speaker 1: like he must have told these stories over and over
Speaker 1: during the years to keep them so vibrant. At I
Speaker 1: asked him point blank if he had for seventy years,
Speaker 1: I couldn't talk about while I'm telling you, I couldn't
Speaker 1: talk about it. At that time, I didn't want to
Speaker 1: bring the war home to my family. I suffered to it.
Speaker 1: Why should they have to suffer to it. My dad,
Speaker 1: he was in the army first of all. He would
Speaker 1: ask me questions. I said that I can't talk about it.
Speaker 1: My grandfather, Pat de Ambrosio, rarely talked about his time
Speaker 1: serving in the war either. I surmised his silence was
Speaker 1: mostly out of gratitude and a hum bow guilt for
Speaker 1: his not having seen combat. Repeating this question to other veterans,
Speaker 1: we start to understand why one would feel so indebted
Speaker 1: to such fellows. Killing a human being is not a
Speaker 1: natural thing. The human body. You don't consider it like
Speaker 1: an animal or the object. But we had to think
Speaker 1: that way. Laws and Ichirosaki survived months of heavy combat
Speaker 1: as one of the Armies four hundred and forty second
Speaker 1: Regimental Combat Team, the niss A Japanese American troops, infamous
Speaker 1: both for their honorable service records and catastrophic casualty count.
Speaker 1: Some men broke down in the heat of battle, bodies
Speaker 1: flying all over it. You have to put it out
Speaker 1: of your mind, because if you think about it, your
Speaker 1: mind can't handle that. In prior wars, huge regiments of
Speaker 1: men would fight together in short bursts of small arms skirmishes.
Speaker 1: There was camaraderie, and then there was rest. World War
Speaker 1: two veterans faced a new kind of warfare with the
Speaker 1: introduction of better planes and huge field weapons. Smaller units
Speaker 1: could now be dispersed four weeks at a time, they'd
Speaker 1: fight the enemy, cut off from support systems like food
Speaker 1: and medical attention, and sometimes not be given even forty
Speaker 1: eight hours to rest before being thrust back into battle.
Speaker 1: As such, where it had been presumed that mental breakdowns
Speaker 1: during combat were caused by unrelated mental weakness, hospitals soon
Speaker 1: filled with those suffering from battle fatigue. It wasn't until
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty thirty five years after the end of this
Speaker 1: war and after these veterans had quieted so to support
Speaker 1: their children through Vietnam, that battle fatigue was renamed with
Speaker 1: a diagnostic term. We recognized today that's what PTSD is
Speaker 1: all about. When we were discharged in nine military tolas
Speaker 1: irrisive alien, Now take off your uniform and just get
Speaker 1: out of here. There was no mention of your mental status,
Speaker 1: particularly else being in the infantry where everyone was filled
Speaker 1: with PTSD. We're now societally aware of the dangers of
Speaker 1: PTSD not being taken seriously by medical professionals or communities.
Speaker 1: But post war newspapers were just as likely to joke
Speaker 1: about what they called warner roses as they were to
Speaker 1: report on the lives of disabled veterans. Controversial syndicated columnist
Speaker 1: Henry McLamore once justed, if I am late for dinner,
Speaker 1: I can blame it on battle fatigue. This casual dismissal
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons why our most affected veterans
Speaker 1: often stay quiet. You could talk to a thousand veterans
Speaker 1: were in combat and they'll tell you I never talked
Speaker 1: about the war. Did you talk about your experiences with
Speaker 1: your family? No, of course not. I just tried to
Speaker 1: lock out everything. The things that happened in combat just unspeakable, unthinkable,
Speaker 1: and unprintable. And I was saying, you shouldn't be maintaining
Speaker 1: to anybody else. PTSD rates for World War Two combat
Speaker 1: veterans have proved comparable to those who returned from Vietnam,
Speaker 1: Yet treatment has come far too late in the game
Speaker 1: for many. What did most of those veterans do in
Speaker 1: the meantime? The only cure that we could manufacture ourselves
Speaker 1: was to drink alcohol. And you drank until you passed out.
Speaker 1: At least you had some relief while you're unconscious. Slower
Speaker 1: in development than a successful g I bill for the
Speaker 1: development of rehabilitation centers for those suffering from battle fatigue
Speaker 1: or alcoholism in alcoholics. Anonymous had two thousand members. By
Speaker 1: one report shows that number had jumped to seven hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand. Today, one point two million members meet nationwide.
