May 4, 2026 • 34 mins
Of 12 only 2 came back. 2 years of preparation. Napoleon spent his whole life doing what he was told was impossible. Going to war half way. Medal of Honor: Robert E Bush
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is a Jesse Kelly Show, The Jesse Kelly Show,
another hour of the Jesse Kelly Show on a spectacular Monday.
So you know what time it is. We're about to
do Medal of Honor Monday. And then when I'm done
with Medal of Honor Monday, then we're gonna get into
some history Napoleon Invasion of Russia. That's gonna take longer
(00:36):
than just today. Could wrap it up. Tomorrow, I don't know,
might last till Friday. I have no earthly idea. I
don't plan the thing out. I'm just gonna kind of
tell you what happened. We'll see how it goes from there,
and we'll get back to politics next hour. All right, Now,
nothing changes the fact that it's Medal of Honor Monday.
(00:57):
Started the second hour. Every Monday, we read the Medal
of Honor, citation and honor a hero. It is important.
You can do this with your family, you can do
this by yourself, and we do take email recommendations on
top of your love and your hate and your death threats.
If you have ones you like, you're welcome to this guy,
says dear two four hundon. That's German for devil dog.
(01:18):
That's what the Germans called the Marines. You always do
Marine Corps or Army Medal of Honor recipients, but not
enough Navy. The US Navy Hospital Corps is the most
decorated in the Navy. You should do Robert E. Bush
show Doc Bush, Some Love Love the show, change his
socks and drink some water. And this is from a doc.
(01:41):
All right. So before we get to the actual Medal
of Honor citation, let me set up a couple things
because this took place on Okinawa in World War two,
World War two in the Pacific. First, what's he talking about,
doc and things like that? All right? You know how
the army has medics. You ever seen an army a
mediac where they're shouting that the Marine Corps doesn't have medics.
(02:05):
The quote medic in a Marine Corps platoon is actually
not even a Marine. He's in the Navy. He's called
a corman, Navy corman. Right now, he does have to
hump a bunch of weight with US Marines. He does
have to sleep in the misery and experience all these
things with US Marines. So docs are kind of sacred
(02:29):
in the Marine Corps. They're always considered honorary Marines. You
guard your dock with your life because he will save
your life. They're total studs. I mean think about that.
Who signs up to join the navy and then goes,
you know, I want to go roll around in the
dirt with a misery with the Marines. So these dudes
are good. Right now, onto Okinawa. Remember, Okinawa was the
(02:52):
final stop before mainland Japan, and Japan knew this, and
not only did they know this because of its proximity
to Japan and because of how much time they had
to make preparations. Okinawa was a fortress in every sense
of the word. And the Japanese had learned through our
(03:13):
campaign in the Pacific. They learned what we did, what
we didn't do, what fortifications, What could they put up
that would work, What could they put up that wouldn't work.
So they had an entire war to learn what to do.
And one of the things they learned was it's completely
pointless to try to stop Americans on the beach. Why
(03:37):
because we have so much naval power, just the naval
guns alone, we have such incredible air power that any
defenses you set up along the beach, our naval guns
are air power. We're going to wipe out not all
of them, because that's impossible, but most of them. So
(03:58):
you don't waste valuable resources throwing a bunch of machine
gun nests on the beach, because we're just gonna stray
those and bomb those and they'll be gone. And now
you wasted the men and the guns. Now they're gone.
What they learned was let them take the beach. They're
gonna take the beach anyway. Can't keep them off the beach.
Suck them into the interior of the island. Pick a spot,
(04:24):
or several spots, obviously, pick a spot that you can
fortify using the natural environment, and you fight them where
you want to fight them. That is what made Okinawa
a living hell, believe it or not. And when we
landed in Okinawa, our guys thought it was odd. They
(04:45):
thought it was beautiful. There was no fighting, it was
completely quiet. If you go read books about it, you'll
find the Marines they'd buy a pig from the local villagers.
They're drinking beer and having pig roasts. For the first
couple of days. Life is good. This is cake, right. No.
As we got closer to the interior of the island.
(05:06):
We started to face off against things like Shurie Castle.
You can go look it up. It's fascinating. And men
died and droves and the rain came down and it
was just a nightmare from hell. So without further ado,
this man was born in Tacoma, Washington, Robert Eugene Bush.
He was born October fourth, nineteen twenty six. Right, Hey,
(05:31):
honoring those who went above and beyond. It's Medal of
Honor Monday for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk
of his life above and beyond the call of duty
while serving as a medical corman with a rifle company
(05:51):
in action against enemy Japanese forces on Okinawa Jima, Ryuku Islands,
tewond of May nineteen four five. It's stop real quick,
pause for a second. I mean you can keep music clank, Chris,
but remember Jima. Like you've heard of Ewo Jima. They
just call this Okinawa Jima. That's just island. That's what
that means in Japanese. This is island. Whenever you hear they're
(06:12):
all gema because they're islands. Right, Fearlessly braving the fury
of artillery, mortar and machine gun fire from strongly entrenched
hostile positions, Bush constantly and unhesitatingly moved from one casualty
to another to attend the wounded falling under the enemy's
murderous barrages. As the attack passed over a ridgetop, Bush
(06:34):
would have was advancing to administer blood plasma to a
marine officer lying wounded on the skyline when the Japanese
launched a savage counter attack. In this perilously exposed position,
he resolutely maintained the flow of life giving plasma. With
the bottle held high in one hand, Bush drew his
(06:54):
pistol with the other, then fired into the enemy ranks
until his ammunition was expended. Quickly seizing a discarded carbine,
he trained his fire on the Japanese, charging point blank
over the hill, accounting for six of the enemy, despite
his own serious wounds and the loss of one eye
suffered during his desperate battle in defense of the helpless men.
(07:18):
With the hostile force finally routed, he calmly disregarded his
own critical condition to complete his mission, valiantly refusing medical
treatment for himself until his officer patient had been evacuated,
and collapsing only after attempting to walk to the battle
aid station. His daring initiative, great personal valor, and heroic
(07:39):
spirit of self sacrifice and service of others reflects great
credit upon Bush and enhance the finest traditions of the
US Naval Service. And in case you were wondering, he
did not die. He lived, married kids, He lived I
think to two thousand five five, died of cancer in
(08:01):
two thousand and five. So he went on and had
a very long, happy life. You have to respect the
doc who's holding up blood plasma in one hand and
smoking Japanese troops with his pistol in the other hand.
