March 24, 2025 • 37 mins
Medal of Honor: George Hall. Who do you send into Italy to distract the Germans? General Lucas sitting at Anzio.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is a Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show. Another hour of the
Jesse Kelly Show on a wonderful Monday. And there's not
probably gonna be any politics this hour. If there is,
it'll be in a little while. I'm sorry, because well,
we'll get to the Pam Bondi stuff next hour. We're
gonna get we'll talk about some cultural Marxism issues next
(00:37):
hour because of something that's been happening in America. I'll
get to all that, just not yet, because it's time
for Medal of Honor Monday. And after Medal of Honor Monday,
I should say, kind of around Medal of Honor Monday,
we're gonna do another little history tale. I'm gonna walk
our way through a huge w W two battle and
(00:59):
we're WLD War two, and I think you'll find it interesting,
not one of the ones a lot of people know
a lot about, but man, an ugly, ugly affair. But
before we get there, we are going to do what
we always do on Monday at this time, and that's
where're gonna We're gonna take a Medal of Honor citation
and we're gonna read it. That's it. We're gonna read
(01:21):
about this hero, about his deeds. After I'm done reading it,
we're gonna go right into the history story and learn
more about the battles surrounding it. This particular gentleman was
born in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. His name is George John Hall.
George J. Hall, Staff sergeant in the United States Army. So,
(01:42):
without further ado, hey.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Honoring those who went above and beyond. It's Medal of
Honor Monday.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life,
above and beyond the call of duty. Attacking across flat,
open terrain under direct enemy observation, Staff Sergeant Hall's company
was pinned down by grazing fire from three enemy machine
guns and harassing sniper fire. Staff Sergeant Hall volunteered to
(02:18):
eliminate these obstacles in the path of advance. Crawling along
a plowed furrow through furious machine gun fire, he made
his way to a point within hand grenade range of
one of the enemy positions. He pounded the enemy with
four hand grenades, and when the smoke had died away,
Staff Sergeant Hall in two dead Germans occupied the position
(02:42):
while four of the enemy were crawling back to our
lines as prisoners. Discovering a quantity of German potato masher
grenades in the position, Staff Sergeant Hall engaged the second
enemy nest in a deadly exchange of grenades. Each time
he exposed himself to throw a grenade, the Germans fired
(03:02):
machine gun bursts at him. The vicious duel finally ended
in Staff Sergeant Hall's favor, with five of the enemies
surrendered and five others lay dead. Turning his attention to
the third machine gun, Staff Sergeant Hall left his position
and crawled along a furrow, the enemy firing fanatically in
an effort to halt him. As he neared his final objective,
(03:25):
and enemy artillery concentration fell on the area, and Staff
Sergeant Hall's right leg was severed by a shell burst.
With two enemy machine guns eliminated, his company was able
to flank the third in continue its advance without incurring
excessive casualties. Staff Sergeant Hall's fearlessness, his determined fighting spirit,
(03:46):
and his prodigious combat skill exemplify the heroic tradition of
the American infantryman. And don't worry, that's it. He didn't die,
all right, I know everyone waits that the on to
those things. Look, hey, I do too. The second I'm
going through them, I skip to the end. Did this
guy die? Because they almost all die, right, and then
(04:08):
we have to play taps and we have to be
sad he didn't die. Now, do you believe in the
concept of cursed ground, that there are locations on the
planet that are simply cursed? Chris does not. Chris does not. Corey.
(04:28):
Do you believe in the concept of cursed ground? Corey
doesn't believe in it either, what a couple of cynics.
I do, and I don't even understand really what I
mean by that, except there are places on this Earth
that appear to be the location of way more human
(04:50):
suffering than other places on the Earth, and some places
that can be easily explained. For instance, if you said
Istanbul formerly Constantinople, if you said that was cursed ground
because lots of people have died there, well I would
(05:11):
probably argue with you and say, well, that's such a
geographically perfect location that of course nations are going to
fight over that location, and of course people will die there,
So that would be that would explain it, right, doesn't
explain Haiti Haiti was some of the worst slavery in
(05:34):
this hemisphere, and after they ended that, it somehow got
even worse. Curse ground and it certainly doesn't explain a
place called Antium in the ancient world, or better known
as Anzio in the modern world. You've heard of Nero, correct,
(05:59):
that evil Roman emperor? You know he was from Antium.
He was actually in Antium when Rome was burning. Did
you know that he was not in Rome playing the fiddle?
That's a historical myth. Nero was in his hometown where
he was born, Antium, as Rome burned. Who's another Roman
(06:22):
emperor you consider to be evil? Caligula is normally the
one everyone would name. Guess where Caligula was born, same place, Antium.
Now let's discuss a terrible, terrible affair that may or
may not have been necessary. But we'll discuss everything around
(06:45):
it and what happened at Anzio, and then you can
make up your own mind. I'm going to have opinions
about it. You don't have to share my opinions about it.
You probably shouldn't look into it yourself. Come up with
what you think. Now, let's first we have to talk
about the win. You know, I don't kill you with
details with dates and names and things like that. I
(07:06):
only give a few because details kill a story. But
what was happening at this time matters a lot, and
our minds as we look back at World War Two,
we can get all kinds of screwed up on the
timeline of World War Two, and they were just I mean,
(07:26):
especially the way the Pacific War didn't line up with
the European War, which didn't at all line up with
the Russian invasion of the Soviet It's just there's it
doesn't line up. But where we're at here is nineteen
forty four, and this is well Anzio takes place at
(07:46):
the very beginning January of nineteen forty four. Here's what
you have to understand about what is happening in the
world up to this point in time, or at this
point in time in nineteen forty four. First, the Soviets.
The Soviets, they officially have the Nazi army on the
(08:09):
run out of the Soviet Union, but on the run
probably isn't the best way to put that. Remember, the
German army in World War Two was a very fine
army led by a bunch of outstanding World War one generals.
So it wasn't like they just turned and beat feet
back to Germany. They fought, in most cases a very
(08:32):
orderly withdraw, trying to fight the or trying to fight
the Soviets every step of the way as they slowly
but surely backed away from the Soviet Union. And that
is turning into a brutal slog and a brutal fight.
And the Germans are fighting as harder on the defensive
(08:53):
than they were on the offensives. So that's taking place there.
There's something else taking place. The invasion of Normandy hasn't
happened yet. We understand that Stalin is probably going to fail.
Stalin probably can't pull off his war against the Germans
(09:17):
without our help, without the Allies invading Europe, and that
might be the best case scenario. Meaning if Stalin can prevail,
then we have somebody we didn't trust, somebody we knew
was evil, probably taking over all of Europe, and let's
all be honest, Stalin wasn't going to give it back.
