Clay and Buck’s Christmas Eve Special - Hour 3

Buck tells us about George Washington crossing the Delaware River and some timeless wisdom from Rush.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This special edition Christmas Eve Show is brought to you
by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Welcome and
thanks for joining us for a special Christmas Eve edition
of Clay and Buck. As so many of us prepare
to celebrate the Christmas season presence under the tree, hugs
and laughs with loved ones, family friends, it is worth

(00:24):
taking a moment to look back in time at some
of the great challenges, struggles and battles that were fought
over Christmas. And one that immediately comes to mind takes
us to World War Two, the Battle of the Bulge. Now,
before I get into what happened and how its stretched

(00:44):
over the Christmas holiday in nineteen forty four, and in
fact that was a major turning point, you can imagine
being deep in the snow, fighting in the dense forest
of Europe against Nazis SS right there on the front lines.
We'll dive into that in a moment, but let's just

(01:05):
talk about what led up to the Battle of the
Bulge and the turning point on Christmas. It was a
summer of nineteen forty four and the entire war was
at a marked change. The Allied invasion of Normandy in
June had broken through Hitler's vaunted Atlantic Wall, and by

(01:29):
August Paris was liberated. The German army was in retreat
across most of Western Europe, and the Allies were advancing
rapidly toward the borders of the Third Reich. By September,
the situation seemed grim for Nazi Germany, but beneath the surface,
their high command was already planning a bold counter strike

(01:50):
against the Allies. In early September, Allied forces had surged
across Belgium and Luxembourg. Key cities like Brussels and Antwerp
fell quickly. The rapid advance led to optimism that the
war in Europe might end by Christmas. However, logistical challenges
soon slowed the Allied momentum. Advancing armies had to outrun

(02:14):
their supply or had outrun their supply lines, leading to
shortages of fuel, ammunition, and food. This logistical strain allowed
German forces to regroup and fortify positions along the Sigfried
Line or West Wall, which was a series of defensive
fortifications along Germany's western border. Adding to the Allies trouble,

(02:35):
the ambitious Operation Market Garden in mid September failed to
achieve its objectives. The plan, which aimed to capture key
bridges in the Netherlands and open a direct route into Germany,
ended with heavy Allied losses and the German retention of
key defensive positions and the failure at Arnhem, famously described

(02:55):
as a bridge too far meant the Allies faced a
prolonged fight to breach the German defenses. For the Germans,
these developments offered a glimmer of hope that they could
turn their fortunes around. While their losses had been severe,
the delay in the Allied advance provided an opportunity to regroup, resupply,
and prepare for a counter offensive. In October of nineteen

(03:17):
forty four, the Allies launched assaults along the German border.
US First Army engaged in brutal fighting in the her
Hertgen Forest, a dense and heavily fortified area near Achen.
The battle lasting weeks, marked by heavy casualties on both sides,
little ground was gained. Germans, despite being on the defensive,

(03:38):
used the terrain to their advantage and inflicted significant losses
on the Americans. British and Canadian forces faced diff resistance
as well, so that was brutal fighting, and it was
characterized by harsh weather, mud and the determined German resistance.
November of forty four was the calm before the storm.
Allies renewed their offensive along the Western Front. In the

(04:00):
British and Canadian forces had finally cleared the Shelt Estuary,
opening Antwerp for Allied use. This is a pretty cool
Netflix movie that dealt with what was going on in
Antwerp around this time. The Second World War came out. Recently,
US Third Army owner General Patten, pressed forward, liberating Mets
after weeks of heavy fighting. Despite these successes, the Allied

(04:22):
advance was slow and costly, with attritional battles that sapped
morale and resources. Meanwhile, in the Ardn region, a densely
wooded area straddling Belgium and Luxembourg, the front was quiet.
The Allies had assumed the region was unsuitable for a
major German offensive due to its rugged terrain and harsh

(04:42):
winter conditions. American troops station there were often inexperienced or
under strength, and the line was thinly held. Unbeknownst to
the Allies, Hitler had chosen the Arden as the focal
point for his bold counteroffensive, code named Operation Watch on
the Rhine conceive back in September and refined over the

