Episode 223 – Rooftop Oath 2026 (Part 2): Behind the Event

Podcast Episode 223

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Digital Fortune Media proudly presents the What's the Scuttle Butt Podcast with your hosts, Don Abernathy, Jeff Copsetta, and Dennis Blocker.

SPEAKER_04 0:16

Welcome everybody to another episode of the What's the Scuttle Butt Podcast, your favorite World War II-based podcast, and we hope, well may we expect, we assume we probably have some new listeners because we met a lot of people in San Antonio, Texas, when it was the first time that the four of us, the three of us definitely, but the four of us all occupied the same space. But as we were just saying before we went on the air, we know we were at the same location. I don't know if the four of us were in the same room, or actually, just the three of us were in the same room for longer than 10-15 minutes at a stretch, with the exception of a dinner, but even at the dinner, it was it was all business. So first and foremost, welcome everybody, for those of you joining at home. Guest for the day is Mr. Andrew uh Boomer. First, Jeff, how's it how's it going, fella?

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Good, man. I missed you. It was just too quick of a trip. It was too quick.

SPEAKER_04 1:04

Yeah, as soon as I left, you turned on the sprinklers, you put some fertilizer down. Like, we can green this place up. Don't gone.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

We only like 92 yesterday. Like, what the heck?

SPEAKER_04 1:14

We're in a drought. Our our canals are like down five feet. Can't sprinkle. It's fine. So I can't complain that I lost my internet terrain tonight because we definitely need it. But uh Dennis Fella, thank you both for uh helping set up my rock and roll tour. That's what I call it when you blow in the town, you couch, you crash on a couch or a bed, you do some activities, and then you bolt out and leave like you were never there before. And so that's definitely what that weekend was, but we'll get into that momentarily. Dennis, how's things going on your end?

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Good. It's going real good. Just uh oh man.

SPEAKER_04 1:48

And the reason for Dennis's anxiety, if it wasn't for this young man, none of this would have happened. Oh, let me check this out, Andrew. I meant to bring this, but I didn't want to shove it in my book bag. Look at that fella. That's your manuscript. I actually had printed out so that I can read it in the bathroom like a real book instead of staring at it on the PDF version on my on my uh computer. So I actually have a I was gonna bring that out there and have you autograph it, but I was like, it'll just get all destroyed, shoved in my book bag because I had so much crap shoved into such little compartments because of the travel. But uh thank you for being out there. And I guess I think either Jeff or Dennis should kick this episode off because it's about the uh rooftop oath and well all of us getting together and how that event went. So I'd probably say Dennis, kick it off.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Well, it was it was a uh yeah, it was I would say more of like a uh hurricane, and then um you kind of look around afterwards and you're like, where did everything go? Um Jeff and I were talking about that, and it's like you he was done, and I turned around and everybody was gone. Just kind of like what happened.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

I think maybe what we should do, we should probably back up a little bit for those listeners who don't have the foggiest idea what we're talking about. So we did a podcast a while back. Andrew was on it, it was about the Wesley Co 8, and during that interview, he presented a slideshow, and in that slideshow was a photo of the Weslico 8 plus a few other gentlemen from the um Rio Grande Valley that totaled in 13 gentlemen being sworn into the Marine Corps on the roof. One of those gentlemen went off to be a flag raiser. We'll get to that later in the Iwo Jima photo. Dennis, being in San Antonio, looked at that roof. So, hmm, I bet I can find that some bitch. And lo and behold, he did, went and talked to the owner. And Dennis, take it from there.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

Yeah, so the owner was blown away. Um, like I said at the rooftop oath event when I was kind of uh starting the uh program. I I had to confess to Lawrence as he walked in. And it's interestingly, he was probably the last person to arrive and sitting at the front. So he kind of was hunched over walking towards his seat at the front. And I was like, and Mr. Lawrence. And so he looks up and I was like, you might as well stand. So uh I says, This is and I told the story, and uh I told him how I said, I'm Mr. Siderly, I must confess, I set you up that day. And I said, I had two pictures that I purposely printed eight by tens of one of the rooftop oath with the young men taking their oath on your roof, because I knew that would hook you, seeing your rooftop, and then the eight by ten of the Iwo Jima flag raising, Harlan Block being one of the rooftop oath guys, and uh so that was fun. And uh from that point on, it was you know, um Mr. Siderly, which you know everybody here would agree, having met him, he's just a tremendous, tremendous guy, and just a sweetheart freaking building could not have belonged to anybody better for what we were hoping to do with it, and uh so yeah, from that point on it was just how can I support the building is yours, as a matter of fact. And this is not even a metaphor or kidding. Here's the keys. And uh yeah, I'm gonna test that.

SPEAKER_04 5:14

Dennis was a straight up janitor. Hold on, not that key. Maybe it's this key. Hold on, hold on. Let me pull out the one on the keychain. Oh, here it is. He literally had 17 keys to every door in that compound plus neighboring buildings.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Yeah, it was pretty, it was pretty awesome. And and then, you know, that led to uh Mr. Siderly seeing what what what our vision was and him seeing it and offering us uh office space next door at 450. Now, for the listeners, I mean the the the office space that he gave us is prime like fourth floor, corner pocket, beautiful scaping, huge scaping windows that look down on the intersection of Broadway and Houston and San Antonio. So many times when I was working on the event, I would just I'd pull a table over to that window so I could look down Broadway and Houston and just type away working on uh the oath and every everything that that that comprised that.

SPEAKER_04 6:13

But uh yeah, it's pretty uh and for those of you at home, Dennis is overlooking both figuratively and hyperbably. He's two blocks from the Alamo. No one mentioned that to me when I showed up. It's like, yeah, you I walked to the Alamo and got tacos. That's how close this thing is. So that which I think will come into great um importance in the future as as this building becomes more known because it's you know, you go to the Alamo and oh, by the way, let's go check this out too. It's literally two and a half blocks away. It takes you no time to walk there. It's maybe what, three quarters, half a mile if that it's right around the corner.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

Yeah, yeah, so close that I actually was like, hey, uh, let's go. I walked to you over there. I said, Here's the Alamo, there's the manger hotel where Trendy Roosevelt enlisted the Rough Riders. Uh, right down there is the river walk. There's some good eating there, and I'll see you later.