That's freaking awesome. And that is very much Okinawa, where
we would take hilltops, then they would counterattack and take
it back. Then we would counterattack and take it back.
(08:23):
And part of the agony of Okinawa is our guys
kept dying for the same hilltop, and then they lose
a hilltop, then they take the same hilltop. Chris said,
did they shoot the medics, but is a Japanese They
shot everybody the Japanese. Oh yeah, the Japanese would prioritize
anybody they thought, well, uniquely would there were no rules
(08:44):
of warfare. The way they fought World War two, yet
nothing at all. They bombed Red Cross ships. I mean,
Deptese didn't care about anything at all. That's why a
bunch of those guys ended up having to go to
the gallows after the war. Because there were some war crimes,
like a lot of a lot of war crimes, a
shocking number of war crimes, we'll put it that way. Now,
(09:06):
have you ever heard of the Patriotic War? What a name,
right you? Many people have discussed, many books, many books,
countless books have been written about Napoleon's invasion of Russia,
disastrous invasion of Russia, and it's always labeled as that
(09:27):
Napoleon's invasion of Russia. That's what I've always known it as.
That's what I call it. But in Russia it was
called the Patriotic War. Now let me set this up
for you. This is the year eighteen twelve, Yes, that
eighteen twelve, you know, the one where we went round
two with the Brits, that very same eighteen twelve. During
(09:48):
this time, there is a man who is by any
account a brilliant, brilliant commander, and his name is Napoleon Bonaparte.
You obviously have heard Napole I'm not going to insult
your intelligence. Napoleon is one of these guys, insanely capable,
(10:08):
insanely cocky. He has a million great quotes, and I'm
gonna screw this one up, but it's pretty close to accurate.
He said towards the end of his life, I fought
sixty battles. I didn't learn anything throughout those fights that
I didn't know before I went into him. He's like,
I always knew what was going on. So it's eighteen
(10:28):
twelve and things are happening in Europe and Napoleon is
about to send one of the largest armies the world
has ever seen into Russia. And for every twelve men
that go in, too, we'll see home again. We'll talk
about that in a moment. We'll be back misstost Catch
(10:51):
up Jesse kellyshow dot com. It is The Jesse Kelly
Show on a Wonderful Monday. If you met sed any
part of the show, you can download at iHeart Spotify iTunes.
Back to the beginning of our little tale in eighteen twelve,
Napoleon launches an invasion of Russia. But we cannot start
(11:13):
there because it would not make sense. So I struggled
with this one on where exactly to begin. We're going
to begin after Napoleon has been slapping around all of Europe.
Napoleon is, like I said, he was this brilliant commander.
He's coming into power at a time where Europe was
(11:33):
experiencing all this upheaval. There was so much dissatisfaction throughout
Europe with this king and da Queen and this leadership
the people. The people were really ready to get rid
of all this stuff. Napoleon comes along. He's not only
a brilliant military commander, he's promising people things like right now,
(11:57):
when I say that, I don't want to act like
Napoleon was this tremendously benevolent dictator. That's not what I'm saying.
But what I'm saying is he was selling something the
other kings and queens, the old monarchs were not selling.
You are a citizen, you have rights. So he goes
and he starts crushing all the armies that stand up
(12:20):
against him in Europe. Russia, not an ally. Russia decides
they want to get in on the action and they
want to test their will against Napoleon. And that was
a bad idea because Napoleon slapped the crap out of
them too. All right, well, now you got a problem.
(12:43):
But Napoleon was one of these guys. He could be
after he defeated you, he could be pretty wonderful as
far as the victor goes. Now, he had ulterior motives
for this, But if Napoleon defeated you in battle, he
didn't want you've flayed alive with your skins hanging from
(13:03):
the city walls like an Assyrian king. He was of
course going to be in charge, but he just really
wanted to bring you into the fold. So if he
goes to war with you and your country, once he
has whipped you on the battlefield, he's probably gonna be
pretty nice to you about many things. Let you keep this,
you keep that. Of course, you're gonna have to send
(13:25):
troops when I tell you to send troops, and I'm
gonna tell you you're allowed to do this and not
allowed to do that. So don't get me wrong, He's
definitely going to be in charge. But it's not the
end of the world. So there's this treaty. Don't worry
about the nerdy details, remember, but in case you're curious,
you can go look it up. It's called the Treaty
of Tilsit. The Treaty of Tilsit, right, I'll explain it
(13:47):
this way. The head of Russia it was a tzar.
You know this. Before the Kami's destroyed that country. Russia
was ruled by kings that you would know as tsars.
Alexander is a king, he's a monarch, but we'll call
him a czar. Czar Alexander Alexander, having been defeated, he
(14:07):
has a meeting with Napoleon. I would love there are
all kinds of paintings of it. Obviously there was no
photographs at the time. I would love to have a
picture of video, to be a fly on the wall.
One of those questions, what would you go look at
in history if you had a time machine. This is
one of those moments I wish I could have just
(14:28):
sat in, because here's what they did. They met on
a raft, a raft and a river. Now, believe me,
it was quite nice. The food and wine were flowing.
I'm sure it was all covered up, and the paintings
I've seen were that it was covered up. I'm sure
there are plenty of descriptions of it. But Napoleon sits
(14:48):
down with the defeated Alexander, and they spend all day together.
Apparently they embraced at the end. Like I said, the
wine was flowing, the respect was flowing back and forth.
Whether Napoleon's respect was genuine or not, I can't say that.
(15:10):
I've read people who say it was. I've read people
who said it was a big put on. But here's
something you should understand, because this will probably apply many, many,
many times during this little tale. Alexander looked up to Napoleon,
and pretty much everyone else did to even the people
who hated him. It was undeniable that the man knew
(15:32):
how to command. The man was an amazing general. His
men looked up to him, His generals looked up to him,
foreign generals, foreign kings. Even the ones who hated him
and feared him, they all acknowledged ah kind of a superstar,
really a superstar. So Alexander's sitting there. Obviously, Napoleon can
(15:55):
do with Alexander as he pleases. Bego's pretty easy on him.