(09:39):
So it wasn't just that you needed Stalin's Red Army
to attack the Nazis. You couldn't allow Stalin to be
alone in his victory over the Germans. Otherwise they'll be
praying for Adolf Hitler back with Stalin. I mean, look,
they're both a picture demon, right, They're horrible. It's a
horrible We have to get into Europe. We have to
(10:02):
get into fortress Europe. They're already starting to focus on
places like Normandy. I will continue with the Macro and
then we'll get into it closer to the Battle of
Anzio in just a moment. Before I do any of
those things, let's stop for just a moment and take
an honest accounting of something. It's about you, It's about
(10:25):
the person you love the most. If a bad man
comes to visit them right now, slips right in that
back door at home, comes up to their car in
the parking lot, approaches them at the gas station, can
that person can you right now stop them? I don't
(10:46):
want to hear about a gun you have at home,
or I'll make a phone. No no, no, no, no no.
You have about ten seconds before that violent felon wraps
his hands around your throat. Can you stop him? If
the answer to that question is though you need a
burna pistol launcher. It is non lethal, so you don't
have to stress. I don't like guns. That's fine, that's fine.
(11:08):
Maybe you love guns like me. I still carry a
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But because it's non lethal, it's legal everywhere all fifty
states without a permit. You just order it. It shoots
a pepper ball or a tear gas ball. That daughter
of yours, who can't fight off the two hundred and
fifty pound barbarian, can pop him in the chest with
(11:30):
one of these. He lays on the ground crying. She
goes home unmolested. Ten percent off b y Rna Berna
dot com, slash Jesse Berna dot com slash Jesse.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
We'll be back Truth Attitude, Jesse Kelly.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday. Of course,
it's been an amazing money. If you miss any part
of the show, download the whole thing on ihard, Spotify, iTunes.
If you're just now joining us, congratulations, you're just catching
us at the beginning of a little bit of Monday
history that'll probably extend into Tuesday and maybe Wednesday. I've
no earthly idea, but it's about the Battle of Anzio
(12:15):
World War II. We haven't even gotten to Anzio yet,
so just stay with me. It's nineteen forty four. We
think of nineteen forty four as when our war, at
least in Europe is about to kick off, and that's true.
But the war in the Pacific has been going on
for years.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
The war with.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
The Soviets, Soviets versus the Germans has been going on
for years. In fact, by this point in time, the
Germans are on the run, running no, but they're leaving
the Soviet Union as orderly as they can. They keep
trying to hang on to a little bit, losing it,
hang on to a little bit, but it is a nasty,
(12:55):
nasty affair going on there. We Americans and the Brits.
We want to get into Europe. It's time to start
fighting the Germans in Europe. Hitler and his generals are
well aware that we're trying to get into Europe. This
is nothing that's going to shock them. They have spies everywhere,
(13:15):
They know about our troop build up in England. They
know we're coming at some point in time. So we
have to figure out where and when do we go in,
and how do we ensure when we go in that
we're not facing every single German soldier who's not currently
(13:36):
fighting in the Soviet Union. Remember this was a very large,
very well equipped, well trained, and well led army. This
is a near peer. At the time, they didn't have
twenty twenty glasses the hindsight twenty twenty glasses we have now.
They were pretty confident in victory, but you never know.
(13:57):
So they had to come up with some way to
the whole Germans away from the Soviet lines and away
from Europe, from northern Europe where we were going we
were planning on coming in. Remember Normandy was June of
nineteen forty four. What I'm describing is January of nineteen
(14:18):
forty four. Not killing you with details, but it gives
you an idea. This is why we did what we did.
And so a lot of this is Churchill's idea, but
I don't want to put it all on Churchill either,
whether you love it or hate the idea, or love
or hate Churchill, Italy was thought of thought of such
a ridiculous notion, looking back on it now as the
(14:40):
soft underbelly of Europe. It was thought of as a
soft underbelly because Italy was defended by Italians at the time.
The Italian army back then under Mussolini was pathetic, pathetic
and embarrassing. All those jokes about the Italian military, they
all come from this time period where they had a small,
(15:00):
poorly equipped, poorly trained army that couldn't take on anybody.
The problem with Italy being the soft underbelly of Europe is, well,
it is until the Italians get replaced by Germans, and
then it ain't anymore. The Italians submit, you know this story. Already,
(15:21):
the Italians back out, they don't stay with the Germans
and Japanese. They say, hey, we're done with Mussolini, We're
done with this fascism thing. We're done. Well, Hitler's not
just going to allow Italy to go to us. About
five seconds after Italy said they were done, Hitler, who
really saw this coming, was already moving German troops into Italy.
(15:45):
And for the purpose of our Battle of Anzio here
you should know, they weren't chumps. We weren't facing a
bunch of German chumps. It wasn't exactly all their crack troops,
but we were facing some crap, some cracked troops, and
we were facing them in a place that is an
(16:07):
offensive war nightmare. Italy is all mountains, all valleys, all rivers, Mountains, valleys, rivers.
If you are defending an area like that, if you're
on the defense and someone's coming for you, it's heaven
for you. I don't have to explain why a mountain
(16:27):
is wonderful fortification you already know. Let's just talk for
a quick second about the rivers, because you don't think
about that really. Even if you do a large army,
surely you can cross it. Okay, think about you. You're
out hiking, just you, by yourself, and you come across
a large stream, a river. It's an obstacle, is it not.
(16:50):
You have to make a decision in that moment. Are
you going to take off all your clothes and try
to get them waterproof and try to swim across? What's
the current like? Are you even going to be able
to make it? What's the depth like? Even if you test? Okay,
or you maybe going to try to come up with
a raft, try to locate a different Okay, you realize
it's a pain. Now this is you by yourself, out
(17:11):
for a hike. Now you've got a dog. You've got
your dog with you. How much more difficult did that
problem just become You can't lose Muffy. But what if
he takes off that? Now you see that's a problem.
Now here's an army across the river. Do you think
(17:32):
that would be difficult? Of course it would. Do you
think if you're on the defense, that you would be
on the lookout for an army trying to make their
way across the river. Do you think that would be
a good time to drop a bunch of bombs and
bullets on somebody? It would be, of course it would.
And again, the Germans were no chumps and no idiots.
(17:53):
They knew this whole place was full of rivers and valleys.
Once the Allies started storming in the friggin and started
blowing all the bridges, now you came to that river,
Now you have to come up with a way to
get across. And they didn't leave anything. They were famously
good at demoing the bridges. Italy is the place you
(18:13):
want to defend. It's not a place you want to
try to conquer. We were trying to conquer it kind of.
I'll get to that point in just the moment. Before
I get to the kind of conquering we were trying
You like history. You enjoy walking through history with me.
(18:34):
Somebody emailed in and asked about Hillsdale College and their
free online courses. Hey, can I listen to them on
my phone? Of course you can, man, you can sit
down and watch them on your computer on your phone.