SPEAKER_04 7:07

No, you said you you thought it was of historical value that I go have a beer at that bar because of the historic behind that bar. So I went down there and had a uh let me tell you, people, a lot of bars, particularly bars in like tourist places, they're they're they get a little thin on the drinks. No, when I ordered that vodka and coke, he found that some bitch all whipped. It wasn't like three fingers and ice, and just it was strong and full. And I sat down there for a good time talking to him about the actual weapons and some of the gear in the cabinet, because down there on the left, he had some they had uh 1903, and then they had some what the cow Craig Jorgensen rifles in there because he was asking about one of them, and I had to look it up. But we were talking about, you know, they had some of the World One era M1 belts on there. I was talking about how it's very similar. If you know a lot of them were actually worn by the Marines on Guada Canal, but we got talking about all that, and I was down there for probably a good two and a half hours just hanging out. Great, great spot.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

Yeah, and then later that night, um andrew shows up with his his lovely bride, and uh we were on the phone and we were hanging the plaque on the front of the building. Jeff, I don't even know if you know this happened, but uh Andrew's in town, we're excited, you know, and then he's gonna come over and check out the plaque being mounted on the front of the building. And right as I'm on the phone with Andrew, I'm in the process of saying, Hey, what's up, man? And right when I'm saying, Hey, what's up, this this homeless drunk guy walks by, makes eye contact with me, and thinks I said, Hey, what's up, man? To him. So he he starts a conversation and he's so drunk and he's so philosophical, like, we can't get rid of this guy.

SPEAKER_04 8:56

Yeah, he he hung out for quite a bit of time. We had some very um interesting uh discussions that he was trying to um to start on race relations. He was a Hispanic fellow, and then uh he was starting later, he's like, Well, come on, let's get some drinks. We're like, we're working. He's like, Ah, but it's a third thing, and just get walked off into the night. Meanwhile, me, Dennis, and your um your wall mount, your your plaque mounting guy were all just kind of like, okay, back to work.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

Oh man. Yeah, that was quite a that was quite a lead up there. I I felt bad though, uh, Don, because I was a horrible host for you. Um I kept apologizing. So sorry.

SPEAKER_04 9:42

Well, I try to leave a bad Yelp review, but your house isn't listed. Andrew, what was this like for you to go from you know coming on a podcast, you know, talking to Dennis, and then all of a sudden, next thing you know, you're booking a flight to to Texas.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Yeah, it was pretty pretty surreal. Um, like they talked about at the oath, you know. I've I mean I've been a military history student my whole life, um, not professionally, but uh, you know, as a kid, that was something that I always wanted to do was serve my country. And uh I have sports induced asthma, which was crazy because all the sports that I played involved running in that, but um the Marines wouldn't take me um after I graduated high school because I had an inhaler. But the next best thing I wanted to do was uh give back to the veteran um that I idolized my whole life. And so where that goes with this story is um, you know, I had family that served with Patton in Europe. Um, you know, fought through the European theater. Um and I I watched Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers as a kid. But when the Pacific came out in 2010, you know, I wasn't exposed to that. So I'm I'm like, man, there's another war here. And my dad's a big military history guy too, but it just it was never talked about. Um so I the first Pacific book I read was Flags of Our Fathers. Um, and that's when I I like I said, I don't know um what got me into it. Um but Harlan Bloch drew to me um right off the get-go. I have stories that I wrote about him when I was in the sixth grade. Um, like Dennis mentioned, I was Harlan Block for Halloween. I don't know what his family thought about that, but I I was uh Harlan Block um and as a when I was I think in like sixth grade. Um so it was very surreal. And and like I said, you know, when you Dennis was talking about the the night when I showed up, um, my wife and I uh made the pilgrimage to the roof there in the pitch black, and you're looking over San Antonio um at dark. And I like I said, I've never um the the two biggest surreal moments in my life were that. Um that was one of them. And then um when I visited Harlan Bloch's grave in 2021, you know, because and I'm sure you guys can feel the same way when you're when you study World War II and you read about these things and these people and places that you you're fascinated with, and then you finally get to see it. I remember, and then I'll get off my soul box, but I remember um you know, standing up there that night and going, the guy that I've studied since I was 12 years old was sworn into the Marines right here. And I'm I'm gonna be 28 in December. So that's that's most of my life I've studied this gentleman. Um so it uh it it was a surreal moment, that's for sure. And I got to meet you guys finally in person. Like I said, I'd listened to your guys' podcast for five years.

SPEAKER_04 13:05

And was immensely disappointed, might I add. He's like, Wow, this is them, huh?

SPEAKER_02 13:10

No, no, it was it it uh it I really had a good time, and and I can't thank you guys enough for for giving me the opportunity to come down there.

SPEAKER_04 13:20

So Jeff, um, as we mentioned on past podcast, you and Dennis and a few of your friends in Texas started a new organization called COG, the Conservatories of the Greatest Generation. And this was your all's inaugural event. Do you think as someone with the experience of uh organizing events, do you think that this was a good one to kind of get everybody's uh get everybody a little little um experience on?

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Uh no, I don't think this was a good one. I think this was the best one. Uh this one will resonate for years. And I'm not saying that uh out of any kind of hubris, although you would expect that from me. Uh really, uh, because everybody I've told and talked to about it since then um has just been completely enamored uh by Cog, the missions that Cog has, and this type of an event. Um you know, you can talk about this event from several angles, right? We had we had folks like Andrew coming in from out of state. Uh we had uh a historical building that had plaques uh newly attached to it. Uh we had general officers and command sergeant majors in attendance. Uh but you know, aside from all of that, and literally this was just yesterday, I was talking to uh someone who runs an American Legion here up in my area. Um I had him and his wife physically crying when I mentioned that on one side of the flagpole stood 13 young men in this photograph of February 43, but on the other side of this flagpole, February 21st, 2026, we had 13 more young men take the oath of enlistment and they lost it. And this guy uh just met him yesterday, but I don't I don't think he's a soft man. Uh he is a top gun graduate uh and a retired naval aviator. Wow. So I'm pretty sure anybody that flies Tomcats for a living is not somebody you typically associate as easily uh emotional. Yeah. Sure.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

Well, do you guys kind of feel like crap? How do we follow this one up? I mean, is there a little bit of that in your or you just gonna go with the momentum and roll with it?

SPEAKER_01 15:41

No, yeah, this just this is just a springboard. Uh we've got several events coming up, one in five days now that I'll be organizing um with uh with an air show. Uh we've got several in April, May, we'll have another big one in July. It and it's just every day that Dennis and I I don't know, we talk two, three times a week, and every phone call is an update. And every phone call is, oh my gosh, that just happened the last two days. You know, wow, it's Wednesday, and this was you know, holy smokes, like by Saturday of this week it's going to just be evolving, and it just keeps churning. And it has so much buy-in, and I'm surprised with that speed. I'm not surprised because the event was amazing. I'm not surprised with COG literally selling itself, but I didn't foresee um the the this type of how how quickly the evolution was going to be when we think back and go, wow, we had a hairbrain idea five months ago. Now look at us.

