"Carrying the Torch: Stepping Up for History and Community"

Podcast Episode 210

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:00

What's up, Dennis?

SPEAKER_01 0:01

What's up, bubbles?

SPEAKER_06 0:02

Not used to seeing you without your hat. You got like a nice supervillain look going to you.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't know if it's the background or just the camera, but what happened? It looks like it took all of the hair on your head and it put it on the bottom here. I don't know if that's off powers.

SPEAKER_06 0:18

Welcome to my underground lair. Minimi, stop pumping the laser.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

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

SPEAKER_06 0:36

Welcome everybody to another What's the Scuttlebutt Podcast, your favorite World War II based podcast. And we're here a day late, but not in dollar short, because yesterday was a holiday. We took the day off just like the rest of you. But we're playing catch up, and Jeff is back with us. Dennis is here, living like a super villain on his own private island playing with his laser beans. What's going on, fellas? I just realized you just changed your background in like the split second. It was completely different. There's a rotation. Got a rotating background going.

SPEAKER_05 1:08

A little Tarawa action going on there.

SPEAKER_06 1:10

Nice. So uh Jeff, you've been uh you've been super busy, fella. What's been going on?

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Yeah. Um it's you know the beginning of Living History season and air show season and and all that. So yeah, I've been pulled a few different directions. And um it's been it's been a lot of fun having Dennis, you know, really fully integrated into the hobby. Um and being able to support and and add on to the display, right? I mean, Don, you know, some of our listeners know you do these events and you bring all the stuff and the tables and everything's heavy and you're you're putting everything out, and you know, you lose your voice after two days of talking to 10,000 people, and it's it's always nice to have a variety, right? I mean, I concentrate typically Air Corps, Don, you know, you typically concentrate Marine Corps, and and I know over the last 10 or so years doing this kind of traveling, there's not usually a Navy contingent.

SPEAKER_06 2:13

No, there's not. Um we're lucky we have sadly he just passed away, and I'll talk about the end of the show, but we had one guy down here who did a lot of it. Um, and when the USS American victory, the Liberty Ship in Tampa Bay, would actually go out on the tours and float us around Tampa Bay, he would do his Navy impression and did a quite very good job at it. But yes, it's very true. Um Navy impressions are one of those that aren't done a lot.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yeah, and it's it's odd because the Navy was such a a huge force, it was everywhere in the world, right? I mean, obviously you do Marines, it's PTO. Um, but yeah, I mean the Navy was responsible for for so much uh in World War II and lost so many, you know, there were so many casualties that were Navy uh and you know related. So it's refreshing to have Dennis come out, you know, not only as having a good friend, a fellow, you know, podcaster, but to to have him side by side to add, to complement um, you know, the displays that we travel with has really been um it's just been cool. And and I gotta say, I I think the coolest thing so far here this year and in the start of Living History season for us was watching Dennis become the inheritor of artifacts from another reenactor. I mean, watching him watching stuff be dumped on him, handed over to him. He he is now, you know, responsible for it because somebody else saw Dennis as you know it happens, right? People are like, you're you're the person that can take care of this and appreciate it and build it into your display, tell the story. And you know, I I I've been very lucky with that over the years, and to sit back and watch somebody else light up when they're opening this briefcase of all this amazing stuff.

SPEAKER_06 4:11

It's like the scene in Polt Fix one when he opens the briefcase and the light hits his face. I just came up with the term one man's duplicates is another man's impression. He just got his impression built out. Because you when you've been in the hobby as long as we have of what tends to happen, you'll be walking in the flea market. Like, you know, I got 13 havers stacks, but that thing's cheaper than a reproduction. And say you buy it, throw it in your next thing you're like, why do I have 13 haverstacks? I know I'll take five of them to the the next uh event and offload some of them and or give them away, depending on you know how close that person is to it. So yeah, that's that's part of the community of this hobby. And you know, we've had a lot of reenactors on this show over the years, but I don't think we've had a new to the hobby reenactor, right? Most of people come on here once they've done in a while, they've had their spiel down. So, Dennis, as someone who's new to the hobby, and you're starting to get more and more acquainted with the people in the community, and you'll learn this. It's a small community, especially in your city, right? And so as you're going to these events, like you start to real recognize faces and names, and you kind of you start to form your own little cliques and groups of people. Coming from a historian and an author, and brought into this hobby, what's some of the things that either surprise you, stood out to you, or the things that you noticed or enjoyed? Just give us a you know a fresh eye look into the hobby and what other people who are thinking about getting into living history could look forward to. Your mic's muted.

SPEAKER_05 5:35

I think that one of the coolest things that I got to witness, and one of the things that really stood out during that weekend, uh, because that was the first time that I had my my own um impression, and I had three tables, and it was a great setup too. We it was uh Wade and Jeff came up with this idea of making our displays in a circle and uh or more of like an oval. And um, so we were on the inside, and then all of our tables pointed out all of the materials, and I had display boards and things that people could flip through, and then they had all their great stuff. So people were just continuously circling these tables and then come back over multiple times, and it was a blast. But uh when you asked something about something that surprised me, it it was it was seeing in the face of a woman in her 60s this shock and uh watch her face drain when she looks over and sees Jeff. And immediately her eyes filled with tears, and she started to smile, and she said, You look just like my dad.

SPEAKER_06 6:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 6:58

And was it her dad, Jeff, or was it her grandfather or uncle? I think it was maybe her uncle. Yeah, that's it. And and it it it was a beautiful moment for her because it was like he was alive again, and and she got to, for that split second, see, and it was like, oh, there he is, right? What's he doing here? And then the realization is that of course he's gone. But that that split second impacted her so much that she asked Jeff if they could take multiple pictures together, and she was going to tell her family. Am I right, Jeff? It's very powerful.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yeah, yeah, it really was. And and as you know too, that's the second time that's happened in the last couple months. We had a a woman come up when we were in San Antonio, and it was her father that's right who served, and she was retired Air Force. He flew, I want to say P-47s. She showed me a picture, and you know, the whole nine yards. Um, and she kind of got a little little teary-eyed. But yeah, the lady in Dallas, it was like I I almost was like, What happened? What you know, because I didn't know the you know, you guys were talking, I was talking to somebody else, and and so Dennis was facing out of the hangar uh towards where the the ramp was where the aircraft were parked, and then we had static aircraft inside, so I'm facing inside as the people come through the foyer, you know. So we don't see each other's conversations a whole lot. I just happened to look over and yeah, she was just kind of looking at me. She was there with her husband, and uh yeah, at first I thought there was something wrong, like, oh gosh, you know, what happened? Was there an accident outside something? Um I had no idea. Yeah, it was just this emotion, just her seeing me, and and her husband pulls out his phone and and I think uh pulled out a picture of her uncle and shows Dennis, and you were like, Wow, you know, no okay, and then they showed me and um she said he flew B-24s, and and she said, uh could you know, could I get a picture with you? I said, She's absolutely. I said, Let's go take a picture in front of the B-24, um, you know, fitting. And uh so I gave him my business card. I said I'd love to have you know a copy of that and and the original of the uncle, and they did that side-by-side thing and emailed that to me. And it yeah, I mean it's why we do that. This this is why we do that. And um it just keeps those guys immortal. And um, you know, of course, right now on the heels of Memorial Day, there's no better time um to to help conjure those types of memories for people who had family that that served in World War II. Um, it just gives you a deeper appreciation. This goes beyond, you know, we all grew up watching movies and playing, and you want to be all of these things that that you weren't, um, and that's fine. Um, but it really kind of reiterated the true reason why we do this. Um and it just was a pleasure to uh you know, just to meet those folks and and have her uncle and just take a picture, just something as simple as a picture. Um and I and I will say that there was some resemblance. You know, we the picture, the side by side, our our crushers are are cocked almost identically the same. Of course, it's the same uniform. He had a mustache, so you know, it was just there was you know some some resemblance, but I I definitely get why it it struck her like it did for sure.