These are online courses they're giving us free. I just
can't stress this point enough. Hillsdale's giving these to us
at no cost. They're giving them to us so we
(18:58):
can learn more about history, the Constitution, and the Roman
Republican more subjects than I could ever go down the
list of free from the greatest college of the country.
It's a dream come true. I so appreciate them for it.
Hillsdale dot edu slash Jesse is where you go to
(19:19):
enroll that gets you no cost. Hillsdale dot edu slash Jesse.
We'll talk about our kind of conquest than what we
had going into Anzio.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Next, Jesse Kelly.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday, all right.
So the Germans have taken over the defense of Italy.
It's nineteen forty four. The Allies are trying to figure
out how to pull German units out of the Soviet
Union away from northern Europe, so we can do the
D Day, the Normandy invasion. Now the problem is, and
(19:57):
this is look, it's a problem we debate about today
to stay when people have historical debates. If you're America
and the Brits. But we'll make this about America. Who
do you send? You know there are cracked German units there.
Remember we were reading all the Germans mail, all their
cables all we were reading the German mail, the Japanese mail.
(20:20):
Our code breaking stuff was top notch in World War Two,
so we knew the units. We knew that back and forth.
You know, you have cracked German units taking over a
place that's built for the defense. The Germans know what
they're doing. Who do you send?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Now?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Maybe instinctively, I understand if you said this, you say
you would send the best. It's gonna be the hardest fighting.
You send the best? What about D Day? Everything is finite.
Everything in life is finite. There's no such thing as
an infinite supply of anything, including cracked troops, cracked generals,
(21:02):
great equipment, boats. You don't have in unlimited supply of
those things. You have only so many for here, only
so many for there. Who do you send we sent
General Lucas. I'm only gonna give you two names, so
don't worry. Our guy was General Lucas, the German Guy.
(21:25):
This is the only other name you're gonna get is
General Kesserling. Don't worry about remembering the names. General Kesserling,
the German guy was an extremely capable man. If you
ever see pictures of video of him, and there's all
kinds of pictures and video, I bet you money he'll
be smiling. It was wild. One of the things I've
been learning is I've been reading and reading up on
(21:46):
all this stuff and going through it all. The dude
just always had a smile on his face. I actually
saw someone had nicknamed him the smiling General. Smiling as
he may be, he was very sharp man, and he
definitely knew how to defend areas. So here was what
the Germans had laid out in Italy, and this is
what we were trying to kind of conquer. Always keep
(22:11):
in mind, as we have this discussion about Anzio, this
was the secondary part of the war. It was almost
a large distraction effort. Yeah, we wanted to get into Rome,
but none of these things were winning the war. This
is kind of a side issue, which is what so
many of the veterans had. It was an issue so
many veterans had with this campaign after the war. Anyway,
(22:33):
So you know what Italy looks like. It looks like
a boot if you're if you're unfamiliar, I realized not
everyone knows maps. Italy is shaped like a cowboy boot,
all right, a cowboy boot. So the tip of the boot,
where your toes go, it's pointed west. It's pointed left. Okay,
as you're looking at a map, it's pointed left. You
(22:53):
got me off. The toe of that boot is a
huge island called Sicily. We had already taken Sicily because
we were going to try to get into this soft
underbelly of Europe Italy, and then we landed. We'll call
it towards the heel of the boot with me. So
(23:14):
far we land there. That's not Anzio. Okay, that is
not Anzio. But we're going to encounter something as we
go north through Italy, not one, but two different defensive lines.
Most people know about one, they don't know about the others.
Essentially halfway up the shin, I'll call it halfway up
(23:35):
the shin of the boot. The Germans found a line
of areas where they thought they could fortify that would
make it very difficult to get through. And then after that,
as you keep going north, as you keep going up
the shin towards the knee, there's another line, the gustav line,
where they really dug in. So our allies had landed
(23:56):
on the heel of the boot. They began pushing north.
They were running into so many problems, not only German problems,
weather problems. You know, Italy has some of the most
fertile soil in the world. Remember I told you we
went to Italy at Christmas time. We stopped by a
vineyard to have this meal, and they brought us out
(24:19):
grapes for appetizer. That grape have you ever seen a
crab apple? Crab apples? I would say a third the
size of a regular apple, maybe half. This grape was
that big. I'm not exaggerating. Oh yeah, Chris, It had
like six seeds in it. It was enormous. Italy is
famous for their wines and things like that because Italian
(24:41):
soil is mega rich. Well, what do you need if
you're going to grow things like that? Rain water? When
the rain falls in Italy it falls without end. Our
troops were getting bogged down in the mud. They're getting
shot to pieces by Germans. Our push north from the
(25:02):
heel of the boot is failing. You don't ever think
about that when it comes to World War two, do you?
When we look back on World War Two, all we
see is American conquest after American conquest, win after win
after win. All we did was win, right, That's not
true at all. We were losing and losing badly in Italy.
(25:24):
We were losing so badly in Italy. The big Cheeses,
the Churchills, the Roosevelts, the generals, Eisenhower, these guys, they
had to get together and they had to have a
discussion of hey, do we pull out? Do we just
try to dig in here? We can't lose every soldier
(25:48):
we have here. That's the kind of trouble we're in
right now fighting these Germans in Italy. And so they
came up with an audacious plan that everybody. Everybody loves
a plan like this until a plan like this goes wrong.
And the plan was, Hey, let's land behind enemy lines
(26:14):
and go on the offense. So the Germans have to
pull troops away from these defensive lines from the Gustav
line and whatnot. They'll have to pull troops away from
the Gustav line to fight us behind them. Then we'll
be able to break through the Gustav line. And look,
it sounds really cool, right Land, Hey, let's just do
an audacious landing behind enemy lines. Everyone loves how that sounds. Unless,
(26:38):
sure one of the units behind the enemy line, and
you're not taking on some chumps, you're taking on some Germans. Look,
we'll make it about modern day. Zelenski did this with
Ukraine when they were getting slapped around and the Russians
had held on to some Ukrainian territory. They did the
exact same kind of thing, and every general loves it, right,
(26:59):
every armchair general loves it. Hey, I know what we'll do.
We'll go on the offense. We found a weakness in
Putin's line and we'll go on the offense, and well,
we'll create this this big bubble inside of Russia. It'll
really wrong foot Putin. Yeah, as we speak, large numbers
of Ukrainian troops are now surrounded and maybe slaughtered because
of that move. You can die very very easily behind
(27:25):
enemy lines with nobody there to save you. We picked
a man named General Lucas. There are gonna be times
I'm gonna sound very critical of him. History is very
critical of him. There are times I'm going to defend him,
and I guess this would possibly be one of those times.