SPEAKER_04 16:45

One could argue that it just goes to show you that there was a thirst for that and someone is that needed to be done. This isn't what something that you're trying to put into a an already you know flooded arena. This is something that was somebody had to do and it needed to be done. And you guys, you thought of it, you did it, and it's proven out to be a good choice.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah, and we we say this a lot, you know, it was almost born out of necessity, uh, the timing of it, the mission behind it, and um no, yeah, it it's it's it really literally does sell itself, and when we talk about the different missions that COG has, a lot of times our reactions are wow, nobody's doing this yet, nobody thought of this. And the reason why, I truly believe, is because everything that Dennis and I have been doing uh in our entire adult lives has been preparing us for the roles that we have uh uh at Cog. Um and I thought that when I was at the National Museum Pacific War for five years, I thought, oh man, everything that I did is finally is being poured into this. That didn't even touch that that was just the surface. And I think Dennis could attest to that too. And he puts this book together, and then all of a sudden that's not even close. You know, we thought this was the end all be all with with our past lives, um, you know, five, six years ago. Not even close. And so we have really truly been trained by experience. Um we we've been basically forged for our roles in Cog to get this thing moving forward, and and I wouldn't want to do it with anybody else.

SPEAKER_04 18:26

And for the audience, um, just to give you guys a little more example of how Cog had basically, you know, not only spearheaded, but was responsible for this whole event. Um, Dennis and Cog went as far Dennis filed out all the paperwork, got this building registered as a historical landmark. Your group organized everything. It was and real quick, give out your YouTube channel. It's gonna be a few months, these things don't happen overnight, but there's plenty of video shot. You guys had a video crew out there, they're making a documentary on this. I'm gonna put out a little snippet, but I'm not gonna I don't want to give away the the gusto, so I'm gonna provide a lot of my content to their guy. There will be a um documentary on this event put out down the road from now because you don't want to rush something like this, but I'll put out a little you know, a little feeder thing to put on our pot uh the what's the scuttlebutt YouTube channel and D410 Media YouTube channel to send people over. My point is, what is your YouTube channel so people can go ahead and subscribe now so they can start getting your content, plus be aware when that documentary does come out.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

Yeah, if they type in US Cog, um that'll it'll take it to you and you'll see the cog and our logo.

SPEAKER_04 19:38

And that's C-O-Double G.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

Yeah. Yeah, that's correct. US C O Double G. And uh, you know, some of the the uh implications, not implications, some of the uh payoff, the fruit of what we've done, it just grows, it grows daily, and like we we've already received invites from Wesico from uh Mark McCaleb down there to attend the um Harlan Block uh debit memorial dedication down there in October, October 24th. And so I know we'll be seeing Andrew there. Um I'll be there, um, Jeff will be there. Um what's what's really interesting is Mr. McCaleb, who's organizing it, uh he said, I can't imagine it without you guys there. It's just it's it's amazing to see what has happened from you know the taking the reins on this and running with it, and then just people seeing your vision and being inspired, and then it's it's it's giving fruit all over the place. And um I'm just super stoked. And Andrew, um, you know, uh by the way, Andrew, um the the the last of the West of the Rio Grande Valley five that weren't in the uh that weren't part of the West Go 8, their service record, uh Robertson, has arrived uh the other day. And in addition, what happened, what's interesting, uh Don and Jeff, Andrew, is that before when the very beginning, when I knew that something special had happened on the rooftop, I wanted to see if there was any connection to any Medal of Honor recipients. And so I preemptively ordered two that I knew for sure were from South Texas. One, Borderone, William Borderone, uh Tarawa Medal of Honor. Uh, he was from San Antonio, went to Central Catholic High School. Um, and then William Harrell, who was from Rio Gran City, down in the um the West that go or down in the Rio Granley. Um, I got Borderone's record and it showed that he, though he did enlist, he was such a hardcore dude. He enlisted on December 10th, 41. So Three days after Pearl Harbor, he's down there enlisting in the Marine Corps. Well, San Antonio wasn't geared up yet. So, and his records indicate that he actually uh took his oath of enlistment and his induction was in Houston. Interestingly, the guy who signed all his papers was a first lieutenant Donald Taft, who then would become the commander of the San Antonio Induction Center and would be the commander in the photograph of the rooftop oath, giving those guys their oath of enlistment and would be in the command. And then along when I've got um Robinson's um uh service record, I also received William Harrell's service record. He was Medal of Honor Iwo Jima. And in his induction papers, it says that in 42 he was inducted at 118 Broadway, which means, of course, that he took his oath of enlistment on the rooftop at uh at our building. So, man, it just goes on and on.

SPEAKER_04 23:07

The whole weekend was just like, like you said earlier, a hurricane. It was like a whirlwind, just to give. I don't think Andrew's familiar with this story. I know Jeff knows it, but I my flight left here in Florida. I got up at four in the morning, I was at the airport at five, and then hopped on a plane, had a layover, like 20 minutes or whatever in Houston, and then flew into San Antonio where Dennis picked me up. He looks at me and says, Hey man, uh I gotta go do a speech. Okay, cool. You want to come to Lions Club? Sure, I'll come. Get some free food, ride home. So we so we head down, and it's this old Italian place and got all these bars on these windows. And uh we're walking in, and I looked at Dennis said, If we open the doors, there's plastic on the floor, just back out slowly. So we're walking down the sidewalk and we go in there, and it was the nicest group of guys, and and I was telling them that you know, I grew up in Kentucky and Ohio, and I'd seen, you know, their logo all over the signs and all over, but I'd never been to one of their organization meetings and all that, and it was they were super welcoming, and it was nice to see what they do to help the community and how their organization works and kind of get an idea of how other people run their organizations. But they sat Dennis and I down, and the waitress brought out uh big old raviolis, but they didn't bring anybody else any food. And Dennis and I are like trying to be polite by not eating, because you know, in polite society, you wait until everybody gets their food before you start eating. And and the waitress comes over and like, you guys want a box? And Dennis, like, no, we just we're waiting for everybody else to get their food. She's like, No, go ahead and eat. We bring their food out while you guys are giving your speeches. That should have been the first red flag. And that way they're eating while you guys are giving speeches, and say, Okay, we start digging in. President goes up there, goes over a few events, and says, We have a couple of speakers tonight. I look at Dennis and I look like hilarious. Well, damn. And so I'm thinking on my feet, and and I said, Well, Dennis, let me go up and I'll intro you. I'll kind of tell how this whole thing happened. And so I got up, talked about the podcast, and Jeff and I and Dennis and talked about Cog and how out of all the people I know, Def and Dennis are truly into this for the right reasons. You know, over my time, everybody I know who started a a nonprofit was for the the just for the purpose of living history. This is the first group of guys, and I talked briefly about you know their love for research and history and all that, and then I entered Dennis up, and he gave a 45-minute speech. No, 35-minute speech, which I have all on film. He had those guys hanging on every word. It was it was fantastic, and it was like my first real preview to Dennis's ability for public speaking, which we got to see again on the rooftop that later, you know, Saturday. So that was my what Thursday flying in was that, and then was that Friday? I I can't remember what day it was Thursday I flew in, right? Yeah, yep, yeah, and then on Friday we went and followed up and and did some more.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