SPEAKER_06 10:27

You know, sometimes I gotta remind myself, and I think probably a lot of our audience probably has forgotten us too. Living history was actually one of the first forms of history, right? Back you know, years and years, back in Native American times, back in cavemen times, back in you know, European times before you know everybody was literate and could write, they would tell stories verbally, and then they would have the the members of the tribe reenact the battles that they had with other tribes, and and all the way up through history. Yeah, it wasn't about World War II, but retelling the battles of how their tribes or how their their grandfathers got to where they were in that point of history because people weren't literate, it was done through dances, motions, reenacting battles, you know, different format, but at the end of the day, it's all very similar, and it's one of the truest forms of of history, and um it's kind of important of why we need to to help keep that alive.

SPEAKER_05 11:24

Yeah, it's very cool. Uh and yesterday I was out at the cemetery out in the small town Castorville, and uh Memorial Day, I had something I do with my girls this year. They weren't with me, but uh I'll go find the headstones of veterans that have been overgrown or covered with mud. Um uh some of them are half buried under mud that from the rains, and um then I'll I'll restore them. Uh I took a weed eater with me and you know, a scrub brush, and this and that broom and a couple other things, and uh you know, get it back to them that I had I bought little spinners, uh little pinwheels at Walmart, patriotic pinwheels and flag and um some flowers, carnations that were red, white, and blue. And I put a flag, a flower and a flag and a pinwheel at each headstone. And when I was uh done, I I decided to walk up the hill because looking down, you just see all of the headstones and all of the flags where the veterans are. And it was just stunning because this is a small town and it was just so many flags. And um I was sitting underneath a shade tree at the top of this hill, just looking over everything, and I had my little harness that and my bows harness that plays music out, and I was listening to uh the song from Saving Private Ryan um Visitation to Normandy, uh, where it shows the elderly gentleman walking up to the that song was playing. I had it on a loop over and over and over again as I was doing this work. And as I'm sitting up there, and you asked earlier, Don, about uh how it was to then be come into this community. Um I I glanced down at the headstone next to me where I put my chair, and it is a fellow's name, uh Mangold, and it says uh uh U.S. Army Air Corps, 8th Air Force. And uh immediately I was brought back to the the weekend up there in Dallas, and and and the privilege I had to be there with Jeff and and Wade, and it it and it made me very um circumspect um in the way that I was processing what I was doing, and I pulled out this cigar that Wade had given me, and I sat underneath there, and I'm sitting among all these veterans, and um and I'm just smoking this cigar that was given to me by Wade, who's you know, got his own impression that he does, which is always excellent, and the Jeep that he had there. And um, I made a little video and I I sent it to Jeff and Wade and told them, and and I mentioned the other guys that I had met, and and it's interesting you said that, Don, because that's who I thought of out there. I didn't think about for some reason I didn't think about my grandfather as much as I thought I would. And I didn't think about my great-grandpa who was killed at Aachen. But I thought about what we do is so important because it keeps all these guys, it keeps them alive and it keeps their stories going, and they're not forgotten, not by us.

