December 16, 2019 • 21 mins
Many of the World War II combat veterans we’re hearing from this season didn’t talk about their service experiences for most of their lives. On the first of this two-part episode, we explore the history behind why they might not have opened up, how things have changed with time, and what’s helped them start talking.
Then we head to Livingston County, New York, where a community-made war memorial recently brought veterans and their families together in a stunning show of outreach and support.
Find photos from this episode of Service, an episode transcription, and more at www.ServicePodcast.org and on Instagram and Facebook, where you can also share your Service stories and leave messages for all of the veterans you hear on Service.
Thank you to those involved in the Livingston County Veterans’ Monument for joining us on this episode. You can see more on Faceboook, Twitter, and Instagram. And to support other organizations we’ve worked with thus far this season, visit The Greatest Generations Foundation, Honor Flight Columbus, and Tuskegee Airmen Inc
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to a special two part episode of Service, Stories
of Hunger and War, a production from I Heart Radio
and Me your host, food writer and veteran family member
Jaquelin Reposo. As Churchill said, never has so much been
owned by so many to so few, And so I
decided in I wanted to I directed to take the
g I bill. I was gonna go to college, and
(00:28):
I was going to set the world on fire. This
season on Service, we've been following World War Two veterans
as they traverse land and sea, finding sustenance and feeding
others along the way. Thanksgiving that was our kp the
size and says, let's through something special cigarette, No little
kids like that cigarette. With fewer than four hundred thousand
(00:50):
veterans of this era left, making space for these conversations
is more important now than ever. I was going to
go to one school. That's D Day Army veteran John Bistrica,
and the history teacher he didn't want to hear about it.
That hurt me pretty bad. Every single one of us
owes a huge debt of gratitude to these greatest generation veterans.
(01:12):
So let's slow down and explore a little of the
history behind why some of them have or have not
talked about their service until recently. And then we'll hear
from younger veterans and volunteers, creating communities that keep conversations rolling.
Everybody fanning up. Now the boys go on the way?
(01:33):
Can you hear the music? The ban here? It come
here that Tom come. This is a ninety five clip
from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show Welcome Home, letther com
Bug of the marvelous things the now light Well, we've
(01:54):
dubbed World War two the last good War. There were
clear good guys, the Allies, and bad guys, the Axis triumphant.
We haven't had a world war since. Returning veterans like
New York Yankees Catcher, Yogi, Bearra, actor Jimmy Stewart and
director Mel Brooks contributed to a cheery post war Tinseltown.
The newly minted g I Bill helped millions embrace their
(02:16):
future at colleges and in starter homes, and the economy flourished.
Soon followed a record number of marriages and the notorious
baby boom. But then there were the lesser spoken of realities.
It will seem odd when, at some given hour the
shooting stops and everything changes again. It will be odd
(02:37):
to drive down an unknown road without that little not
of fear in your stomach. Odd not to listen with
animal like alertness for the meaning of every distant sound.
Odd to have your spirit released from the perpetual weight
that has compounded of fear and death and dirt and anguish.
We have won this war. That's Bob Hope, reading a
letter from beloved war journalist Ernie Pyle, known for capturing
(02:58):
frontline humanity in an almost folk style, before he was
killed by Japanese machine gun fire less than five months
before World War Two ended. This last Good War was
also the deadliest in human history, causing seven times more
casualties than US troops would later meet in the horrors
of Vietnam. These veterans came home to start new businesses
(03:19):
and raise a prosperous generation, but they also had to
digest and make sense of what they had faced while deployed.
Our Air Corps veteran Harold bud Long returned to Upstate
New York with memories of breaking down concentration camp gates.
We had k rashes with when we started breaking open
and say don't We'll kill them. It's ay ate too
much at once, give him a little bit time. Coast
(03:44):
Guard veteran Frank Davida remember so many details of Omaha
Beach on D Day from there. Having overfed the troops
that morning about two o'clock, we started feeding them eggs, sources, pancakes,
ice cream, everything that you could think of. It was
the worst thing we out them. We overfend them. To
his last thoughts before sleeping that night, I sat down
(04:06):
on the cold deck and I said to myself, what
that would just happen to you you? And why am I alive?
Interviewing Frank and his quiet New Jersey home, it seems
like he must have told these stories over and over
during the years to keep them so vibrant. At I
asked him point blank if he had for seventy years,
(04:30):
I couldn't talk about while I'm telling you, I couldn't
talk about it. At that time, I didn't want to
bring the war home to my family. I suffered to it.