Hey, uh Andrew, I wanted to ask you, I've had so many compliments from folks that were at the event about your speech and your the the talk that you gave, and they loved your cadence, they loved you're so interesting, and they wished that she would have talked longer. Um how how was it for you? How was getting, I mean, it had to be surreal.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Well well, uh so first thing, um, my wife and I flew in on Thursday too, and I'm as Don mentioned too, I'm a big Alamo guy. So I I stayed in the Emily Morgan Hotel Um that overlooked the Alamo, and uh I I spent two or three days there. Um, but my plan was was I was going to have interviews with the families. Um through my research, I've I've been blessed that um I've been able to connect with uh seven of the eight Wesley Coate families um and all seven families were there. The eighth was the only family I haven't really gotten to know, but that's okay. Um but I planned for them to come to the Emily Morgan Hotel before the event. Some of them weren't able to, but I had um the the day of the event, um I had three families come to the hotel and I interviewed them. Um and one of them was uh the I don't know, it'd be Harlan Black's older brother's uh uh grandson and granddaughter. So I don't know if it's a great nephew and niece, whatever you call it. Um and they were at the event, and uh one of the things that uh Harlan's nephew brought with him, and I remember I remember uh getting goosebumps when he came through the door because I mean the event the event was close to the hotel, but I mean I didn't the I've never really been there before, so I'm I'm thinking, oh man, how are they gonna park? Where are they gonna go? Um and Ed Black the fifth walks in with his sister and his wife, and I my wife was standing right there, and she's like, Your face turned white immediately. Like it's like, holy smokes. And so I sat down, had a great talk with him, but he brought with him um the tote tag that was used to bring Harlan home from Uojima, and he pulls out this uh aftershave bottle filled with black sand, and he said this was found on Harlan's remains um after he was killed. And I'm like, holy smokes. Um but yeah, and so he brought those and shared them. Uh the director of the West Laco Museum, who I've had a really good relationship with through my research, she brought Harlan Bloch's um Barcy football letter jacket. And I have a photo of him and the other because one thing that um I've tried to there's been people that have asked, were they all seniors? Were you know, um, seven of the eight were seniors, and one was a grade ahead of them. Um, and the seven seniors were the ones their families were at the event. Um but there's a picture of the seven seniors, I believe it was two days before they left for San Antonio. Um, and they're wearing that jacket, and Harlan's jacket was at the event. Um but long story short, it was unbelievable. And when I was standing there uh reading that, you know, I'm thinking this was this was something that I uh got into at 12 years old, you know, and being able to look across there and and not just them, uh as Jeff mentioned, uh high-end Marines, uh current service men and women, uh 13 young men that um are heading into the service, you know, you had all walks of life here. Um and it was unbelievable. Um I would say too, like the the I always say the families I I can't thank enough because um I reached out to them via phone, email, text, whatever, and they they didn't know who I was. You know, I could have been a scam artist, I could have been prying for information, and they believed in me. Um, and they like I said, there was one of the ladies that was there, her dad was the quarterback of the football team. He was wounded on Tarawa, and she's been great to talk to. Um, and she was one of them too. She's just like, you know, we weren't sure when you called us, you know, what what you're up to, but she after the event, I got a picture with all the families, and we're standing there and her her head is turned, and um I'm like, ma'am, what's the matter? And she just starts bawling and she goes, Thank you for bringing my dad back to me today. And thank you for what you've done. And and I said, Well, I I I wouldn't say that, but it, you know, it uh it was it was very nice to hear that, and you know, hearing that like they didn't know they didn't know what their dads did. They they didn't have a clue. And and that's the one thing about my book that I I've really I wouldn't say struggled with, but it was it's kind of one of the downfalls because the book right now is in the second round of edits, but um, I don't have a lot of primary source information. Like I don't have I've I've got the letter that Harlan Block wrote to his mother the day he was killed. That was in his service record, so I didn't get that from the family directly. But other than that, there's maybe one or two other letters, and the rest of them, I mean, the families don't have anymore. They've been thrown away or they've been, you know, lost to history. Um, so that part is kind of um unfortunate, but they they believed in this project, they and they they all showed up. I I couldn't believe it.

SPEAKER_04 32:23

Yeah, there was a total of 250 chairs, but I'd say once you included the 13 Marines being sworn in, the three active duty Marines who were with them, the camera crew, there's probably a good 300 so people on that roof. Was this the largest crowd you ever spoke to?

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Um I would say so.

SPEAKER_04 32:41

How does those how does those nerves settle in for you? Not only are you giving a speech in front of 300 and a few handful of people, but you also have the family members of the people that you wrote this book about sitting in the audience.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Yeah, I and and that's the big thing. And and you guys have inner, like I said, you guys have interacted with the history community. You know how this is telling accuracy, um, making sure that this story is told the correct way. And um I mean, I've looked through this thing. I I had a guy call me a few weeks ago. He's writing a book on one of the other Iwo Jima flagraisers who has just identified uh Harold Keller. And I've and he was he's the one that identified him um in 2019. Um and he called me and he super nice guy, he called me and said, Hey, you know, I think you got something wrong with this and whatever. And I was like, Well, and and I one thing about my book that I will brag about, I don't brag about a lot of things, but I do have 400 footnotes. So because I've had a few things um come up that like this, and he's like, Andrew, I've been researching Iwo Jima and Harold Keller for 10 years, and he said, You got it right. And I it just you know, so like that's one thing I like to try and do um is I want to make sure I'm telling the truth because you know, historians like ourselves, we we'll pick up a book or a movie and we'll nitpick it, you know, and and the best way to honor these men and women is to tell the true story. And I'm sure there'll be things that you know somebody will find in my book that will be uh, you know, maybe gone or whatever. But the families uh at the event, they you know, they were the ones that uh helped me with this, and being able to speak in front of them, um, I don't know. I like I said, my biggest thing is I hope I honored them. That's all I care about.

