Transcripts For CSPAN3 Bob 20240706

With us today. Courtesy of peter and pamela vos as well as bob and alice. Alison smith bob drury is the author, coauthor, editor of nine books hes written for numerous publications, including the New York Times, vanity fair, mens journal and gq. Hes currently a contributing editor and Foreign Correspondent for mens health, and he lives in new jersey. Tom clavin is the author or coauthor of 16 books for 15 years. He wrote for the New York Times and has contributed to such magazines as golf, mens journal, parade Readers Digest and smithsonian. Hes currently the investigator of features correspondent for manhattan magazine and lives in sag harbor, new york. Together, they are the number one New York Times bestselling authors of the heart of everything that is lucky six, six, six houses. Typhoon last men out and the last stand of fox company, which won the marine corps heritage foundations general wallace and green award. Please give a warm savannah welcome to bob drury and tom clavin. Thank you very much. Thank you to the festival organizers. Thank you to our sponsors devices in the smiths. Thank you, everybody, for being here. Were certainly glad to be here. And thats clayborn. Yeah. Its a good thing you reminded me. I forgot myself. Phone and were here to talk about our newest the last hill. And before we tell you the story, the bits and pieces of the story we wanted to talk a bit about the significant difference we in working on this book than than some previous books. The very first book that bob drury and i did together called horses, typhoon and was published in 2007. Were talking about 16 years ago. And for those of you not familiar with it, its the story of december 1944, when the third fleet under admiral William Halsey was steaming on way to the philippines to assist in the return i shall return invasion by Douglas Macarthur and ran smack into a typhoon typhoon cobra and three ships were sunk. 900 men went into the water and about hundred were drowned. It was the worst loss of life by the u. S. Navy in the entire world war to not, you know, any of the other engagements that were fought. So we mostly worked on this book in 2000 for 2526, and it was published, i said in 2007 and a huge advantage we had at that time is that they had, like i said, there had been about 100 survivors of that disaster. We we ended up interviewing about 20, say about two dozen of those men. And when youre doing a story of an event that took place, a dramatic event that took place in history, a great advantage is to actually speak to the participants. You know, it could be five years later, it could be decades or whatever, because theres something in addition to whatever information they can provide, you get to get a sense of, you know, they go back in time to that original experience and you get almost by osmosis, you get feel some of what they were feeling. So its very invaluable. And ill give you one very quick example. There was a man who had been a sailor whod been in the water for 60 hours before he was rescued. And we, as part of tracking some of these gentlemen down, we found out this fellow lived, i believe it was in maryland, and we tracked him down. And i called him up that, you know, wed both doing interviews and i explained who we were and what we would story we were working on. And he said, let me you back in two days and he hung up. And so we thought, well, lets cross this guy off. He paid just was getting rid of us. Yet two days later the phone rings and its him and hes im ready to talk now. And i said, well, if you dont mind my asking how come it took two days for you . Call me back, he said. I figured if i was going to tell anybody of my experience, i had to tell wife for 58 years. First. So the kind of experience that we had working on that book. Now fast forward here we were working on the last hill another World War Two story and a big difference that we found is were finding still that there are some remarkable relatively World War Two stories just in 2022. And you know our was published in november a David Maraniss was here with the mosquito bowl hes one of the participants alex kershaw i think is a part time savannah resident came out with a book called events against all odds about audie murphy and some of the women that were that fought with. Theres still really good stories. The difference is that we dont have the people to interview anymore. I mean, theyre there according to what i read, something in World War Two magazine a few weeks ago, the World War Two veterans are dying at the rate of between two and 50 and 275 per day. And its expected that there may not be any World War Two veteran left alive by 2030. Thats seven years from now, and the ones that are around know the youngest of the World War Two veterans are in the nineties. So theyre either to find or even if you find them, they may not be physically or mentally able to tell you what their experience was. So thats what we found. We were writing our book about the Second Army Ranger Battalion that we couldnt find any of them still alive, which i certainly heard participated in the event that we were mostly writing about. So we have to depend on, i guess, part of what we do is whats been left behind. What do these these fellows left leave behind . In some cases you have the Communications Officer of the was a man named james eichner. I know was his name and he was a pack. He collected not only one, he during the war, but after the war he collected reports, letters, journals, memories, adams notes, anything he could find from that period of time to read about battalion served in World War Two. And he just collected it all. And you can find his collection. He lived to be 100, by the way. He bequeathed his collections like 16 linear feet of boxes to the to the university of texas. So thats something that you can find if somebody took all the years of effort he into it certainly benefited us in some cases. You have you contact family members and see what you can find, what they might be available . The chief medical officer of the they call him his last name