Speaker 1: Community and conversation have proved invaluable tools for long term healing.
Speaker 1: Getting the conversation started is often the challenge for Frank.
Speaker 1: The anniversary of D Day and our renewed attention to
Speaker 1: these veterans led to an invitation to speak on a
Speaker 1: national stage. It took me seventy years, and only because
Speaker 1: the thumb broke he opened. Is it helping you to
Speaker 1: talk about it? Though? Now it does a monkey on
Speaker 1: my shoulder. The monk is off the shoulder once I
Speaker 1: started talking. Then I want them to talk about the
Speaker 1: war because I want them to bring some of these
Speaker 1: kids into what I went through. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll hear how a unique community war memorial brought veterans
Speaker 1: and their families together, shifting the conversation entirely. You're listening
Speaker 1: to service stories of hunger and war from my heart radio.
Speaker 1: Stay with us. Yeah, you're listening to service stories of
Speaker 1: hunger and war from my Heart radio. I'm JaQuel and Opposo.
Speaker 1: If it's hard for us to start conversations with our veterans.
Speaker 1: It's a bit surreal to listen as they laugh through
Speaker 1: some of the most intense moments. In his episode, Harold
Speaker 1: bud Long flies us from d Day through Central Europe
Speaker 1: with his buddy Dewey by his side. Here he is
Speaker 1: again reflecting on just how wild that ride was. Kind
Speaker 1: of you get your sense of humor about all of
Speaker 1: this because he's told the crazy stories. But a year
Speaker 1: or two after Julia come home and got married, go
Speaker 1: up there fishing for a week. And the first night
Speaker 1: we get up there, we sat there and talking off
Speaker 1: stuff that happened to us at that time was scary.
Speaker 1: Remember the time we heard a racket telling the hanger
Speaker 1: and said yeah, and she went down and kicked the
Speaker 1: door and it was about a hundred Germans in there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, already through the give up. We take them
Speaker 1: back to the major. He said, what are we gonna
Speaker 1: do with him? As we heard loss in detail. Most
Speaker 1: veterans based challenges upon returning to civilian life that the
Speaker 1: overwhelmed v A can't always address with intimate and individualized approaches.
Speaker 1: Countless local organizations work to bring veterans out into their
Speaker 1: communities to sit with Bud for his episode. We drove
Speaker 1: far upstate to Livingston County, New York, a rural community
Speaker 1: almost at our border with Canada, where the creation of
Speaker 1: a unique veterans monument is doing just that. We don't
Speaker 1: usually gain this kind of traction. I think we've had
Speaker 1: nearly two hundred people come together just for hot dogs
Speaker 1: and soda around this program. This is Jason Skinner, army
Speaker 1: veteran of the Iraq War and director of Veteran Services
Speaker 1: for Livingston County. Jason invited us to interview Bud on
Speaker 1: a day when they were working on their memorial. It's
Speaker 1: a collaboration between the county and the Genesee Valley Educational Partnership,
Speaker 1: Career and Tech Center headed up by metal trades instructor
Speaker 1: Ollie Olsen. Jason Skinner asked me about doing something he
Speaker 1: had shown me an illustration in London. There's some poppies
Speaker 1: coming down off the castle wall and it's very impressive.
Speaker 1: On my desk, I had a small American flag, so
Speaker 1: that was the driving force for creating the poppies, but
Speaker 1: to have it in the shape of the American flag,
Speaker 1: so the red stripes will be the poppies. And then
Speaker 1: the white stripes will be the concrete. The National American
Speaker 1: Legion adopted the poppy as the symbol of remembrance for
Speaker 1: fallen soldiers in ninety inspired by Canadian World War One
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel surgeon John McCrae's poem in flanders Field and
Speaker 1: flanders Field, the poppies blow between the crosses row on row,
Speaker 1: McRae wrote. Each metal Livingston County poppy is two ft wide,
Speaker 1: painted red and fused, atop a green iron stem of
Speaker 1: varying height, connected to the ground by bearings so that
Speaker 1: they'll sway when the wind blows. When completed this spring,
Speaker 1: the flag will cover one eight five ft white concrete
Speaker 1: flag stripes between them make handicapped accessible rows perfect for
Speaker 1: wandering and quiet contemplation. It's a monument designed to inspire awe,
Speaker 1: but the process has been just as important as the product.