SPEAKER_04 34:42

One of the other cool things we had up on the roof was the cross. What's up, guys? As you all know, I am a huge bass kayak fishing fan. I love to bass fish from my kayak. And so if you're like me, when you first got into fishing, you started looking online for some bait casters, perhaps some spinning rods, spinning reels, and you got sticker shock. You could not believe how expensive this quality stuff is. And that's how I got turned on to Cast King. I started looking for high-end quality fishing equipment that people could afford. And that is Cast King's that's their slug line, affordable fishing innovation. And they tell the truth. I enjoyed their fishing equipment so much that I went out and initiated contact with Cast King to become an ambassador. I have been an ambassador now for two and a half years. I don't bring it up a lot, but hey, I just want to say to y'all, if you want to help support the show, you're looking for some quality fishing equipment, head over to WTSPworldwar 2.com forward slash fish, click on the link, check out the cast king gear, you'll be happy you did. I'll get a little bit of thank you from Cast King. You're supporting the show, we're all happy. Thank you so much. Now on to the show.

SPEAKER_03 35:45

The cross came about, the idea for that came about um as a way that Marines and those visiting the rooftop would have a way to uh say I was there. And um if if you've never been around uh veterans or or those, especially those that have seen combat or and had friends die, uh been involved with that business, they're typically not braggards, and they don't talk about it very much. Um, but it's with them every day of their lives. Um my grandfather is a testament to that. And something that was very important is that we put something there that it doesn't require, it doesn't require speech, it doesn't require anything other than they can walk up to it if they want, and they can push in their rank and their pin into the cross. And what they say at that moment or what they're thinking is between them, God, and their the buddies, the souls of their buddies, they're gone. And it's very, very moving. And I gotta say, fellas, and maybe we can do a round table on this. Probably my most memorable moment from the event was when General, Major General Juanayala, U.S. Marine Corps retired, tells the audience, and it wasn't scripted, it wasn't in the the program. He tells the audience, I was convinced to put on this uniform one more time, and I'm telling you, I will never put it on again. And since I'm not putting it on again, I won't be needing these. And he reaches up to his shoulder boards and he removes his two stars. He walks over to the Memorial Cross, which is seven feet tall, made of Texas cedar. It was forged and made and hewn by Sergeant Seth Blocker, my nephew, and Master Sergeant uh John Molner, and Major General Ayala walks up to that. 300 people, nobody making a sound. He walks up, he pushes in the pins and rears back and punches as hard as he can once, twice. And I forgot I was running a program. I I was standing there, and you could hear a pin drop. And he sat down, and what many people didn't see, but Jeff and I had that beautiful advantage point when General Ayala sat down, he didn't just sit, he like he like sat down and he flashed his eyes over to that cross and those stars. And I saw what I saw in those eyes, man. I'm telling you, if he'd have said we're gonna go take that hill, I'd have been like, let's do this. That was very, very powerful moment.

SPEAKER_04 39:10

And just for the sake of the audience at home, when you're thinking cross, it's not you know a flat piece of timber. This thing, it's beautiful. Uh it by no means looks like this, but the only way I can convey this that you guys can imagine in your mind, because everybody's seen them. Imagine a cross made out of sections of wood that's the twice the size of a railroad tie. I mean, this thing is a substantial mass of wood that it's not like you know a nice decorative flat tube by you know set of wood. It's up again. No, this is a this thing is basically a monument. This is a beautiful, beautiful, full three-dimensional cross. It is it is a beautiful, and by the end, by the end of the day, it had a lot of pins in it from all the the active duty and past duty marines who were there that day. And it was one of that that and the mural just great decisions. Whose idea was the mural?

SPEAKER_03 40:10

Yeah, that came because uh when we were up on the roof, um, I I uh this is early on. I looked over and on the on the brick walls is horrendous gray splotch of gray paint that had been splashed against the wall and run down at some point in its existence. And I said, man, maybe we can power wash that or cover it or something. And then it just hit me that, oh man, a mural. Like we could totally paint over a mural right there. Um, and then that led to um you know what became the eight foot by eight foot uh canvas that uh Jose Mauro Murillo uh painted, which was just freaking gorgeous.

SPEAKER_04 40:52

And then the top off the whole display up there, along obviously the flags there. You got the flag, the cross, the mural, and what else do you have up there to basically memorialize this location?

SPEAKER_03 41:05

Yeah, so the the plaques. And we've got two plaques, and we were trying to figure out how we were gonna cover them both, and um we had some extra mosquito uh not mosquito netting, but some extra uh uh camouflage netting laying around, and it just kind of morphed into we should cover the whole pediment with this camouflage netting, and it was perfect. And um, you know, Jeff had that magical moment along with Major Idol, who is the uh commanding officer of uh San Antonio's division of the 8th Marine Corps recruiting district, and uh yeah, that was that was a pretty powerful moment. I'm glad Jeff got to do that. That was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_04 41:51

Yeah, I was in the very back kind of shooting some B-roll footage. What was um what was it like being that close to those new 13 young men who were sworn in on that day?

SPEAKER_03 42:04

Yeah, I'll let Jeff take that.

SPEAKER_04 42:06

Because you guys were right there.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

That's when it hit me what we were doing. I'll be honest. That that's that's when it hit me. Um you know, the speakers were great. It was great seeing everybody, the meet and greet before, everybody looked sharp. Um at that point, for me, it was kind of like we're just we're just going through the motions, right? Like this has played out in our heads so many times. Um this is that you know, it just became automatic, right? Like you just kind of you just turn into a machine, you're doing a program, and you know, you're just forging ahead kind of thing. But that uh because it was a little bit uh not necessarily not impromptu, but it it just kind of was like this is a very different part of the program, right? It's not the seemingly scripted this person speaks and then this person speaks, you know, and there's all this amazing stuff. But then it was like when all of a sudden you've got 13 kids that are trying to march, you know, up this uh walkway between all of these chairs, and then a left face and then a quick right face to follow along the wall and and to be next to the flagpole to their positions, and so a couple of us, you know, the the the panel of speakers, we had to kind of get up and get out of the way to allow this thing to happen. So we're just you know, I'm I'm standing there and next to Dennis, and all of a sudden it hit me that what this is a magical moment for a lot of people. Uh this is when it became more than just a plaque dedication or um you know inspirational speakers.