(05:04):
following months. The plan called for a massive surprise attack
to break through the Allied lines, drive west to Antwerp,
and split the British and American armies. Hitler believed this
would force the Western Allies to negotiate a peace, allowing
Germany to focus its remaining resources on the Eastern Front,
where the Soviet advance threatened the Reich. To prepare for

(05:26):
the offensive, the Germans secretly masked over two hundred thousand troops,
including elite SS Panzer divisions along the Arden Front. Supplies,
including fuel for tanks, were hoarded, despite shortages elsewhere in
the Reich. Deception and strict operational security kept the plan
hidden from Allied intelligence. By the Allies. By rather December,

(05:50):
the Allies were confident but weary. The progress made since
Normandy had been hard won, and the onset of winter
brought additional challenges. Perception among many Allied commanders was that
German forces were nearing collapse. Reports reports of German troop
movements in the Ardennes were dismissed as defensive maneuvers or

(06:11):
just a desperate reorganization on the German side, Morale among
troops varied. While many soldiers were demoralized by the steady
retreat and heavy casualties of nineteen forty four, others clung
to the hope that Hitler's new offensive could reverse their fortunes.
Propaganda emphasized the importance of the coming battle, painting it
as a decisive moment in the war. And then December

(06:33):
nineteen forty four, on the eve of the Battle of
the Bulge, as the first snow fell on the Ardennes,
both sides prepared for winter. The American station there it
seemed like a quiet sector. Troops settled into foxholes and
improvised shelters, unaware that a massive German force was preparing

(06:54):
to launch a surprise attack for the Germans. The Germans,
the stage was set. The tanks, artillery, and infantry were
ready to strike on December sixteenth. The success of the
plan hinged on speed, surprise and the capture of Allied
fuel depots to keep their offensive rolling. The Germans gambled
everything on this attack, knowing that failure would leave their

(07:16):
forces exhausted and vulnerable to a counter offensive. Battle of
the Bulge began on December sixteenth with a massive artillery
barrage in the Arden Forest. Now, this area, dense with
woods and rugged terrain, had seemed like an unlikely location
for such a large scale offensive, which is exactly why

(07:38):
Hitler and the Germans chose it. They were trying to
punch through the thinly held Allied front lines in Circle
four Armies and capture Antwerp, a critical Allied supply port.
Stakes were monumental because success would mean the Germans could
turn the war around in Europe, or at least prolong it.
Failure was likely the end the Third Reich. The offensive

(08:02):
began with that artillery barrage under cover of darkness and
snowstorms on December sixteenth, catching the Allies completely off guard.
The Germans also had used a combination of infiltration tactics deception,
including using English speaking soldiers in captured uniforms, an absolute
brute force with nearly two hundred thousand troops and one

(08:22):
thousand tanks. The result was immediate chaos along the eighty
mile front. The Germans created a deep bulge in the
Allied lines, giving the battle its name. The German advance
was rapid and devastating. Towns like Malmody and Clervaux were
overrun and countless Allied soldiers were captured or killed. One

(08:43):
of the world's darkest moments occurred during this time, the
Malmedy Masacre, which I'll talk more about, but the German
counter stroke in the early days was working by Christmas Eve,
though the battle had reached this critical phase. One of
the most dramatic episodes was the Siege of Bastone, a
small but strategically vital cross roads town. The hundred and

(09:07):
first Airborne the one hundred first Airborne Division, along with
elements of other units, had been rushed to Bastone to
hold the line against overwhelming German forces. Encircled and vastly outnumbered,
the Americans endured freezing temperatures, dwindling ammunition, and constant German bombardment.
The situation was so desperate that medical personnel resorted to

(09:31):
reusing bandages and food rations were scarce. You saw this
depicted very well in the incredible series Band of Brothers.
By the way, American soldiers huddled in foxholes or ruined buildings,
sharing whatever meager supplies they had in an extraordinary act
of defiance and humor. When the German commander demanded the
surrender of Bastone on December twenty second. Brigadier General Anthony

(09:54):
mccallif famously replied with a single word nuts. This defiance
boosted morale among the Americans, even as German artillery continued
to pound the town. Meanwhile, throughout the Ardenne, Christmas was
marked by intense hardship. Soldiers face frostbite and hypothermy as
temperatures dropped to record lows. Trees were splintered by artillery fire,

