The Donut Dollies
Two women working to bring the women of WWII out of the footnotes of history and into the spotlight. With a healthy serving of coffee and donuts, The Clubmobile is bringing the women of WWII back into the narrative of history one episode at a time!
The Donut Dollies
The Clubmobile on Tour: In The War Wagon with Jeff Copsetta
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The Clubmobile is hitting the road! Well, sort of- we're actually in the War Wagon with Jeff Copsetta! If you're part of the history community, then you know Jeff; if not, we can't think of a better introduction! An Army veteran, living history preservationist, teacher and now, President of The Conservators of The Greatest Generation aka COGG. Jeff takes us through his journey of falling in love with history, during his childhood, to his service and now into the preservation of wartime. He also takes us on a brilliant tour of what he has dubbed The War Wagon, and his stunning jeep, Lula Belle. Not only is his collection nothing to sneeze at, but he also showed up to the interview in full USAAF regalia, with his coffee and a fresh sinker! So, grab yours and join us in The War Wagon for a truly special episode!
*DISCLAIMER: The audio at the beginning of this episode is slightly crunchy, due to filming on location. We apologize- please enjoy!*
Welcome back to the Club Mobile, everybody. We're so happy to have you joining us today.
SPEAKER_02Hi everyone, welcome back.
SPEAKER_01And joining us is the man in the uniform, the wearer of many hats, president CEO of COG, and co-host of What's the Scuttle Butt podcast, Jeff Copsetta.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you girls for having me. I, you know, I think I told you in an email. I've done a lot of podcasts, you know, but I don't think I've ever been so giddy, so excited as I have to be on the Donut Dollies podcast. I think we're gonna have a lot of fun and it's gonna be uh a little bit of a different episode. You know, usually I'm in a nice studio with a big light, but that's not the case. But I think it's you're you're gonna forgive it by the end of the uh first tour you exhibited.
SPEAKER_01You are you're out in the field today, aren't you?
SPEAKER_00I am, I am. I we are kicking off air show season today.
SPEAKER_01Incredible. This is definitely a first for this is definitely a first for us to have a long tour, but virtually. Yes, we're on the move, we're on the move, guys, but virtually.
SPEAKER_02But virtually with with Mr. Jeff. Um, so for those of you who don't know who you are, can you introduce yourself and what is your part of the World War II historical community?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So for me, my interest in World War II began when I was four years old. Both of my grandfathers are very good, and one of them, he would come to Babysydney, uh, would bring his record collection. I'm I'm old enough to we did have a record player in the living room. Uh, and he would put on all three volumes of Victory at Sea. And that classical music from that old TV show uh stuck with me. And I had a little toy rifle, and he would put on Victory at Sea, and he would march me around the living room and dynamic room. And it was then I knew uh that I was going to be, you know, at some point I'm just gonna join the military. And at some point I wanted to help keep history alive. And uh right after I graduated high school, I joined the army. September 11th happened when I was in basic training, so everything changed. Uh we trained for about two years. I served in uh in Baghdad uh during the kind of height of the war in Iraq for about 13 months, employed there, and uh got a little taste of what ground combat was like. Uh I was a machine gunner on a Humvee. Uh and so I told myself when if I get back, um, I was going to dedicate the rest of my life to making sure that people don't forget these sacrifices. And that had nothing to do with me or my guys, but to think of the scale from the second world war. Just the vastness of the sacrifice, the amount of lives lost. Uh it's enormous. So uh I got into reenactment, and you know, after I got out of the army, uh, I was a park ranger for about 10 years, had a normal formal career. Uh, and then I got into the museum world and reenacting and living mystery programs for the National New State Civic War right here in Central Texas. Did that for about five years, and that's what really kind of started the ball rolling. Uh got involved in in some independent films and uh historical uh reality TV shows, and it just the dominoes kept falling, uh, and my my role kept expanding. Uh people knew I was a collector, and it just seemed like things were just piled on me. And so I started my own little my own little gig, uh, just kind of going around the different air shows, bringing you know my display, key, um, and just you know, making sure that this stuff isn't forgotten. Recently, uh I've kind of really funneled those uh that passion and all of that uh that I've been doing for so long into this new nonprofit called server to the greatest generation called Bob, uh, where we are it's the only nonprofit that we know of that's doing this mission, and that includes creating a national database for museums. Um there's you know, I directed this museum right here where I'm at today for about three years, and it's unless you're driving through this little town, you don't know it's here, but there's a complete northern bomb site on display. So what we wanted to do was if you are a student anywhere in the world, uh you could get on our website and through a searchable database look at how many Nord-Bomb sites are on display. And so once these museums give us their inventory and we compile it, now these little museums have international access, essentially. Um another part of our organization is creating uh a valor vault for anybody that has a relative to you, which statistically speaking, 90% of Americans today have some lineage to somebody who served in World War II. It's unbelievable. Uh so we want to preserve their family's history. We do the work rolling through polling record national and putting together uh what their service during World War II looked like with images and documents that help tell the story of what their grandfather and great-grandfather didn't work, and then with their permission to have that accessible to authors, historians, researchers, uh to tell the story to pull these. You know, I just I've been traveling for so much girls that you know you hear these stories. People come into my trailer, oh my grandfather, this, this, and then they leave with maybe I should have asked them, or you know, maybe we should go up in the attic and look in that footlocker again. I forget what's in it. And so that's all we're doing. We're not inventing anything, we're just extrapolating these artifacts, these stories, these family legacies before they're completely lost in this. That to me is unexpected.
