Ep 10 | Rishi Sharma | The Glenn Beck Podcast

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December 7th, 1941.

It was a day of infamy for our country, unlike any other.

16 million Americans would answer the call.

Many years later, they would be known as the greatest generation.

I don't know what you were doing when you were 21, but

I wouldn't consider myself a part of any good generation, let alone greatest generation.

The average age of World War II combat troop on D-Day was 19 to 26 years old.

Today, the average age for those brave men and women is 92.

500 veterans from our greatest generation die every day.

And today, there are only about half a million World War II veterans still alive.

That's 500,000 stories that soon will be gone for good.

This was the thought that was rolling around and bouncing off Rishi Sharma's head when he was just a sophomore in high school.

He began riding his bike to retirement homes.

He started talking to veterans.

He started documenting every single unique story that he could one by one.

But the scope of this mission was just too big for a high schooler's limited means.

So he started a GoFundMe account in 2016 and he raised nearly $200,000.

Ever since then, Rishi has traveled to 47 different states, Canada and the United Kingdom.

His mission is to interview at least one World War II combat veteran every day until the last one passes away.

He's 21 years old.

He has answered the call to tell the stories of the men and women that were his age when they set out to defend our nation's freedom.

Today's episode: Rishi Sharma.

So, tell me about the interviews, the ones that really stand out to you.

Yeah, I mean, I've interviewed just over 900 veterans so far, but there are definitely a few that really, you know, play in your mind after you've interviewed the veteran.

And one in particular is a veteran who I interviewed out in Pennsylvania in the Pittsburgh area named Mr.

Florentine.

What is your full name, sir?

David Joseph Florentine.

Where and when were you born?

I was born in New Brighton, Pennsylvania,

January 21st, 1926.

And at 16 years old, he was going in first wave on Tarawa,

which is called the B-8 Toe Atoll.

And basically, it's an island that's 800 feet across wide and just a mile long.

Wow.

And 3,000 Marines were killed and wounded in a three-day battle there.

And about 25,000 Japanese were all killed.

Only about 20 of them were taken prisoners.

And Mr.

Florentine, as he went in on the landing craft, his sergeant, Sergeant Joachim, kept telling everyone to keep their heads down because they were taking on enemy fire.

And

the way Mr.

Florentine was saying it, you could feel like you were there.

I don't know what made him do this.

He'd tell us not to do it.

And what he told us not to do, he did.

He gets up, picks his head up.

And that's the first sign of combat I've seen.

He got his head shot off and landed right on my chest.

Here he is bleeding.

I'm holding my tripod and I'm screaming, get him off of me, get him off of me.

I was going crazy.

I couldn't.

I couldn't help him.

I couldn't help him.

And

Trag, that's what we were all scared of then.

We knew.

We knew we were in trouble.

And

the tank was going like this.

It was full of blood.

It was terrible.

We were all full of blood.

I couldn't even hold on to my gun.

But, you know, he volunteered, and he said towards the latter part of the interview that despite how tough it was and how horrible his experiences were, he would do it again.

And he's glad that he went through it because he knows how bad the world would have been if it wasn't for people like him.

A lot of these guys, I mean, they didn't come home and tell their stories.

It's not like it is kind of now where they didn't.

My uncle Leo

landed on the beaches of D-Day,

and

he's an in-law.

Nobody knew about his service in World War II until I came.

And he's 80 at the time.

We're sitting at a wedding.

He's kind of sitting by himself.

And I said, so Uncle Leo, tell me,

what were you doing in World War II?

And he just started to tell it.

I got into the car and I said, you're Uncle Leo to my wife.

Your Uncle Leo's amazing.

She said, what are you talking about?

He had never told it to anyone.

How many of the people

that you're talking to are still like that, have not shared this?

So, the vast majority of the World War II combat, I mean, all the interviews I do are with combat veterans.

That's the focus, World War II combat veterans.

And the vast majority of them, I'm the first person that they've really opened up to in 75 years.

And, you know, and that's a really precarious position to be in, but it's very cathartic for the veterans.

And there are three things that really help me when I'm doing the interviews with the World War II veterans.

Number one's my age.

I just turned 21, but I'm roughly the same age the veterans were when they were in combat.

The second thing is I do a lot of research before each interview, so I know the difference between the 2nd Marine Division or what the 101st Airborne did, or the difference between a company and a platoon.

And you know, having that basic knowledge really makes it a lot easier for the veterans to open up.

Because it's hard enough to talk about the worst days of your life, but it's even harder when you have to explain every little intricate detail to a civilian who doesn't understand that kind of stuff.

But the most important factor, sir, is that I'm not related to any of the veterans.

So there's no emotional attachment whatsoever.

And they're able to talk to me as if I'm one of the guys.

And they're able to really talk about things that they wouldn't want their family to know about, you know, because in reality, war is two things.

It's seeing your friends getting killed and it's killing people.

I like to talk about killing somebody because it hurts me because,

you know, no way it's

it's not like

you know this one German, I'll talk about that one.

One kid, he lay in there dead and the guys went through the pocket and everything else.

He was about 18 years old.

He looked like American because he had only thing he didn't look, he had German uniform on.

And

the kids went through his pocket and he threw all his stuff out.

And the photographs was of one of his mother and his sister.

And that's that's that's what made

and then I said to myself,

just killed their son.

It's horrible, but it had to be done.

And the veterans need to know how grateful people are that they were willing to go through it with it and that they did go through with it.

And so

a lot of the veterans,

when we start talking about the war,

it's not really me even asking them specific questions.

A lot of them are really eager to share things, things that they felt that maybe they would have to censor when they're talking to a family member.

That's why with all the interviews, it's just me and the veteran in the room.

I request that the family members just let us be alone because if there was a family member there, when I started doing interviews initially, the veterans would

listen to my question, look at the family member, and then answer my question.

And it was so obvious that they were censoring themselves.