(10:17):
and the snowy landscape was stained with blood. Yet even
in these dire circumstances, acts of humanity persisted. Soldiers shared
cigarettes and carols, comforted each other as best they could.
On Christmas Day, the tide began to turn. The weather cleared,
allowing the Allies to use their superior air power to
attack German supply lines and armored columns. American bombers and

(10:40):
fighters decimated German tanks and disrupted their reinforcements, while paratroopers
and infantry launched counter attacks. In Bastone, General George Patten's
Third Army began its dramatic relief effort. Patten's forces pushed
through the snow and enemy resistance to break the German
encirclement on December twenty sixth, bringing much needed relief and

(11:01):
supplies and reinforcement to the beleaguer defenders. For the Germans,
Christmas marked the beginning of their unraveling. Their initial momentum
faltered as they encountered stiffer Allied resistance, supply shortages, and
a lack of fuel for their tanks. Hitler's gamble combination
of desperation and hubris, failed to achieve its goal. After Christmas,

(11:23):
going into the new year, the Germans were in full retreat,
having suffered enormous losses in men of materiel. The Allies
regained the initiative and the end of the war in
Europe was now within sight. For those who fought in
the Battle of the Bulge, Christmas nineteen forty four was
a time of profound struggle and sacrifice in the midst
of one of the coldest winters on record. With death

(11:44):
and destruction all around, soldiers on both sides faced a
holiday unlike any other. The bravery and resilience of the
Allied troops, especially those encircled at Bastone, became legendary, a
testament to their determination to see the war through to
its conclusion. Let us never forget those men in those

(12:05):
woods on Christmas fighting to defend civilization itself and winning
a Christmas miracle of sorts. Since we're doing the history
of events that occurred on Christmas Eve or on Christmas Day,
I thought we could do an inspiring one as well.

(12:26):
Not like the situation of the Battle of the Bulge,
with the freezing cold temperatures and the extreme brutality of
that conflict, of that fighting during the Second World War.
I wanted to take us to the First World War
and something that became known as the Christmas Truce of
nineteen fourteen. But let's first dive into what's going on

(12:50):
in the First World War at this time. By December
of nineteen fourteen. World War One was the brutal trench
conflict that we have all come to know. Began in
July of nineteen fourteen, when arch Duke Franz Ferdinand of
Austria was assassinated and all hope for a Swiss swift
revolution had evaporated. The war involved major European powers, divided

(13:14):
into the Allies primarily France, Britain and Russia, and the
Central powers, Germany, Austria, Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. So
December nineteen fourteen marked the end of the war's initial
mobility on the Western Front. They had to just dig
in the race to the Sea, which was a series
of maneuvers as each side attempted to outflank the other

(13:35):
that had culminated in the establishment of the continuous trench
line stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss border.
Soldiers were enduring absolutely miserable conditions in these trenches, facing
the cold, the mud, rats, disease, artillery shells, sniper fire.
These attacks often resulted in heavy casualties with minimal territorial gains.

(13:59):
For instance, earlier in the month December of nineteen fourteen,
French forces launched an offensive in Champagne like where the
fancy sparkling white wine comes from, but it achieved little
other than adding to the so called Butcher's bill the
horrific losses and casualties on both sides. But it was

(14:20):
a very brutal time. And then there was a light
in the darkness. It was again December nineteen fourteen. Both
sides had in the First World War dug in for
horrific French warfare, and there was a grim stalemate, and

(14:40):
there was what became known as No Man's Land, this desolate,
muddy expanse littered with barbed wire and the remnants of war. Now,
these soldiers had been told the war would be over
by Christmas, but as Christmas, December twenty fifth, approached, there
was no possibility of that happening. But with all of
that suffering and error around them, on Christmas Eve, German

(15:03):
troops on sectors of the front began decorating their trenches
with candles and makeshift Christmas trees. They sang carols like
steel a knocked silent night that drifted across the cold
night air to the Allied trenches. British soldiers responded with
their own carols, and soon a chorus of voices from
opposing sides filled the night. It was music that transcended