SPEAKER_02It's it's such an an amazing thing that the people are doing, and it's such an amazing cause. Like it's incredible to hear about it.
SPEAKER_01That's incredible to me because we I think about it in the terms of I never had a chance to ask my grandfather about his service. He had passed away when my father was a kid. My dad was six years old. So neither one of us ever had a chance to speak to him about it. We kind of just piece together what we can, what we find in photos, what my grandmother had held on to. We just kind of are piecing it, starting to piece it together now. And it's been my God, it's been gone since 66. So this is like this is something that him and I are trying to dig into as best as we can. But what we found out unfortunately is that a lot of his records were lost in that uh fire in the archives in the 76th. And because it was all kind of alphabetical, all his brother's records were lost too. So whatever we can kind of grab, it's like, okay, well, where does this go? Where does this fit in? Which is why I still think it's so important that if you have somebody alive that you can ask about all of this, if you can speak to a relative about it, you really should be doing it. Because these stories are, you know, when you nice all the time that they have to be saved. They have to be saved.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they cannot be lost to time, they cannot be forgotten. And I feel like it would be such disrespect upon their name if if we all stopped talking about it. And what is the thing we always say, Gab, the last time you say their name is when someone really dies? Yeah. I think it always goes back to that. But it's it's an incredible thing, Jeff, that you are doing. Um, how can other people get involved? Will it be as simple as submitting their relatives' um details to you guys? Or is there another way for people to get involved, like monetarily and stuff?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a great question. There is a lot of ways to get involved. Right now, we're still so the website is operational. Parts of the website are going to be added on as we're kind of designing this, you know. Like I said, we're only four months old. We're four months old. And uh, so we're really trying to hone how we're going to do this because it is such a it's an ambitious vision, right? Uh so uh, you know, and I'll I can share the the website with you with you girls and everything, but um really um get just getting a hold of us on the website, uh with there's our phone numbers and emails on there. Uh because there's I see us getting inundated once we launch the valor call uh for a family member to make a small donation for us to do this research. I I have a feeling it's it's going to expand because it already has. And to give you uh an example, we we picked our inception is the 2nd of November. February 21st, and I don't know how much of this you saw on on social media or whatever, but on February 21st, we dedicated several flats at the Marine Dutch Center, San Antonio, right? 118 Broadway was uh the Marine Dutch Center's historical buildings. And we, you know, we had high hopes for a program like that, but again, it's brand new nonprofit. You know, we only had a couple months for uh marketing. We had like 300 people and several Army and Marine Corps generals, man Sergeant Majors, and Colonels and Majors, and uh of the eight boys from West Lego, Texas, that we were truly honoring, one of them being Harlan Block, uh, one of the Wichita flag fixers. And coincidentally, he was the only one from Leslie Co of those eight boys that was killed in action. Um we we honored those eight, and there were five others, 13 total, that actually had um enlisted together on the roof of this building. And so at the end of our dedication, we had 13 young Marines inducted on the roof of the building under the same flagpole 83 years later. And when folks saw that, I think that's what really helped kind of springboard what this program thing. Yeah, you can create a black and unveil it, dedicated. We had a mural painted and and all this, and then the building looked amazing. But the human story, you know, because usually when you enjoy the military, that's not a public event. You you take your oath, name your parents there, you take pictures, uh-yah, no still big thing. And for but for those 13 boys to march out there on this rooftop in front of everybody, not knowing at all what they were doing. They're recruited just like be here at this time. So they got the backstory first about the Westlock A and all these thousands of young men that joined the breakfast right here in this building. And then they're told to start marching out there to take their oath, they're like, God. And of course, yeah, their family members got to be there. Seven of the eight uh from the original Westlinkawa, seven of those had family members there. They came from all over the country. So that was a month ago. And to see how much it expanded since then, uh, you know, like I said, it's it's we're gonna need volunteers. Long story short, we're gonna need people from all over the country to help us compile this information for it into these databases and these legacy vaults and these uh black dedications and everything that we're gonna be doing. I've been we're gonna get buried real soon.