SPEAKER_04 43:49

Because it was live and real in real time. I mean, it was it went from talking to history to these guys' lives are changing at this very moment, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:59

And and I looked at all of them as individuals and kind of trying to foresee the future for them. Um, could there be future command sergeant majors, you know, uh potential Mustangs to get then and then become officers and then maybe retired colonels one day. Uh so it it it made it very human. And for me, it really truly I I kind of took a moment and and you know was thinking that man, if Harlan only knew, if Harlan only knew what these two photographs were going to do for the lives, for the careers of these Marines, for our lives, for the for the sake of everybody involved, everything's changed now. Cog exists because of this. Um and it's really interesting for me, I think it's very special, that a photograph that has been reproduced so many times, the most phot famous photograph in American history, right? All all the superlatives that go with that photograph on top of that hill, all of a sudden became a human story to me, and and beyond beyond flags of our fathers, right? Beyond Bradley's story, beyond the movies, uh to meet relatives of this man, just this guy, this dude, this young man that gave his life and had a picture taken of him that he never knew was going to be popular. And now, 81 years later, here we are on this roof, changing the lives of future Marines if Harlan only knew, is all I kept thinking in the back of my mind.

SPEAKER_04 45:54

I think somebody mentioned it at the coffee shop when we were all down there. It may have been your videographer's uh wife, I can't remember, but someone said, It's crazy to think that this whole event happened because of two photos. That Harlan Block's family, and then obviously the Wesley 8 and relation, their families now have had their lives affected at least a minimum of two separate times based on two photos. Obviously, the Wajima flag raising photo and then the rooftop oath photo that resulted in the gathering and you know, this new landmark in the city of San Antonio dedicated and you know memorializing what their family members did to you know when they swore in on that roof, and none of that would have happened. Obviously, the Iwo Jima if two photos. I mean, so many lives affected by two photos, it's crazy to think about.

SPEAKER_03 46:55

Yeah, it's pretty wild. I remember standing there beside Jeff and seeing. Yeah, that's I have to agree, Jeff. That's that's when uh it really it hit me. And I my eyes filled with water, and I looked out at the audience, and there were so many people wiping tears. And it and it was just of respect and like of awe, and that they because really it's quite rare for civilians to be present when that oath is taken, and it's especially that large number of people. I know that they do that for like the rodeo and this and that, but how many people that will ever get to say they took their oath of enlistment at the same exact spot where Harlan Block and hundreds of other warriors who went to the Pacific battles, including William Harrell Medal of Honor. Like, who gets to say they did that? As a matter of fact, so powerful that afterwards uh there was a uh uh Marine Corps active duty sergeant uh Jacqueline Montez. Uh she came up to me afterwards and she was like, Hey, uh, I I promote in April. I would love to take my uh and my re-enlistment oath up here, and was like done, done for sure. Hey Andrew, go ahead. I want I wanted to ask you, Andrew, um what was the the did you have time to fellowship with the the Westico families afterwards? Like what was the feedback from the the families?

SPEAKER_02 48:38

Oh yeah, yep. Um, and they what our discussion just now is what they they love that they um a few of the daughters of the families were like watching those young men being sworn into the Marine Corps was unbelievable. Um they really they really enjoyed it, and one of the things that like I was telling my wife after um that was the first time that those families were to all together at once since Harlan was brought home in 49. Wow. Um and I mentioned this in my presentation and in the when I was speaking, when Harlan Black's remains were brought home in January of 49, the seven there were seven pallbears, and they were the remaining seven of the West of Kuwait. So um those families, like a lot of them, even when I was there, they were talking about, hey, we we heard like I heard a few names go, yeah, I heard your dad's name mentioned in our house several times. I Carl Sims was a name that dad always talked about, but we never knew who he was until now. Like, so these families knew each other just from word of mouth and whatnot. They were like I one of the daughters told me, yeah, so-and-so was a living legend in our house. We never even knew who the heck he was until you're writing this book. And so it it was it was awesome, and I and I think they really enjoyed it. I I know for a fact that the ones I talked to, there wasn't a dry eye left in the left in the place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:19

Now, real quick, the theme of the show has kind of been how hectic it is to organize these events. And I was hoping to say something to Jeff before he left. Jeff actually just left the show, he had to go do some more planning for the upcoming event he has in five days. But Jeff gave one hell of a speech at this event to the point where I'm sitting in the back watching this. Once again, I'm in the very, very back at the end of this long row of 250 seats, catching some footage. And so I'm getting Jeff from the audience perspective, and I'm watching like this guy's gonna be a politician one day. And three other people said the same thing either to him or to his wife. Like, and of course, he has no interest in it, at least not on the states you know, level. But don't be surprised if he if he holds some sort of public office, because he is a damn good speaker and he holds the room, and and Dennis did a fantastic job as well. Um, one of the other things I think it's important that we kind of touch on too, is obviously the living history aspect of this. And so not only do we have this event, but down on the first floor in the garage, Jeff and one of his uh reenacting friends had their jeeps. We had a couple tables set up with World War II gear. Um one of the what from the museum was the Wesigo Museum. Who brought Harlan Bloch's ring down there?

SPEAKER_02 51:37

Yeah, um, so that so in the valley there are two museums. There's the Wesleco Museum, and then there's the Iwo Jima Museum, located on the Marine, on the grounds of the Marine Military Academy in Harlogen, Texas. And I in Harloggen is where Harlan Block is buried now. And the original die cast of the Arlington Marine Corps Memorial is down there. Um Harlan's grave is at the foot of that monument. And they have a really nice museum there, a lot of Iwo Jima artifacts. But in that museum is the ring that Harlan Block bought at Camp Elliott when he around the time he earned his parachute wings to be in the Paramarines. And in um before after Boganville, and after he had been trained after the disbandment of the Paramarines, and he'd been transferred, and the 5th Marine Division went down to Camp Tarawan, whatever, um, he met up with Glen Cleckler uh in Honolulu and he gave the ring to Glenn Cleckler, telling him that he was gonna be killed. So that ring was the last will and testament of one friend to the other. And how I summarize it is, and then I'll get off my soapbox, but the the way I think about it is you know, they were all close, but the bond that Harlan Block and Glenn Cleckler had was very different than the rest of them. Um, the two and Carl Sims were the if you're familiar with football, they um they were the three running backs on the football team. They were the three that skipped school together, that got them into the Marines, and they were ultimately the three that were on Iwo Jima together. And through my research, I have found that Carl Sims was in the 3rd Amphibian Tractor Battalion. The 3rd Amphibian Tractor Battalion was the unit that transported the they were attached to the 3rd Division at Guam, but at Iwo Jima, they were attached to the 5th. So Carl Sims's unit drove the tractors that got him onto the beaches, and it was Harlan's unit. I can't confirm that Sims drove, but in Harlan's last letter to his mom, he mentioned he had seen Carl Sims so there before they hit. So there was there was a um connection there, but back to the ring. The ring is just, I mean, obviously we couldn't hold it in our hands, but staring at that and going, that was the last thing, to our knowledge, that he gave to somebody.