And I just didn't want them to be put in that position because they shouldn't feel ashamed that they had to kill people, you know, because when they came home from the war, PTSD was not diagnosed.

They were just told to man up and move on.

And for the vast majority of them, they did.

They consumed themselves with work or family life,

but they didn't talk about it.

You're absolutely right.

What's the interview that sticks out to you that you think, I can't believe this person has lived with this and

has felt this way for this long and hasn't said anything?

So I interviewed one veteran who really didn't open up about his personal story until I had come to interview him.

He was a a twin brother and they both served in the war together.

And

this was out in Ohio, the veteran who I interviewed.

And

in World War II, there was a story about the Sullivan brothers.

It was five brothers in the Navy who were all put on the same ship.

And during the naval battle of Guadalcanal, which is a big island in the Pacific, the ship was sunk.

the Juno was the name of the ship, and all five brothers were killed.

And so after that incident happened, and it made the national news back home in the U.S.,

the Army, or the military rather,

made a new order saying that brothers cannot be in the same units.

But the two twin brothers, they volunteered after Pearl Harbor for the Army to be in the infantry, and they were separated during basic training.

And they were so miserable.

Because they, I mean, they're the bestest of friends.

They grew up as twins that their mother wrote a letter to FDR.

And I doubt FDR read it, but someone in the White House got the letter of her requesting that they be put in the same unit.

And it was granted, and they were put in the same unit, and they finished training, and they went overseas.

They were part of the 87th Infantry Division, which is called the Golden Acorn.

They got there right during the Battle of the Bolge, which was the last German offensive in the Ardennes.

And basically, the story goes, the two twin brothers were amazing soldiers.

I call them the dream team because they were both bazooka men.

They were part of a bazooka team, and they received the silver star, both of them, for knocking out three German tanks, three German mortar positions, and two machine gun nests, all in a day.

I mean, there's a lot more to that, but you know, basically that's what it was.

The two of them worked together on their own, and they knocked out all these positions.

And about a week later, they were running through a field together and they were under enemy fire German fire from a machine gun nest and he was running my right front and I saw him go down I don't know whether machine gun or got him or what I never did find out how bad the wound was except he was gone

I was able to pray with him and talk with him for a few minutes and from then on it was snipers trying to get me.

And so under enemy fire he's performing last rites to his brother who's dying from a stomach wound.

And then before he finishes the last rites, a sniper, a German sniper shoots his brother in the neck.

And he said to me at that point that he lost his faith.

And as he said, at that moment, I lost my faith.

And he finished the war.

He ended up being transferred out of the infantry into a combat engineer outfit just because of how much it had messed with him.

You know, he was not able to perform like he did before his brother's death.

But the really amazing thing about that story is that he refound his faith after the war.

I mean, he's a very religious man, and what's interesting is he has a list of people.

He showed me a book of names that he writes down that he prays for every day, that he hopes that they're all doing well and that they're healthy and alive.

And people who have passed on, he just prays for them and their soul.

It was just, you know, someone who has every reason to be upset at the world around him, right?

Has no reason to even get up and be happy.

His best friend was killed.

You know, he had to kill people.

And yet every day he tries to make it the best day ever.

And he's so friendly.

Everyone in the community knows him.

And, you know,

to be honest, sir, that's not a unique story.

The unique thing about the World War II generation is that every single day of their lives has been about other people.

They've never really had a day to themselves.

They grew up in the Great Depression.

A lot of them quit school at 12 or 13 to put food on their table, you know, get a job as a shoeshine or a paper boy.

Their country is attacked, you know, suddenly and viciously by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor.

And I've interviewed so many veterans who literally changed their birth certificates to make themselves older to get into the service, or they lied about their age just to get in.

And they joke that the only time someone would do that today is to get out of doing something.

And they joke about it, but it's absolutely true.

And I'm ashamed to say that my generation is really not up to par when it comes to the World War II generation because they volunteered to put themselves in a position.

It's not like they wanted to die, but they were willing to put themselves in that position.

And they go on to fight in the worst war in the history of humanity.

70 million people killed worldwide from 1939 to 1945.

They have to see their friends getting killed.

They have to kill people.

They have to live out of foxholes.

They have to worry if their planes getting shot out of the air and blown up.

They have to worry if they're going to sink in the middle of the ocean.

And they come home and all they want is their jobs back.

It's not like they want any valor or parades.

Most of the veterans really didn't even come home to parades.

Because what had happened is the veterans who were over in the European theater, when that war ended, the war with Japan was still going on.

So a lot of the replacements, the new replacements in the European theater, immediately got shipped away from there back to the U.S.

to prepare to invade Japan.

And so they ended up getting to go home a lot earlier than the people who'd been there for four or five years.

But the point is they came home and they just raised families.

And they were, you know.

were pillars in their community, are pillars in their community.

I mean, that generation put man on the moon, you know,

built America for what it was known for in its greatest apex.

Literally.

I mean, they literally created the pillars of our society today.

And they came back with, I don't remember what it's called, the

duck pin that they could wear that allowed them to wear the uniform because they didn't have clothes.

You're absolutely right.

What is that pin called?

Do you remember?

It's called a duck pin.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's a ruptured duck.

That's it.

Rupture duck, yeah.

It's because, you know, it would not think that they were just, you know, out in the town.

Right.

But that's literally, that is the clothes that they had.

Because they didn't have anything else.

And there was no really clothes that they could afford or that were in the stores at that time when they came back.

Absolutely.

Different world.

I mean, and the thing is, though,

what's hard for people to comprehend, I feel, is that 410,000 Americans were killed in the war.

I mean, that's a big number.

It's such a big number that I could say a million, and it wouldn't make a difference because it's just too abstract.

But what really, you know, plays on my mind is

each one of those casualties, those men who were killed, the boys, I should say,

the average age was like 19 getting killed.