SPEAKER_02But I think we I think Gabby, you and I should should hop in as well. We're in. We're in sales pitch done. We're in. That's the beauty of it.
SPEAKER_01That's a great that was a great sales pitch. We're in. You got us. Done.
SPEAKER_02Very, very what is it? It's not is it dragon's den here or is it shark tank here? It's shark shark tank. We have dragon's den. So yeah, similar thing.
SPEAKER_00You help people tell the story of something that meant so much to their family, and then they want people to know about it, and that's where I come in. I'm just kind of the middleman. I I yes, this is my collection, I you could say, but it's it's I'm just a steward of it, is how I look at it, and that's what I tell folks. I I'm not out for your stuff, um, but if you want to donate it to me, right, you know, share the story with me. I can tell people, oh, that's that's a picture of Japanese soldiers. Or I can tell about how your dad was in the Navy in the middle of this battle in the Pacific, and he's the one that goes ashore as a scared kid, and probably seeing dead people for the first time, and you know, and pulls this letter, and thank goodness he did. Because now that's that part lives on. That little moment in time, that insignificant moment on Anaweetalk, and that you know, what seemingly insignificant, you know, dead enemy soldier, we now know where his wife and kids you know live during the war and his name. And so that's what's important.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, definitely. I like that you don't like not that you don't talk people through everything that's in the trailer, but that you like sort of let them self discover it. Because I feel like that's something that with history, if you don't discover it on your own and start to dig through it on your own, I don't think you appreciate it as much. If somebody just kind of felt feeds you facts, it's it doesn't have any kind of significance. You could sit in class and school and it's this date, this date, this date. Memorize this, memorize that. Yeah, it doesn't, you don't grasp it, you don't really find the importance of it that way. If you let yourself fall into it, that's sort of where I feel that people fall in love with it the most. That's how it was for me. Yeah, it's absolutely how it was for me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Jeff, do you have a favorite World War II rabbit hole that you have fallen down? Because like us, we're very much um, we find something and we pull a thread and the whole sweater unravels.
SPEAKER_00Um I would say, I mean, my my biggest interest and and the thread that keeps unraveling for me is what you see me wearing it, representing the Army Air Force has really um growing up. Uh my my childhood hero was the pilot of the Memphis Bell, and you know, Captain Robert Morgan. I got to spend the day with him at an air show in nine, I want to say it was 1996. Wow. I was yeah, I was about 13, and I had seen, of course, the the William Wyler documentary, and I had seen the uh Warner Brothers Memphis Bell movie that came out, I think it came out in like 1990 or so. And um, but so like to me, Captain Morgan, this was like, oh my gosh, this was amazing, right? Right. And he had a little sandwich board next to the table that had all of the missions from the Memphis Bell. And if you watch the William Wyler documentary, it makes you think that Willems Hobbin is the 25th mission, and it wasn't even close. And I noticed that I asked him about it, and he just looked, I'm like a 13-year-old kid. How the heck do you know about Willem's Hobbit, you know? So he kind of, once he saw my interest and that it was legitimate, uh, he took me behind the table and just, I mean, spent the day with me, and I got to ask him everything I wanted to ask him, right? It was amazing. But so that's part of why I really like representing the Army Air Forces. But here's probably the most important thing. I could not imagine a more terrifying experience in combat. And and trust me, like I said, I've I've seen a little of it. It ain't pretty, but I couldn't imagine being five miles above the Earth's surface, not in a pressurized cabin, right? You're you're on life support. You've got a heated wool underwear, you know, the blue bunny, that's 24 volt plugged in, you know, with an extension cord and elements built into it, like what you have in your toaster to keep you warm. All this other flight here, you're on oxygen, you've got a headset, that's gotta be plugged in. You have a throat mic, that's gotta be plugged in. You've got cords and cables and wires and hoses all over you just to support your life. You know, because you're where humans are not meant to be, and it's 40, 50 degrees below zero, yeah, and you're carrying thousands of pounds of high explosives in this aircraft, and one of the most flammable things is compressed oxygen, which is what's helping keep you alive, and just to think about doing that every you know, every mission, it's dangerous enough just to fly in an aircraft. Right. Yeah, but then to have the flak and the fighters and the cold and just the lack of the just your restricted movement. If you've ever put on an entire everything that they wore, the complete flight suit, you can barely move. And then to think that a lot of times, too many times, those guys had to decide between you stay in the airplane or you bail out. Right, either way, you could die, but you gotta do something. And I wouldn't want to. I mean, yeah, some people I know a lot of guys that went airborne in the army, and good for you, buddy. But I wouldn't want to do that ever. Thank you. You know, and I guess that's why wars are fought by you know 19 and 20 years, or a lot younger than that.