He did, however, insist on something you may have heard
of before. Napoleon insisted that Alexander participate in what is
known as the continental system. Now, what does that mean?
(16:17):
The Continental system. When Napoleon had this problem with Britain.
Britain did not like Napoleon. Napoleon did not like Britain.
Napoleon could not cross that English Channel to go beat
up on the Brits because the British navy at this
(16:37):
time was by far the finest in the world. Napoleon's
army would simply die on the high seas. Well, that's
a problem. So what do you do if you can't
cross the water and go get them now at this time,
they can't cross the water and come get you, but
you can't go get them. All right, there are many
(16:58):
different ways to fight a war, not just bombs, bullets
and swords. Napoleon decides, okay, I'll starve them to death. Essentially,
he puts in a system, the continental system. He's conquered Europe,
beaten up on Russia, and he's now told them all
(17:19):
no more buying anything from Britain, no more selling anything
to Britain. Britain is cut off. They are persona on grata.
That led to problems. Hang on, this is the Jesse
Kelly Show. It is the Jesse Kelly Show. On a
(17:41):
fantastic Monday. Remember you can email the show Jesse at
jesse kellyshow dot com. If you're just joining us, just
jump right in. We're doing a little history, Napoleon's invasion
of Russia, retreat from Russia, so on, and so forth.
But we're pre war right now. Pre war. Napoleon puts
in the Continental system after slapping around all of Europe
(18:01):
and tells them no more buying goods from the UK,
no more selling goods to the UK. Now, the thing
about economies is this, many people throughout history have tried
very hard, for various reasons, some good, some bad, to
control in economy, to control where the money flows. No
(18:25):
buy this, don't buy that, No more of this, do
more of that. But economies really are too big to
ever totally be controlled. Britain bought a lot of things,
Britain sold a lot of things. You start telling these
countries who have economies of their own, you start telling
(18:49):
them their number one customer is now no longer allowed.
It's going to create problems. Now, speaking of problems, let's
go to Rush. Because I already told you Alexander very
much admired Napoleon. Alexander liked how he was treated by Napoleon.
Napoleon just wanted him in the fold. Hey, come do
(19:10):
your thing, keep your thrones. All good, you're the czar.
It's no more dealing with Britain. Other than otherwise we're
pretty good. There were other things involved, but other otherwise
we're pretty good, right, But there is also there's this
part of it. When we think about past monarchs, kings, czars,
things like that, we oftentimes make the mistake of thinking
(19:33):
they are all powerful, all powerful. I can't think of
very many people in history. I'm trying to think, well, whatever,
I'm not going to waste time on it. I can't
think of very many people in history who were quote
all powerful. No matter how powerful that czar, the king,
(19:54):
the dictator, the general, whatever it is, he has people
around him, powerful people around him, people around him he
kind of has to listen to. He can make one mad,
he can take make too mad. If he makes too
many mad, he ends up with his head chopped off.
(20:15):
Kings are not all powerful either. Alexander has a lot
of people around him who are unbelievably displeased with this
Napoleon guy, with this continental system, and with the results
of the Continental system as it pertains to Russia. One
of those people I should note was the tsar's sister.
(20:38):
You see, she was previously residing over in mainland Europe,
and then after Napoleon slapped anyone around, he sent her
back home to Russia. And she did not take kindly
to that. Not a big Napoleon fan, that one. And
so she's in Alexander's ear every day. Screw Napoleon, go
to wars, screw him, screw him, screw him. But the
Russian economy just it started to collapse. The Russian dollar,
(21:04):
I know it wasn't called the dollar. I just do
that because I'm an ugly American, the Russian dollar because
goods are not flowing to and fro is collapsing. And again,
I want to stress, even a czar and the all
powerful Russia, all these troops around him, all these guns, swords,
all these things, he cannot afford too many rebellious people
(21:29):
back at home. And if there's one thing every single
leader in history has always understood, if people start starving,
there are gonna be problems on the home front, and
he's running into problems on the home front, too many
problems to ignore. Russia can no longer continue this continental system.
(21:52):
They have to get goods flowing again. And now there's
a problem. Napoleon is not going to take kindly to
that at all. So in eighteen ten, think about this,
Think how crazy this is. In eighteen ten, two years
before the war begins, the war began. This is right.
(22:15):
I mean both countries by eighteen ten knew war was coming,
and they were starting to act like war was coming.
And during this time, Alexander and Napoleon are exchanging all
kinds of letters. Hey are we still friends? I feel
like we're friends. Shouldn't we be friends again? Hey, let's
(22:35):
get and you know what else is while don't think
times have changed now. Both leaders, both of them were highly,
highly interested in selling the coming war to their own people.
Remember when I was talking about Trump and Iran before
it began, and I said, he has to sell it.
He's got to sell it. People have to buy you,
and he's got to sell it. I rubbed a lot
(22:57):
of people the wrong way. But that's the same with
every ever. When you are going to march your country
off to war, there will be trouble on the home
front because wars are tough and expensive and tragic and
all these things. You have to get the people to
buy in. Napoleon wants to go to war with Russia
because they're not obeying his demands. Russia wants to go
(23:19):
to war with Napoleon because his demands are ridiculous and
the collapse in the economy. Neither man wants to look
like the aggressor. They're all trying to play that he
started a game. They are spying on each other relentlessly,
and so each side knows preparations are coming. Now pause
(23:41):
for a second. We always have the benefit of hindsight.
All human beings do you do? And we can sit
here in the year twenty twenty six, and we can
look back, and we can say, wait a minute, Peter
the Great invaded Russia and just got wiped out. Napoleon
(24:02):
invades Russia, gets wiped out. Hitler invades Russian gets wiped out.
These people don't they learn Pause for a second. By
the time Napoleon is gearing up, there was obviously Peter
who didn't fare so well in Russia, but Napoleon only
(24:24):
has that example. Now combine that with this. Napoleon has
spent his entire military career doing things people told him
he could not do, doing things people told him weren't possible.
You can't defeat that army. You can't do this, You
(24:48):
can't accomplish that. And Napoleon, because he was a freaking genius,
accomplished it every single time. Napoleon had many many advisors.
