07-09-Montel Williams - The Sailing Of The Intrepid

John & Heidi share funny stories of people doing weird things... plus John chats with a guest. We visit with author Montel Williams - The Sailing Of The Intrepid

Learn more about our radio program, podcast & blog at www.JohnAndHeidiShow.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for listening to the John ed Heidi Show.
Excited AVI Is it right now with Montel Williams. Yeah,
they guy you know from TV? Did you know he's
also a marine and a former naval officer and he's
the author of a new book, The Sailing of the Intrepid,
the incredible wartime voyage of the Navy's iconic aircraft carrier.
This book looks fantastic, Montel.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
It was so much fun to get involved in this
book and get it out there. And I think anybody
who is a history of the book who loved this
book because it kind of reads more like a semantic novel.
Once you start and turn the first page, you're never
going to put it down. And it really tells the
history of one of our most iconic warships ever built.
But it's really almost like the Unsinglemmy Brown. It gives
you a sense of what we can do as a

(00:38):
nation where we come together, work together to preserve the slackers.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Absolutely, thank you for your service. By the way, what
year did you enlist?

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Will you make me get myself that? I ended up
at four, you know, I edited it what it's called
the Late Entry Program. I ended up going to Blue
Camp in November of nineteen seventy four, served in the
Marine Corps for two and a half years, got marritis,
voted both of the times, and then went to the
Name Prep School, graduated from the Prep School, went on
to the Naval Academy, graduated from the Naval Academy and

(01:05):
got commissioned as a naval officer, and went on the
sort of man for another ten years active duty and
ended up finishing around my career of reserve. So my
career spanned twenty years, and it was an incredible time
for me. It was a time where you know, I
got to learn a lot about who I was as
an individual, of understanding the fact that hard work and
grit is really what it takes to get through life

(01:26):
and Marine Corps. Maybe it's still better.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
I love that. So you went from serving your country
in the military to being a personality known all over
the world household name. How did you make that leap? Montel?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know, I, right before I got out of the
cameo active viuty, I started a program where I was
speaking to kids around the country. I spoke about a
million and a half the young people in schools all
over America about staying schools, staying away from aga youth trends,
and that ended up becoming a media event where every
city that I went into local news with the l
the local free stations would show up and put it
on the air, to the point that I started being

(01:58):
asked to do some specials. I did several for Gannette.
I did several for several stations around the country, one
of them which ended up being nominated for And I
end every citing an AMMY is best talk for us
in the region of Colorado. And that's really what actually
opened the door to Hollywood for me to actually pursue
from banto or show. I started that and I literally
had a meeting Christmas Eve nineteen ninety January nineteen ninety one,

(02:21):
I was talking in syndicators all over the country. By
April of ninety one, I signed my first contract, and
by May eighth I went on the air and then
looked back.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
I love that. What an amazing path. And the cool
thing is you may have inspired some other people to
take that path, and that journey is one that others
could take, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Oh? Absolutely absolutely, you know, serve our nation. There's no
greater honor than to put your life on the line.
To understand that you are putting your life on the
line to preserve this beautiful country that we all live in.
And even at a time like right now, it's part
of the reason why I wrote the book. You know,
you look at the book the sam Ali Intrepid. You know,
you had this, this ship that was one of the

(02:55):
largest and most innovative technologically advanced ships of its time.
Close three football field was wroll with three thousand people
on it from all over the country, from different walks
of life, all coming together to serve for one reason,
one purpose, and that was to observed this ship to
make sure we got out of World War two victorious.
And we did.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
It still amazes me how big this ship is and
the fact that it flows somehow incredible.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
I mean, you know how many of us watch football
on a Sunday and imagine the field they run down
that's one hundred yards, you know, at one hundred yards,
this ship was almost three times that range. Yeah, so
that big thing was sailing and to achieve what it
was able to achieve it because again, you know, it
got struck by a torpedo when it the battle truck
where it literally was victorious. It got struck by a

(03:37):
single torpedo that ended up pinning the rudder before we
find agree angle that ended up making Kren out of control.
You know, the captain was Captain Spray, and his executive
officer and his damage control officer, and you know the
reboso got together and one of them came out the idea,
what if we put a sail on the front of
the ship, not to act as propulsion, but to counterbalance

(03:58):
the ways the currents and win it may allow us
to be able to steer this thing straight. And we
did it. In his book, they steered it three thousand
miles back to Hawaii Wow, where it went in the yards,
got repaired, went up to San Francisco when in dry dock,
got further repaired when back in the service. Then it
gets struck by two comic cozits where the first ships
to be struck by kamakaze, went back in the yards,

(04:18):
got repaired, came back out of there, got struck by
three more comic cozy went back in the yards, went
back in the battle, ended up finishing World War Two,
and went on to a certain careb Vietnam.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
I love it and the story of the Intrepid kind
of like the story of America, when America gets knocked down,
stands right back up and gets right back to work.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
We do something because we come together rather than stay
destiny separate. Yes, so that's a good reminder we need
for today figure out where to come back together.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Absolutely, Montel, thank you for your service and thank you
for taking the time to visit with me today. Thank
you Souch having me absolutely our guest today, Montel Williams,
and his new book is out now. It's called The
Sailing of the Intrepid, The incredible wartime voyage of the
Navy's iconic aircraft carrier. I've got a link to it
in the show notes for today at John adheidishow dot com.