SPEAKER_02No fear, absolutely no fear in there. Um, I I think it always strikes us as that they were so young, and in comparison, they were babies. Like as I've aged, I'm like, oh my god, he was just a baby when he flew 25 missions and he, you know, what was potentially missing in action at POW. And then, yeah, the way you've just said he was 19 or 20, I'm like, 19 or 20 year olds have zero fear in their body, so no wonder. No fear, no wonder. I think obviously underneath it all, they were probably terrified. And obviously, there's so many accounts of them not of saying that they're terrified in a letter, but not outwardly saying it to their crew. Yeah, but yeah, 19, 20 year olds, there's not a lick of fear in them. I am rereading, I'm rereading Masters of the Air right now.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02There's a bit that there's a bit I just came across where it said that the Jeep ride from the briefing room up to your hard stand was where the fear would really get you. When you were in the air, it you'd already done it. You had already done the biggest step. Because once you're up in the air, there's nothing you can do except to do the mission. You're at you're at the mercy of fate at that point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they said that the hardest was always going from the briefing, getting in the Jeep, and being driven to their fort. And that was the scariest part. But once they're up in the air, they're like, Well, I'm here now. Right. I'm gonna carry it on. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, Jeff, do you have a favorite World War II book or World War II movie?
SPEAKER_00Oh. Ah, gosh. I don't know. I've got like 2,000 books. Um if I had to, jeez, if I had to pick one. I couldn't. Uh I couldn't. Actually, on Cog's website, I think I put my top five because they're about very different things. So I think to me, the best memoir, Serenade to a Big Bird by Little Burton Styles. I think one of the best books about leadership would be uh Tommy Blackburn's uh book about his squadron, Blackburn's Irregulars, uh, the Corsair uh squadron. That's just a it's a great it's just a great book on being a young man in charge of a squadron, being a young leader. I think that that to me is one of the best ones. If you just want raw combat in the Pacific, Robert Shirad's Tarawa uh really stands out to me. It really does. Um so th those are some of my top ones, and I would say for movies um and girls you can't laugh, uh you know, they've come a long way. Movies have come a long way. They have, yeah. But and I love all the new series, right? I I love what they did with Masters. Masters was what I think I've wanted my whole life. Um, but at the heart of it, I think my favorite movie that I watch, I watch all the time. I watch it more than once a year. It is Santa Viva Junior with John Wayne.
SPEAKER_02Um, I need to watch that too. I'm really there. I need to see it.
SPEAKER_00It is it it I I don't know. It it's not the most accurate, they never were. Uh it was done in nineteen forty nine, but that movie really helped sell the uh save the Marine Corps because after the war it was like we really need the Marines anymore. So they put the biggest name in lights and in one of according to John Wayne it was one of his favorite roles to play Sergeant John Stryker. And they they go through the Tarawa and the Iwo Jima invasion, but it's a story again about leadership and about getting guys to buy into this process. And it's just classic American cinema. That's one of my all-time favorite movies and probably the Warner Brothers version of the Memphis Bell. I think it's a great movie. Are the things wrong? Yeah whatever I don't I don't need the new you know I don't need all the CGI. I don't need I I I have a grasp I can grasp the concept myself. I've studied it long enough. So I I I don't know I I'm I'm not the best person to probably ask that question because I go to the plastics for it.
SPEAKER_01As do we as completely the same I mean if you asked me I've seen a League of Their own probably upwards of a hundred times. Oh that is probably one of my go-to like home front side World War II movies. I'll watch it there's nothing to watch that's what I'm sussing out that's what I'm looking for.
SPEAKER_02Yeah that's what we're looking for yeah absolutely um Jeff I do have a book recommendation for you I've been recommending this to everyone recently okay have you read Five Came Back by Mark Harris no it's about the five uh Hollywood directors that enlisted in the military William Wilder in it John Houston it's such a clunky book like size wise but it is incredible and it made me go watch every single movie mentioned in this book. Of course Weil is in there a whole lot with um with Memphis Bell and I didn't know he lost 90% of his hearing making Memphis Bell and no one ever seems to take that into account that him just going as a director and filming all these missions, he then came home 90% disabled. And then it it talks a lot about you know their experiences and you don't really think about it in the sense of of that they are also at war. You think of it as oh he's just filming it. No he was up there yeah also being shot at it's it's an incredible book. I think you would really love it. I loved it so I think you would also love it. It's excellent.
