Episode 206 - Unlocking Your Family’s WWII History with Zach Morris

Podcast Episode 206

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Digital 410 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 Scuttlebutt Podcast, your favorite World War II based podcast, and we are back for another episode. We have a return guest tonight, but real quick, let's get the house cleaning out of the way. I just want to let you guys know. If you're a Patreon member, you already know because you got the notification but um we did just upload a video to uh the YouTube channel that's D410 Media, and that is the video version of our interview with Dr. Roger Newman about his book The Boy. So that is up. It is an abbreviated version. So um, but if you want to hear the abbreviated version of that interview and see it in person, head over to youtube.com, look for D410 Media. And while you're there, head on over to WTSPworldwar 2.com, click on that Patreon link if you haven't done so, sign up and subscribe. It goes a long way to help support what we do here. And while you're on our website, you'll see some links on the right-hand side if you're on a web browser or at the very bottom if you're using your mobile phone, whether you're fishing, whether you have dogs, you want to buy some bully sticks, whether you're a firearm enthusiast, any of the links you click on our website, they you know they say thanks to us for the referral, and that also helps. So those are ways you can help us support the show. And without any further ado, Dennis, why don't you do the pleasure of reintroducing your friend, a returned guest to the show, and a very close to a friend of yours, and you guys share a passion for one particular topic of the World War II atmosphere. So by all means, sir, take it away. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

Yeah, thank you. Uh it's a great pleasure that I have to uh have Zach back on the uh podcast again. Uh this came about because of a conversation that Zach and I were having uh a couple months ago, and we were talking about research that we've both done, and he mentioned that he has been getting these files sent to his house from the different crew members from his grandfather's ship, and that he he was talking about how that some of these pages, some of these files go into the hundreds of pages, and I'm like, well, wait a minute, I requested my grandfather's service record and I got a single sheet. So what are you what are you talking about? Like you're getting records. And Zach was stunned because I've been researching for 20 years, and he couldn't believe that I didn't know this, that you can actually get service members' complete records. Um and that led to this uh idea that you know, look, if somebody who's been doing it 20 years was unaware that this was possible, perhaps there are other families out there of uh veterans that they they would love to know what their dad did, or grandfather, or great grandfather did during World War II or even uh after, um, but don't know how to go about getting it or getting the incomplete file. And some of these come with photos, but Zach will be uh talking about all of that and that conversation about what can be gleaned from these files um led to Zach being here tonight to give us, I think, some great information. Uh so Zach, you know, thank you so much for uh joining us tonight, brother. Oh, absolutely, great to be back.

SPEAKER_04 3:21

This is great information because we've all done Google searches and we all know how Google operates. Yeah, they'll send you to some website who paid them to send you because they're you know going to charge you, and then it turns out you just get the same thing that all three pages have. So I've looked for stuff on my grandfather. I've you know gotten the same eight or nine things from 14 different websites. So I'm very excited to figure out maybe I can use these tools and this avenue to uh get some more of my family history. So, Zach, we are excited to hear about this content.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Oh, thank you for having me back. It's it really is exciting stuff to be able to talk about, and especially people who have relatives that are looking for more information. It's uh it's a great place to start. The National Archives is what uh kind of Dennis was alluding to. Uh that's the place, the internet, the independent government agency that oversees and houses all of the military records from all wars and conflicts, uh, most government documents, correspondences from Congress, National Archives has it all. And it's it's a great place to start from someone who wrote a book uh who has been doing research for 15 years, you know, Google can only take you so far. It really can. And that's why if you know for a fact you're relative, you know, served in whatever branch, the National Archives is is probably the single greatest place to start.

SPEAKER_04 4:36

What are some of the basic key information that people can have to help the National Archives expedite the uh location of said files that you're looking for?

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Sure. So there's an online process that the archives has, which makes it really easy and convenient to be able to request records. And a couple pieces of information that really help the most, I would say, is obviously have the full name. Um I know a lot of family members coming over from other countries in the early 20th century have some you know spellings and stuff that might be a little bit different, but it as long as you have like one or two full names that you know for sure it's probably gonna be under under one of these, that's a great place to start as the full name. If you have a service number, that's equally as helpful. Now, I completely understand that not everyone is gonna have a service number ready, ready to go, you know, at a moment's notice. So I would say probably things like birth date really help, you know, uh the location in which they enlisted where they're from, like a lot of, you know, oh, my grandpa grew up in Nebraska or my grandpa grew up in Michigan. Those are great pieces of info to have. Um if that's really all you do have, it can be challenging at first, but really any little piece of information can be helpful. I mean, even things like info written on tombstones, like ranks, you know, it'll tell you their branches service. That's really, really helpful stuff. So I would say just your basics is will be able to get you for the most part what you need to get started. But obviously, the more info you have, the easier it's going to be to get your requests from the archives completed.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

Yeah, and sometimes uh next to kin is really helpful because on their dog tags, they usually have a next akin listed. And you know, if you have a more of a standard, you know, Scott Smith or, you know, a Mike Johnson, you know, the middle niche will help. But sometimes, you know, Peter, Preston, Paul, they, you know, by having the next akin also helps because sometimes you'll find that listed. And so if the next akin name matches, then you you're really helping narrow down that search.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

It does. Being a next ofin definitely helps uh get a little extra push at the archives. But I do want to take this opportunity to say that anybody, any American, can request anything that they want from the National Archives. That's what's great about it, is all of that is covered under the Freedom of Information Act. Now, just because you can request stuff doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to get everything back because of certain privacy laws and things like that that the government has to abide by. But um, you know, for for the most part, that's you know, it's yeah, it's so great that you can do that, that anybody can request anything they want from the archives, whether it's a relative Mexican or not. But sorry, go ahead, Dennis.

SPEAKER_03 7:16

No, yeah, I was gonna say that uh and to your uh efforts specifically, uh aren't you close to getting the entire crew, all of their records?

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Yeah, so let me let me kind of explain a little background on what Dennis is talking about. So um I wrote a book when the beaches trembled a couple years ago, and I was able to get a bunch of information on my grandpa. I was so lucky. Um, but it's such an incredible story. I want to try to explore maybe adapting that into a screenplay. So in order to do that, um I started trying to get in as much info on these guys as I could, but a lot of these guys don't even have obituaries, these guys who served on my grandpa's ship, the LCI 329. So um I kind of had this idea where you know I knew who a couple of his friends were, so I was like, let me just take a crack at seeing if you know there's anything at the archives with their records. And there was, and they they quickly came back to me within a couple months, and you know, soon I had his whole group of friends and I had some of the officers, and then I just thought, well, what's to stop me from getting the entire crew? And at the time in World War II, there in the beginning, there was only 24 guys on the ship, including three officers. So it really wasn't all all that difficult to to put in you know 20, 24 different requests. Um, but then yeah, uh I I did that about starting about six six to eight months ago, and just recently in the last couple weeks, I received the last of the records of everybody. So now officially I have every single personnel record from the entire crew of the LCI 329. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

What kind of stuff are you getting? Like what's what's coming in the files?