SPEAKER_06 14:34

You know, you're talking, you guys are talking about uh cleaning gravestones, and I saw a quick blurb on the story today, and it didn't even really it. I was like, well, that's cool, and but I think it it goes in line exactly with what you're talking about. Um, we can all agree that politics in this country are a mess right now, but check this out. I didn't know this is the fourth year of doing this. In the early morning rain, a group of congressmen, some of them still in suits, after an all-night voting session, cleaned the memorial of 58,000 Americans killed in the Vietnam War. The group calls itself for country. This is their fourth time, I'm sorry, this is their fourth year in a row washing the wall. Jack Bergman, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general, is one of only three Vietnam veterans still in Congress. So these a lot of these guys in the video scene, some of them are in three-piece suits, some of them have their veteran gear on, but these guys, active congressmen, some of them are up voting all night. They're out there with scrub brushes out in the rain, soap, and they're cleaning the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D DC, which is very, very cool to see. That's cool. And so, shout out to them for that. Um, just because we're on the topic of living historians memorial day, and the community. One of the things we all love about doing living history is the community, especially you've been doing it as many years as I have. There kind of becomes in your individual community, your states, your regions, a lot of reenacting is a regional thing. Like for us, we have Florida and a couple guys from Georgia and a couple Alabama boys always roll in. But there's always the reliable face, right? There's always the the guys you know that are going to be there, or the guys that if they're not there, you're like, you know, this hmm, what's going on with that? Um this year, the Florida Living History Community, we've lost three of those gentlemen. We spoke about John Thomas uh about a month ago, two months ago. He's the gentleman who got me into uh doing first ID. Um then about a month back, Jerry English passed away. Now, Jerry, I don't want to go on record to say his his age, I don't know exactly, but he was probably in his late 70s, so he died of quote unquote natural causes, you know. He he's been around. He was him and John Thomas were both there like when I started, they were the veterans, they were the good two guys. And there was another gentleman um that passed away too, which completely caught me off guard. Um he made the announcement um a few months back that he had stage four brain cancer. And this is another contemporary of mine, the guy's probably six years older than me. His name was Mike Alvarez. Mike's grandfather, I mean Mike's uncle was an 82nd Airborne in World War II. Mike was he was a historian through and through. He did Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War II, World War I, the whole gambit. He had the uniforms, the gear, he knew everything. I have them in a bunch of my photos, the um 82nd Airborne demonstration I did where I'm sitting when we did that video, Mike's sitting behind me when we're walking out. Mike's in there. So Mike just passed away. Um his funeral was last Friday. He had some of his living historians doing color garden full uniform. July, June 3rd, we're having the Zephyr Hills event where we're doing obviously D-Day, but we're also going to have a memorial to Jerry and Mike and John as well. But it got me thinking, um, we're all of age cats now, right? And World War II living history, Civil War living history, that's one thing. But I got to think, it's not even relegated down to that. It doesn't matter if you're uh a little league coach, right? And all the coaches on your your little league conference are all in their 30s and 40s, or let's say you're um a Boy Scout or whatever, any sort of extracurricular activity that requires logistics, planning, organization, funding, you have a core group of guys, right? And a lot of those guys have been doing it forever and they're getting older and older. And sadly, life happens, whether it's cancer, old age, accidents, these guys are going to start dying out. And all of a sudden, that community is getting a lot smaller, especially in areas like living history where we're not replenishing with younger kids, right? It's getting harder and harder. Well, for a while, we're starting to see a little bit of injection now, but it's getting a little harder and harder to replenish. But even if we are replenishing, what kind of happens is you got your middle the middle ground guys, you know, the guys we like to show up, set up, and take on the least amount of responsibility, right? We just want to be responsible for our stuff and then leave. But I just want to remind everybody, and I kind of got pulled into this two years ago with the VKE when Art retired, where Paul and I took over VKE, and now Paul, Nate, and I are kind of trying to do more to help maintain the living history here in Florida. But I just want to reach out to our audience, say, hey, if you're a living historian and you're you've been doing this for a while, you you know your community, and you show up, you bring your oppression, you're killing it, end of the weekend, you're picking up and going home, that's fantastic. But do me a favor, your next event, look around, see who your organizers are, see who your community leaders are. And ask yourself, who are their replacements? Who can we count on to keep this community alive in the event that something were to happen to them? And ask yourself, is that something that you could see yourself doing? Not now, but maybe just kind of stop and once again it could be literally whatever. Ask yourself that. And if the answer is even remotely yes, go talk to those people, not say, hey, I want to replace you, but say, hey, can you kind of show me the ropes of this thing so I can help you out? And that way, when those cornerstone people pass, it's important for the love of the community and uh, as we say, keeping the history alive. We need to have people we can count on who uh are ready to step up if the if the moment call you know calls upon them. And you know, uh it's it's crazy to get to the where I'm at that point now, where it's like I don't look at my age as like 46, I don't think that's old. But it's like in the last five years, I've known four people now in their 40s who've all passed away. And it's kind of like not so much a mortality thing, but uh when it comes to this sort of thing, just if you guys love your living history community, your book club, your bowling league, your soft your Sunday softball league, whatever it is, just get to know the people who organize it and just ask yourself for the lovely whatever it is, would you be willing to start learning those roles so that you can take the place to help your hobby, your community live on in worst-case scenarios? Because I think a lot of people, you know, showing up is cool, but sometimes if if the organizers aren't there, there's not gonna be an event to go to. So just put that out there in the ether, maybe to help revitalize some of the the living history communities throughout the uh country and world.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Yeah, I think that's part of good leadership too. I mean, I learned that in the army. When every time you're getting promoted, as you go up, you're looking down, grabbing the next guy and bringing him up with you, right? As you make E4, he's E3. And then when you make Bucks Aren't, you're pulling him up to be a good specialist and so on and so on. So, yeah, absolutely. I think that's every every leader's responsibility to at you know be able to name their replacement or at least have a plan in place to where, in the event of something drastic, uh whoever does come in is is not you know caught off guard. And and I think that's important. That's definitely a lesson I learned over the years as not a very good administrator. I I'm not an administrator, I don't keep good records. Anyone who knows me on social, like, wow, you know, I did all these amazing things. I don't even have a picture to prove it, right? I don't document what I'm doing, I'm living the moment. Yeah, I'm not taking pictures of it. So, but I mean, having been in several um, you know, roles with responsibilities in the community in living history and so on. Yeah, that to me, that's that's that, that's that person's job. That's part of the responsibility. And and to your point, with with the young folks coming up, um, man, uh Dennis, I know you're probably thinking of them. That kiddo we met in Dallas, so we met a reenactor, Don, you're gonna love this. I'm probably the biggest Memphis Bell fan you'll ever meet, but I may have met a very close second, and the kid's not 18 yet, but his impression was spot on, and it's not just oh, I'm 8th Air Force or I'm 91st Bomb Group or I'm 324th Bomb Squadron. No, no, no. His impression was the raid on November of 1942, early on in the Memphis Bell's career, when it was a low-level mission to the coast of France. It was not a high-altitude mission. So they wore different things, you know. They so that's what I thought was his impression.

SPEAKER_06 24:07

That's a risky move going early, because the earlier you go, the harder the crap you're trying to find to be uh authentic is.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Right. And he even had the early war May West, the B3. Inspection stamped, and everything everything was dated perfectly, and the kid's not even 18 yet. So that right there really gives me hope. There is another generation that's going to take over. I mean, it it's just the natural course of things, but we cannot think that that's automatic. Yeah, it's up to this core group to kind of bring up the next generation, uh, the passing of the batons, so to speak, and and and it'll come.

SPEAKER_06 24:47

And um well, and plus we gotta maintain as events, right? If we let if we stop maintaining the event, stop scheduling, there's not gonna be a event for the young kids to go to to get fall in love with the hobby.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Right, right.

SPEAKER_06 24:57

And that's the other problem, especially, you know, I think I know I can name two museums in Florida over the last seven years that have closed up. One of them was a beautiful museum up in Lakeland, Florida. Thing was immaculate. You walked in there, it was one of these things where it started out as a guy's private collection, and he kind of rented a space, and then through um attendance and donations, you know, he had almost like movie sets. You go around a corner, you're walking down an alley in a in the French Resistance, and you you know, you you hit you see a store shop with a broken window, you look inside, and there's a German machine gun nest built in there with them G42s. If you go on my Facebook page, go back 12 years, you'll see photos in there. Guy passed away. Didn't really have a organized um corporation to maintain it. Family was like, whoa, this is way too much for us. You know, only thing we can do is, you know, liquidation sale. And it's kind of like the old meme. What's the old meme? My biggest fear is I'm gonna pass away, and my wife sells my guns for what I told her I paid for them. And so, but yeah, I mean, and so but more importantly, that was one less quality museum or just one less museum in general to have events because they would have us out there twice, three times a year as a fundraiser for them. But for us to do living history in this beautiful backdrop, it was just so awesome to do. But that's you know, so in order to maintain this hobby and to maintain the community, you also gotta you know find people to maintain the events, and more importantly, you gotta show up, right? These guys can schedule events, go out and do logistics. I remember after my first uh tactical, Mike Blosky did a Marine Corps tactical, and it was awesome. We did Nell and a year later, and the attendance was down. And he's like, the amount of logistics and organization and the funding and all the stuff, the planning I put in this, that not having anybody show up, is like it just knocked the wind out of his sails. And so, you know, Jeff can tell you this stuff is not easily organized, it's not easily done to find time on calendars that doesn't conflict with other people's events, and so um, yeah, our job is not only to show up and do history, but to show up for the events to make sure they're gonna be around next year and the year after that.

SPEAKER_05 27:16

That Saturday was a a freaking blast. We had we got up early and made they opened up the the hangar doors, and immediately against the wind blew everything, all of my displays down. Oh, the value of paperweights. The the weakness was revealed, and uh I I'm just like, oh man, I was super bummed. And so my my mind I'm processing, okay, what what assets do I have? What do I gotta do to keep these display boards up? Because they're awesome display boards, and there's um, but I was looking off the side and I saw those stanchions that that keep people in line or keep people from going off limits. So um I asked and and they let me use uh so I put those on the table and the stanchion pulled it the cord across, and then as the wind was blowing, it just it kept everything, it worked. Um that that start of that day was just a blast. Yeah, uh, getting to meet everybody. Um uh the conversations, the fella coming up to me with a brief, he saw you know, he your your table speaks about you, you know, as a person, as a historian, as an impressionist, as a person who loves World War II history and wants to preserve it. And this fella saw that all the work that had been played done and um all the detail and the great artifacts and and this and that, and um he was feeling his mortality. He had had uh felt he had a close brush with death and had lost about 80 pounds and he looked skeletal. And um, the next thing I know, he's coming up to me with this uh briefcase, and he's like, uh, this is for you. And I open it up and it's just chuck full of World War II stuff, and it's all navy related, and um pictures and dog tags and medals and ID cards and like so much.