They had a mom and a dad.

They had a pet dog named Spot.

They had a girlfriend.

They cheated on some math tests.

They had this whole life and a personality.

All these emotions, I mean, they were as real as you and I.

I can tell you one thing you want to know.

Phil and I was real close buddies.

He's a BAR man.

You know what that is, I told you.

And I was an assistant, but we changed off.

We was advancing towards the Germans.

They'd pulled back.

We didn't know.

The whole company was advancing.

And we seen a bunch of Germans out there probably

pretty close to 500 yards, but they seen us at the same time.

Well, side of the road, it was grass.

So when they seen us, they all went in that grass.

My partner, that BAR, he set it up and he went to fire, and he's right in that grass.

And you could hear him screaming, holler, and he was hitting them.

But they preached to you, and they preached to you with a machine gun.

Don't shoot very many rounds, move.

He got so carried away

he didn't move, and I was probably five feet from him.

They cut him right down with a machine gun.

It took me a long time to get over it, still does.

You see what I mean?

He got so carried away.

He didn't move, see?

They figured out where he's at.

It brings you right back there.

But I know the trouble.

I know the trouble.

He knew he was doing a lot of good.

He was killing them, but

they soon figured out where that's coming from.

See what I'm I'm getting at?

What did they have that

you didn't have or your generation doesn't have?

Why is there that difference?

Have you figured that out?

Why is it that you just said your generation wouldn't do that?

But they did.

What's the difference?

It's a good question.

I wish I had the answer.

You know, I'm obviously biased.

I don't have any friends my own age.

All my friends are World War II veterans, right?

The people who I look up to, the people who I talk to to call, for advice, who I visit, it's all World War II veterans.

But what I do remember from my, you know, in high school and things like that,

the World War II generation,

they had to work for what they have or what they got.

You know, there, it wasn't, things weren't just handed to them, which sounds quite cliche to say, but it's true.

You know, I think today with social media and the use of the smartphones, at a tap of a button, you can order a taxi.

At a tap of a button, you can order food.

It's this whole instant gratification.

that carries on from the phone into real life.

So people become a lot more impatient with one another, a lot more aggravated.

I don't know if you've heard this theory, but

part of that came from the greatest generation.

When they came home, it had been so long since they had anything,

and they didn't want their kids to go through any struggle.

And so they came back home.

They worked hard.

Kid wants ice cream.

I'm getting him ice cream because there was no ice cream when I was growing up.

And so they, while they saved us, they also put us on this track where

their kids were

doted on because of their life.

You're absolutely right.

I mean, they grew up, that generation grew up in the Great Depression and in the worst war in human history.

So when they had children, the biggest issue that their kids had, the baby boomer generation, is if they had a pimple on prom night.

Right.

Right.

It was the happy days kind of generation.

And then when they have kids, you know, they're already one generation removed from the bloodshed and sacrifice over the 1930s and 40s.

And then when they had kids, my generation, you know, what's World War II?

You know, what's on their mind?

And

while I would agree that in a way it is the veterans,

I don't think they did it on purpose.

No, no, no, no, they did.

It was logical.

It's logical.

It's human to do what they did.

But we have become generation after generation more and more disconnected from that.

Which is odd because we've never been able to access information at a faster rate.

We have literally all this information at our fingertips.

In reality, I think, from a logical standpoint, one would think that this youngest generation should know the most about World War II and that kind of thing because they have all the information there.

But I really, I mean, to go back to your original question, what the difference is,

I think a lot of it is just about upbringing.

People today,

it's a very me, me, me kind of world.

And like that, a good example is the front-facing camera on a smartphone.

I think that's going to go down in history as one of the worst inventions because it gives people a false sense of that every single thought that they have deserves to be heard and everyone should listen to it.

And let me take a million selfies, let everyone see what I'm doing.

Whereas the World War II generation, it's not about me.

What can I do for you?

How can I help you?

You know,

it's just really no other way to say it.

It's like you came from another planet.

Where did you come from?

How did this happen to you?

I know you were young.

You were fascinated by World War II.

You learned everything you could.

But that's usually where it ends.

Yeah, I mean, to be very honest, I mean, ever since I was a little kid, I've always been interested in World War II.

All I ever wanted to be was a Marine.

But when I thought of a Marine, I thought of an 18-year-old with nothing but the shirt on his back and a rifle in his hand fighting in the jungles of Guadalcanal or fighting in the sands of Iwo Jima, you know, this good versus evil fight.

And obviously, no war is just black and white, but there was something so altruistic about that war and the men who fought in it.

That one was pretty black and white.

That was really good versus evil.

Absolutely.

And so, you know, that fascination, I mean, I would read books about the matter, as you said earlier.

I mean, I watched movies, but I've just always had a feeling about the veterans.

And as I got older, I lost interest in them joining up with the military, but I never lost interest in the veterans.

And so I just, you know, I started reading personal memoirs from veterans, and I started to call them up

after I read the memoir, because it's so easy to find information now online.

And it was the coolest feeling in the world.

How old were you when you made the first phone call?

Oh, I think I was 16.

Did you tape it?

No, no.

It was just out of fascination.

I mean,

I had read this veteran's book.

His name was Lyle Buch.

And he got the Distinguished Service Cross

during the Battle of the Bulge.

Basically, his platoon was credited for stopping a major part of the Battle of the Bulge.

About 19 men stopped 500 Germans, and he was the platoon leader.

I just read his book, and I just looked up his number, and I called him, and I just...

started to talk to him.

Did you say, are you the guy?

Well, the funny thing is,

he was in the Midwest and I'm in California.

And so it was about, I was so excited when I read his book that when I found his number, I called around 11 o'clock.

Oh my gosh, so it was like California time?

One or two o'clock in the morning.

Yeah, and it was really early over there.

And I told myself, maybe I should wait, but I was just too excited.

I had to.

Did he talk to you at that time?