General Lucas was warned extensively by generals who were above him, Hey,
(27:53):
this is very dangerous and you might die here. Hey,
you might get wiped out here. General Patten himself basically
told Lucas, you know, there's a chance you're gonna die here.
In fact, there's a chance all your troops are going
to die here. Patton was no woos and he was
no wallflower. Patton looked at Anzio, he looked at landing
(28:17):
above the Gustav line, north of the Gustav Line, and
Patten's doing the numbers in his head, and Patten's thinking
to himself, you're all gonna freaking die if you're not careful.
And so that's what's rattling around in General Lucas's head
as American troops and British troops make their way to
the shores. I'll wrap up today's portion of this and
(28:39):
then we'll revisit again tomorrow next.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
This is a Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Wonderful Monday.
We'll get to Pam Bondi talking about prosecuting people for fraud,
which I freaking love. Lee Zelden's killing it, how much
your pay saying for America's communism, and more. But that's
gonna have to wait for another ten minutes or so.
We're still going to talk a little bit more history
(29:07):
on Anzio. If you'd like, you can email the show
Jesse at Jesse kellyshow dot com. Now, General Lucas gets
his forces and he starts heading towards Anzio. General Kesserling,
the German, he had been given bunk information, bad information.
(29:28):
His information told him that there weren't going to be
any Allied landings in December or January, that it was
going to wait. So Kesserling actually doesn't have any troops
in Anzio, or not many. He had some some people
he left behind, but not many troops in Anzio. At
(29:50):
the time, he had pulled his cracked troops away and
sent them down south to fight the other Allied forces.
This plan, the plan to land behind German lines, worked perfectly.
It worked exactly as intended. They landed and shocked the Germans.
(30:14):
General Lucas lands. He immediately takes a couple of days
establishing a beachhead. He's grabbing ground right by the ocean.
That's what establishing a beachhead means. He grabs ground by
the ocean, and he's flabbergasted. The troops are flabbergasted too.
He's not getting really any pushback at all. Where are
(30:37):
all these German divisions? Where's all this artillery? And this
is one of those moments. It's amazing when you get
in something great or famous or terrible or whatever it is,
how often you can be defined by one moment, be
it your best moment or your worst moment. I know
(31:01):
March madness is going on right now. Remember Chris Webber
from Michigan, one of the great college players ever played
hoops in the NBA forever. What's Chris Weber most remembered
for in his entire career. He called a time out
when he didn't have one, and I'm not going to
say lost the game for his team, but gave up
(31:21):
any chance his team had it coming back and winning
that game. General Lucas had a long career and a
great career. But he landed with his American troops at Anzio.
The surprise he achieved it. The resistance was virtually nonexistent.
(31:43):
I realized that's a bad way to say that. But
General Lucas had been so freaked out and paranoid about
what he was promised was going to be terrible German resistance.
Instead of grabbing his army and taking off towards Rome,
he stopped and he simply waited there, trying to figure out, Wait,
(32:09):
where are the Germans. They've got to be here, Surely
they're in hiding. Are they under the ground somewhere? Where
are these Germans? But the Germans were not there, you see.
They did, however, leave behind Kesserling, left behind enough troops
and enough spies. The Germans found out almost immediately that
(32:31):
the Americans had landed a large force at Anzio, and
while General Lucas was establishing a beachhead troops were digging in,
the Germans were sending some of their finest troops as
fast as humanly possible to Anzio to try to kill
(32:51):
all the Americans. Do you have anxiety yet? Do you
have stress? Because it stresses me out to no end,
knowing it's day two of Anzio. In all these brave
troops are sitting there twiddling their thumbs. And the Germans
had recently created a quick reaction force for just this purpose,
of highly trained stud troops, and they were rapidly heading
(33:14):
towards Anzio where the Americans were trapped. You see, because
when you establish a beach head, yes that's nice. You
have a place to put men in equipment and artillery
and tanks, but you also have nowhere to run to.
There's only the sea sitting behind you. And as the
Americans sat there because General Lucas was too afraid to
(33:35):
move forward, the German units raced into place, got into place,
did not take them much time at all. Now, what
was Lucas waiting on? If you have to defend General
Lucas at this point in time, Lucas was waiting on
more stuff. He was waiting on more tanks. He wanted
(33:57):
more armor, He wanted more things because he didn't trust
what he was pushing out into He wanted to ensure
that he had instead of maximum speed, maximum stuff. And
how many times have we had this argument when we've
talked about a historical battle of any kind, it's always
a give or take. What's the right way, what's the
(34:19):
wrong way. I don't know. I don't think there is
one right or wrong way. I think it's always situationally dependent.
Speaking of World War Two member Sipan, when we talked
about Sipan, the Marines were famously moving very, very quickly.
The army was not, so much so that the marine
commander fired the army commander. He said, the Marines are
(34:41):
moving quickly, you're hardly moving. Well that look we Marines,
we love that story. But it's more the marine philosophy,
not maximum stuff, not getting all the food and everything
you need. Speed, speed, move quickly, wrong foot the enemy.
The army had a not only tougher assignment on Sipan,
had a different philosophy. No, let's take our time. Move
(35:05):
the artillery up, the food, move the food up, move
the bullets up. Let's make sure we're doing this slowly,
but surely the right way. I know which way. I like.
I'm a Marine, but that doesn't mean i'm right. Lucas
was faced with this exact same situation. Julius Caesar did this,
Alexander did this all the time. Speed Do we go
with speed? Do we wait?
Speaker 1 (35:25):
What?
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Do we do. Lucas had speed laid out in front
of him. He chose caution, and that choice will define
him forever. And as unfair as that, maybe life is unfair,
war is certainly unfair. That choice to wait it killed
(35:48):
a lot of Americans. It's the reason a lot of
Americans got to find out that dad wasn't coming home,
that my son wasn't coming home. Those are the real
con sequences of war. And if you think that particular
story is heartbreaking, you're really gonna wait until hour two
tomorrow because there's a brutal one that happens in Anzio. Honestly,
(36:10):
it's just it's more brutal than I can even put
into words. We will discuss that tomorrow, though for now
we're going to move back and talk about Pam Bondi
and communists and all kinds of things. Let's first talk
about finding a good employee. It could be very, very
difficult to find a good employee. Maybe you have an
empty desk at work and you're just thinking to yourself,
(36:32):
if I could just find the right one, my company
be better, maybe even worse. Maybe you have a desk
at work that's occupied and it's filled with some loser
who's screwing everything up. And I know why you don't change,
because it's so hard to find someone. You can't find
good help. Have you heard a zip intro. It's from
zip Recruiter. It gives you the power to basically speed
(36:56):
date your potential employees. You do back to back video calls,
you pick a time, zip intro does all the work
and boom boom boom boom boom, seeing if you might
have a good fit there. Soon you've got the perfect employee.