Why should they have to suffer to it. My dad,
he was in the army first of all. He would
ask me questions. I said that I can't talk about it.
My grandfather, Pat de Ambrosio, rarely talked about his time
(04:53):
serving in the war either. I surmised his silence was
mostly out of gratitude and a hum bow guilt for
his not having seen combat. Repeating this question to other veterans,
we start to understand why one would feel so indebted
to such fellows. Killing a human being is not a
(05:14):
natural thing. The human body. You don't consider it like
an animal or the object. But we had to think
that way. Laws and Ichirosaki survived months of heavy combat
as one of the Armies four hundred and forty second
Regimental Combat Team, the niss A Japanese American troops, infamous
(05:34):
both for their honorable service records and catastrophic casualty count.
Some men broke down in the heat of battle, bodies
flying all over it. You have to put it out
of your mind, because if you think about it, your
mind can't handle that. In prior wars, huge regiments of
(05:56):
men would fight together in short bursts of small arms skirmishes.
There was camaraderie, and then there was rest. World War
two veterans faced a new kind of warfare with the
introduction of better planes and huge field weapons. Smaller units
could now be dispersed four weeks at a time, they'd
fight the enemy, cut off from support systems like food
(06:17):
and medical attention, and sometimes not be given even forty
eight hours to rest before being thrust back into battle.
As such, where it had been presumed that mental breakdowns
during combat were caused by unrelated mental weakness, hospitals soon
filled with those suffering from battle fatigue. It wasn't until
nineteen eighty thirty five years after the end of this
(06:39):
war and after these veterans had quieted so to support
their children through Vietnam, that battle fatigue was renamed with
a diagnostic term. We recognized today that's what PTSD is
all about. When we were discharged in nine military tolas
(06:59):
irrisive alien, Now take off your uniform and just get
out of here. There was no mention of your mental status,
particularly else being in the infantry where everyone was filled
with PTSD. We're now societally aware of the dangers of
PTSD not being taken seriously by medical professionals or communities.
(07:23):
But post war newspapers were just as likely to joke
about what they called warner roses as they were to
report on the lives of disabled veterans. Controversial syndicated columnist
Henry McLamore once justed, if I am late for dinner,
I can blame it on battle fatigue. This casual dismissal
is one of the reasons why our most affected veterans
(07:43):
often stay quiet. You could talk to a thousand veterans
were in combat and they'll tell you I never talked
about the war. Did you talk about your experiences with
your family? No, of course not. I just tried to
lock out everything. The things that happened in combat just unspeakable, unthinkable,
(08:07):
and unprintable. And I was saying, you shouldn't be maintaining
to anybody else. PTSD rates for World War Two combat
veterans have proved comparable to those who returned from Vietnam,
Yet treatment has come far too late in the game
for many. What did most of those veterans do in
the meantime? The only cure that we could manufacture ourselves
(08:29):
was to drink alcohol. And you drank until you passed out.
At least you had some relief while you're unconscious. Slower
in development than a successful g I bill for the
development of rehabilitation centers for those suffering from battle fatigue
or alcoholism in alcoholics. Anonymous had two thousand members. By
(08:53):
one report shows that number had jumped to seven hundred
and fifty thousand. Today, one point two million members meet nationwide.
Community and conversation have proved invaluable tools for long term healing.
Getting the conversation started is often the challenge for Frank.
The anniversary of D Day and our renewed attention to
(09:14):
these veterans led to an invitation to speak on a
national stage. It took me seventy years, and only because
the thumb broke he opened. Is it helping you to
talk about it? Though? Now it does a monkey on
my shoulder. The monk is off the shoulder once I
started talking. Then I want them to talk about the
(09:35):
war because I want them to bring some of these
kids into what I went through. When we come back,
we'll hear how a unique community war memorial brought veterans
and their families together, shifting the conversation entirely. You're listening
to service stories of hunger and war from my heart radio.
Stay with us. Yeah, you're listening to service stories of
(10:21):
hunger and war from my Heart radio. I'm JaQuel and Opposo.
If it's hard for us to start conversations with our veterans.