He said, Can you please call back in the morning?

That's so funny.

And then, and then we spoke, and it was just such a lovely thing.

And that's what really made me realize that I could talk to these people.

You know, they're out there.

It's not like stupid celebrities where there's a gated, you know, thousand gates you have to go through.

You know, in reality, it should be like that.

You know, there should be a line of people at every retirement home banging on the door, wanting to go in and embrace all that knowledge and wisdom that each one of those people carry.

You know, you can go up to any World War II veteran.

You can ask them anything about the past 100 years, and you'll get a first-hand answer as a response.

But after I talked to him, I started riding my bike to the local retirement home and I interviewed every single veteran there and I just, I loved it.

And

I then started to ditch class to go do interviews because I was learning more from the veterans than I was in school.

And around that time, the local paper did a story.

And people started calling me, you know, and saying, you know, my dad's a World War II veteran or my neighbor's a World War II veteran.

And so I just, it was just very natural the way it worked out.

I started making appointments because I was just so fascinated.

Of course, all these were recorded.

The radius that I was traveling in just kept getting bigger and bigger.

And by this time, I started to drive.

And then

around the same time I graduated high school, the Associated Press did a story about my mission, which really helped get the word out.

And then from that point onward, I mean, I got like 3,000 emails in a day from people all across the country saying, you know, I know a World War II veteran or, you know, this and that.

Or, you know, you should come here, you should come there and I just I figured out this is what this is what I'm gonna do and I made my mission then that I'm gonna interview at least as many World War II combat veterans every single day until the last one passes away.

When we got to Holland we were short of men because several had been

wounded or killed.

And so we had some reinforcements sent to us.

And one of these was a young man called Robbie, Robbie Robbie Robinson,

which he

talked to me.

I think he looked upon me as a father figure

and but he was very scared.

He was scared he was going to get killed.

I said, well you stick with me, Robbie.

I said

you'll be all right.

I couldn't say he wouldn't get killed.

But anyhow,

one day we were

advancing across a field and there was

sergeant

and there was

Robbie was between the sergeant and myself

and we apparently there was a German self-propelled gun was hidden in some trees across the field and

it fired at us

one shell hit the road in front of us and Robbie said, oh, I've been hit.

So

I undone his tunic and he had been hit.

And he died within a few

seconds.

In my arms, yeah.

What do you hope to

do with this amazing archive?

So to be very honest with you, sir, my focus is just getting the veterans interviewed.

What I do with the interviews, they're all filmed interviews.

I meet the veteran, I film interview him, I put it on a DVD, and then I mail it to him for him and his family.

It's really...

Are you you keeping one?

Yeah, yeah.

I keep copies of them all.

At this point in time, you know, I'm just one person.

My focus is just getting the veterans documented.

Ideally, you know, I also donate to like oral history museums and I publish some of them online with the veterans' permission.

But

I really don't know.

I mean, the point of the interviewing and recording it is so that 200 years from now, the future generations will still be able to have the honor and privilege of getting to know literally the greatest men who've ever walked on this face of the earth, like I've gotten to know them, and so that their stories will not be forgotten.

So he, Ozzy, got a hold of that.

And

hey, you guys, back up and give us a poll.

We're stuck.

And he took my hat

and

it had the radio in there.

And

that tank back started backing up.

That sniper nailed him behind the head

blew the whole top of his head off

what did he look like no

you can't describe it it just he fell down and he just lay there and shook his nerves you know and uh

i went and rolled him over and

From here on his head was gone.

And the the medics come right away and says, whose head up there?

I says, Ozzy.

And so one of the medics jumped up and got him and laid him on the

grass there.

And looked at me and says,

he's gone.

The top of his head's gone.

So that was it.

Then we started trying to find a sniper.

We never did find him.

Hell, he could have been a half mile off because he had time to zero in on everything on the tank.

What was going on in your head?

This is, you know, your first day.

Well,

I'll admit it.

You kind of put yourself in that position.

This could happen to me, so.

but then you go on.

Were you scared?

Were you scared?

Oh, I'd be lying to you if I wasn't scared.

Yes, I was scared.

You don't realize,

as young as you are, and as

active as you are, that this could happen to you until something like that

shows that it could happen.

So what

are the things that you

have learned besides the history?

What is it that you have said?

Oh my gosh.

I mean, this is just

wisdom that

nobody has the opportunity to just, is there a pattern of something that

they've learned through their life?

Or is there something that you have

discovered that

has changed you?

Yeah, I think, you know,

when I was younger, I was really self-conscious about how I looked, you know, middle school age, right?

I think everyone is, but I was really self-conscious about how I looked and, you know, what people thought of me and everything.

As I started to interview the veterans, you know, like I said, all the focus, the majority of each interview is focused on combat.

And so

the biggest thing that I've learned from the veterans is perspective.

And how that, you know, although not having internet connection may seem like a big issue or being stuck in traffic is the end of the world.

It's not.

And I can always go back to that because I've met guys who literally saw their best friends getting killed right next to them.

Or I've met people that had to bayonet someone just in front of them just to survive.

And so me,

not having internet access is not a big issue.

I mean, I remember one example is my first out-of-state trip was to Oregon.

And, you know, I'm from sunny California and I was packing for the trip.

And it was like 90 degrees in California.

And my mom put some winter clothes in the car because it was in fall.

And I said, Why would you put winter clothes in there?

And I just put it back in my room.

My first day in Oregon, it snowed.

And at that time, I was living out of the car.

You know, I just put the back seat, I would just sleep in the back seat, and I had no planks or anything.

And I was freezing, and it was hard to sleep.

But I thought to myself,

you know what?

The veteran who I interviewed earlier during the day was in the Battle of the Bulge, and his feet were literally frostbitten.

He had toes removed because of how cold it was.

I can't complain about, you know, being

mildly uncomfortable on the back of my car.