Zip intro. You get to try that for free at
ZipRecruiter dot com slash jesse. Zip intro go speed date
(37:18):
your next employee. I wish i'd put that differently. ZipRecruiter
dot com slash jesse. We'll be back
This is a Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show. Another hour of the
Jesse Kelly Show on a wonderful Monday. And there's not
probably gonna be any politics this hour. If there is,
it'll be in a little while. I'm sorry, because well,
we'll get to the Pam Bondi stuff next hour. We're
gonna get we'll talk about some cultural Marxism issues next
(00:37):
hour because of something that's been happening in America. I'll
get to all that, just not yet, because it's time
for Medal of Honor Monday. And after Medal of Honor Monday,
I should say, kind of around Medal of Honor Monday,
we're gonna do another little history tale. I'm gonna walk
our way through a huge w W two battle and
(00:59):
we're WLD War two, and I think you'll find it interesting,
not one of the ones a lot of people know
a lot about, but man, an ugly, ugly affair. But
before we get there, we are going to do what
we always do on Monday at this time, and that's
where're gonna We're gonna take a Medal of Honor citation
and we're gonna read it. That's it. We're gonna read
(01:21):
about this hero, about his deeds. After I'm done reading it,
we're gonna go right into the history story and learn
more about the battles surrounding it. This particular gentleman was
born in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. His name is George John Hall.
George J. Hall, Staff sergeant in the United States Army. So,
(01:42):
without further ado, hey.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Honoring those who went above and beyond. It's Medal of
Honor Monday.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life,
above and beyond the call of duty. Attacking across flat,
open terrain under direct enemy observation, Staff Sergeant Hall's company
was pinned down by grazing fire from three enemy machine
guns and harassing sniper fire. Staff Sergeant Hall volunteered to
(02:18):
eliminate these obstacles in the path of advance. Crawling along
a plowed furrow through furious machine gun fire, he made
his way to a point within hand grenade range of
one of the enemy positions. He pounded the enemy with
four hand grenades, and when the smoke had died away,
Staff Sergeant Hall in two dead Germans occupied the position
(02:42):
while four of the enemy were crawling back to our
lines as prisoners. Discovering a quantity of German potato masher
grenades in the position, Staff Sergeant Hall engaged the second
enemy nest in a deadly exchange of grenades. Each time
he exposed himself to throw a grenade, the Germans fired
(03:02):
machine gun bursts at him. The vicious duel finally ended
in Staff Sergeant Hall's favor, with five of the enemies
surrendered and five others lay dead. Turning his attention to
the third machine gun, Staff Sergeant Hall left his position
and crawled along a furrow, the enemy firing fanatically in
an effort to halt him. As he neared his final objective,
(03:25):
and enemy artillery concentration fell on the area, and Staff
Sergeant Hall's right leg was severed by a shell burst.
With two enemy machine guns eliminated, his company was able
to flank the third in continue its advance without incurring
excessive casualties. Staff Sergeant Hall's fearlessness, his determined fighting spirit,
(03:46):
and his prodigious combat skill exemplify the heroic tradition of
the American infantryman. And don't worry, that's it. He didn't die,
all right, I know everyone waits that the on to
those things. Look, hey, I do too. The second I'm
going through them, I skip to the end. Did this
guy die? Because they almost all die, right, and then
(04:08):
we have to play taps and we have to be
sad he didn't die. Now, do you believe in the
concept of cursed ground, that there are locations on the
planet that are simply cursed? Chris does not. Chris does not. Corey.
(04:28):
Do you believe in the concept of cursed ground? Corey
doesn't believe in it either, what a couple of cynics.
I do, and I don't even understand really what I
mean by that, except there are places on this Earth
that appear to be the location of way more human
(04:50):
suffering than other places on the Earth, and some places
that can be easily explained. For instance, if you said
Istanbul formerly Constantinople, if you said that was cursed ground
because lots of people have died there, well I would
(05:11):
probably argue with you and say, well, that's such a
geographically perfect location that of course nations are going to
fight over that location, and of course people will die there,
So that would be that would explain it, right, doesn't
explain Haiti Haiti was some of the worst slavery in
(05:34):
this hemisphere, and after they ended that, it somehow got
even worse. Curse ground and it certainly doesn't explain a
place called Antium in the ancient world, or better known
as Anzio in the modern world. You've heard of Nero, correct,
(05:59):
that evil Roman emperor? You know he was from Antium.
He was actually in Antium when Rome was burning. Did
you know that he was not in Rome playing the fiddle?
That's a historical myth. Nero was in his hometown where
he was born, Antium, as Rome burned. Who's another Roman
(06:22):
emperor you consider to be evil? Caligula is normally the
one everyone would name. Guess where Caligula was born, same place, Antium.
Now let's discuss a terrible, terrible affair that may or
may not have been necessary. But we'll discuss everything around
(06:45):
it and what happened at Anzio, and then you can
make up your own mind. I'm going to have opinions
about it. You don't have to share my opinions about it.
You probably shouldn't look into it yourself. Come up with
what you think. Now, let's first we have to talk
about the win. You know, I don't kill you with
details with dates and names and things like that. I
(07:06):
only give a few because details kill a story. But
what was happening at this time matters a lot, and
our minds as we look back at World War Two,
we can get all kinds of screwed up on the
timeline of World War Two, and they were just I mean,
(07:26):
especially the way the Pacific War didn't line up with
the European War, which didn't at all line up with
the Russian invasion of the Soviet It's just there's it
doesn't line up. But where we're at here is nineteen
forty four, and this is well Anzio takes place at
(07:46):
the very beginning January of nineteen forty four. Here's what
you have to understand about what is happening in the
world up to this point in time, or at this
point in time in nineteen forty four. First, the Soviets.
The Soviets, they officially have the Nazi army on the
(08:09):
run out of the Soviet Union, but on the run
probably isn't the best way to put that. Remember, the
German army in World War Two was a very fine
army led by a bunch of outstanding World War one generals.
So it wasn't like they just turned and beat feet
back to Germany. They fought, in most cases a very
(08:32):
orderly withdraw, trying to fight the or trying to fight
the Soviets every step of the way as they slowly
but surely backed away from the Soviet Union. And that
is turning into a brutal slog and a brutal fight.
And the Germans are fighting as harder on the defensive
(08:53):
than they were on the offensives. So that's taking place there.
There's something else taking place. The invasion of Normandy hasn't
happened yet. We understand that Stalin is probably going to fail.
Stalin probably can't pull off his war against the Germans
(09:17):
without our help, without the Allies invading Europe, and that
might be the best case scenario. Meaning if Stalin can prevail,
then we have somebody we didn't trust, somebody we knew
was evil, probably taking over all of Europe, and let's
all be honest, Stalin wasn't going to give it back.