He had many great men around him, and scumbags around
him too, like all leaders do. He had many many
advisors around him telling him, Hey, we can't invade Russia. Man,
(25:12):
you can't. You can't physically invade Russia. It's too big,
the climate is too bad, it's too poor, which we're
gonna get to in a little bit. That's a big
part of this story. It's too poor. It's just the
land isn't fertile enough. We can't go in there. But
Napoleon had other men around him who thought Napoleon could
(25:32):
walk on water. And at this point in time, now
look again, without with the benefit of hindsight, we can
see differently, But at this point in time, it's a
pretty justifiable thing to think that Napoleon can pull off anything.
If Napoleon said he was gonna walk on water, you
had every reason to believe he might be walking on
(25:53):
water soon, because that's what he did. So Napoleon says, no,
we're gonna go to war. We're going to go to war. Now.
Now we come to a strategic problem. And many people
have argued whether this doomed him or not. But the
strategic problem was this for Napoleon, he wanted to go
(26:17):
to war with Russia. He wanted to defeat Russia. He
did not want to completely annihilate Russia or the Russians
or the Czar even he wanted to whip them and
then bring them back into the fold. War is very difficult,
no matter what. Going to war halfway has proven to
(26:39):
be impossible time and time and time again. We'll be back,
Jesse Kelly. It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a fantastic,
wonderful Monday, Medal of honor money which we already did. Remember.
You can email the show Jesse Jesse Kelly Show dot com,
(27:01):
Jesse at Jesse Kellyshow dot com, Your love, your hate,
your death threats, all are welcome. All right, back to
our little story here. So both sides, France and Russia
are preparing for war. But I have to clarify what
I mean. Both sides, France and Russia are preparing for war.
(27:22):
Russia's preparing for war. Yes, Russia has some allies, but
by now Napoleon. Remember, Napoleon has conquered really all of Europe.
It wasn't all of it, but it was all of Europe.
They were under his thumb. This is always sold as
France's war, and they were certainly half of the army.
(27:43):
But Napoleon had sovereign countries. Yes, they were under him,
but he now demanded troops from these countries. They were
French here, there were Italians here, there were a Germans here,
they were there are more nations that I care to
list for you. They were having to gather troops up.
(28:06):
They were having to gather their troops up and get
them to Napoleon. Again. I know this is nerdy, but
I've done it before and it really helps me. Maybe
it helps you. I want you to look at a map.
Don't worry about doing all of it. Just look at
a map of Europe. Look at Italy. Now look over
at the border of Russia. Now think about this. No planes,
(28:30):
no trains, no automobiles. You have to gather up troops,
maybe you don't even have them. You have to conscript them,
you have to train them. Then once you equip them,
you have to get them from Italy up to the
front line with Russia. Now, let's stop on this, because
we're going to touch on this many times throughout this story.
(28:52):
Are you looking at that Russian border? Are you looking
at the size of this country. It's not like you
have to go to one spot. You are going to
need multiple armies gathered at multiple different places along the
Russian border in order to facilitate this invasion. And yes,
(29:14):
if you're an ally of Napoleon, you're under Napoleon. You're conquered,
you're bested, he's in charge. You got all that, But
you still have a country to run too. You have
to you have people to feed, you have an economy,
you have you have things to do. Napoleon, because he's
trying to assemble the largest army the world has ever seen.
(29:38):
Napoleon is twisting arms with allies all across Europe to
send him every single thing they have, and it doesn't
always land that well, don't get me wrong, they do it,
but it's not a yeah, we're so excited to send
you fifty thousand men at this point in time, it's
(29:59):
a problem. Now, that's that part of it. Now let's
walk through this part of it. I mentioned Look at
Italy and look at that border with Russia. Do you
have any idea what it would be like to walk
from Italy to Russia. Do you have any idea how
(30:21):
much food you would need not to invade Russia to
get to Russia for all these troops from all these
different countries. Oh, and I should probably mention this because
we don't think about this, at least I don't. I
oftentimes skip over this when I'm thinking about the logistics
of all this. It's not just you a dude with
(30:44):
a pack on your back. You have animals, lots of them, horses, oxen.
Do you have any idea how much food or horse
eats in a day? The estimates I saw most to
them for this war around twenty pounds a day. Twenty
(31:06):
pounds of food a day. Now, think about the logistics.
Eventually this army is going to be six hundred thousand men,
little more than but we're just going to stick with
six hundred thousand. Think about how much food food alone,
you need to provide for six hundred thousand men, their horses,
(31:28):
their oxen, their everything else. And this is why these
men are getting to the border twelve hundred miles. Twelve
hundred miles. If you got in your car right now
and started driving down the highway at highway speeds and
you wanted to drive twelve hundred miles, that's what Chris
(31:50):
fourteen hours, fifteen hours, that's you blazon seventy down the highway.
Now go at the speed of an ox. How long
is this going to take? And there's something else, And
I hope logistics don't bore you, because logistics are pretty
much everything in this war. Don't get wrong. There's plenty
of battles and blood will get to that. You're breaking
(32:15):
down as you go breaking down in what way? First
the individual soldier his gear is going to break at
various times. So you on top of food and bullets
and things like that, you have to have spare gear,
spare boots, spare this, spare that. You have to have
(32:36):
an unbelievable amount of medical supplies because guys are inevitably
in this kind of movement they're going to be getting
sick along the way, so you have to stockpile medical supplies.
This is logistically just getting an army of six hundred
(32:56):
thousand to the border is an absolute feet. And here's
something else that's going to come into play more and
more as we go. You're losing men along the way,
losing them to desertion. Men. Think about this. I mentioned Italy.
I'll just keep coming back to them. By the way,
(33:17):
there were many other countries. I'm just sticking with this
one for simplicity's sake. You're an Italian farmer, wife, kids,
trying to get by. Government comes and says, hey, here's
a gun in the uniform, go to Russia. Wait a minute,
what why I don't want to go to Russia? How
(33:41):
many men do you have to do that too? Before
you start finding men who say, oh you guys, smart on,
I'm gonna I'm gonna hit the head real quick, and
then you never see them again. You're bleeding men before
the war ever begins, just trying to get sick one
hundred thousand men to the border of Russia already before
(34:06):
a shot has been fired in anger. It is a
pain in the butt in a nightmary scenario. And we
will continue that tomorrow. All right. For now, we're going
to get back to politics. You just gonna have to
wait a day and I'll finish up the rest of it.