I mean, a lot of little things like that, like what I think a lot of people really worry about blemishes or how they look, to be very honest with you.

I mean, I hope it doesn't happen.

But I could have a huge scar right here, and I don't think it would bother me because I'm alive.

And I think that's...

I mean, what's

the veterans really try to make this point stick is that life is about the people you meet and how they make you feel and the experiences you had.

You know, no one's going to care about how many Facebook friends you had or what witty Twitter posts you made or how many Instagram followers you had.

It's about real experiences that you have.

with people around you and making the most of your life and trying to help as many people and making the world a better place than it was before you were here.

I mean, that's what they really impart:

you have a purpose in life.

Make the most of your life and try to help other people.

Do you ever get the feeling that they're

ashamed of what we've done?

Oh, absolutely.

One of the questions I ask is,

I didn't mean to cut you off as a question.

No, no, that's it.

Yeah.

So the way the interviews are structured, structured, sir, I mean, it's really just a conversation, but the loose outline, you know, we talk about their growing up years in the Depression, how they got into the service, then the majority of it is on combat, what they saw, what they did, what they went through, their living conditions, being under enemy fire.

And then

one part of the interview is what I call the reflection period, which are just, you know, common questions I ask every single veteran.

You know, what life advice do you want to give to future generations?

If you were to give me some advice for my life, what would you tell me?

Were you afraid of getting killed when you were in the war?

Are you afraid of death now?

You know, what do you believe happens after you pass?

How do you want to be remembered as what kind of person?

But one of those reflection questions is:

what would you want to say to the men who were killed in the war?

And I was shocked when I first started to hear.

It's a very common answer, but basically the veterans say, you know, I wish you were here.

I miss you.

They'll talk about their friends who were killed.

And they then say, you died in vain.

You died for nothing.

It was worthless.

And, you know, although they definitely got rid of the immediate evil, right, during the time with Germany and Japan, a lot of the veterans have a feeling now that what was the point of what they went through if people aren't even going to acknowledge it and learn from those sacrifices.

A lot of them,

it's really sad, to be very honest, because I feel that

I am a part of that younger generation and I'm a part of it too.

I mean and we're 30 years apart

I mean it's not like they're talking directly to us, but I still take responsibility but

the world that we are living in today was not the world that the veterans fought for and it makes me sad as well to think what did they fight for

I mean you could say like you know cliche words like freedom and democracy and all that.

I don't know what they really fought for.

I think the veterans of World War II fought for

a country where anyone from anywhere can be anything without any fear of repercussion.

Where we can wake up in a world where our house isn't bombed out every single day, which is true.

Where we can go up to anyone, say whatever we want without any fear that there's going to be some big brother government coming to silence us.

Which I know earlier today you talked about.

I mean, well, there are other organizations that do the same thing.

We're just turning turning into mobs on each other.

I don't like what you say, so I have a right to silence you.

Which is not the way to go about it.

You can't mute something you don't like.

You discuss it, and intelligent people are obviously going to choose the right side to be on.

But you just

covering something up is not getting rid of it.

Yeah.

I think they also fought for a world

where people

can dream about what they want to be and what their life would be like 30, 40, 50 years down the road.

Which is true.

I mean, I mean, you know, my people in my generation think about what they want to do in their future.

Whereas, you know, 18-year-olds today is a lot different than being an 18-year-old in World War II.

You didn't know if you were going to survive the next day, and many of them didn't.

But people have their whole lives ahead of them, and it seems that they're really squandering a lot of it

on useless things that the veterans just didn't fight for.

It's uh it's sad.

You're obviously from Indian descent.

Just your name.

Um

it's popular to say that

the

um greatest generation was also really racist and they were awful people and everything else.

Have you had anyone

say anything

about you having Indian descent?

Have you seen racism in them?

I can just answer that question with one word.

No.

I love you.

Because

what people don't understand is that

my parents immigrated from India.

My sister and I were born and raised in California.

The World War II generation, same exact boat.

A lot of them were first-generation immigrants.

And

I can honestly say, in over 900 interviews of veterans,

I've never felt discriminated against.

I've never felt that they looked at me differently than anyone else.

I feel like a human being.

Have you talked to African Americans that fought in the war?

So in World War II, it was segregated.

So like, you know, my focus is on combat, which really just means I interview

white veterans, you know, no other way to say it.

They were not allowed, I think, into combat, right?

Yeah, there were some specific units, like there's the Buffalo Division that fought in Italy.

Then you have the Tuskegee Airmen.

There was a tank outfit that was black.

But really other than that, they were designated to be truck drivers and that kind of thing, a rear echelon.

And so I have interviewed a few black veterans who fought with the 92nd Buffalo Division.

Which all of those divisions, if I'm not mistaken, all of them outperformed the white soldiers.

The black unit, the 92nd Infantry Division, actually is known for not doing well at all.

Really?

Yeah.

I think the unit that you're talking about is the 442.

Maybe.

It's the Japanese American unit.

It was called the Purple Heart Battalion.

And they were, you know, Japanese Americans, obviously of Japanese descent.

They couldn't fight the Japanese.

And so they were put in a separate unit.

They ended up fighting in North Africa, Italy, and into France.

And they ended up being one of the most highly decorated regiments.

And

they got more purple hearts per person

than any of the other units of their size.

And they also got quite a few Medal of Honors.

Have you talked to any of them?

I've interviewed veterans, yeah, of that unit.

In California, there's a lot of Japanese American veterans.

And they had

every reason not to

want to be patriotic and fight for America because what FDR did with the internment camps was horrific.

Have you talked to them about how they made that mental jump?

Yeah, well, see,

the way they talk about it is

they're American, which is true.

You know, when I asked them about the racial thing, they said, you know, other people can think what they want to think.

I was born and raised in the U.S.

I'm American.

But what I'm asking is, how did they knew that?

I know that.