SPEAKER_06 29:25

Stuff would have taken you years to track down, especially nowadays.

SPEAKER_05 29:29

Yeah, for sure. And here I and it was exactly what Jeff told me was gonna happen is that people are gonna see uh what you do and the pride you take in it, and they don't know what to do with some of the stuff, and they're like, here's the perfect repository, and then you and then the benefit is that your display gets better.

SPEAKER_06 29:45

Um, after that, then more unique because your display is built off of real artifacts that someone has collected 30 years ago, and you're not buying the same stuff that everybody else is trying to scoop together off of eBay or the reproduction stuff. To have something walk in that this guy probably has spent 20 years tracking down different locations, it's gonna make your impression, your display so much more unique than the next guy. Not that a lot of people are doing navy, so you have that too, but yeah, you just can't beat a um a homegrown collection that someone has spent years organizing, especially if they started years ago. So somebody who's been carrying a firearm for over 13 years daily, one of the biggest inconveniences is when you come home, you need to take your firearm off yourself and put it somewhere safe, somewhere secure, especially if you have kids. Now, I know most of us are responsible, we have a gun safe somewhere, but let's be honest, usually these gun safes are big, they're bulky, they're kind of out of the way because they're a bit of an eye store, your wife doesn't want them where everybody can see them. So sometimes in your closet behind some clothes, sometimes they're in the garage, sometimes in the mud room. And let's be honest, taking your firearm out and walk into those locations to secure it is a pain in the butt. But you have to be a responsible firearm owner, especially if you have kids in the house. That's why you need to get yourself a stopbox pro portable gun safe. You can make it non-portable, you can drill some holes in it, mount it to a place of convenience in your house, but it requires no batteries and no electricity. Just that easy, it's secure. So do yourself a favor, head over to stopboxusa.com forward slash D410 and get all the information today on your stopbox pro. When seconds count, trust the only non-fail firearm storage box, stopbox pro at stopboxusa.com forward slash D410.

SPEAKER_05 31:43

It was uh yeah, it was pretty awesome. Um after that, we we they they closed up shop and then everybody left and um the guys started.

SPEAKER_04 31:53

It was fun to watch all these grown men uh giggle as they got into their different uh impressions, and because now it's playtime and they have all these, they have a B-29 there, you got a B-24 there. And so it was it was a Hollywood city.

SPEAKER_05 32:11

It was like like reenactments, uh great pictures taken from inside the B-29, and everybody's in their proper positions. You got every seat is manned, and these just great photographs are taken. And you know, I'm the Navy guy, so what are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_00 32:27

This has been a digital 410 production.

SPEAKER_05 32:33

So hand me a hand me a fire extinguisher. I'll make sure the engine doesn't light off. Um, but you know, it was um it was a lot of fun. And then uh we rolled in a circular table or in the middle of all of our tables, and we sat around and had brats and uh some baked beans, and uh, and we had some whiskey that I brought, and we then we went out and smoked some cigars that Wade and Jeff brought.

SPEAKER_04 33:01

And then as if that wasn't enough, uh Jeff, what did we do then?

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Well, I I busted out the old projector, and on the back of the hangar door, we watched an amazing documentary that Dennis had introduced me to, and of course, with all these aircraft guys here, and none of them had seen it. Um, and and we can't we can't forget about our one boy that was set up in the foyer, uh, who I mean his grand, he had his grandfather, his grandfather served in the 91st bomb group. So he had his dad's bomber jacket and dinghy whistle and all everything that would have been pinned on his uniform, all the different um sets of wings, and and uh he had all kinds of stuff. And he's got one of the only complete survival kits in the country. He thinks it's on there's only four correct, complete survival kits with the correct um fuses and and everything, right? So the guy's like super collector. Um and he hadn't even seen this documentary called uh Target for Today. So yeah, we put it on and and man, yeah, I went and pop popcorn. Yeah, yeah, it was great. I mean, I have to say Dennis was a great sailor because in the morning he's pouring us coffee and he's making his breakfast and waffles and he fluffed our pillow on our cot. It was great. It was it was awesome. But I have to say this speaking of exposing, seriously though, uh speaking of exposing weaknesses, here's what makes Dennis's display really fantastic is you know, I've been in education for several years now. Um I put a bunch of stuff on the table, right? Uh if I'm not there to talk about it, people look at it. Dennis's is there to educate you. And and that's what really seeing his display, it just kind of go, huh? Yeah, it's it's interactive. There's yeah, he's got things, he's got the ships that you can flip over, you know, the wooden ships, and and it and it gives you this information, the display boards. Um, yeah, in the wind, they're tough. And then he's gonna find out other ways, but it definitely has made me think, and I even I think I mentioned it to him that weekend, like, man, I just got a bunch of cool stuff spread out, right? And a Jeep for people to sit in. But like, I need to work on that. I need to work on what is this stuff? Um, you know, what's significant about it? Because again, I if I'm there, which I usually am, you know, hey, there's a whatever, and and check out this silk map and look at the difference between a 50 caliber and a and a 20 millimeter cannon. Like, I got all that, right? I've got everything to to generate any kind of conversation from survival, escape evasion, the you know, your gear, uh, personal effects, the goofy stuff, the hair tonic, what does a shaver look like to you know, a bar of soap. I mean, I I got all that. Um, but you take me out of the equation, and nobody's gonna really learn anything. Dennis doesn't even have to be there. And the people are coming by, they're reading everything, they're you know, so that to me is the value of his display, is it's it's educational by itself. And that definitely showed me that I've got some holes as cool as my display. That's great. I've got some holes, and I think it's the lesson that any reenactor who does any kind of a display can learn because that's typically what we do. They put up a small fly tent or you know, throw out a bunch of field tables and footlockers and whatever, and it's stuff. Like very rarely, unless now again, when I was at the museum, that was different because that was our job. But but but Dennis is really truly like it educates you. Yeah, I think a lot of us have been inspiring.

SPEAKER_06 36:59

A lot of us get so caught up in the chase of the artifact that when we get it, we're just rummaging through all of our stuff the night before, right? Oh, here's I'm taking I want to do this impression, this, this, this, and this. You throw it in your your duffel bag and you get there and you just lay it out. You're like, cool. But then you have the people like Dennis. Uh John Thomas was one of those guys. He was a craftsman. His daughter was artistic. So if he was doing the first ID on D-Day, he actually got on the bandsaw and made the continents and the arrows and the landing, and his daughter painted them all up, and he had literally boards like plywood boards of the landing maps of Normandy or whatever event, and he had the big first ID logo made out of wood, painted red, no d green. He had it all. And he was really where you know, basically he took two hobbies and squeezed them together and added his his kids' hobby into it as well. And yeah, it's you know, a lot of us need to sit down and think, you know, what are what are my other strong attributes and how can I, as Jeff just beautifully said, kind of make my display stand on its own if I'm over here talking because you may not even be away, you just may be in one of those conversations where somebody's really into it, and then you got Steve and Betty standing over here just looking at a table, getting ready to walk away. But as you said, if you kind of a miniature self-guided tour of your table, you um Jerry Um Jerry Oxley, another guy, he's really good at this. Before COVID, we had the honor of doing the Army's as Jeff can tell you every year, they have the Army birthday, and every state has in different places. Here in Florida, they would have it at the Hilton in downtown Tampa, and we ran an event six months before. The guy who organizes it came to an event, saw our display, got a hold of Jerry. Next thing I know, we're in the the the uh Hilton downtown Tampa setting up you know uh the the extra traps on their carpet and creating a um uh D-Day event. But Jerry had his display, but he had little cards. He printed up little cards under these items and little just kind of like you said Dennis did, just smaller. You know, here's what these items were, here's what they're used for, so that when you're engaged in conversation, your displa your display can tell its own tale. And I'm real bad at that. I need to I need to get that sorted out too.