(15:27):
the boundaries of language, nationality, and even war itself. On
Christmas morning, something even more miraculous happened. Soldiers began calling
out to one another across the lines, cautiously emerging from
their trenches against the orders of their superiors. Men who
had been enemies just the day before met in No
Man's land. They exchanged handshakes, smiles, and even little tokens chocolate, cigarettes, buttons,

(15:53):
photographs of loved ones. In some areas they even organized
games of soccer or if you're European football, people who
had been trying to kill each other just the day
before were playing in a friendly soccer match in the
middle of one of the most horrific battlefield landscapes in
all history. The Christmas Truce wasn't an organized event. Some

(16:15):
places on the front varied with others, but where it
did occur, there was a tiny respite, one that allowed
for a glimmer of the shared humanity of the men,
mostly conscripts on both sides. For a few hours, perhaps
a day or two, the horrors of war were set aside,
replaced by gestures of goodwill and moments of joy. Truce

(16:38):
was not without its complexities, but military leadership did not
like it at all. They opposed the fraternization, said it
would undermine discipline. And yes, they dove right back into
the conflict and went right back to shooting each other
after Christmas had passed. But the Christmas Truce of December
nineteen fourteen remains a rare moment of peace and humanity

(17:03):
amidst one of the worst wars in the history of
the world, and reminds us that even in the darkest times,
there is an enduring human capacity for empathy and connection. So,
as we gather this holiday season, you have any loved ones, friends,
colleagues that you've had things a bit frosty with, perhaps

(17:24):
it's time to establish your own Christmas truth and one
that might take you into the new year and beyond.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
I've had conversations in recent days weeks with liberals and
every time I mention this to you, So where are
you hanging around them? Well, you can't avoid them, and
I'm not afraid of them, and some I like engaging
them sometimes because these people, many of them are just
following a script that you know, they don't think they've
got their template, their narrative, and life is very compartmentalized.

(17:53):
And if something doesn't fit the little cocoon that they've
woven for themselves to live in, if you can penetrate
the cocoon, you can blow them up. You can cause
them all kinds of problem. The mind starts working, and
I was I was talking to a couple of people
this week and they said couldn't get off of a rock.

(18:14):
A rock makes it's a horrible country or a war.
We've lost our reputation in the world. We're losing in
Iraq and there's no reason to go there, said Nomen
and head a threat to us, blah blah blahlah. And
I'm listening to it and all of the attempts that
I made and try to explain strategically why after nine
to eleven we had a preemptive policy, we had weapons
of mass destruction. Every intel agency in the world said,

(18:35):
of Saddam's got these things, he had been fudging. The
UNS tried all that didn't It didn't didn't permeate. So
I asked him a question. I said, if you will
ever stopped and asked yourself, can you, guys, you're so
mad at this country, You think the world hates this country,
and you think this country is so corrupt. Have you

(18:55):
ever stopped and asked yourself this question? Why in less
than two hundred and fifty years has the American population
built the most prosperous, the most powerful, the most advanced
civilization ever. The Europeans have been around thousands of years

(19:18):
longer than we have. The Asians much longer than that.
Yet we run rings around every one of them and
everybody else too. That's not even close. It's not a
contest in any way that you want to measure. So
how can it be? I asked them that less than

(19:39):
three hundred million Americans can rule the world as it
had never has been ruled before in less than two
hundred and fifty years of existence. Have you ever really
stopped to ask yourself this question? And I got answers.
I got back, well, I have no question that this
is the greatest country in the plant, but invading other

(20:01):
countries is not the way to lead the world. I said,
get a rock out of your mind. I'm talking about
something much larger here that I want you to think about.
I'm asking you why this has happened, how it has happened,
to want your opinion on how it's at Forget a rock.
It's not about that. This is crucial answer. The answer

(20:24):
to this question is crucial to understanding the United States,
to understanding the rest of the world and how to
make it all better. Can you get a rock out
of your mind? These people are so obsessed with the
rock that they are embarrassed to be Americans. They think
that the world hates us, which is not true. They
buy totally in to the media and Democrat Party drive