But when their family is put in a camp, how did they

how did they,

I don't know, thread that needle?

A lot of them actually volunteered from the camps to get out.

Now, you know, you could say they volunteered because they didn't want to be stuck in the camp anymore.

You know,

I don't know if I would rather go into

combat.

But

I think a lot of them just felt that it was the right thing to do.

The veterans who I've interviewed, I've never interviewed a veteran who was in a camp and volunteered.

All the veterans who I interviewed were original 442 veterans

because the unit was originally formed before the internment camps.

But then they got the replacements from the internment camps to fill in the ranks when there were casualties.

I

was lucky enough to have a family

send me the archive of a woman named

Rio Soto.

She was an artist.

She was put into an internment camp.

She was a remarkable woman.

She ended up getting out and she did most of the schematics for our bombers.

So

when you were training to be a pilot, it was all of her artwork that was being used.

And when she died, her family, she told her family about the internment close to her deathbed.

Never had said anything.

And the family said that they were shocked

because here's a woman that could have had all of the axes to grind and they said she was the most american american

they're remarkable people i i just think that

i don't know i can't say enough praise about that generation i really believe that that generation i mean they're real life superheroes and it's really i think unfortunate The way people,

I just don't understand.

It's really hard for me to understand why people don't don't treat them better or why people don't have respect for the elderly.

Because oftentimes I'll go to retirement homes.

And I know that this veteran I'm talking to is a legitimate warrior.

He's a war hero and he went through hell and back just so that someone like me could have a chance at life 75 years later.

But the way people talk to him, it's like he's an incoherent five-year-old that can't tell his left from his right just because he's older.

You know, I think there's this huge misconception with the elderly that they're just old funny duddies in wheelchairs just waiting to kick the can.

But if anyone, you know, takes the time to actually interact with them and talk to them like normal human beings, which they are, but with a degree of respect, instead of talking down to them, they will learn that these people are the most intelligent and awe-inspiring, I mean, storytellers really that I think have ever walked on this planet.

I interviewed a veteran like two weeks ago.

He's 105 and he still rides a bicycle.

You know, like a legitimate bicycle.

I mean, it's like I talked to a we had a listener who was a fan of ours.

He was over 100.

And

I sat down with him, sharp as attack.

He told me what it was like the day Wall Street crashed in 1929.

It was.

What?

I mean, it's hard to get your arms around.

You were there.

You saw it.

That's incredible.

Incredible.

So, one part of the interview, I have the veterans hold up a photo of them in uniform,

and often when they're younger, and then right next to their face, you get a before and after.

And it's at that point I realized that the stories that this older man has been telling me, it's not stories about someone else.

It's him.

He was the same guy that went through all those combat experiences that had to shoot at people, that had to see his friends getting killed, that

live out of foxholes, had to worry about artillery shells coming in every day.

he's not telling me a story about someone.

This is first-hand knowledge.

What, what, are you,

I'm fascinated by you, and you give me a great deal of hope.

How is your generation with hearing your stories?

Like I said, to be very, I'm just being very brutally honest.

I don't hang out with anyone my age.

I was at a...

This is going to be an embarrassing story, but it's true.

See, I mean, I don't drink and I don't smoke, but I was I had again you're from another planet.

Hats off to your parents.

They are wonderful people.

I've got to believe they've done a great job.

I think, you know, to be very honest, my upbringing, who I am now, is really from the veterans.

I think they've really filled in a father-figure role for me.

And they've really,

you know, if you hang.

You know, I mean, but

what I was going to say, though, is

I had an interview in Des Moines, Iowa.

And I had gotten there early, and I was staying at a,

oh, what do you call them?

Hostel, you know, to

save on the money.

And there was another guy staying there.

And

I needed a ride to the grocery store to go get some food.

And he was going out there.

And so he took me to the grocery store.

And then he made me go to a bar after with him.

And I was just so uncomfortable.

Because, I mean, that's just not my scene.

But the point is of the story, there was a girl at the bar who's quite pretty.

And

I didn't know what to do or anything, you know.

And,

but he'd given me $5.

He said, you know, if you want a ride back home, you have to buy her a drink.

And so, I mean, I don't drink.

So I asked her, you know, can I buy you a drink?

And she says, sure.

And she lists this whole long name.

And I said, can I write that down?

I don't even know what that is.

And so I just told, I gave the bartender the money and said, you know, just get her whatever she she wants, you know.

But the point is,

she started talking to me, asked me what I started, what I did.

I spent the next half hour just showing her different interviews of the veterans, and I started just talking about how amazing that generation is and how awesome they are.

And my friend from the hospital is just sitting there going like this.

And

he's like, that's not how you pick up a girl.

But, you know, I mean, for me, I mean, I don't care about that kind of thing.

I care, I'm a lot, I'm a lot more.

My friend, people like to say I'm attracted to old men,

which is in a way is true, I guess but you know it's uh I mean but I mean there's

all joking aside there's just something about that generation I think a lot of people are born and they live their lives and they die without really making an impact around them and truth be told if they did not exist the world probably would not be different But you can't say that about a single World War II veteran.

I really believe that each one of them has done so so much more for other people than people can ever do for them.

And it's not like they were doing it for that reason.

They weren't doing it for the valor or for the glory.

They were doing it because it was the right thing.

And I just think that at a time when it was so crystal clear for people, you know, what's right and wrong, and just you do what you have to do to help people.

It's

you know, you say that

people live their life and they die, and maybe things don't change.

But

I was waiting for my daughter one day at lunch.

It's when I was living in New York City.

And there's a restaurant

right at the side of the ice rink.

And it was cold and it was winter.

And I'm sitting right at the glass.

So I'm looking right at the ice rink.

And

people can sit down and they can change their shoes before they go out in the ice.

And as I was waiting, I was just watching everybody.

And this woman came.

She was probably about 28, 30 years old.

She was wearing a big heavy coat and a frumpy hat.