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Oh gosh. Uh so usually most of the files, uh they'll have your discharge paperwork, your notice of separation. Um, they'll have you know little blue jacket slips. If they served in the Navy, they had these little records called blue jacket slips that they carried with them. Um on those slips, they just kind of have little details of where they served, what they did, uh what battles they were in, what ships they served on, or where they went. So little blue jacket slips are in there. But then they also have great stuff in there too, like their life insurance policy paperwork. A lot of these guys of World War II that went off to fight, they signed life insurance policies for usually$10,000. So if anything ever happened to them, you know, their family would be able to get a payout and get that money. And on those beneficiary slips, those paperwork, they list their families, their wives, their parents, you know, if they had any children, their addresses. So getting these guys' records from the 329, it's helped me locate family that you know you wouldn't be able to search on a Google search. You know, like I said, some of these guys don't even have obituaries. So, you know, now you have all their info and you have all their family's info. So Dennis has been helping me use resources like the yellow, like white pages, and you know, sometimes you can put some basic information together and boom, you have a relative, you have a daughter or a nephew or a niece uh that's still alive and like literally within 30 seconds. Literally, yeah. It's so quick that you can find these people once you have their beneficiary paperwork. But there's also so many great things in the records, like Dennis was saying, you know, sometimes when you request records from officers, you'll get photographs of them very early on in the war. Uh, like I was telling Dennis, John H. Morel's records just came like 600 pages, and there was like five or six different photographs of him throughout his time in the service. Wow. So, yeah, so the photographs, uh, you know, if they if they got in trouble, if they had like captain's masks or court martials, a lot of that paperwork's in there. Like, what was the charge? What did they do? You know, did they go A-WOL? Did they stay over their leave? You know, things like that. Um, but then there's all sorts of little miscellaneous things that get tucked into their files, too. Like one of the things I discovered about a shipmate of my grandpa's who was killed by a kamikaze is letters home, the telegrams home. You know, we regret to inform you that your son, you know, was killed in action or wounded in action. Those those letters home to the parents are in there. But then also the letters from the parents writing back to the Navy are in there. If let's say they had questions about, well, what happened to my son, you know, what you know, tell me more, those letters are in their personnel files. So it's it's so incredible the documents that you'll find in there.

SPEAKER_04 11:26

I want to ask you just because I'm sure some of our audience are listening to this and wondering the same thing. Maybe it's just a amount of time from the occurrence of that to now, but it's a little surprising. I understand, you know, the the battle records and all that, but to get someone's insurance policies, it's a little, I don't want to say concerning, but a little, you would think there'd be some sort of barrier just because of personal records, you know. But the family, you know, it's one thing with service records where they fought, but when it comes to like insurance and next to kin and things like that, you figure it's a little surprising, but once again, maybe because it's 80 years old and not, you know, you're not trying to get the insurance policy of an active military service member. It's a little, I was a little surprised to find out it was that easily obtainable.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Exactly. And you bring up a good point. So they do have to abide by the Privacy Act of 1974, which sets guidelines on what information they're allowed. A lot of these files, they do come back redacted. So I do want to mention that that a lot of times some personal information can be redacted. However, uh, there is a rule to the Freedom of Information Act dealing with records. If more than 62 years has gone by, it is now considered public domain. It's now considered an archival record, which is now it's now in the public domain. Any researcher can can go and find it. And uh, because that amount of time has gone by, a lot of the family isn't around anymore. Sure. And so that's generally the rule. If it's been more than 62 years, you have a pretty good shot at being able to get it. And um, even some of these that are over 62 years, you will still find redactions in there, um, depending on the request and things like that. But they do a really good job at the archives of protecting people's private information still.

SPEAKER_03 13:06

Yeah, some of the documents that I was able to get with Zach's help. Um, and by the way, the other day, um he he provides a great step-by-step, and maybe you can even provide that tonight. I'm not sure, Zach, that you have you have time for. But um following that, I was able to submit four the other night on my grandfather's uh ship. But Zach, I do want to, I think we should clarify five, if you don't mind, if you could talk about the Saint Louis Fire. Sure. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

Yeah, because we've alluded to that so many times over the last four or five years, but you know, I don't think anybody's truly you know put that story in how it, you know, what happened and how much was actually affected by it. We just referred to it as the fire and the lost records.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Absolutely. Um so this is a pretty big event that happened back in the 70s. So shortly after midnight, on I believe it was July 12th of 1973, there was a giant fire that consumed the National Archives Personnel Records Center. At the time it was in St. Louis and it was the the building that housed all of the at this time it was the Armies and the Army Air Force. It held all of their records in this building. And shortly after midnight, there was a fire that broke out, and they're still to this day not entirely sure how the fire was set. They have some pretty good ideas, but it was never conclusive. But anyway, the important part is that because of this fire, something like 80% of the army infantry or the army's records burned up before 1950. Now, if you think about that, Army and the Air Force is part of the Army too. So the Air Force lost something like 75% of their records. And it was all of these records from the Army before 1950. So that's World War I, that's World War II, that's the Korean conflict, that's you know, your miscellaneous, you know, things scattered about in the early 20th century, like the banana wars and things like that. All of those records burned up. And if you really think about it, it's something like 17, 18 million records burned up. That's almost the entirety of the army's records from both world wars. And it's it's such a sad thing to happen. And a lot of people know about it because they've sent in record requests to the archives only to be told that their relatives' records caught on fire and burned up in 1973 and there is nothing. I mean, maybe you'll get like a an index, an auxiliary slip or something that says like a basic summary of who that was, that yes, they did serve, but that's all you get. And it really is a tragedy when you really think about how much of those records burned up in there.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Now, the reason that it's important to uh stress that is I was originally discouraged from pursuing my grandfather's records because I was told about the St. Louis fire, but I was not told that it did not affect the Department of the Navy or the Marine Corps or the Coast Guard.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Correct. So I I singled out the Army for a reason because luckily the Navy's records were housed, I believe it was in a different building at the time. Uh the United States Navy and Marine Corps, um, for some reason I can't remember, I never got a uh a solid explanation for this, but the Navy's were kept separately, and that's why there's one affected. That's why usually when you get a Navy request, like 99.9% of the time, they'll be able to find something, you know. But yeah, the Armies and the Army Air Force got hit particularly hard. But anybody out there that has a relative that was in the Navy, um, their records should not be affected by that fire.