It's a bit surreal to listen as they laugh through
some of the most intense moments. In his episode, Harold
bud Long flies us from d Day through Central Europe
with his buddy Dewey by his side. Here he is
again reflecting on just how wild that ride was. Kind
(10:45):
of you get your sense of humor about all of
this because he's told the crazy stories. But a year
or two after Julia come home and got married, go
up there fishing for a week. And the first night
we get up there, we sat there and talking off
stuff that happened to us at that time was scary.
Remember the time we heard a racket telling the hanger
(11:06):
and said yeah, and she went down and kicked the
door and it was about a hundred Germans in there.
But yeah, already through the give up. We take them
back to the major. He said, what are we gonna
do with him? As we heard loss in detail. Most
veterans based challenges upon returning to civilian life that the
(11:27):
overwhelmed v A can't always address with intimate and individualized approaches.
Countless local organizations work to bring veterans out into their
communities to sit with Bud for his episode. We drove
far upstate to Livingston County, New York, a rural community
almost at our border with Canada, where the creation of
a unique veterans monument is doing just that. We don't
(11:53):
usually gain this kind of traction. I think we've had
nearly two hundred people come together just for hot dogs
and soda around this program. This is Jason Skinner, army
veteran of the Iraq War and director of Veteran Services
for Livingston County. Jason invited us to interview Bud on
a day when they were working on their memorial. It's
a collaboration between the county and the Genesee Valley Educational Partnership,
(12:17):
Career and Tech Center headed up by metal trades instructor
Ollie Olsen. Jason Skinner asked me about doing something he
had shown me an illustration in London. There's some poppies
coming down off the castle wall and it's very impressive.
On my desk, I had a small American flag, so
that was the driving force for creating the poppies, but
to have it in the shape of the American flag,
(12:39):
so the red stripes will be the poppies. And then
the white stripes will be the concrete. The National American
Legion adopted the poppy as the symbol of remembrance for
fallen soldiers in ninety inspired by Canadian World War One
Lieutenant Colonel surgeon John McCrae's poem in flanders Field and
flanders Field, the poppies blow between the crosses row on row,
(13:04):
McRae wrote. Each metal Livingston County poppy is two ft wide,
painted red and fused, atop a green iron stem of
varying height, connected to the ground by bearings so that
they'll sway when the wind blows. When completed this spring,
the flag will cover one eight five ft white concrete
flag stripes between them make handicapped accessible rows perfect for
(13:28):
wandering and quiet contemplation. It's a monument designed to inspire awe,
but the process has been just as important as the product.
And when I first presented the idea, I said, I'll
do this project, but with this stipulation. I want veterans
coming into the school being shown how to use the
equipment and create their own poppies. I could have done
(13:50):
under poppies, but it's not about me. That significant should
be them being recognized for their service. And so this
does that every coppy is designed, traced, cut, molded, welded,
and painted by the individual. A dog tag on each
identifies their name, dates of service, and any other information
(14:10):
deemed particularly significant. Then a unique totem welded into the
center or on a pedal adds a personal touch. Only
made one for his father, a veteran of the Canadian
Air Force, so his poppy is a maple leaf. There's
all sorts of really unique centers in them stars. One
his uncle was a pilot and he put an airplane.
(14:31):
There's one with a VFW and one with an American
Legion emblem. I've built five copies, one for a friend
and restauran all family members, three of which word World
War Two veterans. That's Rory Benkleman, teacher's aide at the
Mount Morris Bosi Center in the Metal Trades program. He's
assisting only with the monument. I'm also a veteran of
the United States Air Force and New York Air National Guard.
(14:52):
We're slowly losing family members, were slowly losing our World
War Two vets and Vietnam vets. I'm proud to say
I'm a veteran and so create with the organizations as
one of them. They emphasize self generating veteran involvement has
been the incidental key to their monument success. There were
veterans that were coming from other counties. I'm here to
make a poppy by getting hooked up with their PPE gear,
(15:14):
and as soon as we've gotten in the shop, other
veterans that had been coming regularly they could see that
there was a deer in the headlights. They just go,
let me help you. This is where we start and
then we go from one step to the next. Veterans
helping other veterans to create this monument. And I wasn't
doing it. The finish is going to look great, but
really that was the most impressive part of this whole project.
(15:35):
Creating a poppy gets the veteran or family member in
the door, but the greater service is their inviting veterans
into a space where people want to listen. There were
some nights that were had over forty veterans, which was
almost too much because we're limited with the equipment and space.