SPEAKER_05 39:21

I'm glad you uh you mentioned that. That was that was something that was interesting for me to re uh to see was I almost felt like um it was better if I didn't talk to anybody because then I was gonna take them out of what they were experiencing. It was kind of cool, and um it was neat to look back. I have this neat display that shows the Normandy beach, and the LCI is what beachheads they hit, have the zones all colored and written out, and then I have on there the LCI a little wooden ship for and then it's you know black and then it's painted what number LCI it is all along the beaches in Normandy. And uh some of them are offshore because something happened to them. They hit a mine and sank or something like that.

SPEAKER_06 40:07

And um and just for our audience to say, how big are these like two inches, four inches, an inch or no?

SPEAKER_05 40:12

The the ships are probably a half inch. Okay, maybe even a quarter inch. Well, these probably quarter inch.

SPEAKER_06 40:19

Did you make these or did you find like a little bit?

SPEAKER_05 40:20

And the ones on the billboard on the poster board, they're they're a quarter inch and they're numbered. Yeah, these are all things that I that I hand you know, made. And then uh on the table, there are uh probably what would you say, Jeff, like six inch? Yeah, six by three. And they're the shape of a ship, and it's also the LCI, and so and it has a little knob, and so you can match the LCI on the table to the one on the board, and you pick it up and you flip it over, and it gives you bullet points of what happened to that LCI on those different beaches, and that was really fun to see uh look over and see a dad pull one up or a young kid pull one up and then recall over to his dad and say, Man, then the 91 was at you know, Omaha dog green, and I had no idea that these ships were even there. And look what happened to it. It it hit a mine and then was backing off, and it hit another teller mine, and the troop compartment number one was full of troops, and it caught fire and burned up all 50 guys, and uh you know, to see them learn that there was more to Omaha than the true the Higgins boats, the ramps coming down, and which of course you know we all know about, but that was really cool.

SPEAKER_06 41:38

So, someone someone in our audience is trying to get ideas. So, did you just have a single number on the bottom of the ship and then a corresponding board with the because obviously that's a lot of information to put on the bottom of a piece of wood ship. So, did you have like a number on the ship, like one, and then you look on a board and it had that paragraph?

SPEAKER_05 41:54

Yeah, so like for instance, the 91. Okay, you look up on your display board and you'll see the Normandy Beach, and you'll see 91 is beached at dog green, right? So then you look down and laying flat on the table are all these different LCIs, and then you'll all it's the only thing on top is it'll say LCI L 91, and it's got a little knob that you can use to grab it and pull it up, and then you flip it over, and then it's got just short bullet points about uh probably 10 font and about what happened to that ship. Um, and then they're like, oh my gosh, well, look at this one. Why is this one off way off the beach? What happened to that one? That's 232. So then they find, they look around, they're okay. Where's the 232? Where's the 232? Okay, here's a 232, and they pick up the 232, flip it over, and they'll read about how that it it hit a mine. Um 14 guys went down with the ship, you know, this and that.

SPEAKER_06 42:49

How did you come up with that idea, especially being so new to the hobby?

SPEAKER_05 42:54

Those that tame that one actually goes back to um my work with the LCI Association, and I was in charge of growing their archive. It was something that I volunteered to do, and I took it from it was their their index for their archive was about 10 pages um just on the front. And then I grew it to 150 pages, and and so I I just made several campaigns to get artifacts and memoirs and things from the guys, and their stories and pictures and this and that and reports and action and all this stuff. And so we had a here in Fredericksburg at the National Museum of the Pacific War, we we I convinced the LCI Association to donate their archive to that museum uh because I knew that they would take care of it and and and you know watch over it. And so we had a big ceremony, and so guys came from all over the country. LCI guys came, and I wanted it to be a huge event. So part of that was that I had gone to the archive. In DC, and I scanned literally probably uh 2,000 pictures of LCIs uh in the in the Pacific and Atlantic during World War II. So then I had a fundraiser campaign, and my my goal was for this meeting where we were going to donate the archive to the museum, is I thought how cool would it be if we got to display these pictures for people to see. So we raised the money, and I made every single, I made hundred couple hundred of these eight by tens into eight by tens, and then I all along the walls in the the Nimitz Hall there in the in the uh um um galley in the well, not in the galley room, in the what do you call that, the dance floor, the what do you call that, Jeff?

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Oh, the Nimitz ballroom.

SPEAKER_05 44:48

The ballroom, there we go. There we go, thank you. Yeah, all along the halls, the walls of the Nimitz ballroom, they had at the time they had these corkboards, and um they were covered with burlap, and it was perfect. And so we I just had Palau over here, and I had you know uh the Philippines and Okinawa and Iwo Jima, the Marianas, Normandy, Italy. And so as the LCI guys and their families are filing in, they're just just aghast. They didn't know these pictures even existed, and and they're just beautiful from the combat photographers, and they're they're just milling around and they're doing all this. And part of that whole presentation was is that I wanted to have an interactive display that the guys could go up and see what happened, and they could have their families there, and their grandson and their kids, and okay, pull this LCI up and flip it over, and you can see what happened to these LCIs. That's a long way for me to tell you how I got the idea.

SPEAKER_06 45:45

Well, I want to pause I want to pause real quick for the importance. Okay, you said these guys walked in and there's photos that they didn't know existed. For our younger audience, we take photography for granted. Everybody has a camera, you can shoot off 2,000, however many photos your SD card can hold, you can shoot off and record videos and HD. Wasn't that long ago when the three of us were young that you would buy film for your 35 millimeter camera at$13 a roll for 24 photos, and you had to pay nine to ten dollars to get them exposed. So every single photo cost money. Well, go back 40 years prior to that, cameras were even more expensive, they were harder to come by, and they weren't forgiving. People don't know the importance of a light meter, aperture settings, ISO, all that stuff. And so, for these guys to walk out of nowhere to see photos, and then maybe not of themselves, of situations or guys they knew from 1943 to have your youth come back to you in full black and white grainy photos, that had to be like almost a shock to the system because once again, they came from a time where you maybe took a family photo once every three years, you know, not every everybody didn't have a thousand photos of themselves, you know. Most of most of these people may have had one or three photos from themselves between the ages of 10. That's right. I don't even think school photos, at least high school photos, yes, but I don't even know if elementary school and middle school photos were that common at that point in time. So for them to come and see photos of a time that was long forgotten almost, and to see these just had to be completely just almost I don't even know how you would describe that.