(20:46):
by template. I kept on, Look, I'm not arguing with
you put a rock on this. I'm asking for your opinion.
I want you to think about something. I'm not trying
to be confrontation. If they think everything's confrontational, Iraq is
totally irrelevant to the question. Much larger conceptual approach here,

(21:06):
So I stated it again, said the rest of the world,
all of it has been around for krime. In terms
of nation states, thousands of years, much longer than we have.
United States is less than three hundred years. It took
me five times. United States are less than three hundred
years old. No population of people in any country has

(21:26):
ever approached our economic prosperity and wealth, our power. No
nation in the history of civilization has so dominated the
world for good as the United States of America. We
have liberated over one hundred million people from bondage and slavery.
We feed the world, we clothe the world. We provide
disaster relief in all circumstances to friend and foe alike.

(21:46):
We're the only nation on earth that can have you
ever stopped to ask yourself how in human history this
came about? What makes this possible? And how I'm just
giving you facts? How can you hate your country? How
can you sit there and be embarrassed of your country
over something like a rock when you don't even understand
what that is really all about, but throw it out

(22:08):
of the equation. How can your love for your country
be so fragile? How in your personal life can you
run around and not care what people think? And yet
when it comes to the United States of America you
get all upset if you think a bunch of reprobates
hate our country. Some people should hate us. We pose

(22:30):
a threat to them because of our goodness and because
of our ideals. There's some people should hate us. A
lot of people are just jealous of us because we
are what we are and they've had all these years
and decades and centuries and millennia and they haven't able
to pull it off. Why do you let yourself end
up hating your own country so much because of something
like a rock, which leads you to think that people

(22:52):
around the world hate us when none of this is
actually true. The principles may be bigger than the men
who wrote them down. But they did write them, and
they were not racists, and they were not bigots, whatever
else the PC crowd teaches today. And I then further
pointed out and as the one this when I started
taking giants drive, I said, our founding principles, which you

(23:15):
just proclaimed great, were not liberal as defined by today's liberalism.
Today's liberals are not tolerant, they are not interested in freedom,
They do not believe in God. They want God out
of as much of our culture as possible. Well, God

(23:36):
wasn't part of the founding of this country. And I said,
got to start together a kneeesacker, knee jerk reaction, I said,
have you read the Declaration of Independence, One Nation under
God that Chris creator Iani have the pledge of allegiance. Clearly,
the founders of this country believed in God and believe

(23:57):
that we were all created, and that we were all
created certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, the pursuit
to happiness, life liberty, pursuit to have these words mean things.
You say that the principles are bigger than people who
wrote them down, But it took people to write them down.
Where'd they get the inspiration where'd they get the intelligence?

(24:18):
They were great people that put this country together, a
country that stood the test of time like no other
country in the history of civilization. Today's liberals are none
of the founding fathers. Today's liberals are not capitalists as
constituted today. They are socialists. So why I agree with

(24:40):
you about some of this stuff, Well you should agree
with me about all of it, because I'm right. And
the future of our country depends on maintaining the institutions
and traditions that built this country. And in order to
preserve these traditions and institutions, we've got to understand their origin.

(25:00):
We must admit and be honest about what they are.
Today's liberals do, and they are trying to tear them down.
Today's liberals want to tear down these traditions and institutions
and remake the country in their own image. Iraq is
not a factor in the demise of our country. If
there is to be a demise of our country is
because we will lose control of maintaining the traditions and

(25:23):
institutions that made this a great country, a great culture,
a great society, a great population. Iraq has nothing to
do with this it's all happening from within Iraq's ancillary
in the sense that it's being used to try to
convince as many Americans that the country is not worth
preserving as we've known it. So the liberals that I

(25:45):
was talking to started talking about Republicans and demostrat For
when you forget Republicans and Democrats for a second, who's
said it thing about Republicans and Democrats. You people have
got to stop acting knee jerk. You got to start
listening to what I'm saying and reacting to that. I'm
talking about conservatives liberals. I'm talking about traditionalists versus secularists.