We'll be back.
This is a Jesse Kelly Show, The Jesse Kelly Show,
another hour of the Jesse Kelly Show on a spectacular Monday.
So you know what time it is. We're about to
do Medal of Honor Monday. And then when I'm done
with Medal of Honor Monday, then we're gonna get into
some history Napoleon Invasion of Russia. That's gonna take longer
(00:36):
than just today. Could wrap it up. Tomorrow, I don't know,
might last till Friday. I have no earthly idea. I
don't plan the thing out. I'm just gonna kind of
tell you what happened. We'll see how it goes from there,
and we'll get back to politics next hour. All right, Now,
nothing changes the fact that it's Medal of Honor Monday.
(00:57):
Started the second hour. Every Monday, we read the Medal
of Honor, citation and honor a hero. It is important.
You can do this with your family, you can do
this by yourself, and we do take email recommendations on
top of your love and your hate and your death threats.
If you have ones you like, you're welcome to this guy,
says dear two four hundon. That's German for devil dog.
(01:18):
That's what the Germans called the Marines. You always do
Marine Corps or Army Medal of Honor recipients, but not
enough Navy. The US Navy Hospital Corps is the most
decorated in the Navy. You should do Robert E. Bush
show Doc Bush, Some Love Love the show, change his
socks and drink some water. And this is from a doc.
(01:41):
All right. So before we get to the actual Medal
of Honor citation, let me set up a couple things
because this took place on Okinawa in World War two,
World War two in the Pacific. First, what's he talking about,
doc and things like that? All right? You know how
the army has medics. You ever seen an army a
mediac where they're shouting that the Marine Corps doesn't have medics.
(02:05):
The quote medic in a Marine Corps platoon is actually
not even a Marine. He's in the Navy. He's called
a corman, Navy corman. Right now, he does have to
hump a bunch of weight with US Marines. He does
have to sleep in the misery and experience all these
things with US Marines. So docs are kind of sacred
(02:29):
in the Marine Corps. They're always considered honorary Marines. You
guard your dock with your life because he will save
your life. They're total studs. I mean think about that.
Who signs up to join the navy and then goes,
you know, I want to go roll around in the
dirt with a misery with the Marines. So these dudes
are good. Right now, onto Okinawa. Remember, Okinawa was the
(02:52):
final stop before mainland Japan, and Japan knew this, and
not only did they know this because of its proximity
to Japan and because of how much time they had
to make preparations. Okinawa was a fortress in every sense
of the word. And the Japanese had learned through our
(03:13):
campaign in the Pacific. They learned what we did, what
we didn't do, what fortifications, What could they put up
that would work, What could they put up that wouldn't work.
So they had an entire war to learn what to do.
And one of the things they learned was it's completely
pointless to try to stop Americans on the beach. Why
(03:37):
because we have so much naval power, just the naval
guns alone, we have such incredible air power that any
defenses you set up along the beach, our naval guns
are air power. We're going to wipe out not all
of them, because that's impossible, but most of them. So
(03:58):
you don't waste valuable resources throwing a bunch of machine
gun nests on the beach, because we're just gonna stray
those and bomb those and they'll be gone. And now
you wasted the men and the guns. Now they're gone.
What they learned was let them take the beach. They're
gonna take the beach anyway. Can't keep them off the beach.
Suck them into the interior of the island. Pick a spot,
(04:24):
or several spots, obviously, pick a spot that you can
fortify using the natural environment, and you fight them where
you want to fight them. That is what made Okinawa
a living hell, believe it or not. And when we
landed in Okinawa, our guys thought it was odd. They
(04:45):
thought it was beautiful. There was no fighting, it was
completely quiet. If you go read books about it, you'll
find the Marines they'd buy a pig from the local villagers.
They're drinking beer and having pig roasts. For the first
couple of days. Life is good. This is cake, right. No.
As we got closer to the interior of the island.
(05:06):
We started to face off against things like Shurie Castle.
You can go look it up. It's fascinating. And men
died and droves and the rain came down and it
was just a nightmare from hell. So without further ado,
this man was born in Tacoma, Washington, Robert Eugene Bush.
He was born October fourth, nineteen twenty six. Right, Hey,
(05:31):
honoring those who went above and beyond. It's Medal of
Honor Monday for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk
of his life above and beyond the call of duty
while serving as a medical corman with a rifle company
(05:51):
in action against enemy Japanese forces on Okinawa Jima, Ryuku Islands,
tewond of May nineteen four five. It's stop real quick,
pause for a second. I mean you can keep music clank, Chris,
but remember Jima. Like you've heard of Ewo Jima. They
just call this Okinawa Jima. That's just island. That's what
that means in Japanese. This is island. Whenever you hear they're
(06:12):
all gema because they're islands. Right, Fearlessly braving the fury
of artillery, mortar and machine gun fire from strongly entrenched
hostile positions, Bush constantly and unhesitatingly moved from one casualty
to another to attend the wounded falling under the enemy's
murderous barrages. As the attack passed over a ridgetop, Bush
(06:34):
would have was advancing to administer blood plasma to a
marine officer lying wounded on the skyline when the Japanese
launched a savage counter attack. In this perilously exposed position,
he resolutely maintained the flow of life giving plasma. With
the bottle held high in one hand, Bush drew his
(06:54):
pistol with the other, then fired into the enemy ranks
until his ammunition was expended. Quickly seizing a discarded carbine,
he trained his fire on the Japanese, charging point blank
over the hill, accounting for six of the enemy, despite
his own serious wounds and the loss of one eye
suffered during his desperate battle in defense of the helpless men.
(07:18):
With the hostile force finally routed, he calmly disregarded his
own critical condition to complete his mission, valiantly refusing medical
treatment for himself until his officer patient had been evacuated,
and collapsing only after attempting to walk to the battle
aid station. His daring initiative, great personal valor, and heroic
(07:39):
spirit of self sacrifice and service of others reflects great
credit upon Bush and enhance the finest traditions of the
US Naval Service. And in case you were wondering, he
did not die. He lived, married kids, He lived I
think to two thousand five five, died of cancer in
(08:01):
two thousand and five. So he went on and had
a very long, happy life. You have to respect the
doc who's holding up blood plasma in one hand and
smoking Japanese troops with his pistol in the other hand.