And there was nothing special about her.

And I just watched her, and I only noticed her because she sat right in front.

And I noticed she was carrying a bag.

And so she unzips a bag, and here are these really nice ice skates.

And she's not wearing anything that's expensive or anything.

But she had obviously paid some money for the ice skates.

She laces them up.

She gets out on the ice.

And I watch her.

And she has become an artist.

Her movement was so graceful.

And

she was an artist on the ice.

She skated for about 20 minutes.

sat down, took her shoes off, zipped them up, put her frumpy coat on and her hat.

And I wish I I could have followed her because I wondered

in Manhattan, 16 million people,

you can become invisible so easy.

I wondered how many people in her office saw her as the accountant or the receptionist and had no idea the art that was in this woman's soul.

We are missing it

because there

what is it now, four

billion people on the planet?

There's four billion stories.

And

we're living around so many of them.

And

we just don't go for them.

We just don't look for them.

I mean, they're everywhere.

I mean, there's literally...

I mean, back to the vendors.

I mean, there's literally retirement homes in every single town across the country.

I mean, it's, and I just,

it's like

sometimes I feel, I mean, you've been into retirement homes, right?

When you're walking down, like, it's, sometimes it's kind of like a hotel, the corridor with all the different rooms.

It's, it's a weird feeling, but it's almost like narnia, you know, because you could go into each one of those rooms, just open the door, and you're in a whole different world.

There's just so much wisdom and knowledge accumulated over that time that, you know, each one of those people, I mean, they're special.

And they, like you said, I mean, I mean, I didn't mean to say that no one.

I just felt that the veterans are a terror above.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand.

But everyone has their own unique story and is special.

I often think of

what a hell Stephen Hawking would have lived in

with ALS if you couldn't give him a computer to talk.

How many people would have said, oh, Mr.

Hawking, how are you?

And he's doing three-dimensional modeling in his head.

How many veterans we talk down to?

Yeah, I mean, it's

people

look

at someone just at how they look on the outside, and they make instant judgments about them, and that's how they decide to carry on their conversation.

And they don't realize that there's so much you can take from a veteran knowledge-wise, a lot more than you would think, just by looking at them.

You know, I mean, they really have the best advice.

They have the best because they've gone through everything.

You know, I mean, it's I don't know who would be a better role model than a World War II veteran for anyone.

What are you going to do when you're done with this project?

I mean, so my mission is to do it till the last World War II veteran dies.

Still probably 10, 15 years.

Yeah, so that's a lot of life left for you.

What do you think you're going to do?

What do you think you're going to be?

What is this?

Who are you when this is over?

To be very honest, sir,

I really haven't thought about it because my focus is just on the interviews.

I mean, I haven't been home in two two years.

I've just been on the road.

I've been to 47 states, U.S., Canada, and I just came back from the U.K.

I just,

with my job of getting the veterans interviewed, it doesn't allow me the opportunity to think about what I want to do.

You know, I'm more focused just about my interview tomorrow, the interview next week.

And to be very honest, I like it that way because I think life is for living in the present.

I mean, I'm sure I have some plans, but

my most important thing, I can guarantee this, I believe that the most important thing I'm ever going to do in my life is what I'm doing now.

And that if I had all the money in the world, I would still be doing this.

Because

the feeling you get talking to someone who went through the worst war in the history of humanity and is opening up for the first time about what he had to see and what he had to do, because

he feels, and rightfully so, that he trusts you.

with all his raw emotion and all his stories to be the carrier of that, to help ease that burden, it's the most wonderful feeling in the world because

when you see guys getting blown up next to you, when you see guys trying to stuff their guts back inside, when you have to kill someone, it's lonely when you're the only person that knows what that's like.

And it's so hard when they came home because you can't even, it's not even that they just didn't want to talk about it.

It was hard,

hard to explain.

And so once they realize that there's someone that they can just jump into the story with without explaining the intricate details.

It really just, they're like open books.

And I really believe it helps them to know that there's someone out there who doesn't judge them, who they're not going to run into at the grocery store, who's probably going to be in a different state, you know,

who knows a little bit about their story and is able to

empathize with them and talk to them about it.

A lot of them don't want their kids to know that they had to kill people.

You know, they don't want their kids to look at them in a different light.

They want to be dad.

They want to be grandpa.

But there's so much more than that.

I mean, they're heroes.

Did you ever see the movie?

I think it's the age of Ada or anybody know what that movie is called?

Yeah, I think I haven't seen it, but I think that she stays the same age.

Yes.

And she realized

she couldn't take

the

death of all of her friends over and over and over again.

You are out of time.

Knock on what the veterans are for a long, long time.

I know.

To be very honest,

I try not to think about it.

It's got to be hard to lose

friends all the time, and that last one that goes,

that's going to impact impact you.

If I'm very honest, which I'm being,

sometimes I hope that I die before the veterans do because I've become extremely, extremely, I mean, not all of them,

some particular veterans.

You welled up a few minutes ago, and that's what made me think of this.

Yeah.

Do you feel them deeply?

They're more than just personal heroes.

Like, they're more than best friends.

It's hard to explain, but I truly sometimes hope that what you explain, what you just talked about, the veterans passing

on,

I just hope it doesn't happen.

I don't know what to say.

I really just hope it just doesn't happen.

I don't.

Some people don't deserve to die, is all I really mean.

And I think that they would be good contenders not to, because for everything that they've done for people, I just, there's just so much more for them

to give.

And

I know you've already thought of this.

But what you just said, some people don't deserve to die.

They won't because of you.

All of

who they were, what they did,

all of that would have been lost if it wasn't for you.

Yeah, I mean, I appreciate you saying that, but it's not the same as having them there.

You know, it's

what I sometimes think about, you know, I'm always on the road.

and I've met a lot of couples, you know, just through the grandkids of the veterans or the kids of the veterans.