Speaker 1: And when I first presented the idea, I said, I'll
Speaker 1: do this project, but with this stipulation. I want veterans
Speaker 1: coming into the school being shown how to use the
Speaker 1: equipment and create their own poppies. I could have done
Speaker 1: under poppies, but it's not about me. That significant should
Speaker 1: be them being recognized for their service. And so this
Speaker 1: does that every coppy is designed, traced, cut, molded, welded,
Speaker 1: and painted by the individual. A dog tag on each
Speaker 1: identifies their name, dates of service, and any other information
Speaker 1: deemed particularly significant. Then a unique totem welded into the
Speaker 1: center or on a pedal adds a personal touch. Only
Speaker 1: made one for his father, a veteran of the Canadian
Speaker 1: Air Force, so his poppy is a maple leaf. There's
Speaker 1: all sorts of really unique centers in them stars. One
Speaker 1: his uncle was a pilot and he put an airplane.
Speaker 1: There's one with a VFW and one with an American
Speaker 1: Legion emblem. I've built five copies, one for a friend
Speaker 1: and restauran all family members, three of which word World
Speaker 1: War Two veterans. That's Rory Benkleman, teacher's aide at the
Speaker 1: Mount Morris Bosi Center in the Metal Trades program. He's
Speaker 1: assisting only with the monument. I'm also a veteran of
Speaker 1: the United States Air Force and New York Air National Guard.
Speaker 1: We're slowly losing family members, were slowly losing our World
Speaker 1: War Two vets and Vietnam vets. I'm proud to say
Speaker 1: I'm a veteran and so create with the organizations as
Speaker 1: one of them. They emphasize self generating veteran involvement has
Speaker 1: been the incidental key to their monument success. There were
Speaker 1: veterans that were coming from other counties. I'm here to
Speaker 1: make a poppy by getting hooked up with their PPE gear,
Speaker 1: and as soon as we've gotten in the shop, other
Speaker 1: veterans that had been coming regularly they could see that
Speaker 1: there was a deer in the headlights. They just go,
Speaker 1: let me help you. This is where we start and
Speaker 1: then we go from one step to the next. Veterans
Speaker 1: helping other veterans to create this monument. And I wasn't
Speaker 1: doing it. The finish is going to look great, but
Speaker 1: really that was the most impressive part of this whole project.
Speaker 1: Creating a poppy gets the veteran or family member in
Speaker 1: the door, but the greater service is their inviting veterans
Speaker 1: into a space where people want to listen. There were
Speaker 1: some nights that were had over forty veterans, which was
Speaker 1: almost too much because we're limited with the equipment and space.
Speaker 1: But they all work together and they shared equipment, they
Speaker 1: shared their time, they shared their stories. Then they came back.
Speaker 1: Psychologists are recognizing the power of narrative storytelling to help
Speaker 1: veterans acclimate back into civilian life and to heal from
Speaker 1: combat conflict. Over months and years of military brigade training,
Speaker 1: the veteran's brain has become wired to move through the
Speaker 1: world in a specific way, to follow orders and to
Speaker 1: make order of high stress scenarios. The therapeutic narrative approach
Speaker 1: helps to reverse that wiring by sharing a story allowed
Speaker 1: we first take control of the story, choosing to narrate
Speaker 1: with horror or as but does with humor. We can
Speaker 1: paint ourselves as the victim or the hero. That's been
Speaker 1: kind of all generations, and there's always a story behind
Speaker 1: each one of these copies. The vets get to tell
Speaker 1: their story to other veterans. That's been a very unique
Speaker 1: and healing experience for some of these guys. It kind
Speaker 1: of brings them together and makes them more resilient as
Speaker 1: a bunch of veterans together with time, intention, and insight
Speaker 1: from new perspectives, the veteran can choose to mold that
Speaker 1: narrative until a story no longer has any power over
Speaker 1: them over their physical reaction to past experiences or current triggers.
Speaker 1: You can't talk to you strangers or family about that.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't understand. This seemingly unbreachable gap is often felt
Speaker 1: by veterans loved ones as well. We want to help
Speaker 1: but don't know how. Rather than forcing conversation, creating a
Speaker 1: poppy becomes a gateway for a shared experience, a space
Speaker 1: for the veteran to talk and the loved one to
Speaker 1: simply offer compassion. Another young man that years old, his
Speaker 1: daughter came and said, I want to make a poppy
Speaker 1: for my dad. But this is a little frail. So
Speaker 1: she's created this poppy, and springtime had come around here,
Speaker 1: and she goes, do you mind if one day I
Speaker 1: just drive him back here to show him the poppy.