But they all work together and they shared equipment, they
shared their time, they shared their stories. Then they came back.
(15:58):
Psychologists are recognizing the power of narrative storytelling to help
veterans acclimate back into civilian life and to heal from
combat conflict. Over months and years of military brigade training,
the veteran's brain has become wired to move through the
world in a specific way, to follow orders and to
make order of high stress scenarios. The therapeutic narrative approach
(16:20):
helps to reverse that wiring by sharing a story allowed
we first take control of the story, choosing to narrate
with horror or as but does with humor. We can
paint ourselves as the victim or the hero. That's been
kind of all generations, and there's always a story behind
each one of these copies. The vets get to tell
(16:41):
their story to other veterans. That's been a very unique
and healing experience for some of these guys. It kind
of brings them together and makes them more resilient as
a bunch of veterans together with time, intention, and insight
from new perspectives, the veteran can choose to mold that
narrative until a story no longer has any power over
them over their physical reaction to past experiences or current triggers.
(17:06):
You can't talk to you strangers or family about that.
They wouldn't understand. This seemingly unbreachable gap is often felt
by veterans loved ones as well. We want to help
but don't know how. Rather than forcing conversation, creating a
poppy becomes a gateway for a shared experience, a space
for the veteran to talk and the loved one to
(17:28):
simply offer compassion. Another young man that years old, his
daughter came and said, I want to make a poppy
for my dad. But this is a little frail. So
she's created this poppy, and springtime had come around here,
and she goes, do you mind if one day I
just drive him back here to show him the poppy.
So overhead doors are open to the shop, and I
see this car pull up. She steps out, opens the
(17:49):
door for a day A tall man six four maybe
six five. So his daughter says, Dad, I made this
poppy for you, and he starts crying. A good friend
of his supporter was here in the shop working on
his poppy. They were lifelong friends. They grew up in
the same town, they were in the same service. And
he looks up, goes over and gives him a big hug.
He says, it's okay. I did the same thing because
(18:10):
his daughter was started one and because I can do that.
It was a father and daughter making this poppy. Some
of the stories were like that. What started as a
goal of one hundred poppies blossomed to two hundred and
fifty by the time we left them in September. But
is their oldest veteran at their youngest participant is four.
Without wanting to detail specifics, they related how one younger
(18:34):
veteran had remained so reclusive since returning home. Loved ones
had been worried about him. The project has gotten him
returning to the group over and over again. Such accessible
spaces invite veterans to come together and share their service
stories and the lives they're newly carving. They bring coffee
and donuts or this being farm country, the varying kinds
(18:56):
of garlic they're currently growing. We left with several heads,
our pockets, maple syrup, and local restaurant referrals mapped out.
Unless such spaces are created, the sacrifices that still burden
many of them will remain trapped where they've remained for
our World War two veterans in the past, largely speaking
at the bar or a a meetings. I'm a Iraq
(19:19):
war and my period in time and service has been
very well respected. People thank me for my service, and
it always felt kind of weird until you look at
it in the perspective of the job I hold now.
I get to pay tribute to those people that served
in Vietnam and various earlier conflicts that weren't either recognized
or were not appreciated for their service. And it's because
(19:41):
of their service and how our country feels about my
service now and what they had to go through to
ensure that no other generation of veteran would be that disrespected.
In their memorial, the Livingston County team reminds all of
us that we have a choice, a choice to serve
our country, to serve each other, and to serve the
best version of our future selves. When they walk into
(20:07):
this now it's not a field of poppies, but it is,
and they're standing there not just to see this, but
to realize I love that went into the project. The
veterans are loved. Ones of veterans created this monument as
a service of our country that they chose to do it.
Every one of these poppies has a story, and that's
what I would like people to know. The commemoration of
(20:28):
our veterans in recent times has been great, but it
has been long overdue for a long period of time.
I believe the recognition because everybody has their freedoms because
of what everybody else has given in the past. And
the second part of this episode, we'll hear how on
our flight Columbus opened the conversation for our Navy veteran
(20:48):
William Walker, and then about a veteran food pantry bringing
veterans across generations to the table. Until then, you can
learn more about this episode on our Instagram and Facebook
are at Service podcast and at Service podcast dot org,
where you can also send a message to any of
the veterans you're hearing from this season. Don't forget to
subscribe to Service on your favorite podcasting platform, and thanks
(21:11):
for dropping a review while you're there. Service as a
production of I Heart Radio. This episode was produced and
edited by me Jacqueline Oroposo. Mr Boddicker was the associate
producer for this episode. Kobe McDonald and Andrew Stessler engineered
our interviews with lawson Elizabeth Emery with William and Junie
Ramckin with John. Our supervising producer is Gabrielle Collins, Our
(21:32):
executive producer Christopher Hassiotis. Thank you for listening, and thank
you to those serving and those who have served.