For some reason, a lot of the couples I've met, they're trying to raise a family, but they aren't able to have kids for some reason.

They're in, you know, one of the spouses infertile or something, but the two people would be some of the best parents, really loving people who really would raise a great family.

And then you always hear about in the news,

horrible parents who have a lot of kids and treat them horribly and beat them and kill them in all these horrible different ways.

And you think to yourself, why is that?

Why is it that someone who would be so good to their kids can't have them?

And then people who are horrible end up getting them.

I mean, same thing about the veterans.

Why is it that they would have to die when other bad people get to, you know, just live?

I just.

I don't know.

I just, and I don't think people understand

what I'm afraid is happening to the World War II veterans is what happened to the World War I veterans.

There was not a major initiative to get the World War I veterans documented.

And a lot of that's lost to history.

And what I think is,

if a Civil War veteran suddenly came up from the grave, all the world's media would be hounding him, begging to do an interview just for five minutes of his time on their knees using the nicest cameras and the fanciest equipment.

And yet we have this opportunity with the World War II veterans, who are arguably way cooler than any Civil War veteran and people are more concerned about using their phone for what the Kardashians are wearing than actually using it as a tool as it was meant for to document history.

I mean I'm not the only person who can do this.

I mean anyone can literally take their phone, which has a video camera or take a video camera, go to a retirement home and document a living piece of history so that 200, 300 years from now, their great great great grandkids will get to know what their great great great grandpa looked like, the way he talked, the way he laughed, the way he cried, the way he spoke, his little intricate details, not just his name.

You know, I don't even know anything about my great-great-grandfather.

But we have this opportunity to give this gift to the future generations, and people are just sitting there, and it just doesn't make sense to me.

My grandfather would not sit for an interview.

I asked him.

And

I think about this often,

that all of my life in the last 20 years,

my great-great-great-grandkids will be able to

access and see me, but they're not going to see everybody else.

They're not going to see the rest of the family.

And I wish I could have done that with my grandfather.

I'd love to hear his voice again.

How can people help you?

Because you're not making money on this.

No.

Well, I've been really blessed.

You know, after the Associated Press did a story about my mission, CBS Sunday Morning did a story.

And so I have a non-profit foundation called Heroes of the Second World War.org.

It's all spelled out, H-E-R-O-E-S of the Second World War.org.

But I was able to get a lot of oral history grants, and a lot of amazing, generous people donated their hard-earned money to some kid so that he could go out and get these heroes documented.

So the biggest help really, I mean, and I'm not trying to sound pretentious when I say it, but it's not really about the money.

Because the nonprofit, the board of the directors on the nonprofit gives me a stipend every month for food and travel, which is all I need.

I don't have a family.

I don't have a mortgage.

I'm a young guy.

That's all I need is just to get to the veterans, the food, travel, camera equipment.

So that's taken care of.

The biggest thing that I'm trying to do now is find out about other World War II combat veterans and get them interviewed.

So how do they, how does somebody has somebody?

How do they get a hold of you?

Oh, I mean, if they reached out on the website, there's a contact form.

It's heroes of the secondworldwar.org, or they could email heroesofthe second worldwar at gmail.com, or they could call 202-813-0992

and that would get to me.

But it's also other people who want to join the organization because there are volunteers now who I have across the U.S.

who are doing interviews in their own local areas, which is great.

But, you know, I did the math.

If we wanted to interview every single World War II veteran in the world, not just the U.S., but the world, it would take two weeks.

Oh, my.

How many volunteers would you you need?

It would just be over a thousand.

That's it.

Because

we have the manpower, the technology, the know-how, the transportation's never been easier.

Access to finding out about the veterans has never been easier.

I mean, it's all there.

But it would take less than two weeks to document an entire generation.

And so all I'm asking is that if there's anyone else out there, you know, listening to this,

If you want to help make a difference and get these veterans documented, please do reach out at the website, you know, or visit heroes of the second worldwar.org i mean to learn how you can join because i can't be the only person who's doing it everyone can make a difference for these veterans and they deserve it and i mean but i mean obviously if you know any world war ii combat veterans also do reach out because i'm always looking to interview more veterans um

but i just

just don't wait You know, I think that's such a, people always think that like their father is going to be around for

ever.

You know, but now is the time to do it.

You know, we have this opportunity.

You know,

we shouldn't have to wait for an obituary to find out about the most amazing and heroic people that lived in our community.

You know, we should be able to talk to them.

We should be able to learn about it while they're still alive so we can talk to them, look them in their eyes, and thank them and

interact with them.

And I just, there's so many interesting obituaries that you find, you know, as I I find as I'm trying to find the veterans, but there's no interviews of them.

And I'm wondering to myself, here, this veteran's been able to live in his 90s and 100s,

and no one took the time just to document his story.

You know, all those sacrifices and moments of his life have now just been

put into three paragraphs.

They don't deserve that.

I mean, they deserve a voice in our world, in our future world,

because I think the best thing that we can do for those 410,000 boys who were killed in the war and everyone who was killed in the war across the world is give their death some meaning because if we just pretend like that was a long time ago and it doesn't matter and we continue to act the way we're acting now we're literally spitting on the graves of those men

because it's bad enough that they had to die at 18 19 20 you know the fact that they were born had the middle of their life and the end of their life before they could even drink alcohol, you know,

that's a really sobering thought.

But, you know, it's bad enough that they had to be killed, but it would be even worse if they were killed for no reason.

And I really hope that the veterans who I interview that say that they feel that their friends have died in vain, I really hope that they end up being wrong and that their friends died for a purpose because,

I mean, it was just 75 years ago, which is such a short time in the span of humanity.

And, I mean, it should still be relevant and raw.

I mean, I just don't understand why people don't talk more about it.

It is wonderful to talk to you.

Thank you for taking the time.

You're bad.

Thank you.

I really appreciate it.

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