SPEAKER_04 16:39

I would imagine if it's all paper records, just a footprint that is required to house that stuff is the answer why they weren't stored together. They probably just didn't want to separate it and probably couldn't accommodate it all in the same physical building. So, you know, let's split it up or, you know, who knows. But yeah, I'm just I'm just when I think of what that building would have looked like prior to the fire, I just think of the the zooming out before the credits in Indiana Jams and just boxes and crates and just as far as the eye can see, just huge amounts of just wood and paper.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Oh yeah. And remember, this is a time in 1973. You used to be able to smoke cigarettes indoors. And they they are like 99% encouraged. They gave you scourge and you walked in. Oh, you don't have anything here. You could smoke, you could put your cigarette out on the shelf. Like it's like it's a you know, it used to be like you could do anything. Like you can smoke indoors, it was wild, and so that's why they think they're like 99% sure that that fire started because somebody, you know, tossed a cigarette in a bin or put their cigarette out on the shelf. And like people came forward in the FBI uh investigation after the fact when they investigated this, that people admitted that. Yeah, like oh, the midnight shift, we were out there smoking and all that. There were 10 fires just last week in you know, various floors in the wastebaskets in the in the bathrooms. Like, yeah, we should probably do something about all these fires. And it's like, you know, uh in a place like that, somewhere all their ass, it's it's like you know, it's like the worst possible spot to be doing that. And it's like, yeah, they they they used to be able to do that, so that's probably one of the contributing factors to why that fire started.

SPEAKER_04 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

And we we probably should warn too that you may find out information you maybe not wished you had known.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

That's also a possibility, too. There is like a lot of records in there. Can I, Dennis, can I tell him the the story about what we found out about your grandpa with the solitary confinement? Yeah, absolutely. So we recently I I helped Dennis get his grandpa's records and um during the war, I believe it was July of 45, um, he had gotten in a little bit of trouble with the Navy because he had overstayed his leave um by 10 days. It sounded like it was on the paperwork just like a misunderstanding. They they said the the 14th, and or they said the fourth, and he thought they said the 14th or something, but either way, it's it's not really important. But what is important is when he got punished for that in his paperwork, they show that he was, as his punishment, he was thrown into solitary confinement for 20 days. Wow. And when you're in solitary confinement, that's bad enough. We know modern science and psychology, that's just basically psychological torture to put somebody in in solitary confinement. But it gets even worse because in the Navy, and I believe it was all service branches back then, when you did get thrown in the brig, you did get thrown in solitary confinement. Bread and water. You were on exactly, you were on a diet of just bread and water. And you know, I think on like every third day they give you like a full day's ration just to make sure you're getting all your vitamins. But imagine that. Imagine how hungry we were at 18, 19, 20 years old, like be able to eat entire large pizzas back then. It's like to just be on bread and water in solitary confinement, like that's it, it really kind of puts some things into perspective where some of these guys, when they came home, it just didn't seem like they were quite right. And a lot of people chalk that up to battle and you know, PTSD. But a lot of it, when you look back on things like that, it's like he probably snapped in solitary confinement after fighting in the battle at Iwo Jima, where half of his crew died, you know, he's holding his best friends as they die, and then like a few months later they throw him in solitary for three weeks. It's like, I can't even imagine the emotional like the damage that that would do to somebody, the agony that you're in, having to be in solitary. So that's kind of a thing that you you may find out about your relative that you know the Navy thought it was a good idea to throw him in solitary for a month, you know, because they overextended their leave. Like the punishment didn't really match the wrongdoing or the crime, you know. And and so you'll see things like that.

SPEAKER_04 20:50

And to that point, for our audience, especially if you're new to the show and and you haven't done so yet, um, a helmet for my pillow, there is an entire chapter on the gin pop. No, we're not talking about the solitary, but just the gin pop equivalent of the brig, where Lackey talks about bread and water. And it's not just, hey, here's your tray with bread and water, it's here's a single plate with bread stacked in the middle of the room, and you're basically playing King of the Hill for it. They would run and tackle each other to get whatever bread and a little bit of salt, and then there was a bucket, and your water wasn't like here's here's a glass of water. No, it's a bucket and there's a tap over there. And furthermore, at least in his experience, and once again, I'm not saying the solitary version was like this been gin pop and the bricks that he was in, they would have a private come in once an hour and pour an entire bucket of water on the floor because they didn't want you laying down and getting comfortable. They wanted you standing barefoot in your HBTs in a cold concrete room with water on the floor. They didn't want you laying down and sleeping during the day. They wanted, you know, there's no chairs, nothing. It was just an empty room. You were crouched, and then at night you were given a blanket and you could sleep on the floor, but through the day they kept throwing water on the floor. So, unless you wanted to lay down in cold water on a cold floor and freeze, you're basically standing or squashing.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

Yeah, that's uh that's a pretty rough existence. Um I would like to chime in on this. I've had a lot of time to think about my uh, you know, learning this news about my grandfather. And, you know, it was it kind of put me in a funk for a couple days, I'll be honest. And uh I was super angry. Um and I and I ca there's a part of me that thinks that maybe the guy that gave him 20 days, maybe he had never seen combat, maybe he was a pencil pusher who had always been in stateside and never um been overseas. Uh I I wonder if if it was someone like his captain, Rufus Herring, or if it was someone who had seen combat, maybe had a ship sunk from underneath them. Uh maybe if they might have been a little bit more lenient on the 10 days. And the fact is that he he showed up himself, like he wasn't brought in in shackles. Um another thing is his discharge from the uh Navy was honorable. So um it just it's kind of an another thing point that makes me think that it it probably was uh just some guy who had never been overseas and just you know just pushing papers. And I I get asked as you know, as a writer and historian, I get asked, would you if you could time travel, where where would you go back? And I would always say, like, you know, I would love to go back if I was invisible and wasn't going to impact anything. I would love to go back to the time of the pyramids and and see how those were. I would love to go back and and stand on a mountaintop and and watch a wagon train and go through. And but I I would also like to add to that, I would love to go back in time to the guy who's about to put 20 days solitary and punch that guy right in the face. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