That's freaking awesome. And that is very much Okinawa, where
we would take hilltops, then they would counterattack and take
it back. Then we would counterattack and take it back.
(08:23):
And part of the agony of Okinawa is our guys
kept dying for the same hilltop, and then they lose
a hilltop, then they take the same hilltop. Chris said,
did they shoot the medics, but is a Japanese They
shot everybody the Japanese. Oh yeah, the Japanese would prioritize
anybody they thought, well, uniquely would there were no rules
(08:44):
of warfare. The way they fought World War two, yet
nothing at all. They bombed Red Cross ships. I mean,
Deptese didn't care about anything at all. That's why a
bunch of those guys ended up having to go to
the gallows after the war. Because there were some war crimes,
like a lot of a lot of war crimes, a
shocking number of war crimes, we'll put it that way. Now,
(09:06):
have you ever heard of the Patriotic War? What a name,
right you? Many people have discussed, many books, many books,
countless books have been written about Napoleon's invasion of Russia,
disastrous invasion of Russia, and it's always labeled as that
(09:27):
Napoleon's invasion of Russia. That's what I've always known it as.
That's what I call it. But in Russia it was
called the Patriotic War. Now let me set this up
for you. This is the year eighteen twelve, Yes, that
eighteen twelve, you know, the one where we went round
two with the Brits, that very same eighteen twelve. During
(09:48):
this time, there is a man who is by any
account a brilliant, brilliant commander, and his name is Napoleon Bonaparte.
You obviously have heard Napole I'm not going to insult
your intelligence. Napoleon is one of these guys, insanely capable,
(10:08):
insanely cocky. He has a million great quotes, and I'm
gonna screw this one up, but it's pretty close to accurate.
He said towards the end of his life, I fought
sixty battles. I didn't learn anything throughout those fights that
I didn't know before I went into him. He's like,
I always knew what was going on. So it's eighteen
(10:28):
twelve and things are happening in Europe and Napoleon is
about to send one of the largest armies the world
has ever seen into Russia. And for every twelve men
that go in, too, we'll see home again. We'll talk
about that in a moment. We'll be back misstost Catch
(10:51):
up Jesse kellyshow dot com. It is The Jesse Kelly
Show on a Wonderful Monday. If you met sed any
part of the show, you can download at iHeart Spotify iTunes.
Back to the beginning of our little tale in eighteen twelve,
Napoleon launches an invasion of Russia. But we cannot start
(11:13):
there because it would not make sense. So I struggled
with this one on where exactly to begin. We're going
to begin after Napoleon has been slapping around all of Europe.
Napoleon is, like I said, he was this brilliant commander.
He's coming into power at a time where Europe was
(11:33):
experiencing all this upheaval. There was so much dissatisfaction throughout
Europe with this king and da Queen and this leadership
the people. The people were really ready to get rid
of all this stuff. Napoleon comes along. He's not only
a brilliant military commander, he's promising people things like right now,
(11:57):
when I say that, I don't want to act like
Napoleon was this tremendously benevolent dictator. That's not what I'm saying.
But what I'm saying is he was selling something the
other kings and queens, the old monarchs were not selling.
You are a citizen, you have rights. So he goes
and he starts crushing all the armies that stand up
(12:20):
against him in Europe. Russia, not an ally. Russia decides
they want to get in on the action and they
want to test their will against Napoleon. And that was
a bad idea because Napoleon slapped the crap out of
them too. All right, well, now you got a problem.
(12:43):
But Napoleon was one of these guys. He could be
after he defeated you, he could be pretty wonderful as
far as the victor goes. Now, he had ulterior motives
for this, But if Napoleon defeated you in battle, he
didn't want you've flayed alive with your skins hanging from
(13:03):
the city walls like an Assyrian king. He was of
course going to be in charge, but he just really
wanted to bring you into the fold. So if he
goes to war with you and your country, once he
has whipped you on the battlefield, he's probably gonna be
pretty nice to you about many things. Let you keep this,
you keep that. Of course, you're gonna have to send
(13:25):
troops when I tell you to send troops, and I'm
gonna tell you you're allowed to do this and not
allowed to do that. So don't get me wrong, He's
definitely going to be in charge. But it's not the
end of the world. So there's this treaty. Don't worry
about the nerdy details, remember, but in case you're curious,
you can go look it up. It's called the Treaty
of Tilsit. The Treaty of Tilsit, right, I'll explain it
(13:47):
this way. The head of Russia it was a tzar.
You know this. Before the Kami's destroyed that country. Russia
was ruled by kings that you would know as tsars.
Alexander is a king, he's a monarch, but we'll call
him a czar. Czar Alexander Alexander, having been defeated, he
(14:07):
has a meeting with Napoleon. I would love there are
all kinds of paintings of it. Obviously there was no
photographs at the time. I would love to have a
picture of video, to be a fly on the wall.
One of those questions, what would you go look at
in history if you had a time machine. This is
one of those moments I wish I could have just
(14:28):
sat in, because here's what they did. They met on
a raft, a raft and a river. Now, believe me,
it was quite nice. The food and wine were flowing.
I'm sure it was all covered up, and the paintings
I've seen were that it was covered up. I'm sure
there are plenty of descriptions of it. But Napoleon sits
(14:48):
down with the defeated Alexander, and they spend all day together.
Apparently they embraced at the end. Like I said, the
wine was flowing, the respect was flowing back and forth.
Whether Napoleon's respect was genuine or not, I can't say that.
(15:10):
I've read people who say it was. I've read people
who said it was a big put on. But here's
something you should understand, because this will probably apply many, many,
many times during this little tale. Alexander looked up to Napoleon,
and pretty much everyone else did to even the people
who hated him. It was undeniable that the man knew
(15:32):
how to command. The man was an amazing general. His
men looked up to him, His generals looked up to him,
foreign generals, foreign kings. Even the ones who hated him
and feared him, they all acknowledged ah kind of a superstar,
really a superstar. So Alexander's sitting there. Obviously, Napoleon can
(15:55):
do with Alexander as he pleases. Bego's pretty easy on him.
He did, however, insist on something you may have heard
of before. Napoleon insisted that Alexander participate in what is
known as the continental system. Now, what does that mean?