(09:39):
So it wasn't just that you needed Stalin's Red Army
to attack the Nazis. You couldn't allow Stalin to be
alone in his victory over the Germans. Otherwise they'll be
praying for Adolf Hitler back with Stalin. I mean, look,
they're both a picture demon, right, They're horrible. It's a
horrible We have to get into Europe. We have to
(10:02):
get into fortress Europe. They're already starting to focus on
places like Normandy. I will continue with the Macro and
then we'll get into it closer to the Battle of
Anzio in just a moment. Before I do any of
those things, let's stop for just a moment and take
an honest accounting of something. It's about you, It's about
(10:25):
the person you love the most. If a bad man
comes to visit them right now, slips right in that
back door at home, comes up to their car in
the parking lot, approaches them at the gas station, can
that person can you right now stop them? I don't
(10:46):
want to hear about a gun you have at home,
or I'll make a phone. No no, no, no, no no.
You have about ten seconds before that violent felon wraps
his hands around your throat. Can you stop him? If
the answer to that question is though you need a
burna pistol launcher. It is non lethal, so you don't
have to stress. I don't like guns. That's fine, that's fine.
(11:08):
Maybe you love guns like me. I still carry a
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But because it's non lethal, it's legal everywhere all fifty
states without a permit. You just order it. It shoots
a pepper ball or a tear gas ball. That daughter
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fifty pound barbarian, can pop him in the chest with
(11:30):
one of these. He lays on the ground crying. She
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dot com, slash Jesse Berna dot com slash Jesse.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
We'll be back Truth Attitude, Jesse Kelly.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday. Of course,
it's been an amazing money. If you miss any part
of the show, download the whole thing on ihard, Spotify, iTunes.
If you're just now joining us, congratulations, you're just catching
us at the beginning of a little bit of Monday
history that'll probably extend into Tuesday and maybe Wednesday. I've
no earthly idea, but it's about the Battle of Anzio
(12:15):
World War II. We haven't even gotten to Anzio yet,
so just stay with me. It's nineteen forty four. We
think of nineteen forty four as when our war, at
least in Europe is about to kick off, and that's true.
But the war in the Pacific has been going on
for years.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
The war with.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
The Soviets, Soviets versus the Germans has been going on
for years. In fact, by this point in time, the
Germans are on the run, running no, but they're leaving
the Soviet Union as orderly as they can. They keep
trying to hang on to a little bit, losing it,
hang on to a little bit, but it is a nasty,
(12:55):
nasty affair going on there. We Americans and the Brits.
We want to get into Europe. It's time to start
fighting the Germans in Europe. Hitler and his generals are
well aware that we're trying to get into Europe. This
is nothing that's going to shock them. They have spies everywhere,
(13:15):
They know about our troop build up in England. They
know we're coming at some point in time. So we
have to figure out where and when do we go in,
and how do we ensure when we go in that
we're not facing every single German soldier who's not currently
(13:36):
fighting in the Soviet Union. Remember this was a very large,
very well equipped, well trained, and well led army. This
is a near peer. At the time, they didn't have
twenty twenty glasses the hindsight twenty twenty glasses we have now.
They were pretty confident in victory, but you never know.
(13:57):
So they had to come up with some way to
the whole Germans away from the Soviet lines and away
from Europe, from northern Europe where we were going we
were planning on coming in. Remember Normandy was June of
nineteen forty four. What I'm describing is January of nineteen
(14:18):
forty four. Not killing you with details, but it gives
you an idea. This is why we did what we did.
And so a lot of this is Churchill's idea, but
I don't want to put it all on Churchill either,
whether you love it or hate the idea, or love
or hate Churchill, Italy was thought of thought of such
a ridiculous notion, looking back on it now as the
(14:40):
soft underbelly of Europe. It was thought of as a
soft underbelly because Italy was defended by Italians at the time.
The Italian army back then under Mussolini was pathetic, pathetic
and embarrassing. All those jokes about the Italian military, they
all come from this time period where they had a small,
(15:00):
poorly equipped, poorly trained army that couldn't take on anybody.
The problem with Italy being the soft underbelly of Europe is, well,
it is until the Italians get replaced by Germans, and
then it ain't anymore. The Italians submit, you know this story. Already,
(15:21):
the Italians back out, they don't stay with the Germans
and Japanese. They say, hey, we're done with Mussolini, We're
done with this fascism thing. We're done. Well, Hitler's not
just going to allow Italy to go to us. About
five seconds after Italy said they were done, Hitler, who
really saw this coming, was already moving German troops into Italy.
(15:45):
And for the purpose of our Battle of Anzio here
you should know, they weren't chumps. We weren't facing a
bunch of German chumps. It wasn't exactly all their crack troops,
but we were facing some crap, some cracked troops, and
we were facing them in a place that is an
(16:07):
offensive war nightmare. Italy is all mountains, all valleys, all rivers, Mountains, valleys, rivers.
If you are defending an area like that, if you're
on the defense and someone's coming for you, it's heaven
for you. I don't have to explain why a mountain
(16:27):
is wonderful fortification you already know. Let's just talk for
a quick second about the rivers, because you don't think
about that really. Even if you do a large army,
surely you can cross it. Okay, think about you. You're
out hiking, just you, by yourself, and you come across
a large stream, a river. It's an obstacle, is it not.
(16:50):
You have to make a decision in that moment. Are
you going to take off all your clothes and try
to get them waterproof and try to swim across? What's
the current like? Are you even going to be able
to make it? What's the depth like? Even if you test? Okay,
or you maybe going to try to come up with
a raft, try to locate a different Okay, you realize
it's a pain. Now this is you by yourself, out
(17:11):
for a hike. Now you've got a dog. You've got
your dog with you. How much more difficult did that
problem just become You can't lose Muffy. But what if
he takes off that? Now you see that's a problem.
Now here's an army across the river. Do you think
(17:32):
that would be difficult? Of course it would. Do you
think if you're on the defense, that you would be
on the lookout for an army trying to make their
way across the river. Do you think that would be
a good time to drop a bunch of bombs and
bullets on somebody? It would be, of course it would.
And again, the Germans were no chumps and no idiots.
(17:53):
They knew this whole place was full of rivers and valleys.
Once the Allies started storming in the friggin and started
blowing all the bridges, now you came to that river,
Now you have to come up with a way to
get across. And they didn't leave anything. They were famously
good at demoing the bridges. Italy is the place you
(18:13):
want to defend. It's not a place you want to
try to conquer. We were trying to conquer it kind of.
I'll get to that point in just the moment. Before
I get to the kind of conquering we were trying
You like history. You enjoy walking through history with me.
(18:34):
Somebody emailed in and asked about Hillsdale College and their
free online courses. Hey, can I listen to them on
my phone? Of course you can, man, you can sit
down and watch them on your computer on your phone.