I don't blame you. I really don't. If I would have found out something like that with my grandpa too, I mean he's gonna be.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

Well, and it's like, you know, he he had been through Saipan, Guam, Tinian, the civilians killing themselves by the hundreds off the cliffs at Bonsai Cliff. He had been then at Iwo Jima, uh, where he served honorably, and had to scoop up with shovels all of his buddies, their body parts and entrails, and pick up the heads of his friends and put them in bags. The guys told me they had to collect everything and they put them in pillowcases and they couldn't sort them, so they just put them all in a couple pillowcases and deep sixed them together. Um you go through all that and um and then you come home, and I have this picture that was given to me when I was researching for the Heart of Hell. I was visiting up in Wit Park Falls, Wisconsin with some of the Lempkies, and my great aunt handed me a picture I'd never seen before, and it was a welcome home picture. And it was that time where he was home. So this would have been June, July 45. And he's standing in front of the house, and all the family's there. My my my great-grandpa's there, um, my grandma, my grandpa, and he's holding my Aunt Mary in his arms, and everybody's just beaming and smiling, and they're all gathered in front of the house. And it's just it's always stood out to me that grandpa just looked very solemn, and his father was staring, looking over at him, very concerned. But he had been a medic in an ambulance driver in World War I in France. And that picture always stood out to me. And now that I know this, you know, it just kind of like he he probably thought, I'm a dead man anyway, because I'm in for the duration, and I'm not gonna survive this. I don't know, we'll never know, right? Because he's he's gone. But I don't know. Just some so those are and I'm just letting the listeners know some of the thoughts that have been going through my head the last uh the last week.

SPEAKER_04 26:11

Well, and to the point that was made earlier, that could definitely cause some of the post-war behaviors because we've all heard the stories, you know, you're in combat, you don't have time to think about this stuff. It's when you get home or when you have free time. Twenty days, twenty-four hours a day, locked away with nothing but your thoughts, that's a lot of free time that process a lot of stuff. At that age, you probably need at least at minimum someone to talk to, and to process that all in a dark room for 20 days, uh yeah, who that's a lot to deal with.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Well, and this is super recent information, and so it's very I mean, as a matter of fact, Jeff and I we talk almost almost daily sometimes, but we talk uh a couple times a week, so I haven't even had a chance to tell Jeff about this. I don't think. Jeff, did I tell you about any of this stuff?

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Oh wow for the first time like our listeners, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Yeah, I mean, kind of going uh along with what Don said at a time when these young men really did need someone to talk to like therapy, especially just months. It was so fresh of what happened at Iwo Jima. For our audience, the grandpa's Dennis on the LCI 449, they lost a good percentage of their crew on February 17th of 1945. And you fast forward almost five months, almost to the day in July of 45, and he's getting thrown in solitary for three weeks. It's like even if he's even if that picture that Dennis is referring to happened before the solitary confinement, if he was already in a point where he wasn't really quite processing things the way that you know the human mind does and able to process, and then you go and throw him in solitary in that state, it's gonna make things much, much worse. And it's almost like there is no whether that happened before or after that picture, it's like it's none of the none of the outcomes are gonna be good when you think about it in the context for this man sat in solitary for three weeks on bread and water after witnessing his friends die. It's like, well, what a terrible, it's almost like medieval torture to someone. Like, how could you do that to our American boys that that went off and fought for this country? It's just it really is, it seems like an injustice that that that happened, you know.

SPEAKER_04 28:22

Yeah, it's pretty wild. Pretty wild. It would almost be an interesting topic for a book andor documentary. I mean, I'm sure there may be one or two of them out there, but I I can't remember a particular project where someone does an in-depth study on the in-military judicial system during World War II and the amount of people that were processed in and out of the brig for everything from going A-Wall to getting drunk to punching somebody to doing the most heinous things that we could possibly talk about. Um that that could very well be lead to some interesting uh content.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Well, that's going off what you're saying, Don, is that when I saw Dennis's grandpa's records, that was the harshest punishment I've ever seen. I've gone through like a hundred of these records, and typically, even if it's like an AWOL over 10 days or AOL, usually it's like they'll give them a demotion, they'll give them extra duty, you know, extra kitchen duty this week, you know, eight hours or you know, an extra shift, or you know, something where they're demoted and you know they have to do something unpleasant, uh, you know, or docked pay. It's like they didn't do any of that stuff for Dennis' Grandpa. All the records I've come across, like the harshest punishment was, yeah, maybe solitary for five days, and that was it. And most of the time it was a demotion, you know, you get bumped down from semen first class to semen second class or something. And it's like they could have done that, you know, decorated war veteran like like Dennis's grandpa, they could have, but yeah, now I kind of want to meet the guy that gave him solitary for three weeks because it's like how how unnecessary. Why didn't you just demote him or give him extra duty or take away his liberty for a week? Like they could have done that. And it's just sometimes they did all the above.

SPEAKER_04 29:56

That's why Lecky got out of the war as a private, because he went in to the brig three different times. And you know, every time he got it, every time he got a promotion, he went to the brig and got busted back down.