SPEAKER_04 54:13

And then someone else from the family brought the radio. His mother listened to all the reports on. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 54:20

So we had another um uh what's the another uh honored guest in the audience. Um, his name was uh Captain Morgan Little, U.S. Navy retired. Um, his dad was their football coach. Um, so he brought the radio that his dad listened to every night to see where his boys were fighting. Um so his goal was is he wanted to put it into a museum and and uh Captain Little um he he really enjoyed himself. He he's a great man.

SPEAKER_03 54:58

Did uh he say what his plans are for that radio?

SPEAKER_02 55:02

No, no, I think his intention was I think to like get rid of it that day, but everybody was busy, you know, and um he he has it, but um no, he he was honored to be there. He loved it. He actually stayed at the same hotel that McKenzie and I did, and um just a great, great guy.

SPEAKER_04 55:25

I'm sure uh somebody will find a home for that radio.

SPEAKER_03 55:28

Well, it'd be great if it could go to one of those museums down there.

SPEAKER_02 55:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:33

And so do you have a liaison with him?

SPEAKER_02 55:36

What's that?

SPEAKER_03 55:37

Are you in contact with him?

SPEAKER_02 55:39

Oh, yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

Yeah, and that's the radio that his dad listened to the guys in the Pacific to follow their war news.

unknown 55:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 55:45

Yeah, that's that's pretty awesome. Yeah, I and see the thing about one of the things, Don that and and Andrew, that really bummed me out about um that was only uh uh two things that bummed me out. Um one is I didn't get to listen to the the band. It's a tapped high school jazz band. I heard they were amazing. Um, and two, I didn't get to meet anybody. Like uh I didn't get to talk to any of the West Coast families. Uh I didn't get to meet any of the Block families. Actually, I did get to meet uh the uh one of the nephews, great nephews. I didn't get to meet the blocks, uh Ed Block. Um I didn't get to I saw Mr. Little, I saw the radio, I didn't get to talk to him. Um and so you know that kind of led to what we can what we're plans for next year. Um you know, we've got some ideas that we're gonna, you know, we'll talk about later.

SPEAKER_04 56:39

It's reminiscent of when I worked in radio, right? We put on all these concerts and all that, people always calling, ooh, I want backstage passes, I want backstage passes. What's like and the host of my radio show would always say, I've been doing this 20 years, trust me, the views in the audience, yeah. And Dennis got the experience that all this cool stuff was there, all these cool people were there, but because he was backstage putting on the event, he was standing on side, making sure everything's running, he missed the show, and so just keep that. I we were uh doing the pre-show Living History event, and I'm standing at my table, I'm got this uniform on right here, and Harlan Block's great-great-grandnephew, whoever the same gentleman, whatever the lineage is. I don't mean whoever, but the the lineage part where we're not quite you know on the title of it. But he walks up and he puts that toe tag in my hand. Now, it's it's not small, it's about eight inches long, about three and a half inches wide, and it's tapered on the end. Almost looks like someone took a Marine Corps era dog tag and put it on a railroad track and ran over it. He handed it to me. I'm reading, I'm like, What's this? And he said, Oh, that's that's the toe tag. I was like, Ooh, and then it hit me. I'm like, you know, yeah, I saw it said Corporal Harlem Black and had his service number, but I didn't realize, you know, when because when we see toe tags, we think of a piece of manila envelope paper, you know, tied to their toe, like you see in the movies, not not a band of you know, aluminum, basically a giant dog tag, and and then, like you said, that um apothecary bottle full of the sand. And what was cool, and I'm sure this was something that Cog put out there, they asked people who were coming who were able to dress in 1940s appropriate outfits, and so his whole family was there. The women had the Liberty curls up, and the uh great-grandnephew had the fedora on in the suit, and Dennis had his fedora on and uh his suit, and Jeff had a a flat cap on, and I'm wearing this guy, and so and then the videographer and his wife were done in the 40s stuff, and obviously we had other living historians who Jeff has relationships through all his museums and all his events, and my mom and dad, and then Dennis's family, all dressed up, and so as you walk around, you have people modern days, you have the Weslico J R O T C was there in uniform, you had the the 13 Marines and their Marine Corps shirt and their jeans all tucked in. You had the three active duty Marines, you had um a lot of VFW service members with their piss cutters on and their red shirts. Um, very cool. That we're in Texas, right? And um, can't remember the man gentleman's name. Who had the Jeep? He's part of COG. Um Wade. Wade. Wade came up to me, said perfect example never to judge a book by cover. He's like, see the Hispanic gentleman over there, he was like 25, face tattoos, neck tattoos, long hair and ponytail. I was like, Yeah, did four years in the Marine Corps, heard about this, walked in. And so you had Marines of all ages, all stripes, all ethnicities, all different appearances. You had, like I said, people in modern clothes, you had people in VFW stuff, and there's a few times we spent an enormous amount of time on that property, Dennis. We were there Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then I left Saturday night with Jeff and spent Sunday, Monday. Well, he dropped me off Monday, but I spent Sunday at his place. But um, there's a few moments there when we're tromping up and down the stairs and we're there late at night decorating that the reality of the situation kind of stepped in. And for me, it hit me a few times, but when I stepped on that roof Saturday in that uniform, I had this weird thought. I'm like, now granted, in the photo and in the city, and and when this happened, they're all wearing Class A uniforms, and you had civilians, no one's up there in a 1942 utility uniform. That we know, but the thought still occurred to me like I could possibly be the first person who's been on this roof in a World War II era Marine Corps uniform since you know they closed the the sixth floor down and pulled out in 1956.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:52

Very likely.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:53

And that that was kind of a surreal moment to me. And then you can almost because for the audience, you had to get on an elevator to go up to the sixth floor, and that entire sixth floor, which is now CPAs, design shops, uh, you know, workspace, was all Marine Corps intake and induction, PT stuff, physicals, the whole, the whole gambit, right? That whole floor. And the building owner did such a great job preserving. I mean, they still got the plaster up with the rounded walls. They didn't like try to, you know, they you have some glass doors and places and all that, but as far as the bones and the architectural structure of this building, it was been preserved and maintained. And so if you're quiet enough, tilted your head just right and squinted, you could see busy just marines you know, shuffling papers, walking up and down, this and that. You could kind of see it, and it was and then when you got you got to the sixth floor, you went in this little utility room and walked up these stairs, and then all of a sudden you're just in you're in the back, you're you're you're in a place never designed for public. It was just this is where the the um the boilers would have been back then, the water main shut-offs, the elevator maintenance stuff, to the point where they had to build a little catwalk over these pipes, and then the hatch in and of itself, what four eight, five, two at the most. So, you know, and then you walk up there and it's just with the exception of the the cell phone tower that's been appended to the top of the building, it's it's like it was back then. Yeah, and it and it's just there's a few times you're like, wow, this is crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:33