SPEAKER_05 47:35

Yeah, it was surreal. Yeah, yeah, it was surreal because the photographs that were taken were were were done by by actually trained combat photographers in the Navy department or in or with uh war correspondents who then turned over their stuff, and then also the signal corps had some great photos as well. So, you know, they walked in, you can imagine. And and the whole time they're playing, I've got I've got overhead, I've got playing uh on a loop the the soundtrack for uh Medal of Honor or European Assault, right? So there's this great, amazing Michael Giaccino move music playing uh the whole time they're there. And then uh on the big screen, I have playing uh an actual wartime LCI training video uh where they were training the crews on the different positions and how to beach and how to retract from the beach and lower the ramps and this and that. It was just all around just this tremendous, tremendous uh display. And I was really proud to be a part of it and pull it off, and it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_06 48:35

I'm sure when those guys left that night, they're like, this was far more than I was expecting walking up in here. I was expecting, you know, maybe some music, a sit-down ceremony, and uh cutting the ribbon of a new display, but to walk in to something like that just.

SPEAKER_05 48:48

Oh my gosh, yes. I gotta tell you guys too, one more thing, and for our listeners that I think everybody will really appreciate, is my brother-in-law had come down with my sister from Alaska and he was active duty coast guard, uh bosun's mate, and and what I did was is I put him up in the um up in the um balcony, and my dad came and he was in his uh full dress uniform. He's a retired Air Force cop, he's a master sergeant. And so what I did was is I knew who was gonna be in the audience as far as the LCI guys, and so my dad got up there and he called roll. So he got up there and he said, uh, you know, motor machinists mate first class John Cummer, LCI 502. And then John Comer, the president of the LCI Association, would stand and say, here, or present. And he'd sit down, and then dad would say, uh, seaman first class, Royal Wetzel, LCI G 70. And Royal Wetzel would stand and say, Here. And then dad would say, Seaman First Class, Robert Minnick, LCI 449. And it would be dead quiet. And he would say, Seaman First Class, Robert Minnick, LCI 449. And then my brother-in-law stood up in the balcony, and he says, Master Sergeant Blocker, Seaman First Class, Robert Minnick is not here. He was killed in action at Iwo Jima. And then he would call the next guy who would stand in the audience. I'm telling you, I got goosebumps city right now. It was something we will never forget. As we listed two guys who were there, and then we listed a guy who died in Normandy, or a guy who died in the Philippines from a kamikaze attack, and my my my uh brother-in-law just booming with his voice. Nobody better to do it than the bosun's mate, and then he's up there just it was someone there, forget. It was amazing. And then, you know, and then plus you're surrounded by all these photographs and uh just so I was just so you know you guys were talking about Jeff, you're talking about when you woke up in the morning Dennis, your your uh sailor was fluffing your pillows and pouring your coffee.

SPEAKER_06 51:15

There's something there's something about waking up at an event, right? Especially if it's an outdoor event, because you you're cots are comfortable for about three and a half hours, and then you're just tossing and turning. If you're a side sleeper, I'm sorry, your your your life is gonna be terrible for the night. So you're gonna roll out of that rack at 5 36 in the morning anyhow, especially if it's outside. But there's just something about waking up in a uniform that you wore all day yesterday, same socks, you know, sleeping with the itch, and there's being, you know, I remember one year I was at a at a air show, I can't remember which one it was, um, but we were sleeping on the tarmac in the grass. And the way my pup tent, I opened a flap, sun's coming up, and all these World War II aircraft are just parked on the side of the the tarmac, and just to be sleeping in the uniform of because you know it's early in the morning, the F-16s aren't flying over, the Navy's not playing their techno music at their booth yet, you don't have the smell of hot dogs wafting through the air. It's just you looking at your tent and seeing the shadows and the silhouettes of all these airplanes. There's just you can't beat it. And and you gotta have the people who are willing to do that morning routine. If, especially if you guys are camping out, you know, someone has to be making the SOS and and making the coffee because people are gonna be hungry and they're gonna be wanting food. I remember when we were at um, I have a video of this somewhere. It's the only time I've seen it done. When we were at the 50th anniversary, no, the uh 80th anniversary of Tarawa in um Fort Morgan, Alabama, we had such a big turnout just for our Florida guys. We made spaghetti for dinner. The pot of our spaghetti sauce was so big, we had to stir it with an entrenching tool. That's how much spaghetti sauce we had. Like that's all it's like we need, it's like this ladle isn't cutting it. We need here, I dusted it off. You know, there's no such thing as hygiene on Living History Weekend. You can be out diving, running the mud, have black powder, uh, just give me that spam, whatever. Uh dirty and trenching tool, who cares? But yeah, I've never seen so much spaghetti sauce that we had to start with a T-handled E-tool all in uniform. And I remember the joke was uh, because that was actually during um the Marine Corps birthday weekend, and we had uh it was sponsored by Marine Corps League, and we had some um active duty and retired uh Marines there, and the joke was we shared some of that spaghetti with the people, and we were making it we the lid fell off of the uh the peppers, pull peppers in there, and so um I don't know if you guys know this, but at the Marine Corps birthday, they kind of have a tradition where you can kind of call somebody out for their nonsense. I forget the terminology they use for it, but someone called out one of my guys for how spicy the spaghetti sauce was, and he's like, I was told to put in a scoche, I just put it a scoche, and like the the whole joke that weekend was a scoche of chili peppers because it was just too damn hot, but it was so much fun just to you know make that much food. But yeah, you have to have someone at an event, especially if you got a if you have a good contingent of guys, you got five, ten guys there. Yeah, everybody'll pack their spam and they'll have their K rations, but nothing makes an event better than whether it's a navy guy that brings a toaster, warm SOS, um whether it's spaghetti, something warm food changes it. I remember my first 20 or so events, I just bring cold food. Hey, that's the old saying, Jeff, if they had it, they would have used it.

SPEAKER_04 54:49

I brought a toaster and egos, and I had breakfast, and to tell you what, they ate it, but it was.

SPEAKER_06 55:13

Me and my buddy, we went camping, uh, we went kayak camping, camped out on the uh lake, and I brought my my World War II cook stove that I made. Perfect thing for for your next event. Uh, get your spam, the Hawaiian king rolls, and then get a can of the round pineapple, the slits. You put that pineapple and that spam on a hot griddle over your propane, whatever, and then put that on a Hawaiian king's roll with black coffee. Oh, it's very, very good. It sounds gross, but especially if you're hungry, it's spam. Um, some you gotta grill that grill that uh pineapple up. Oh, it's so good, and it's it's it's authentic and air correct.

SPEAKER_05 55:57

I did take a ribbon for how many brats I could get in my mouth at one time.