SPEAKER_03 30:06

Yeah, that's interesting too. Oh, go ahead, Jeff. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Well, I just you know, I'm I'm thinking from the inside here, right? Um, it really highlights the bureaucracy of running a successful military in a wartime environment. It's a lot of people to be into it. It and I I mean I don't have a personal connection to it, obviously, so I I I'm indifferent when it when it comes to this. I mean, I I feel for for Dennis uh you know learning this so so late into the story of of his grandfather. Um, but again, I I try to think from from inside the the military perspective, the military mind, and uh I feel like probably every uh I don't want to say successful soldier, but I feel like um anybody who's who's really um trying to trying to word this delicately, um I I don't see it as a bad spot on on Dennis's grandfather. I don't I don't see it as a stain on his reputation. Uh I I see this as more of a commonality than anything else, especially with uh somebody who has witnessed combat, right? Um we saw it with Lecky several times. Okay, we we can beat that to death with the popularity. Um we look at like what happened with um the the cut the kid uh Calvin Graham, you know, the 12-year-old that gets a Navy cross the Guadalcanal and what they did to him and how they stripped him of his medals and it took decades, right, to get it back. Um, you know, that's a pretty popular story, but it seems to me that um the difficulty of harnessing youth in garrison after combat. You know, there's got to be some kind of examples set because I I would imagine, and if you think to the scene in the Pacific when they're just like, uh everybody's going AWOL, we're we're getting out of here. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna be a part of this, right? Like, was that the right thing? Absolutely not. Did a couple get caught? Probably, but not everybody. That's just the environment that his grandfather was in. It's not that he was some, you know, uh no criminal mischief or anything, and for whatever reason he missed the date. AWOL is AWOL is AWOL. And I mean, Zach, you probably bring up a good point. It is this the standard punishment? I don't know. Is it like, okay, you're 48 hours or whatever, AWOL, but if you're 10 days, this is a different case? Who knows? But I think that really shows the difficulty. Could you imagine? You just get a couple hundred thousand eighteen and nineteen-year-olds that just experienced something that a tenth of a percent of the American population has ever lived through. How do they how are they supposed to deal with it? And then you're in a garrison environment, and I mean, again, like sometimes I'd like to think it it's almost more of a success that this guy he lived, he did what he was gonna do. And you know what, you're gonna throw me in the brig, but I'm gonna do this. Um, you know, he may have had that a little bit of an attitude about it. I don't know. You know, I mean, like, look, I I've I've looked death square in the eye, and you know, I I'm gonna live now. And you're gonna throw me in the brig for 20 days, I'll take the punishment. You know, that's how I see it. And and this, you know, I'm speaking a little bit from from personal experience. I uh was demoted in training for uh for stealing chow in the middle of the night out of a dumpster, and it was a mark of a scout success, you know, that from a military perspective in garrison, I got 14 days extra duty, uh 14 days forfeiture pay, and I was busted a rank. But I also showed initiative uh and finding a way where you know to scrounge is celebrated in a lot of the military, right? So but there's a time and a place. So I so all of that said, Dennis, I I don't think I would really I wouldn't let it get to you too bad. I I you know it it it is it is what it is, and whether your your grandfather deserved it or not, I mean that's up to anybody to say. I I I couldn't say one way or the other. I mean we we don't know. We don't know, like you said, you don't really know everything about it. You don't know if he had a smirk on his face. It was you know five days and he's smirking, okay, ten days. All right, you know what? 20. We don't know that part of it. Yeah. And you know what? Good for him. The guy lived, he did everything, and again, I don't see it as a stain, a black mark, or anything on his military reputation whatsoever. That's why he got an honorable discharge.

SPEAKER_04 35:00

It was like the scene out of Breakfast Club. You want another one? Yeah. So I got your ass for a whole month, pal, want to keep going. And to that point, I just had I looked on my phone, I couldn't find it, but thanks to uh some little research. Chestie Puller once said, give me a battalion of brig rats and I'll take over the whole damn country. Because there's a there is a thought process to people who tend to not do exactly what they say, but when it comes down to brass tacks doing what needs to be done, and getting things done in a manner which may not be the appropriate way to get things done, but getting them done nonetheless. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

The soldier that's ready for inspection is never ready for combat. There's something to it. Yeah, well.

SPEAKER_04 35:47

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SPEAKER_01 36:27

Good on you, Lemke. Good on you.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

I I agree with Jeff. Dennis, don't let it get to you too much. I know it's tough, it's so fresh, but uh, it's not a stain.

SPEAKER_04 36:36

It could be something as basic as um we got a lot of people going AWOL, we need to make an example of somebody, and he's a short straw. He could have easily been saying the example because maybe he was the guy everybody looked up to. Oh, the exactly right. They're all looking up the hill.

unknown 36:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

Now I'm curious about what uh Jeff said. That was really interesting. I hadn't thought of. I wonder if if they had a algorithm that they followed, like 48 hours, you get this much. If it's seven, you know what I mean? Like uh, that's interesting. I'll have to look into that. Maybe ten days meant uh maybe you got twenty, you know? I don't know. That's interesting. Yeah. But uh uh Zach, I I I uh if if we've got time, Don, um do you mind if uh Zach, if you're willing, do you mind kind of letting everybody know like where did they need to go and maybe the the steps on what to because if you don't do it right, you're definitely only gonna get one or two pages. And uh so anyway, I'll I'll turn it over to you.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

Sure. So what I might do is to make this easier is when when this episode posts, is I might uh provide some hyperlinks for Don to also post on there, like the like the URL that gets right to the archives request, uh, you know, the the National Archives database link where you can search to see what is out there. Uh, you know, they the the archives does have some documents that are posted. So I'll get those to Don and then you know we can talk about you know the best way for maybe to post some some screenshots of some things. But I guess what I could do kind of just in the most basic um for kind of the generic audiences out there is I'll kind of touch on the overall process, but like what I told Dennis when I was walking him through the other night, there's some critical steps that make or break your request. And I can touch on those a little bit. So what you assuming you have some basic information on your relative, the veteran, you would go to the National Archives Requesting Records website and you would start your request. Because what you're gonna do is you're gonna be requesting something called an OMPF, which stands for the official military personnel file of that veteran. Now they give you options. You can just request their discharge paperwork, which is what Dennis got with his request the first time he put it through. Um, there's you know a list of medals and things like that that you can get, which is just like a piece of paper with a list of what they got. But your best bet is to get the OMPF, get the whole file, get every single last piece of paper that's in that veteran's file, because that'll tell you so much information. So when you start your request, what you're gonna want to do is how they know that you're requesting that person's file is there's several steps that have a series of drop-down boxes. And one of them that you would select, it doesn't actually say, which is confusing because the archives has things that are really confusing in and of themselves, but it doesn't actually say that. It doesn't say OMPF, it says I think it's personal military history that you select from the drop-down. And most people select the drop-down like, oh, give me their discharge paperwork or their their metal list or something, thinking that that's going to do it, but people don't know any better.

SPEAKER_04 39:48

So they don't know that there's a lot of people get in the bundle.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

Yeah, and it's really confusing the way that the archive says you can request the OMPF, but nowhere in the actual request does it say OMPF or personal military file. It just says personal military history. That could mean anything.