(26:08):
I'm talking about people who hate the way America is
today versus people who love it and want to preserve it.
It's you. You got to get out of your head
the idea that I am attacking you. You know, I
told them, we all have the same wish, we all

(26:29):
have the same desire, all us liberals, all us conservatives.
We want to preserve the country. I mean, we want
America to remain America, and we want to leave it
for our descendants as we inherited it from our forebears.
Our arguments are about how to do it and in
the in the in the argument phase, here we actually

(26:51):
learn that perhaps we don't want the same thing in
terms of preserving the traditions and institutions, because today's liberals
and socialists do want to tear them down and they
have been imbued with guilt over prosperity. It's not fair.

(27:11):
We have so much. It's not fair because how we
haven't done it through any greatness of our own, mister Limball,
We've stolen it. We've stolen all the oil from these
countries around the world. We've stolen their diamonds. We've stolen this,
and then we waste all of them. We are and
this is what they've been taught. I said, no, you've
got it totally backwards. The problem with the world is

(27:34):
not America. The problem with the world is the lack
of equal distribution of capitalism. And it's just that simple.
What it is that makes this country unique from any
other set of population centers, countries, nations, whatever you want
to call them, is two things. A are founding documents.

(28:00):
And what's in the founding documents the the documentated or
documented recognition that we are all created by God and
that we all have certain inalienable rights. That means it's
part of our yearning spirit, it's part of our creation.
That is liberty, a yearning to be free. We don't

(28:20):
want to be bound up. We don't want to be
shut up, we don't want to be constrained. We are
human beings. We're explorers. Where researchers were pioneers. We don't
want to be And they understood this pursuit of happiness.
Life is to be maximized and pursued, and it's and
and people are to get as much out of it

(28:42):
as they are able. And they can't do it with
shackles around their ankles. They can't do it with governments
that can hold them in contempt. They can't do it
with leaders that think they have no brains. People are
going to be constrained by people who think they have
no ability to do things, so they're gonna want to
do everything for them. The uh right to life. We're

(29:07):
all created right to life. It's it's those those definitions
of our creation and our freedom are what set us
apart from virtually every nation on the face of the earth.
I don't know if you know this or not. And
nothing against the Brits. They don't even have a constitution.
They do not have one. The European Union. They're trying

(29:31):
to write one, but it's a bunch of kami libs.
It's a disaster. It's nothing but a PC manual and digest.
And that is how we've stood the test of time.
It is those three things that are under assault by
today's left. The right to life, the pursuit of happiness.
You're not supposed to be happy because if you're happy, well,

(29:52):
somebody is not happy. It's not fair. And if your
pursuit of happy offend somebody, of happiness, offend somebody or
rob somebody else, I they're happening. We can't have that. No,
because for liberals, today's liberals, they want misery equally because
that's the only way we can all be equal. So
we have to spread misery as equally as possible. And
then I hit a with Undeniable Truth of Life number twenty,
which they just cringed, but I had them. Ours is

(30:17):
a world governed by the aggressive use of force. It
is not governed by peace movements, feel good movements and
all of that. And I said, if we retreat like
the Democrat Party and the liberals of this country want
us to do today. We're only going to have to
face these people down the road when it's your kids

(30:39):
that'll be facing them.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
Hey, producer, Ali and Greg here crashing the show for
a minute to let you know we've got a special
gift for you, our audience in the new year.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
That's right, We've got a lot of emails and calls
about the show. Some of you would like to know
how the sausage is made, so to speak, so we've
decided to create a special podcast that pulls back the
curtain just a little bit.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
We're calling it after Hours on Clay and Buck, and
just like a true after hours party, you never know
when it's going to pop up in the podcast feed,
but when it does, it'll be fun.

Speaker 4 (31:09):
We'll talk about the sound bites that don't make it
on the show, some of the things we pick up
off the cutting room floor, and also answer any questions
that you might have about what happens behind the scenes or.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Clay's feelings about cats. By the way, Greg and I
have five between the two of us, so we've got
opinions there. But joking aside, After Hours with Clay and
Buck is our gift to you a little extra random
content from time to time.

Speaker 4 (31:34):
So look forward to that in the new Year, and
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, and a wonderful New Year celebration
with family and friends, of which we consider you ours

Speaker 3 (31:44):
From all of us at Clay and buck Shield High