(16:17):
The Continental system. When Napoleon had this problem with Britain.
Britain did not like Napoleon. Napoleon did not like Britain.
Napoleon could not cross that English Channel to go beat
up on the Brits because the British navy at this
(16:37):
time was by far the finest in the world. Napoleon's
army would simply die on the high seas. Well, that's
a problem. So what do you do if you can't
cross the water and go get them now at this time,
they can't cross the water and come get you, but
you can't go get them. All right, there are many
(16:58):
different ways to fight a war, not just bombs, bullets
and swords. Napoleon decides, okay, I'll starve them to death. Essentially,
he puts in a system, the continental system. He's conquered Europe,
beaten up on Russia, and he's now told them all
(17:19):
no more buying anything from Britain, no more selling anything
to Britain. Britain is cut off. They are persona on grata.
That led to problems. Hang on, this is the Jesse
Kelly Show. It is the Jesse Kelly Show. On a
(17:41):
fantastic Monday. Remember you can email the show Jesse at
jesse kellyshow dot com. If you're just joining us, just
jump right in. We're doing a little history, Napoleon's invasion
of Russia, retreat from Russia, so on, and so forth.
But we're pre war right now. Pre war. Napoleon puts
in the Continental system after slapping around all of Europe
(18:01):
and tells them no more buying goods from the UK,
no more selling goods to the UK. Now, the thing
about economies is this, many people throughout history have tried
very hard, for various reasons, some good, some bad, to
control in economy, to control where the money flows. No
(18:25):
buy this, don't buy that, No more of this, do
more of that. But economies really are too big to
ever totally be controlled. Britain bought a lot of things,
Britain sold a lot of things. You start telling these
countries who have economies of their own, you start telling
(18:49):
them their number one customer is now no longer allowed.
It's going to create problems. Now, speaking of problems, let's
go to Rush. Because I already told you Alexander very
much admired Napoleon. Alexander liked how he was treated by Napoleon.
Napoleon just wanted him in the fold. Hey, come do
(19:10):
your thing, keep your thrones. All good, you're the czar.
It's no more dealing with Britain. Other than otherwise we're
pretty good. There were other things involved, but other otherwise
we're pretty good, right, But there is also there's this
part of it. When we think about past monarchs, kings, czars,
things like that, we oftentimes make the mistake of thinking
(19:33):
they are all powerful, all powerful. I can't think of
very many people in history. I'm trying to think, well, whatever,
I'm not going to waste time on it. I can't
think of very many people in history who were quote
all powerful. No matter how powerful that czar, the king,
(19:54):
the dictator, the general, whatever it is, he has people
around him, powerful people around him, people around him he
kind of has to listen to. He can make one mad,
he can take make too mad. If he makes too
many mad, he ends up with his head chopped off.
(20:15):
Kings are not all powerful either. Alexander has a lot
of people around him who are unbelievably displeased with this
Napoleon guy, with this continental system, and with the results
of the Continental system as it pertains to Russia. One
of those people I should note was the tsar's sister.
(20:38):
You see, she was previously residing over in mainland Europe,
and then after Napoleon slapped anyone around, he sent her
back home to Russia. And she did not take kindly
to that. Not a big Napoleon fan, that one. And
so she's in Alexander's ear every day. Screw Napoleon, go
to wars, screw him, screw him, screw him. But the
Russian economy just it started to collapse. The Russian dollar,
(21:04):
I know it wasn't called the dollar. I just do
that because I'm an ugly American, the Russian dollar because
goods are not flowing to and fro is collapsing. And again,
I want to stress, even a czar and the all
powerful Russia, all these troops around him, all these guns, swords,
all these things, he cannot afford too many rebellious people
(21:29):
back at home. And if there's one thing every single
leader in history has always understood, if people start starving,
there are gonna be problems on the home front, and
he's running into problems on the home front, too many
problems to ignore. Russia can no longer continue this continental system.
(21:52):
They have to get goods flowing again. And now there's
a problem. Napoleon is not going to take kindly to
that at all. So in eighteen ten, think about this,
Think how crazy this is. In eighteen ten, two years
before the war begins, the war began. This is right.
(22:15):
I mean both countries by eighteen ten knew war was coming,
and they were starting to act like war was coming.
And during this time, Alexander and Napoleon are exchanging all
kinds of letters. Hey are we still friends? I feel
like we're friends. Shouldn't we be friends again? Hey, let's
(22:35):
get and you know what else is while don't think
times have changed now. Both leaders, both of them were highly,
highly interested in selling the coming war to their own people.
Remember when I was talking about Trump and Iran before
it began, and I said, he has to sell it.
He's got to sell it. People have to buy you,
and he's got to sell it. I rubbed a lot
(22:57):
of people the wrong way. But that's the same with
every ever. When you are going to march your country
off to war, there will be trouble on the home
front because wars are tough and expensive and tragic and
all these things. You have to get the people to
buy in. Napoleon wants to go to war with Russia
because they're not obeying his demands. Russia wants to go
(23:19):
to war with Napoleon because his demands are ridiculous and
the collapse in the economy. Neither man wants to look
like the aggressor. They're all trying to play that he
started a game. They are spying on each other relentlessly,
and so each side knows preparations are coming. Now pause
(23:41):
for a second. We always have the benefit of hindsight.
All human beings do you do? And we can sit
here in the year twenty twenty six, and we can
look back, and we can say, wait a minute, Peter
the Great invaded Russia and just got wiped out. Napoleon
(24:02):
invades Russia, gets wiped out. Hitler invades Russian gets wiped out.
These people don't they learn Pause for a second. By
the time Napoleon is gearing up, there was obviously Peter
who didn't fare so well in Russia, but Napoleon only
(24:24):
has that example. Now combine that with this. Napoleon has
spent his entire military career doing things people told him
he could not do, doing things people told him weren't possible.
You can't defeat that army. You can't do this, You
(24:48):
can't accomplish that. And Napoleon, because he was a freaking genius,
accomplished it every single time. Napoleon had many many advisors.