SPEAKER_00Are you reading anything currently now uh I am I am uh so I've got a trip planned uh I'm taking some students to Italy the end of July and I didn't so I I I we took we went to Greece uh in 2024 I spent 10 days in Greece with with some of my students and I was caught off guard with how much World War II history was around me that I didn't even realize I I didn't really study that much about the German occupation of Greece. So of course once I was there I was trying to get caught up right and I remember we were uh you know we're in a tour bus basically once we get there and we were stopped for gas and kids were getting snacks and everything and I was tingling I mean it was just like there was an energy I thought I was hooked up to a car battery and our tour guide she's I I said I can feel there's like a battlefield and I know this sounds crazy I said but I can just feel it and she said that is unbelievable she said well you know we're close to where the battle of thermopylae happened she said it's on the other side of that mountain range Mykonos Mountains she said but actually right here was the second battle of thermophyla I've never heard of that and she said well she said there's a bridge that the uh Greeks were trying to hold it was a delaying action when the panzer columns were coming down in the Greeks and she said there was a huge battle right here it was called the second battle of thermopoly couldn't believe how did I not know this so right now I'm reading the second volume of Rick Atkinson's trilogy uh he does an army at dawn and then Day of Battle and then I think guns at twilight or whatever volume three is so volume two is about the army's invasion of Sicily and mainland Italy uh because again I never really studied that a whole lot and I wanted to kind of be familiar with oh Patton hang on Patton's one of my favorite movies too there we go stick you in a room with my father oh my god how did I miss that one but but but that movie is about the extent of my knowledge of the Sicily campaign and that's not fair because we know I'm sure there's all this inaccuracy.
SPEAKER_01So so I'm reading volume two Rick Atkinson's uh Day of Battle we need to look into that yeah we're always taking recommendations and new books for the quarterly book club rotations so we're always looking for something fun to read but what's like with something extra yeah well I would say you should try to get a hold of this one too flight nurse the first flight oh amazing yeah it's it's it's not a book per se it's more of a pamphlet but this is an incredible story about this young lady here yeah there's just there's so much there's so much out there um but yeah I think I think I'm gonna have to leave you with a final thought here in a minute everybody go ahead do it um of course so it's been amazing and and and I hate to to cut it short and and maybe we can do this again I would say though for for a a parting uh thought for everybody so my day job is I'm a high school teacher right and the reason I got into that was because I remember doing a podcast episode with an author and he said oh kids these days right yeah kids these days they don't appreciate history they don't care they don't know what was sacrificed for them and the army taught me a lot but one of the one of the biggest lessons I've taken from my service in the army was never complain about something that you can change and it just kind of hit me one day and you know my wife said you're basically doing educational stuff and you're teaching people about World War II everywhere you go you should look into being a teacher so I made that decision five years ago I teach at the high school I graduated from and this is what I want people to know because you mentioned it earlier history in the classroom we're memorizing names dates and things that nobody cares about and that's why students leave high school with hardly any knowledge of true history history is an art not a science and it's not fixed.
SPEAKER_00History is kind of this frothy foamy bubbling thing where stuff always kind of comes up to the surface it's never just buried so if if you recall uh however long ago was now when uh you know somebody tried to assassinate Trump right we see the pictures with blood all of a sudden the j the JFK assassination now becomes relevant history again right it something today brought something from yesteryear back up to the top the simmer for a little bit so when we think about history the important thing to remember is it's not that history itself is is gone it's all around us history is not history history is the story of right now because what we're doing right now and what we do in the future helps us see the history in a different lens so history in the past is always changing so it's not necessarily important to know history it's important to know why history matters and that's what I want my students to they may not know the names and the dates uh and I don't care about that but if they know why history is so important and they have the interest to study it on their own that's when you've got something absolutely absolutely that's the truth absolutely it is Jeff thank you so so much for joining us today we have had such a great time thanks for hanging out with us thanks for taking us around the war wagon yeah what a dream for doing it from the air show what a dream correct yeah it's gonna be a fun day we're gonna demonstrate a flamethrower and we're gonna do uh a Vietnam demo I'm gonna narrate a little Vietnam demo of a downed pilot uh that's being rescued by alert team so we'll do that with a few helicopters in front of everybody there's a Corsair here there's an Avenger there's a B-25 day girls gonna be a great day send us pictures please yeah thank you absolutely absolutely thank you so much thank you so much and to everybody watching at home we'll see you guys soon see you next time everyone goodbye