SPEAKER_04 40:04

Well, that's what happens when you hire a civilian-based web design company to come and do this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

Sure. Oh, I'm sure there's a number of reasons why it gets real vague and confusing, and I'm sure there's policies and guidelines they have to follow, which is why that's the best thing to post. But either way, when you when you select, if you want their file, you gotta select the drop-down. I think it's what I can do is I have some screenshots that I can check real quick to see exactly which step it is. So I'm seeing here that it's in step two on the online request. There's a series of steps, main steps that they break down. I believe there's six, and within each six, sometimes there's little substeps, but there's mainly six on the archives request website. And under step two, the service and request details, that's where that little drop-down is where it says which of these categories best describes the records that you're requesting. And there's a whole bunch of things in the drop-down, but the most important step is that you select that personal military history. That's the OMPF. That's the official military personnel file. That's how the archives knows what your request even is. Like who is this guy? Oh, I want their file. Oh, okay. Um, so that so that one's a really important one. But I also wanted to take the time to tell people about another step too, which is what I told Dennis about, which is could also be just as important. In step three, when they say report of separation and documents requested, they give you a little space to fill in comments. A lot of the directions will tell you, oh, if there's anything additional about their discharge stuff that you want to tell us, go ahead. I use that comments section to basically provide a summary of what I'm doing. What do I want? Why am I reaching out to the archives? So, what I'll do is I'll put in there, you know, I'm requesting this veteran's entire personnel file. Give me the OMPF. But then I'll also give them veteran details. I'll say, you know, veteran details are as follows. You know, for Dennis's, for example, it was, you know, this this is Cliff Lemke. He, his full name, he enlisted during World War II on this date at this location. Uh, you know, this was his service number. This was the ship that he served on, this was his rating. And then I say in the comments, I always end it the same way. That all of this info that I've given you, it's attached in PDF one. There's documents that are attached to this. Because there's also a step where there's like an authorization step where you can, you have a death certificate, for example, you can put that in there. Report of separation, you can attach that. What I do is I not only fill in the summary of everything they need to know, I also attach documents to let them know. You might not be able to find this guy in a search, but like keep looking. He's there, he exists. Look at him, he's right on this deck log of this ship. You know, the here's his name, here's his service number. So by attaching those official documents from World War II, it kind of becomes almost impossible for the archives to come back and say, Yeah, we we couldn't find this guy, he doesn't exist. Because you're telling them, you're showing them he exists. This is him. I'm sure most people don't do that for their archives requests, but that's like the make or break difference right there. So I would say, yeah, to sum those up, those two steps are the most important. Make sure you're selecting personal military history to get their file, and make sure you're summarizing your request in the comments. So that would probably be the biggest piece of advice for anybody doing these online requests.

SPEAKER_04 43:24

Yeah, because you're essentially sending somebody on a scavenger hunt, right? And a scavenger hunt is only as good as the clues that you give them. For example, I just did my first adventure race Saturday, four-hour adventure race, had 17 checkpoints you had to find via running and kayaking. And they gave you a map, couldn't use GPS, gave you a map, a compass, and four hours. And you know, checkpoint one, you look, it's like a broken pine covered in vines. And so you're looking, you go on a map, and there's this big open Florida woods, but and you just take the time and you track it down. And so in this case, yeah, the more. Information you can give them to find the the checkpoint they're looking for, the easier it is it's going to be. And as you said, um the more information you have, the better.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 44:13

Like, dude, nothing more than this? You know how many John Smiths I look for on a daily basis? Or John P. Smith. You know, definitely the more information, even if it's something as basic as, hey, I know he served with the first infantry division from you know, and he enlisted in 1943. That's something. Exactly. There's so many people, whether regardless of what branch of the military it is.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

Exactly. And don't get discouraged. Sometimes the archives will come back to you and say, Yeah, you know what, despite all this info, we still couldn't find anyone. Sometimes all I've done is just send in a follow-up request and mention that pass number, that request number, say, hey, this is a follow-up request to this past one that I just did where you guys told me there's nothing. Uh, I found an extra document or something, or here's an additional piece of info. And it gets passed to another archives, uh, another National Archives tech, and they find it. And sometimes I've send in three or four requests for the same guy and say, Hey, please look harder. Like this is this is him, these are his documents. Like figure something else out. This one guy, the engineer of my grandpa's ship, it took four requests to get that done. Where it's each time they come back and they're like, look, we tried, we we looked our hardest, we can't find anything, but if we ever find him later, we'll come back to you. And I immediately send a follow-up, like, no, here's one more p go go find him. And lo and behold, I get back a 300-page you know file. They're like, Oh, just kidding, here it is. And then I ended up getting, you know, he was in the Navy since like 1920, so his stack of records are like this thick. So it's like sometimes don't get discouraged. If you know they're there, don't give up. Go find them. They'll find them.

SPEAKER_04 45:49

And by the way, we hear this from time to time. You you see it on TV shows, what have you. Um, the veteran dies maybe during the war, maybe he's 83. His wife lives on, she passes away. The kids clean out a house, come across all the stuff, they don't know what to do with it. A lot of times they say, well, let's hand it over to the National Ark, just because this happened 80 years ago doesn't mean they're not getting new data in every once in a while. So you you never know. You could come back six months later, and just so happens Dennis's, you know grandfather's shipmate's, you know, mother-in-law who just passed away her grandkids, you know, found some documents and turned them over and got some more information you didn't have prior. So you never know.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

That's exactly right. And sometimes that will happen. Is I didn't have a service number when I sent this in, but oh my gosh, I found it. Feel free to call the archives and say, hey, this is in reference to this request number. I just found his birth date, or I just found his service number. Can you add this to the request? And they're great there. By the way, the archives texts are a collection of the greatest Americans that you could ever find. They are hardworking, they're intelligent, they're smart, and they want to help. They're there to help you. So feel free, give them a call. Um, you know, a lot of the comments that the archives text can put in your request, they can help the the person that's trying to find it. So, yeah, every little bit of info helps, even if it's new, you know, reach out to them and let them know.

SPEAKER_04 47:12

That might be a fun interview. Interviewing one of those technicians.

SPEAKER_02 47:16

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:17

Find out how they got to where they got to and you know what was the barrier to entry and what they've seen doing that job.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

Oh yeah. And I want to get certified as an official, like uh World War II researcher that works with the archives. They have a list on their website. It's like I've been dying and trying to figure that out, but that's been uh, you know, uh a whole side issue of work and stuff to try to do that. So it's like that would be great to be able to talk to the archives text to see what they see on their end.

SPEAKER_04 47:43

Let me ask you this question. So you've been procuring and receiving a lot more of the documentation and service records of the personnel who served on both yours and Dennis's uh landing crafts alike. Obviously, you have for the most part, a lot of these guys full military service records. Are you kind of able to fill in the blank spots as far as campaign movements and dates simply by looking at death records or casualty records or oh, so-and-so went got, you know, he got sent to hospital ship on this date, came back on this date. Are you able to kind of look just by the dates alone kind of help bring the their campaign to life, if you will?