Welcome to a special two part episode of Service, Stories
of Hunger and War, a production from I Heart Radio
and Me your host, food writer and veteran family member
Jaquelin Reposo. As Churchill said, never has so much been
owned by so many to so few, And so I
decided in I wanted to I directed to take the
g I bill. I was gonna go to college, and
(00:28):
I was going to set the world on fire. This
season on Service, we've been following World War Two veterans
as they traverse land and sea, finding sustenance and feeding
others along the way. Thanksgiving that was our kp the
size and says, let's through something special cigarette, No little
kids like that cigarette. With fewer than four hundred thousand
(00:50):
veterans of this era left, making space for these conversations
is more important now than ever. I was going to
go to one school. That's D Day Army veteran John Bistrica,
and the history teacher he didn't want to hear about it.
That hurt me pretty bad. Every single one of us
owes a huge debt of gratitude to these greatest generation veterans.
(01:12):
So let's slow down and explore a little of the
history behind why some of them have or have not
talked about their service until recently. And then we'll hear
from younger veterans and volunteers, creating communities that keep conversations rolling.
Everybody fanning up. Now the boys go on the way?
(01:33):
Can you hear the music? The ban here? It come
here that Tom come. This is a ninety five clip
from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show Welcome Home, letther com
Bug of the marvelous things the now light Well, we've
(01:54):
dubbed World War two the last good War. There were
clear good guys, the Allies, and bad guys, the Axis triumphant.
We haven't had a world war since. Returning veterans like
New York Yankees Catcher, Yogi, Bearra, actor Jimmy Stewart and
director Mel Brooks contributed to a cheery post war Tinseltown.
The newly minted g I Bill helped millions embrace their
(02:16):
future at colleges and in starter homes, and the economy flourished.
Soon followed a record number of marriages and the notorious
baby boom. But then there were the lesser spoken of realities.
It will seem odd when, at some given hour the
shooting stops and everything changes again. It will be odd
(02:37):
to drive down an unknown road without that little not
of fear in your stomach. Odd not to listen with
animal like alertness for the meaning of every distant sound.
Odd to have your spirit released from the perpetual weight
that has compounded of fear and death and dirt and anguish.
We have won this war. That's Bob Hope, reading a
letter from beloved war journalist Ernie Pyle, known for capturing
(02:58):
frontline humanity in an almost folk style, before he was
killed by Japanese machine gun fire less than five months
before World War Two ended. This last Good War was
also the deadliest in human history, causing seven times more
casualties than US troops would later meet in the horrors
of Vietnam. These veterans came home to start new businesses
(03:19):
and raise a prosperous generation, but they also had to
digest and make sense of what they had faced while deployed.
Our Air Corps veteran Harold bud Long returned to Upstate
New York with memories of breaking down concentration camp gates.
We had k rashes with when we started breaking open
and say don't We'll kill them. It's ay ate too
much at once, give him a little bit time. Coast
(03:44):
Guard veteran Frank Davida remember so many details of Omaha
Beach on D Day from there. Having overfed the troops
that morning about two o'clock, we started feeding them eggs, sources, pancakes,
ice cream, everything that you could think of. It was
the worst thing we out them. We overfend them. To
his last thoughts before sleeping that night, I sat down
(04:06):
on the cold deck and I said to myself, what
that would just happen to you you? And why am I alive?
Interviewing Frank and his quiet New Jersey home, it seems
like he must have told these stories over and over
during the years to keep them so vibrant. At I
asked him point blank if he had for seventy years,
(04:30):
I couldn't talk about while I'm telling you, I couldn't
talk about it. At that time, I didn't want to
bring the war home to my family. I suffered to it.
Why should they have to suffer to it. My dad,
he was in the army first of all. He would
ask me questions. I said that I can't talk about it.