These are online courses they're giving us free. I just
can't stress this point enough. Hillsdale's giving these to us
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(18:58):
can learn more about history, the Constitution, and the Roman
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It's a dream come true. I so appreciate them for it.
Hillsdale dot edu slash Jesse is where you go to
(19:19):
enroll that gets you no cost. Hillsdale dot edu slash Jesse.
We'll talk about our kind of conquest than what we
had going into Anzio.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Next, Jesse Kelly.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday, all right.
So the Germans have taken over the defense of Italy.
It's nineteen forty four. The Allies are trying to figure
out how to pull German units out of the Soviet
Union away from northern Europe, so we can do the
D Day, the Normandy invasion. Now the problem is, and
(19:57):
this is look, it's a problem we debate about today
to stay when people have historical debates. If you're America
and the Brits. But we'll make this about America. Who
do you send? You know there are cracked German units there.
Remember we were reading all the Germans mail, all their
cables all we were reading the German mail, the Japanese mail.
(20:20):
Our code breaking stuff was top notch in World War Two,
so we knew the units. We knew that back and forth.
You know, you have cracked German units taking over a
place that's built for the defense. The Germans know what
they're doing. Who do you send?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Now?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Maybe instinctively, I understand if you said this, you say
you would send the best. It's gonna be the hardest fighting.
You send the best? What about D Day? Everything is finite.
Everything in life is finite. There's no such thing as
an infinite supply of anything, including cracked troops, cracked generals,
(21:02):
great equipment, boats. You don't have in unlimited supply of
those things. You have only so many for here, only
so many for there. Who do you send we sent
General Lucas. I'm only gonna give you two names, so
don't worry. Our guy was General Lucas, the German Guy.
(21:25):
This is the only other name you're gonna get is
General Kesserling. Don't worry about remembering the names. General Kesserling,
the German guy was an extremely capable man. If you
ever see pictures of video of him, and there's all
kinds of pictures and video, I bet you money he'll
be smiling. It was wild. One of the things I've
been learning is I've been reading and reading up on
(21:46):
all this stuff and going through it all. The dude
just always had a smile on his face. I actually
saw someone had nicknamed him the smiling General. Smiling as
he may be, he was very sharp man, and he
definitely knew how to defend areas. So here was what
the Germans had laid out in Italy, and this is
what we were trying to kind of conquer. Always keep
(22:11):
in mind, as we have this discussion about Anzio, this
was the secondary part of the war. It was almost
a large distraction effort. Yeah, we wanted to get into Rome,
but none of these things were winning the war. This
is kind of a side issue, which is what so
many of the veterans had. It was an issue so
many veterans had with this campaign after the war. Anyway,
(22:33):
So you know what Italy looks like. It looks like
a boot if you're if you're unfamiliar, I realized not
everyone knows maps. Italy is shaped like a cowboy boot,
all right, a cowboy boot. So the tip of the boot,
where your toes go, it's pointed west. It's pointed left. Okay,
as you're looking at a map, it's pointed left. You
(22:53):
got me off. The toe of that boot is a
huge island called Sicily. We had already taken Sicily because
we were going to try to get into this soft
underbelly of Europe Italy, and then we landed. We'll call
it towards the heel of the boot with me. So
(23:14):
far we land there. That's not Anzio. Okay, that is
not Anzio. But we're going to encounter something as we
go north through Italy, not one, but two different defensive lines.
Most people know about one, they don't know about the others.
Essentially halfway up the shin, I'll call it halfway up
(23:35):
the shin of the boot. The Germans found a line
of areas where they thought they could fortify that would
make it very difficult to get through. And then after that,
as you keep going north, as you keep going up
the shin towards the knee, there's another line, the gustav line,
where they really dug in. So our allies had landed
(23:56):
on the heel of the boot. They began pushing north.
They were running into so many problems, not only German problems,
weather problems. You know, Italy has some of the most
fertile soil in the world. Remember I told you we
went to Italy at Christmas time. We stopped by a
vineyard to have this meal, and they brought us out
(24:19):
grapes for appetizer. That grape have you ever seen a
crab apple? Crab apples? I would say a third the
size of a regular apple, maybe half. This grape was
that big. I'm not exaggerating. Oh yeah, Chris, It had
like six seeds in it. It was enormous. Italy is
famous for their wines and things like that because Italian
(24:41):
soil is mega rich. Well, what do you need if
you're going to grow things like that? Rain water? When
the rain falls in Italy it falls without end. Our
troops were getting bogged down in the mud. They're getting
shot to pieces by Germans. Our push north from the
(25:02):
heel of the boot is failing. You don't ever think
about that when it comes to World War two, do you?
When we look back on World War Two, all we
see is American conquest after American conquest, win after win
after win. All we did was win, right, That's not
true at all. We were losing and losing badly in Italy.
(25:24):
We were losing so badly in Italy. The big Cheeses,
the Churchills, the Roosevelts, the generals, Eisenhower, these guys, they
had to get together and they had to have a
discussion of hey, do we pull out? Do we just
try to dig in here? We can't lose every soldier
(25:48):
we have here. That's the kind of trouble we're in
right now fighting these Germans in Italy. And so they
came up with an audacious plan that everybody. Everybody loves
a plan like this until a plan like this goes wrong.
And the plan was, Hey, let's land behind enemy lines
(26:14):
and go on the offense. So the Germans have to
pull troops away from these defensive lines from the Gustav
line and whatnot. They'll have to pull troops away from
the Gustav line to fight us behind them. Then we'll
be able to break through the Gustav line. And look,
it sounds really cool, right Land, Hey, let's just do
an audacious landing behind enemy lines. Everyone loves how that sounds. Unless,
(26:38):
sure one of the units behind the enemy line, and
you're not taking on some chumps, you're taking on some Germans. Look,
we'll make it about modern day. Zelenski did this with
Ukraine when they were getting slapped around and the Russians
had held on to some Ukrainian territory. They did the
exact same kind of thing, and every general loves it, right,
(26:59):
every armchair general loves it. Hey, I know what we'll do.
We'll go on the offense. We found a weakness in
Putin's line and we'll go on the offense, and well,
we'll create this this big bubble inside of Russia. It'll
really wrong foot Putin. Yeah, as we speak, large numbers
of Ukrainian troops are now surrounded and maybe slaughtered because
of that move. You can die very very easily behind
(27:25):
enemy lines with nobody there to save you. We picked
a man named General Lucas. There are gonna be times
I'm gonna sound very critical of him. History is very
critical of him. There are times I'm going to defend him,
and I guess this would possibly be one of those times.
General Lucas was warned extensively by generals who were above him, Hey,
(27:53):
this is very dangerous and you might die here. Hey,
you might get wiped out here. General Patten himself basically
told Lucas, you know, there's a chance you're gonna die here.