SPEAKER_02 48:27

Absolutely. So I've been keeping a timeline for the last like 10-15 years for my grandpas, and all of these documents that I get, especially now the personnel ones that tell like little things like the captain's masts and things like that. Sometimes little details add up to the point where like now you can find out why the ship had an incident, you know, getting through the Panama Canal on this day because now you've collected all their stories, their records, and you're like, oh, that person probably made a mistake with the anchor and they didn't pull it up, and because it cut the line, they they weren't able to get where they had to go and they were weeks behind, so they weren't here for this critical thing that happened. So it's like a lot of times that you know, almost like a scene in a movie where you're able to tie back one little incident that you found in a record here that extrapolates into this big incident happening, you know, sometime later. So it really is. I have a huge timeline that I put together of, you know, I almost know where their ship and each guy was up to the minute, you know, for two plus years, because of all the records that I've gotten and the timelines that I've been able to put together. Really is fascinating information to learn.

SPEAKER_04 49:27

Through some of the documentation, I doubt, obviously not personnel-wise, but have you ever been able to track down like any of the maintenance logs to some of these vessels? It's like, wow, they continuously have problems with diesel engine number two. I mean, have you got have you found like some of the minute stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02 49:44

Oh, yeah. So the deck logs are a great, and this is a great time to say that there's multiple National Archives locations. There's one in Washington, D.C. in College Park, Maryland, that deals with the ship records, the deck logs, the muster rolls, things like that. And that's how I was able to confirm all these stories from LCI bets that, oh my gosh, our engines, we broke down all the time. It's like when you have months of deck logs where they basically in four-hour increments are documenting every little thing that's going on almost to the minute. You're seeing all these entries for weeks in a row almost every day. Engine two broke down, you know, you know, engine propeller, they used to call it a screw, you know, our left screw is out, it's broken, it's cracked. Uh, you know, our rudder, the thing that steers the propeller, the direction the ship's going, and the rudder's out, and you know, water equipment's out, distilling equipment's out, our showers broke, one of our toilet, you know, one of our hog trough things exploded. It's like uh all these little things is you are able to piece together where it's like, even things like going to general quarters, you find out how many times in a day these guys went to their battle stations in the middle of the night. They're filled with all of these fascinating details that once you collect all of them, it's almost like you're getting little pieces to a puzzle whereby you're done, you have the entire puzzle or the entire tapestry done, and you see all of these little intricate pieces woven into it and that you wouldn't have known if you wouldn't have got these deck logs. So, especially when it comes to the Navy, the Navy has some great records to be able to sort through.

SPEAKER_04 51:05

When you spend that much time out on the water in a smallish, comparatively speaking, vessel in the Navy, did they have an onboard corpsman or even a anything resembling a medical doctor that could take care of injuries or incidences in between, you know, not even combat related, just you know, broken hand from a slipped pipe wrench to getting burned on the exhaust. I mean, did they have I would imagine it's at some level, but I guess my more overall question is at what level of medical experience did that person actually have?

SPEAKER_02 51:38

So at first, no, especially for LCIs in particular, they did not. Uh so my grandpa, he left one of the first groups LCI Flotilla 5 to go to the Pacific, and they didn't really have anything like that. Wow. And yeah, but but later they did start to assign pharmacist mates, uh, which were my medics for the Navy. Uh, they did start to assign them to a ship. But uh I believe my grandpa's LCI 329, when they crossed the entire Pacific, they did not have one medical personnel on that whole ship to deal with that. Now think of all the things that could go wrong, not just you know, wounds and things like that. It's like, what if somebody needs their appendix removed in the middle of the night? Like you're in the middle of the ocean and you're all alone. Maybe you have like an oil tanker that's that's in the convoy with you to make sure you don't run out of fuel. But other than that, you have to pray that there's a doctor on the oil ship, or you have to pray that you get there quickly or that your appendix doesn't explode. And, you know, things like that. It's like that had to have been a nightmare. And they didn't know that. These amphibious force LCIs, they were brand new at the time. They didn't know what they didn't even know how to supply them. They weren't thinking about things like, well, maybe we should staff a medical professional for each one of these ships. Like they were on the bottom of the totem pole anyway. No one gave them any respect. So it wasn't until much later in the war, probably toward the end of 43, beginning of 44, where they really started making an effort to assign medics and pharmacist mates to these LCIs.

SPEAKER_04 53:01

Maybe one of those situations where it wasn't until people started getting sick and they were losing, you know, um, a good portion of their crew of the basic stuff that could have been handled through, you know, some distribution of some minor, you know, pharmacy stuff to help keep the guys in fighting condition, and maybe like well, you know, we're having two percent of our crews or whatever racked up because of illness, because of bad food or whatever, and just the simplest thing of whether it's you know a steroid shot in the ass or some basic penicillin could have gone a long way to keep these guys in a in fighting condition.

SPEAKER_02 53:36

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 53:38

Dennis, you still hang on with us?

SPEAKER_03 53:41

Oh yeah, yeah, I'm here just uh hanging on every word. Yeah, Jeff had to bug out, so I I I we did, I will say we we ran sort of a test case uh right, Zach, on the Marine Corps. We requested the uh Corporal Edward Brockmeyer, who who died on the LCI 449. He was a Marine Corps assigned a recon assigned to UDT uh UDT 14 um Silver Star from uh action at Saipan where he had been taking out pillboxes by pouring gasoline down their air intakes and lighting them off. And uh he died uh providing uh first aid to the wounded from the second mortar hit on the 449, and he died from the third mortar hit. But um so that's kind of a test case for us, right, Zach? I don't know. Have you requested Marine Corps before, or is this kind of our first one?

SPEAKER_02 54:34

I I have. It's kind of similar to the Navy server you will get him, but I haven't requested a lot of Marine Corps records, so that one from Brockmeyer is definitely probably gonna be the first like significant one that I've gotten back with all the details that that we were able to provide.

SPEAKER_03 54:48

Yeah, and he's gonna be significant because he's known to have we we actually have his citation for a silver star, and we know he was killed. So I'm really curious to see what's gonna be in his his packet there, his folder when that whenever it comes in. Um yeah, it's been quite a ride for me too. Um we we we we got Herrings, the captain of the 449, we got his service record in. Um Zach's created this whole detailed uh uh list of the crew and um down to notes, summary notes. Um it's it's phenomenal. And I would say that when you're at when you're gonna be submitting these online, these requests, uh take advantage of that summary uh portion and just put it in as much as you can. I think you get 800 characters. Um but take advantage of that. Um tell them everything you you think might be pertinent. Also, uh Don, and you know, I I tell our listeners, look, if you're if you're really want to know, but you don't have any idea how to, you don't have access to ancestry.com to pull up maybe the draft direct card, or you don't have these other records, then please email us and and Don will give that to you at the end. Um I'll be glad to do some research for you to help you find the information service number or whatnot of your loved ones so that you can request them.