My grandfather, Pat de Ambrosio, rarely talked about his time
(04:53):
serving in the war either. I surmised his silence was
mostly out of gratitude and a hum bow guilt for
his not having seen combat. Repeating this question to other veterans,
we start to understand why one would feel so indebted
to such fellows. Killing a human being is not a
(05:14):
natural thing. The human body. You don't consider it like
an animal or the object. But we had to think
that way. Laws and Ichirosaki survived months of heavy combat
as one of the Armies four hundred and forty second
Regimental Combat Team, the niss A Japanese American troops, infamous
(05:34):
both for their honorable service records and catastrophic casualty count.
Some men broke down in the heat of battle, bodies
flying all over it. You have to put it out
of your mind, because if you think about it, your
mind can't handle that. In prior wars, huge regiments of
(05:56):
men would fight together in short bursts of small arms skirmishes.
There was camaraderie, and then there was rest. World War
two veterans faced a new kind of warfare with the
introduction of better planes and huge field weapons. Smaller units
could now be dispersed four weeks at a time, they'd
fight the enemy, cut off from support systems like food
(06:17):
and medical attention, and sometimes not be given even forty
eight hours to rest before being thrust back into battle.
As such, where it had been presumed that mental breakdowns
during combat were caused by unrelated mental weakness, hospitals soon
filled with those suffering from battle fatigue. It wasn't until
nineteen eighty thirty five years after the end of this
(06:39):
war and after these veterans had quieted so to support
their children through Vietnam, that battle fatigue was renamed with
a diagnostic term. We recognized today that's what PTSD is
all about. When we were discharged in nine military tolas
(06:59):
irrisive alien, Now take off your uniform and just get
out of here. There was no mention of your mental status,
particularly else being in the infantry where everyone was filled
with PTSD. We're now societally aware of the dangers of
PTSD not being taken seriously by medical professionals or communities.
(07:23):
But post war newspapers were just as likely to joke
about what they called warner roses as they were to
report on the lives of disabled veterans. Controversial syndicated columnist
Henry McLamore once justed, if I am late for dinner,
I can blame it on battle fatigue. This casual dismissal
is one of the reasons why our most affected veterans
(07:43):
often stay quiet. You could talk to a thousand veterans
were in combat and they'll tell you I never talked
about the war. Did you talk about your experiences with
your family? No, of course not. I just tried to
lock out everything. The things that happened in combat just unspeakable, unthinkable,
(08:07):
and unprintable. And I was saying, you shouldn't be maintaining
to anybody else. PTSD rates for World War Two combat
veterans have proved comparable to those who returned from Vietnam,
Yet treatment has come far too late in the game
for many. What did most of those veterans do in
the meantime? The only cure that we could manufacture ourselves
(08:29):
was to drink alcohol. And you drank until you passed out.
At least you had some relief while you're unconscious. Slower
in development than a successful g I bill for the
development of rehabilitation centers for those suffering from battle fatigue
or alcoholism in alcoholics. Anonymous had two thousand members. By
(08:53):
one report shows that number had jumped to seven hundred
and fifty thousand. Today, one point two million members meet nationwide.
Community and conversation have proved invaluable tools for long term healing.
Getting the conversation started is often the challenge for Frank.
The anniversary of D Day and our renewed attention to
(09:14):
these veterans led to an invitation to speak on a
national stage. It took me seventy years, and only because
the thumb broke he opened. Is it helping you to
talk about it? Though? Now it does a monkey on
my shoulder. The monk is off the shoulder once I
started talking. Then I want them to talk about the
(09:35):
war because I want them to bring some of these
kids into what I went through. When we come back,
we'll hear how a unique community war memorial brought veterans
and their families together, shifting the conversation entirely. You're listening
to service stories of hunger and war from my heart radio.
Stay with us. Yeah, you're listening to service stories of
(10:21):
hunger and war from my Heart radio. I'm JaQuel and Opposo.
If it's hard for us to start conversations with our veterans.
It's a bit surreal to listen as they laugh through
some of the most intense moments. In his episode, Harold
bud Long flies us from d Day through Central Europe
with his buddy Dewey by his side. Here he is
again reflecting on just how wild that ride was. Kind
(10:45):
of you get your sense of humor about all of
this because he's told the crazy stories. But a year
or two after Julia come home and got married, go
up there fishing for a week. And the first night
we get up there, we sat there and talking off
stuff that happened to us at that time was scary.
Remember the time we heard a racket telling the hanger
(11:06):
and said yeah, and she went down and kicked the
door and it was about a hundred Germans in there.