He had many great men around him, and scumbags around
him too, like all leaders do. He had many many
advisors around him telling him, Hey, we can't invade Russia. Man,
(25:12):
you can't. You can't physically invade Russia. It's too big,
the climate is too bad, it's too poor, which we're
gonna get to in a little bit. That's a big
part of this story. It's too poor. It's just the
land isn't fertile enough. We can't go in there. But
Napoleon had other men around him who thought Napoleon could
(25:32):
walk on water. And at this point in time, now
look again, without with the benefit of hindsight, we can
see differently, But at this point in time, it's a
pretty justifiable thing to think that Napoleon can pull off anything.
If Napoleon said he was gonna walk on water, you
had every reason to believe he might be walking on
(25:53):
water soon, because that's what he did. So Napoleon says, no,
we're gonna go to war. We're going to go to war. Now.
Now we come to a strategic problem. And many people
have argued whether this doomed him or not. But the
strategic problem was this for Napoleon, he wanted to go
(26:17):
to war with Russia. He wanted to defeat Russia. He
did not want to completely annihilate Russia or the Russians
or the Czar even he wanted to whip them and
then bring them back into the fold. War is very difficult,
no matter what. Going to war halfway has proven to
(26:39):
be impossible time and time and time again. We'll be back,
Jesse Kelly. It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a fantastic,
wonderful Monday, Medal of honor money which we already did. Remember.
You can email the show Jesse Jesse Kelly Show dot com,
(27:01):
Jesse at Jesse Kellyshow dot com, Your love, your hate,
your death threats, all are welcome. All right, back to
our little story here. So both sides, France and Russia
are preparing for war. But I have to clarify what
I mean. Both sides, France and Russia are preparing for war.
(27:22):
Russia's preparing for war. Yes, Russia has some allies, but
by now Napoleon. Remember, Napoleon has conquered really all of Europe.
It wasn't all of it, but it was all of Europe.
They were under his thumb. This is always sold as
France's war, and they were certainly half of the army.
(27:43):
But Napoleon had sovereign countries. Yes, they were under him,
but he now demanded troops from these countries. They were
French here, there were Italians here, there were a Germans here,
they were there are more nations that I care to
list for you. They were having to gather troops up.
(28:06):
They were having to gather their troops up and get
them to Napoleon. Again. I know this is nerdy, but
I've done it before and it really helps me. Maybe
it helps you. I want you to look at a map.
Don't worry about doing all of it. Just look at
a map of Europe. Look at Italy. Now look over
at the border of Russia. Now think about this. No planes,
(28:30):
no trains, no automobiles. You have to gather up troops,
maybe you don't even have them. You have to conscript them,
you have to train them. Then once you equip them,
you have to get them from Italy up to the
front line with Russia. Now, let's stop on this, because
we're going to touch on this many times throughout this story.
(28:52):
Are you looking at that Russian border? Are you looking
at the size of this country. It's not like you
have to go to one spot. You are going to
need multiple armies gathered at multiple different places along the
Russian border in order to facilitate this invasion. And yes,
(29:14):
if you're an ally of Napoleon, you're under Napoleon. You're conquered,
you're bested, he's in charge. You got all that, But
you still have a country to run too. You have
to you have people to feed, you have an economy,
you have you have things to do. Napoleon, because he's
trying to assemble the largest army the world has ever seen.
(29:38):
Napoleon is twisting arms with allies all across Europe to
send him every single thing they have, and it doesn't
always land that well, don't get me wrong, they do it,
but it's not a yeah, we're so excited to send
you fifty thousand men at this point in time, it's
(29:59):
a problem. Now, that's that part of it. Now let's
walk through this part of it. I mentioned Look at
Italy and look at that border with Russia. Do you
have any idea what it would be like to walk
from Italy to Russia. Do you have any idea how
(30:21):
much food you would need not to invade Russia to
get to Russia for all these troops from all these
different countries. Oh, and I should probably mention this because
we don't think about this, at least I don't. I
oftentimes skip over this when I'm thinking about the logistics
of all this. It's not just you a dude with
(30:44):
a pack on your back. You have animals, lots of them, horses, oxen.
Do you have any idea how much food or horse
eats in a day? The estimates I saw most to
them for this war around twenty pounds a day. Twenty
(31:06):
pounds of food a day. Now, think about the logistics.
Eventually this army is going to be six hundred thousand men,
little more than but we're just going to stick with
six hundred thousand. Think about how much food food alone,
you need to provide for six hundred thousand men, their horses,
(31:28):
their oxen, their everything else. And this is why these
men are getting to the border twelve hundred miles. Twelve
hundred miles. If you got in your car right now
and started driving down the highway at highway speeds and
you wanted to drive twelve hundred miles, that's what Chris
(31:50):
fourteen hours, fifteen hours, that's you blazon seventy down the highway.
Now go at the speed of an ox. How long
is this going to take? And there's something else, And
I hope logistics don't bore you, because logistics are pretty
much everything in this war. Don't get wrong. There's plenty
of battles and blood will get to that. You're breaking
(32:15):
down as you go breaking down in what way? First
the individual soldier his gear is going to break at
various times. So you on top of food and bullets
and things like that, you have to have spare gear,
spare boots, spare this, spare that. You have to have
(32:36):
an unbelievable amount of medical supplies because guys are inevitably
in this kind of movement they're going to be getting
sick along the way, so you have to stockpile medical supplies.
This is logistically just getting an army of six hundred
(32:56):
thousand to the border is an absolute feet. And here's
something else that's going to come into play more and
more as we go. You're losing men along the way,
losing them to desertion. Men. Think about this. I mentioned Italy.
I'll just keep coming back to them. By the way,
(33:17):
there were many other countries. I'm just sticking with this
one for simplicity's sake. You're an Italian farmer, wife, kids,
trying to get by. Government comes and says, hey, here's
a gun in the uniform, go to Russia. Wait a minute,
what why I don't want to go to Russia? How
(33:41):
many men do you have to do that too? Before
you start finding men who say, oh you guys, smart on,
I'm gonna I'm gonna hit the head real quick, and
then you never see them again. You're bleeding men before
the war ever begins, just trying to get sick one
hundred thousand men to the border of Russia already before
(34:06):
a shot has been fired in anger. It is a
pain in the butt in a nightmary scenario. And we
will continue that tomorrow. All right. For now, we're going
to get back to politics. You just gonna have to
wait a day and I'll finish up the rest of it.
We'll be back.
Host
Jesse Kelly
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
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