SPEAKER_02 56:16

Absolutely. Thanks for mentioning that, Dennis. Uh I was hoping I wasn't gonna forget to mention that. But yeah, if anybody, any listeners out there do have questions, feel free to reach out to me. I I do this through um uh I'm the editor-in-chief of the LST ScuttleButt uh magazine for the LST Association. So I get these types of requests all the time. Um I, you know, if if you want to hire, you know, to do you really, really want to do some in-depth research, like I, you know, you can hire some hire me on. Um there's yeah, I'd be happy to help voluntarily and things like that. It just depends on the level of research. But yeah, if you have any questions, we know this stuff, me and Dennis, feel free to shoot us off an email. I'll I'll give Don my contact information to post. But yeah, if anybody, just any basic generic questions, you know, I'm sure I've heard all of them before, so I'm sure there's a way to help if if anybody's looking for some help. Yeah, we're definitely gonna help you.

SPEAKER_04 57:06

Before we wrap this up, no better person to ask. I've always brought up my grandfather who served in the army, um, but I had it. My father's father pass away when my dad was 16. And I know little to no service record, but what I can tell you is as a young lad, snooping in my father's jewelry box, I did come across the Navy round dog. When did the Navy stop using the Oval Dog tags?

SPEAKER_02 57:31

Oh gosh, I'm not sure. Dennis, do you know that one? No, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 57:34

Did they carry that on the Korean War and later, or was it basically well, here's why I asked, because in that jewelry box was the Oval Navy early Marine Corps style dog tag that said Donald Preston Abernathy, which is my name. Um, if my father would have had the same name, I could be a third, but you know, those aren't in the cards for me. But anyhow, it said Donald Preston Abernathy. And I sadly it stayed in there, and then ironically, I guess, it was washed away by the uh Gulf of Mexico during the flood after the last hurricane, and my dad's house got washed away. So it's the ocean is taking it back. But um I so I I don't know if he was post-war, but it it was within the service time that they still use those dog tags. So I might get with you guys to see if you can track anything down on my my father's father.

SPEAKER_02 58:24

That's a perfect thank you for mentioning. I helped uh a friend of mine who's uh a relative, her grandpa was in uh the Marine Corps, and that's one of the things uh that that that you could do is I sent in a picture of her grandpa's dog tags, and they found him with that. Even though he had the service number wrong on the dog tags, something for some reason there was something, I think they were re-replicated dog tags, so there was something wrong with the service number, but even so, just a picture of these dog tags sent to the archives with my request was enough to find this man's file from like the 1950s. And again, his file was was enormous, and her family didn't even know that he he had records like that. And it's like it had his picture in there, it had a crystal clear picture. So sometimes, yes, if all you have is like some draft card or dog tag from a you know in a cardboard box in a basement somewhere, it's like or an attic somewhere that's enough sometimes. Just a picture of that, send it to the archives, and then and that's enough. Sometimes they'll be able to find him.

SPEAKER_04 59:16

Yeah, I'll get with you and Dennis about my grandfather who served in the Navy, and then I'll do the one about my grandfather who served in the Army because my um the my army dog tags that I use for um World War II reenacting are exact replica of his because my mom sent me a photo of his dog tags. So the ones I wear when I do my army, you pulled out and it says Preston Coleman Creed has a service tag, even has, and I brought this up in the past. He had his father-in-law listed as his next to Ken. His father-in-law was prominent uh landowner in Cincinnati. He was poor, poor eastern Kentucky coal miner. Um my grandfather's entire family was, he left to get out of coal mines, went to go work for a dairy farm in Richwood, Kentucky, which after the Great Depression was pretty much all my grandmother's family had left was property. All their liquid assets, all their businesses were dried up, they had all these parcels of land. And so my grandfather went to work with that dairy farmer, met my grandmother there, and I have pictures of them in front of the fresh egg signs and all that. But that's how they met. And so I don't know if he listed his father-in-law simply because he's easier to get a hold of, if something would have happened to him instead of trying to find some poor coal miners in eastern Kentucky. But I always because sadly I didn't know this stuff till after he passed, my grandmother passed, but I found it interesting that he had his father-in-law instead of his parents listed as his next akin on there. And so my dog tags is his exact replica, all the way down to the blood type.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:43

Oh, that's really interesting. Some guys' records I found list their foster parents. I didn't realize these guys, you know, didn't have parents. They don't list that in their records and things like that, too. So you really will find out a lot of information when you request. And Don, yeah, like like you said, send it over to me and Dennis. We'll find him. If he was in the Navy, World War II, we will we'll be able to find him based on whatever information that you give us. So and even the stuff we don't have, we'll be able to go get if we need it.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:07

So if people want to track you down, find your books and find your social media presence, where's the best place for them to look other than WTSPworldwar 2.com when we post this episode?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:17

Sure. So my book uh that I published a couple years ago, it's titled When the Beaches Trembled: The Incredible True Story of Steven Gansberger and the LCIs in World War II. You can pick that up on Amazon or Barnes Noble. And if you have any questions, you can reach out to me on my social media, um, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, same handle at Zach with an H. Underscore editor. And you can also visit my website at ZachsMorris.com and that's Zach with an H.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:51

And that's gonna wrap it up for this episode for myself, Jeff Copsetta, Dennis Blogger, and Zach Morris. We want to thank each and every one of you, and we will talk to you all next week. I'm actually on TikTok now looking for your account. So you said it's Zach underscore editor?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:07

Correct, yeah. Yeah, I put a bunch of LCIers interviews on there. So uh that's what I've been doing also, is making little mini it with all the interviews of LCI vets I've done over the years, I've been making little little movies, videos here and there to put on YouTube and TikTok, and and yeah, they've they've gotten some some really good feedback. So it's and that's another reason I've been working with Dennis on the side to get some stuff from the Pacific War Museum that we know is there so that it might be able to be used as audio for documentaries and movies and and videos and things like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:36

Sweet. I will uh share some of those videos for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:41

Zach, thank you so much, man. That's this uh this was a really cool episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:45

Oh, thank you. I really appreciate the time. Appreciate you guys having me. I I have a blast.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:49

This has been a digital four tin production.