Speaker 1: So overhead doors are open to the shop, and I
Speaker 1: see this car pull up. She steps out, opens the
Speaker 1: door for a day A tall man six four maybe
Speaker 1: six five. So his daughter says, Dad, I made this
Speaker 1: poppy for you, and he starts crying. A good friend
Speaker 1: of his supporter was here in the shop working on
Speaker 1: his poppy. They were lifelong friends. They grew up in
Speaker 1: the same town, they were in the same service. And
Speaker 1: he looks up, goes over and gives him a big hug.
Speaker 1: He says, it's okay. I did the same thing because
Speaker 1: his daughter was started one and because I can do that.
Speaker 1: It was a father and daughter making this poppy. Some
Speaker 1: of the stories were like that. What started as a
Speaker 1: goal of one hundred poppies blossomed to two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty by the time we left them in September. But
Speaker 1: is their oldest veteran at their youngest participant is four.
Speaker 1: Without wanting to detail specifics, they related how one younger
Speaker 1: veteran had remained so reclusive since returning home. Loved ones
Speaker 1: had been worried about him. The project has gotten him
Speaker 1: returning to the group over and over again. Such accessible
Speaker 1: spaces invite veterans to come together and share their service
Speaker 1: stories and the lives they're newly carving. They bring coffee
Speaker 1: and donuts or this being farm country, the varying kinds
Speaker 1: of garlic they're currently growing. We left with several heads,
Speaker 1: our pockets, maple syrup, and local restaurant referrals mapped out.
Speaker 1: Unless such spaces are created, the sacrifices that still burden
Speaker 1: many of them will remain trapped where they've remained for
Speaker 1: our World War two veterans in the past, largely speaking
Speaker 1: at the bar or a a meetings. I'm a Iraq
Speaker 1: war and my period in time and service has been
Speaker 1: very well respected. People thank me for my service, and
Speaker 1: it always felt kind of weird until you look at
Speaker 1: it in the perspective of the job I hold now.
Speaker 1: I get to pay tribute to those people that served
Speaker 1: in Vietnam and various earlier conflicts that weren't either recognized
Speaker 1: or were not appreciated for their service. And it's because
Speaker 1: of their service and how our country feels about my
Speaker 1: service now and what they had to go through to
Speaker 1: ensure that no other generation of veteran would be that disrespected.
Speaker 1: In their memorial, the Livingston County team reminds all of
Speaker 1: us that we have a choice, a choice to serve
Speaker 1: our country, to serve each other, and to serve the
Speaker 1: best version of our future selves. When they walk into
Speaker 1: this now it's not a field of poppies, but it is,
Speaker 1: and they're standing there not just to see this, but
Speaker 1: to realize I love that went into the project. The
Speaker 1: veterans are loved. Ones of veterans created this monument as
Speaker 1: a service of our country that they chose to do it.
Speaker 1: Every one of these poppies has a story, and that's
Speaker 1: what I would like people to know. The commemoration of
Speaker 1: our veterans in recent times has been great, but it
Speaker 1: has been long overdue for a long period of time.
Speaker 1: I believe the recognition because everybody has their freedoms because
Speaker 1: of what everybody else has given in the past. And
Speaker 1: the second part of this episode, we'll hear how on
Speaker 1: our flight Columbus opened the conversation for our Navy veteran
Speaker 1: William Walker, and then about a veteran food pantry bringing
Speaker 1: veterans across generations to the table. Until then, you can
Speaker 1: learn more about this episode on our Instagram and Facebook
Speaker 1: are at Service podcast and at Service podcast dot org,
Speaker 1: where you can also send a message to any of
Speaker 1: the veterans you're hearing from this season. Don't forget to
Speaker 1: subscribe to Service on your favorite podcasting platform, and thanks
Speaker 1: for dropping a review while you're there. Service as a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. This episode was produced and
Speaker 1: edited by me Jacqueline Oroposo. Mr Boddicker was the associate
Speaker 1: producer for this episode. Kobe McDonald and Andrew Stessler engineered
Speaker 1: our interviews with lawson Elizabeth Emery with William and Junie
Speaker 1: Ramckin with John. Our supervising producer is Gabrielle Collins, Our
Speaker 1: executive producer Christopher Hassiotis. Thank you for listening, and thank
Speaker 1: you to those serving and those who have served.