In fact, there's a chance all your troops are going
to die here. Patton was no woos and he was
no wallflower. Patton looked at Anzio, he looked at landing
(28:17):
above the Gustav line, north of the Gustav Line, and
Patten's doing the numbers in his head, and Patten's thinking
to himself, you're all gonna freaking die if you're not careful.
And so that's what's rattling around in General Lucas's head
as American troops and British troops make their way to
the shores. I'll wrap up today's portion of this and
(28:39):
then we'll revisit again tomorrow next.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
This is a Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Wonderful Monday.
We'll get to Pam Bondi talking about prosecuting people for fraud,
which I freaking love. Lee Zelden's killing it, how much
your pay saying for America's communism, and more. But that's
gonna have to wait for another ten minutes or so.
We're still going to talk a little bit more history
(29:07):
on Anzio. If you'd like, you can email the show
Jesse at Jesse kellyshow dot com. Now, General Lucas gets
his forces and he starts heading towards Anzio. General Kesserling,
the German, he had been given bunk information, bad information.
(29:28):
His information told him that there weren't going to be
any Allied landings in December or January, that it was
going to wait. So Kesserling actually doesn't have any troops
in Anzio, or not many. He had some some people
he left behind, but not many troops in Anzio. At
(29:50):
the time, he had pulled his cracked troops away and
sent them down south to fight the other Allied forces.
This plan, the plan to land behind German lines, worked perfectly.
It worked exactly as intended. They landed and shocked the Germans.
(30:14):
General Lucas lands. He immediately takes a couple of days
establishing a beachhead. He's grabbing ground right by the ocean.
That's what establishing a beachhead means. He grabs ground by
the ocean, and he's flabbergasted. The troops are flabbergasted too.
He's not getting really any pushback at all. Where are
(30:37):
all these German divisions? Where's all this artillery? And this
is one of those moments. It's amazing when you get
in something great or famous or terrible or whatever it is,
how often you can be defined by one moment, be
it your best moment or your worst moment. I know
(31:01):
March madness is going on right now. Remember Chris Webber
from Michigan, one of the great college players ever played
hoops in the NBA forever. What's Chris Weber most remembered
for in his entire career. He called a time out
when he didn't have one, and I'm not going to
say lost the game for his team, but gave up
(31:21):
any chance his team had it coming back and winning
that game. General Lucas had a long career and a
great career. But he landed with his American troops at Anzio.
The surprise he achieved it. The resistance was virtually nonexistent.
(31:43):
I realized that's a bad way to say that. But
General Lucas had been so freaked out and paranoid about
what he was promised was going to be terrible German resistance.
Instead of grabbing his army and taking off towards Rome,
he stopped and he simply waited there, trying to figure out, Wait,
(32:09):
where are the Germans. They've got to be here, Surely
they're in hiding. Are they under the ground somewhere? Where
are these Germans? But the Germans were not there, you see.
They did, however, leave behind Kesserling, left behind enough troops
and enough spies. The Germans found out almost immediately that
(32:31):
the Americans had landed a large force at Anzio, and
while General Lucas was establishing a beachhead troops were digging in,
the Germans were sending some of their finest troops as
fast as humanly possible to Anzio to try to kill
(32:51):
all the Americans. Do you have anxiety yet? Do you
have stress? Because it stresses me out to no end,
knowing it's day two of Anzio. In all these brave
troops are sitting there twiddling their thumbs. And the Germans
had recently created a quick reaction force for just this purpose,
of highly trained stud troops, and they were rapidly heading
(33:14):
towards Anzio where the Americans were trapped. You see, because
when you establish a beach head, yes that's nice. You
have a place to put men in equipment and artillery
and tanks, but you also have nowhere to run to.
There's only the sea sitting behind you. And as the
Americans sat there because General Lucas was too afraid to
(33:35):
move forward, the German units raced into place, got into place,
did not take them much time at all. Now, what
was Lucas waiting on? If you have to defend General
Lucas at this point in time, Lucas was waiting on
more stuff. He was waiting on more tanks. He wanted
(33:57):
more armor, He wanted more things because he didn't trust
what he was pushing out into He wanted to ensure
that he had instead of maximum speed, maximum stuff. And
how many times have we had this argument when we've
talked about a historical battle of any kind, it's always
a give or take. What's the right way, what's the
(34:19):
wrong way. I don't know. I don't think there is
one right or wrong way. I think it's always situationally dependent.
Speaking of World War Two member Sipan, when we talked
about Sipan, the Marines were famously moving very, very quickly.
The army was not, so much so that the marine
commander fired the army commander. He said, the Marines are
(34:41):
moving quickly, you're hardly moving. Well that look we Marines,
we love that story. But it's more the marine philosophy,
not maximum stuff, not getting all the food and everything
you need. Speed, speed, move quickly, wrong foot the enemy.
The army had a not only tougher assignment on Sipan,
had a different philosophy. No, let's take our time. Move
(35:05):
the artillery up, the food, move the food up, move
the bullets up. Let's make sure we're doing this slowly,
but surely the right way. I know which way. I like.
I'm a Marine, but that doesn't mean i'm right. Lucas
was faced with this exact same situation. Julius Caesar did this,
Alexander did this all the time. Speed Do we go
with speed? Do we wait?
Speaker 1 (35:25):
What?
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Do we do. Lucas had speed laid out in front
of him. He chose caution, and that choice will define
him forever. And as unfair as that, maybe life is unfair,
war is certainly unfair. That choice to wait it killed
(35:48):
a lot of Americans. It's the reason a lot of
Americans got to find out that dad wasn't coming home,
that my son wasn't coming home. Those are the real
con sequences of war. And if you think that particular
story is heartbreaking, you're really gonna wait until hour two
tomorrow because there's a brutal one that happens in Anzio. Honestly,
(36:10):
it's just it's more brutal than I can even put
into words. We will discuss that tomorrow, though for now
we're going to move back and talk about Pam Bondi
and communists and all kinds of things. Let's first talk
about finding a good employee. It could be very, very
difficult to find a good employee. Maybe you have an
empty desk at work and you're just thinking to yourself,
(36:32):
if I could just find the right one, my company
be better, maybe even worse. Maybe you have a desk
at work that's occupied and it's filled with some loser
who's screwing everything up. And I know why you don't change,
because it's so hard to find someone. You can't find
good help. Have you heard a zip intro. It's from
zip Recruiter. It gives you the power to basically speed
(36:56):
date your potential employees. You do back to back video calls,
you pick a time, zip intro does all the work
and boom boom boom boom boom, seeing if you might
have a good fit there. Soon you've got the perfect employee.
Zip intro. You get to try that for free at
ZipRecruiter dot com slash jesse. Zip intro go speed date
(37:18):
your next employee. I wish i'd put that differently. ZipRecruiter
dot com slash jesse. We'll be back
Host
Jesse Kelly
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