SPEAKER_06 56:00

One point one isn't it crazy how you can get a group of 30 and 40-year-olds acting like 13-year-olds at these events. It happens every time. And by the way, for you older guys, you have to tastefully haze your young kids, right? You you got you have to bust the young guys' balls, you have to make them do stupid stuff. Um, kind of what we were saying earlier, right? You kind of have to bust their balls and get them used to stressful situations a little bit because they may be picking up your reins 10 years from now and running the events. But you know, I I think I posted a um a TikTok at the last train event we did, and it was we I taught one of the city kids how to build a fire. Dude, 17 years old, never made a fire before. He lives in Miami. What does he need to build a bonfire for? And but it was funny because you can always tell the kids when they're making the first fire because they're the kids poking at it all night long, they won't let that son of a gun rest. And and he was sitting there poking at it, like took a video like, yeah, but you can always tell when the city kids learn how to make a fire because they'll tend to it all night long. But it's so fun to to that's the other thing, too, right? Teaching kids how to set up a pup tent, how to build a fire, how to maintain a fire. Here in Florida, you need kindling, palm fronds, brown palm fronds burn forever. Great kindling, and so not only they these kids learning history, they're learning camaraderie, they actually get to experience ball busting because you know, zero tolerance, they have never really experienced that in the last 15 years. The community is so great. I don't I love the the public and all that, but 630 rolls around, those doors locked, like Dennis said, it's a whole different environment. Once the public goes away and the booth comes up, it's a whole new world.

SPEAKER_03 57:42

It is so much fun. It is so much fun. Don, can you tell everybody how to huh?

SPEAKER_01 57:47

I was gonna say, there's nothing like sun up at an air show, man. I mean, Don, you hit it. Uh there's something about it, and and I think I mentioned it to you, Dennis, too, when we were there. Like that that's my favorite time. The public being there and talking, that that's great. But but sun up at an air show, you know, with all those World War II aircraft, it's got a special feel to it. I I I I can't explain it, but but sun up at any event like that, like you said, when you're already in uniform and you've been in uniform, you know, for a day or two, I don't know. There, that's a whole different experience, and it's very special to to those of us who can who appreciate it and and and take part in it. There, there's nothing like sun up at an event for sure.

SPEAKER_06 58:32

And to Dennis's point, he's talking about after the public went away, you guys got free reign. And Jeff and I have talked about this before. Being a living historian at an event in a uniform opens up all kinds of doors. Go to an air show and try to walk down a flight line in civilian clothes, see what happens. Go to an air show, walk down a flight line in full uniform and see what happens. This way, sir. I mean, you get access to so much more stuff.

SPEAKER_05 58:58

Um, just I would say if I could give uh anyone who's uh interested in doing this in the future, uh one thing I would point out is to be very mindful of your host. And when we left, we policed up after our grounds where we left, and we left it better than we got it. And and we went up to the the folks that were running it, and we anything you need us to do, you know, we helped load up chairs and tables and things we didn't even have to do. And that we just they took good care of us and we reciprocated by getting in there, getting the work done, um, cleaning up, picking up, and then uh just you know, being respectful of the opportunity we were given because we we want them when they hear our names to say absolutely it can come. Yeah, yes, please come back. And that's what they say every time.

SPEAKER_06 59:49

Not that you want to talk about it, but it needs to be said if you got it had in my 12 years, I've seen it once, maybe twice. Sadly, there may be that one guy in your community you gotta weed out because when he shows up to places he's doing stuff like stealing golf carts, not saying that happened, uh stealing golf carts and doing stupid stuff. You can't allow somebody who can't handle their fun shut an entire event down for you guys because you know they're being dumb. So sometimes you really you know, you kind of you gotta keep an eye on those guys. And that's the interesting thing too, Dennis, you'll learn um as your community gets and as you get to know the people in your community. Living history is probably I'm sure there may be one or two. I can't think of a maybe comic book convention, baseball card, something, but there's something there's a level of trust you have to have. As Jeff said, when he's not around his display, he's gotta go do something. You don't even have to ask. The guy next to you is gonna watch your stuff as if as if it's his. Some civilians come up and walk around and start, they're gonna cast an eye, and then if he sees them, hey, something I can help you with. But you'll also notice, too, if if a um a living historian shows up that maybe got chased out before or kind of has a bad reputation, you do not, you do not want to get even remotely somebody lifting an eyebrow saying, I heard that he may have done something. You don't want to get put in that category because there is way too much financial investment on behalf of everybody there. You do not ever want to get yourself a reputation of being a questionable, trusting guy, and you know, when that character does show up, you gotta weed them out of there. You cannot allow that one bad apple to destroy your tree. Yeah. But it is amazing how people will treat your gear like theirs when you have to go use the bathroom or make a phone call or whatever. You know, I've never I've never had a thing walk off. Well, with the exception of one year on a train event, I had my um HBT cap sitting in it my my um pocket, and I think a kid grabbed it out of it. But other than that, I've never had anybody walk off with an item from or anybody I know for that matter, had anybody walk off with an item, but you gotta keep an eye out and trust the people around you, and that's part of that community.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:19

I'd say, you know, if you're interested in getting involved in those kind of things, message us. Message us that you'd you'd like to get started and um mail call at WT Mail call it WTSP WorldWar II.com.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:33

You know, we don't give enough um love for our website, WTSP WorldWar II.com. Um, we have a page on there called Quartermaster. We haven't updated it in a while, but um it has links to all the primary vendors, you know, World War II Impression at the front, what Price Glory, J Mer, J Murray and One Helmets, World War II Soldier, which is a good place to get personal items. Um, Dennis, I know you're new to this, and I know someone just hooked you up with some stuff, but if you're like looking for razors or even the boxes, the imitation boxes for the razor blades or you know, the correct um towels and all that stuff, World War II soldier is a good place. Um, Atlantic Wall blanks, man to line, uh, frontline rations, they make good ration boxes, all that stuff's on our website, and I have a link on here. Um, the Marine Corps guys who do the event up in Alabama, they are some of the most authentic guys in the world to the point. And I got this link on our website, K Canvas Blanco, they actually have the correct color, closest modern-day equivalent to what you would have used back then to treat your haversack, your M1 belt, and it's the right color. So if you're looking for uh the K canvas Liquid Blanco Natural for Webbing to re-you know to put it on your gear to make it look authentic. We have the link on our website, and um, of course, it comes from the United Kingdom, so you're gonna have a little, it's not on Amazon, so it's gonna take a little while to get to you, but we have some cool stuff on there and uh great links. And never mention this either. If you get our website, there's some banners on there, feel free, or some Cast King, or some um holsters we've given away, Patreon, obviously, our shirts. Any of those links you click on our website and you purchase something, they they they come back and kick a few coins our way so you can help support the show that way. And um, but yeah, and we have history through photos, we got all kinds of cool stuff on there as well. And if anybody's listening in the Florida, Georgia, or Alabama area, um, I was talking about me, Nate, and the guys uh earlier who are trying to maintain and help rebuild the Florida reenacting community. I've had a page on Facebook for years called Florida Southwest or Southwest Florida World War II. We've renamed it, and we also have a website called the Florida Regimental Combat Team, or the um, and we have a website too. So if you're in Florida or Alabama and you're you're looking for um uh places to get information, we can help you out there too. And so just look for the Florida Regimental Combat Team on Facebook, and we also have a website too that you can get information to. And we also put uh um links to current events like the um I said June 3rd, it's actually June 7th, Saturday, June 7th. We're doing that um event in Zephyr Hills. But yeah, so um we definitely check out those and obviously check out the uh what's the scuttle butt Facebook page and Instagram page. And um which we link a lot of stuff with Jeff and all them. But yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:46

No, I think that's good. That was a nice episode.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:48