But yeah, already through the give up. We take them
back to the major. He said, what are we gonna
do with him? As we heard loss in detail. Most
veterans based challenges upon returning to civilian life that the
(11:27):
overwhelmed v A can't always address with intimate and individualized approaches.
Countless local organizations work to bring veterans out into their
communities to sit with Bud for his episode. We drove
far upstate to Livingston County, New York, a rural community
almost at our border with Canada, where the creation of
a unique veterans monument is doing just that. We don't
(11:53):
usually gain this kind of traction. I think we've had
nearly two hundred people come together just for hot dogs
and soda around this program. This is Jason Skinner, army
veteran of the Iraq War and director of Veteran Services
for Livingston County. Jason invited us to interview Bud on
a day when they were working on their memorial. It's
a collaboration between the county and the Genesee Valley Educational Partnership,
(12:17):
Career and Tech Center headed up by metal trades instructor
Ollie Olsen. Jason Skinner asked me about doing something he
had shown me an illustration in London. There's some poppies
coming down off the castle wall and it's very impressive.
On my desk, I had a small American flag, so
that was the driving force for creating the poppies, but
to have it in the shape of the American flag,
(12:39):
so the red stripes will be the poppies. And then
the white stripes will be the concrete. The National American
Legion adopted the poppy as the symbol of remembrance for
fallen soldiers in ninety inspired by Canadian World War One
Lieutenant Colonel surgeon John McCrae's poem in flanders Field and
flanders Field, the poppies blow between the crosses row on row,
(13:04):
McRae wrote. Each metal Livingston County poppy is two ft wide,
painted red and fused, atop a green iron stem of
varying height, connected to the ground by bearings so that
they'll sway when the wind blows. When completed this spring,
the flag will cover one eight five ft white concrete
flag stripes between them make handicapped accessible rows perfect for
(13:28):
wandering and quiet contemplation. It's a monument designed to inspire awe,
but the process has been just as important as the product.
And when I first presented the idea, I said, I'll
do this project, but with this stipulation. I want veterans
coming into the school being shown how to use the
equipment and create their own poppies. I could have done
(13:50):
under poppies, but it's not about me. That significant should
be them being recognized for their service. And so this
does that every coppy is designed, traced, cut, molded, welded,
and painted by the individual. A dog tag on each
identifies their name, dates of service, and any other information
(14:10):
deemed particularly significant. Then a unique totem welded into the
center or on a pedal adds a personal touch. Only
made one for his father, a veteran of the Canadian
Air Force, so his poppy is a maple leaf. There's
all sorts of really unique centers in them stars. One
his uncle was a pilot and he put an airplane.
(14:31):
There's one with a VFW and one with an American
Legion emblem. I've built five copies, one for a friend
and restauran all family members, three of which word World
War Two veterans. That's Rory Benkleman, teacher's aide at the
Mount Morris Bosi Center in the Metal Trades program. He's
assisting only with the monument. I'm also a veteran of
the United States Air Force and New York Air National Guard.
(14:52):
We're slowly losing family members, were slowly losing our World
War Two vets and Vietnam vets. I'm proud to say
I'm a veteran and so create with the organizations as
one of them. They emphasize self generating veteran involvement has
been the incidental key to their monument success. There were
veterans that were coming from other counties. I'm here to
make a poppy by getting hooked up with their PPE gear,
(15:14):
and as soon as we've gotten in the shop, other
veterans that had been coming regularly they could see that
there was a deer in the headlights. They just go,
let me help you. This is where we start and
then we go from one step to the next. Veterans
helping other veterans to create this monument. And I wasn't
doing it. The finish is going to look great, but
really that was the most impressive part of this whole project.
(15:35):
Creating a poppy gets the veteran or family member in
the door, but the greater service is their inviting veterans
into a space where people want to listen. There were
some nights that were had over forty veterans, which was
almost too much because we're limited with the equipment and space.
But they all work together and they shared equipment, they
shared their time, they shared their stories. Then they came back.