When I took Andrew up there uh that night, that first night he was there, and we all met up, I I took him to the rooftop, and I I just left him. Left him and his wife up there. I was like, this is this is this moment's for you. This is the time for you to you know be alone and with your thoughts and uh Yeah, what a journey.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:59

What a journey it was. It was definitely uh it was I don't know, I had this weird moment when I was. Hey, I need this done, I gotta go do this. Hey, go mount these plaques on the wall, go do this. You know, he basically trusted me to do do this stuff, and so I'm for the home audience, they got some plaques that are being cast, they're coming, they're you know, they're made out of what steel, iron, bronze, and but we had these temporary placeholders put up there, so I'm putting them up there, and the doc the documentary crew's filming me, and I'm sitting there pounding this on with you know, trying to get it level, which a little word of advice, uh put in modern level on a modern day sign on a building from 1922. The signs are straight, the building's a little skew, which makes my plaques look a little askew. But trust me, I put a level on those bad boys, I got it on video. But I actually looked at it, I actually said while doing it while he's filming it's like if you would have told me in 2018 when I came up with this idea for the a silly little podcast that I would be affixing an Iwo Jima memorial plaque on the building where Harlan Block was sworn into in 2026, I would have never believed you. So just that that to me, that the whole thing is like, well, if nothing else comes of this podcast, I got this. So it just and I and I had the like the proud father moment. Once again, I'm standing in the back. You guys are up there, Dennis. You're you're giving your speeches, your intro, and your MCN, if you will. You're you're making sure the show goes, and I'm just sitting back and watching them like these guys are doing it, man. Look at them. I was so proud that you guys took nothing and made this huge event all on your own. It's not like you know, you you contracted some event organizer to come in and you guys just cut checks and made phone calls, you know. Uh Dennis's better half, you know. We're not throwing vendors under the bus, but we needed a uh one of the vendors dropped out. We won't go into details, but we needed this vendor, it was of utmost importance, and she got found somebody and found this great company that came out and filled the void, and just the amount of logistics, and which I think that's what a a good part of the the beginning of this documentary will be. Is you guys will probably get a good in good look into what it took to set this up because uh you don't get a kick out of this. We had a little downstairs was the coffee shop, and uh Archie's coffee is on the first floor, and that basically became our command center. Yeah, laptops were set up there, phones are set up there. I was up on the roof getting flooring down, chairs down, Dennis is down there. Only thing we could have used was some walkie-talkies, but other than that, it was just a beehive of activity all weekend long.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:55

Yeah, yeah, it was pretty wild. And uh I guess one of the last things that I'll say about the event for now is that getting towards the end of it, I I had to estimate how long I thought each segment of the program would take. And beforehand, I knew liaisoning with the World War II aircraft flyover, which we haven't mentioned that took place. Um we had five World War II aircraft flyovers at the very end. The gentleman who, Chris Watson, who asked me, you know, uh, when do you want us over there? And I says, Well, 345 is when taps is, so that'd be great if you guys could time it then. And he's like, Well, I need an exact time. And I'm like, seriously? And he goes, Yeah. So I go, okay, uh, 34637. And so he's like, okay. And so we're going through the program, I've got it all laid out. Some guys are kind of going long, some guys are going short, and we're getting towards the end, and I look, I was watching my watch. I'm almost looking at my watch at the clock, and it showed I had 20 minutes until the planes were overhead, and I knew I had three minutes of content in the program to go.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:11

Stretch, boys, stretch.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:13

So I um I look over at Jeff and he looks at me and he just kind of grins, like, you're gonna handle this, you know. And so I I turned towards the audience and uh I just started talking about the importance of why we do what we do, and that I started talking about, and it and I'm very thankful because it gave me, and I wasn't in the program to speak, but it gave me the opportunity to talk about my grandfather, who we've talked about a lot on this program. And I was able to tell the story of LCI Group 8 at Iwo Jima and the story of Mary Urig, whose husband was is still listed as missing in action from the 449 gunboat, and how she told me when I apologized to her about asking her to open up that hidden part of her heart that she had locked away 70 years before, and opened it up for me, the interviewer, and listening to her cry and sob and me feeling guilty, and her rebuffing me almost angrily, and saying, No, it's important what you're doing, you need to do it. And you know, when I looked out at the audience and I was telling that, you know, I I could see that it was really touching some hearts, and I got done, and I still had like five minutes, right? I'm like, oh crap. So I was about to wrap it up, and I was gonna say, well, that's it, that's all I got. And uh I look out, and before the event, Mark McCaleb from down in Weslico, he had told me that last second the city of Weslico had given a proclamation to him from the mayor, had get handed him a proclamation from the city of Wesico. So that totaled four that we actually had. We had one from the state, which was I still pinched myself that this all happened. It's proclamation from the state of Texas, proclamation from the city of San Antonio, seventh largest city in the US, the proclamation from the county of Bear and the City of Wesico. Well, I've got five minutes left, and I forgot that Mr. McCaleb had told me before, hey, if if you can fit me in the program, I've got this proclamation from West Lakota read. So when I'm wrapping it up and I'm sweating, I look up and I see him in the back waving that blue folder with the gold shiny letters City of West Lako on the front of it. And I'm like, oh yes, hot off the press. You know, come on. Just then take all your time you want, please.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:53

Just be done by uh 345-76.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:55

Yeah, so he gets done, and it was great. And I said, Well, at this time, we will conclude the event. Thank you all very much for coming. Everybody stood, everybody took one step forward to start taking pictures of everything, and all of a sudden I heard behind me this collective gasp that reverberated from the front all the way to the back. And I look up and I'm getting goosebumps even now, telling you. At that very moment with the gasp, four of those World War II aircraft fly right overhead, followed by the big Texan with its growling engine. And oh man, it uh oh, it was perfect. It was perfect, it was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:44

And on those words, we're gonna wrap this episode up. Thank you guys so much for hanging out. As always, head over to WTSPworldwar 2.com, click on that Patreon link, sign up, subscribe. It goes a long way to help us out what we do here. Go to youtube.com for WTSP World War II or what's the Scuttlebutt podcast? We do have our own standalone YouTube channel now. Please like, subscribe there, and send us an email to mail call at wtspworldwar two.com or mailcall wtsp at gmail.com and we'll read those on the air for myself, Jeff Copsetta, Dennis Blocker, and Andrew Boer. Thank you guys so much, and we'll talk to you all.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:18

This has been a digital four10 production.