What you reading, fella?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:51

Yeah, so uh I came I came prepared just in case we did a what you're reading. Uh I've been really enjoying this book and and the the Name's been around for a while, Walter J. Boyne. Um Colonel Boyne is he's a retired Air Force uh colonel who you may have seen him on uh like early history channel type, you know, like when the history channel was history. Yeah. Uh, you know, or 15, 20 years ago, you may have seen him on a bunch of TV uh specials about the air war, World War I, World War II. He's kind of one of those personalities uh that when you see him, you're like, oh man, I've seen that guy like a thousand times. And and uh I picked up this book here because uh, like Don we were talking earlier, this is uh one of the secondary sources for my uh history thesis. Um but I'll tell you, this is just a great it's called it's called Clash of Wings, World War II uh in the air, and it's just a really good, like just topical approach uh at the air war in general. He goes chronologically, he's gonna go back and forth between um you know Blitzkrieg, Battle of Britain, Japanese in China, Pearl Harbor, and then we're gonna go back to ETO. So it kind of goes back and forth between the theaters, um, but stays chronological. Um there it's not biased or anything like that. It's just every chapter is a different um you know phase of of the air war. Um it does not touch hardly at all on anything in the ground, uh except for it, it may say it's a complement to the ground forces um or you know something like that. So you it keeps the ground out of it completely. It's strictly just air. Um and like I said, it's just a good, all-encompassing book. If you just if you just love the the the um the aerial warfare perspective, and and I've learned a lot. I I really have. I've learned a lot more about how integral control of the air was for every operation we did. I mean, you know, there was not a single Luftwaffe fighter in the skies at D-Day. And I that doesn't get the credit enough. Yeah, you know, I mean, D-Day's always about the ground, but what set the stage was the destruction of the Luftwaffe, and and you kind of go through the phases of the kind of the antiquated uh Navy aircraft, right? The beginning of the war, the Vindicators, the the Buffaloes, things like that. Of course, the Wildcat had its shortcomings in P40, and then enter the Hellcat, of course, and then the Helldiver, um, and you see that progression, and never really thought of it. But you know, the Japanese, it was like it was the zero, like through the war, right? I mean, yeah, the the Oscar and the George and the Frank, things like that, but um, and the Judy, supposed to be the new Kate, I guess, um, or or the Val. But uh for the most part, there was really not that kind of um uh innovation in the air that we that we saw, right? I mean, and and even you look from the German perspective, right? It's it's 109s flying in Battle of Britain, and it's just a later variant 109 flying in 1944. And you know, we completely redesigned things and rebuilt things, and you know, yeah, we start off with P-47s and then enter P-51s, right? But there was never really an enemy aircraft that was like, oh wow, this changes everything. I I I understand setting aside the ME-262, but again, that's kind of like, yeah, that that changed things, but that changed things more after the war than it ever did during. Yeah, there was that was no big like, oh, that's a huge obstacle, how are we gonna overcome? You know, so it just kind of opened my mind to that. Yeah. Um never really thought of that before, you know, that they're just they just our enemy didn't have the aerial innovation like we did, and they didn't have the quality uh pilots um, you know, to train the next crop. You know, the the pilots that flew, for example, in the turkey chute of the Battle of the Philippine Sea were not the pilots that flew at Pearl Harbor. They're not the pilots that had you know dozens of kills in China. They those guys were gone. And um some of them that flew, or even for the kamikaze, none of them were qualified to land on an aircraft carrier. Yeah. And they didn't have to be. You know, I mean it's the training. It's funny, but it's like I mean, they just weren't they just weren't trained. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:35

So you know, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:37

Interesting book.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:38

Um obviously we benefited greatly from it in the 50s with the space program and and flight, but it raises the question was Germany so hindered in their uh air uh coverage? Obviously, we were bombing the hell out of their plants, but we also know that they were spending an enormous amount of time trying to get the jet engine and jet propulsion systems off the ground, no pun intended. And it's like you you kinda gotta ask yourself the question. Well, maybe if they, you know, uh spent a little less funding on the the jet side of their their air their loofwaffe and and spent a little more production time on prepared but propeller based planes to replace the ones that were being destroyed, if they would have had a little bit more of uh a contendency during those times.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:30

Think about if they would have built several variants of a four-engine long-range bomber.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:37

That could have that could have changed things drastically.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:41

To get uh jet propulsion to invent it and get it off the ground and to and to try to mass produce that adds a tremendous amount of funding and materials for a country who was running short on both and manpower.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:55

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:57

Hey Dennis, what are you reading?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:00

I'm reading the story of Dr. Vossel by uh James Hilton. It's a uh story of a uh American doctor in Java, and uh he finds himself in um the company of survivors from the Houston and uh another uh a British ship that was sunk, and um he and they end up they have to evacuate them from Java, and um a lot of it is fiction. Uh some of it is fiction, uh, but a lot of it is it is based off of the actual Dr. uh Bostil and um his efforts to help the theming escape and whatnot, and uh understand that there's even a movie about it with Gary Cooper.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:50

Um but um it's kind of what we're we're I'm reading to my girlfriend every night when we before we you know turn out the lights and I'll read from it and um No, not to get too personal, but are you reading this while sitting up against your headboard or are you pacing across the floor like you're giving a lecture to a college class when I just read this book aloud?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:12

Oh no, no, we just lay there.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:16

My soothing my soothing um my soothing voice puts her to sleep very fast.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:22

Hopefully it's your voice and not the subject matter. We'll think but good on her for uh allowing you to uh share your passion and uh to read it aloud amongst the two of you and your cat or dog or bad. We actually watched uh Midway together. Nice.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:40

The one from the 70s on Memorial Day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:45

I um I haven't read anything about two weeks. I've been wicked busy. Plus, um, for those of y'all who pre-ordered it, I believe, at least according to my Amazon, um, our friend Henry's book should be showing up in our mailboxes here in a couple days on the third. So the next book I'm gonna be reading probably on Wednesday, uh Tuesday.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:07

He's been tearing it up on the podcast.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:09

I just saw he was on Jocko Willis podcast.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:11

Yeah, he was on Jocko. It was a really good episode. I really enjoyed it. He's such a he's got such a great voice, and he's so good at telling his stories. It was just Jocko was riveted. We were all riveted, it was so great.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:22

And so his his book, The Old Breed, The Complete Story Revealed A Father, A Son, and How World War II and the Pacific shaped their lives by W. Henry Sledge. We'll be uh getting in my mailbox, and everybody else who ordered it pre-ordered on the third. And so that's gonna be what I'll be talking about on the next episode of what you're reading. And um, we're so so thrilled for um Henry.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:45

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:46

Um from the day he came on here, you know, he he was trying to figure out you know how to get this idea he had off the ground and get it in everybody's hands. And I'm so thrilled that he was able to achieve that. And um no one knows more about that than Dennis. I mean, you're you've gotten quite a few books out of your mind and onto the paper and into the into the shelves as well. And so um good on you for that. So cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:14

Yeah, I'm looking forward to reading that book of his. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:18

So that's gonna wrap it up for this episode. We want to remind you once again, we want to hear from you. Email us at mail call at WTSPworldwar 2.com. And until we see again, my name's Don for uh Dennis and Mr. Jeff Copsetta. Thank you guys so much. We appreciate each and every one of you tuning in for every episode, and we'll talk to you all in two weeks.