(15:58):
Psychologists are recognizing the power of narrative storytelling to help
veterans acclimate back into civilian life and to heal from
combat conflict. Over months and years of military brigade training,
the veteran's brain has become wired to move through the
world in a specific way, to follow orders and to
make order of high stress scenarios. The therapeutic narrative approach
(16:20):
helps to reverse that wiring by sharing a story allowed
we first take control of the story, choosing to narrate
with horror or as but does with humor. We can
paint ourselves as the victim or the hero. That's been
kind of all generations, and there's always a story behind
each one of these copies. The vets get to tell
(16:41):
their story to other veterans. That's been a very unique
and healing experience for some of these guys. It kind
of brings them together and makes them more resilient as
a bunch of veterans together with time, intention, and insight
from new perspectives, the veteran can choose to mold that
narrative until a story no longer has any power over
them over their physical reaction to past experiences or current triggers.
(17:06):
You can't talk to you strangers or family about that.
They wouldn't understand. This seemingly unbreachable gap is often felt
by veterans loved ones as well. We want to help
but don't know how. Rather than forcing conversation, creating a
poppy becomes a gateway for a shared experience, a space
for the veteran to talk and the loved one to
(17:28):
simply offer compassion. Another young man that years old, his
daughter came and said, I want to make a poppy
for my dad. But this is a little frail. So
she's created this poppy, and springtime had come around here,
and she goes, do you mind if one day I
just drive him back here to show him the poppy.
So overhead doors are open to the shop, and I
see this car pull up. She steps out, opens the
(17:49):
door for a day A tall man six four maybe
six five. So his daughter says, Dad, I made this
poppy for you, and he starts crying. A good friend
of his supporter was here in the shop working on
his poppy. They were lifelong friends. They grew up in
the same town, they were in the same service. And
he looks up, goes over and gives him a big hug.
He says, it's okay. I did the same thing because
(18:10):
his daughter was started one and because I can do that.
It was a father and daughter making this poppy. Some
of the stories were like that. What started as a
goal of one hundred poppies blossomed to two hundred and
fifty by the time we left them in September. But
is their oldest veteran at their youngest participant is four.
Without wanting to detail specifics, they related how one younger
(18:34):
veteran had remained so reclusive since returning home. Loved ones
had been worried about him. The project has gotten him
returning to the group over and over again. Such accessible
spaces invite veterans to come together and share their service
stories and the lives they're newly carving. They bring coffee
and donuts or this being farm country, the varying kinds
(18:56):
of garlic they're currently growing. We left with several heads,
our pockets, maple syrup, and local restaurant referrals mapped out.
Unless such spaces are created, the sacrifices that still burden
many of them will remain trapped where they've remained for
our World War two veterans in the past, largely speaking
at the bar or a a meetings. I'm a Iraq
(19:19):
war and my period in time and service has been
very well respected. People thank me for my service, and
it always felt kind of weird until you look at
it in the perspective of the job I hold now.
I get to pay tribute to those people that served
in Vietnam and various earlier conflicts that weren't either recognized
or were not appreciated for their service. And it's because
(19:41):
of their service and how our country feels about my
service now and what they had to go through to
ensure that no other generation of veteran would be that disrespected.
In their memorial, the Livingston County team reminds all of
us that we have a choice, a choice to serve
our country, to serve each other, and to serve the
best version of our future selves. When they walk into
(20:07):
this now it's not a field of poppies, but it is,
and they're standing there not just to see this, but
to realize I love that went into the project. The
veterans are loved. Ones of veterans created this monument as
a service of our country that they chose to do it.
Every one of these poppies has a story, and that's
what I would like people to know. The commemoration of
(20:28):
our veterans in recent times has been great, but it
has been long overdue for a long period of time.
I believe the recognition because everybody has their freedoms because
of what everybody else has given in the past. And
the second part of this episode, we'll hear how on
our flight Columbus opened the conversation for our Navy veteran
(20:48):
William Walker, and then about a veteran food pantry bringing
veterans across generations to the table. Until then, you can
learn more about this episode on our Instagram and Facebook
are at Service podcast and at Service podcast dot org,
where you can also send a message to any of
the veterans you're hearing from this season. Don't forget to
subscribe to Service on your favorite podcasting platform, and thanks
(21:11):
for dropping a review while you're there. Service as a
production of I Heart Radio. This episode was produced and
edited by me Jacqueline Oroposo. Mr Boddicker was the associate
producer for this episode. Kobe McDonald and Andrew Stessler engineered
our interviews with lawson Elizabeth Emery with William and Junie
Ramckin with John. Our supervising producer is Gabrielle Collins, Our
(21:32):
executive producer Christopher Hassiotis. Thank you for listening, and thank
you to those serving and those who have served.
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