was block b. Okay, call doc block. We found his youngest son in and during phone conversation with him just to find out, you know, did your father tell you any stories about, his experiences . Thats another one of the things that you can imagine. We confront with World War Two family members that theyre their parents and so they tell their stories. But in this case, as were in the conversation to ask you about this, he says, oh, by the way, do you want to see my handwritten journal. I said, i would. By the time he hung up the phone, i was in michigan michigan. Kidding. But hes. But he said, ill make a copy of you and a few days later in the mail, i got a handwritten journal, which, of course shared with bob of the dark doctors experiences from the whole time he was in the battalion up until the day that he was killed during this accident of the last hill that well talk about in more detail what gave it away the doc blocked. Oh well forget it. Were done. Any questions. And in some cases were looking for journals some some of these veterans, especially as they got older, they didnt want their stories to be lost. So they sometimes wrote privately published memoirs or journals or they just were writing things down and saying, if, you know, i want my my son, my daughter, my grandchildren, my, my nephews to have this. So sometimes we could find some of these things that might be and they were published in 1996 by, you know, you know villa avenue press, you know, because thats they set up a Little Company that they published their memoirs. So those kind of things are very valuable. And the thing one one more thing i want to before i turn over to barbara what i mentioned is there have been really good people have been very diligent over the years, especially more recent years as the number of veterans of veterans, you know, disappear who have conducted oral histories. Theyve made a point. It could be a local library, it could be a local university it could be in some cases, the World War Two museum in new orleans has been really good about doing getting veterans that come to the either come to the facility if theyre physically able or they make accommodations for them and they interview them for hours or as long as they are able to talk and have the advantage of being taken care of of taken advantage of those oral histories, these men have passed on. But its their voices just hearing their voices in addition to what might be on a transcript can make a difference as as research is concerned. And the other thing thats a great help and im going to turn it over to bob is the use of contemporary sources. I know is something thats a particular fondness for bob to look into. Im going to turn it over to him. Ill be back. Dont worry. Kathy, thank you for that lovely introduction. Some of it was even true. Continuing on the theme of contemporaneous writings being so critical to the research tom and i do for our collaborations, journals, diaries doc blocks, combat diaries, handwritten letters. Inhouse, not official after action reports, but inhouse after action reports. As an example, ill give you an example. Im sure youre aware that its customary at events such as this for an author to read a short passage two for his or her new book, something that a small bit that gets to the heart of the matter and. So im turning to page to take it here where i see ive written a memo to myself saying, you put yourself sleep when you read out loud, please bore these good people to tears by reading loud. So that ends our reading of todays ceremony. Anyway, to toms point about researching the last hill and in particular the contemporaneous writings. Its the best. Its not like we did not take advantage of this thousands, thousands of. Official War Department histories of the autobiographies once again, thousands of autobiographies and biographies by the participant. Its by declassified over the years intelligence report, combat reports. We did, of course, take advantage of that. Thats where we began. As a matter of fact, thats where you have to begin. And actually, this all happened how we began. It was because i was having a beer. I know my wife looks at me, me having a beer, but as it happened several years ago, probably more than several years ago now, i was out with a friend of mine, a retired Army Lieutenant colonel, artillery man, and we were having a beer and it was over that beer. We were disgusted with something that was happening. For the life of me ive wracked my brain, it might have been something about icis i cant remember specific likely. But at one point tom crowley was his name. Crowley up his hands and he says, oh got her. Reminds me that debacle, World War Two and the hurricane fast. And i was like, what . Her grandfather. Id never heard the battle of the hurricane forest in World War Two. And as an aside, i probably should say that as a crusty former artillery lieutenant colonel, he did not use the word debacle. In fact, the phrase he used began with the word cluster, if you get it, if you get my point, so, so naturally my curiosity is aroused. I call tom clavin that night. I said herky fast, maybe we should do a little cursory research. And to see whats going on might be a book here. So i that night pulled out my official history my official United States War Department. A history of the Siegfried Line Campaign on the german belgian border in september, october, november 1944. And yes, i am the kind of nerd who has that official history of own bookshelf and and the report real door stopper, by the way, was written in 1963 by the United States armys chief military military historian Charles Mcdonald was his name. And just coincidentally enough, Charles Mcdonald had fought through the hurricane forest trying to get to the last hill. In our book title, as a 21 Year Old Army captain and i wasnt certain what i find, but as i started leafing through the pages, i just thought, wow, look, i mean, it was undaunted courage from american gis, personal sacrifice, a lot of blood and gore a real lot. And i mean, were talking body parts strewn the forest floor, guys fuzed together from direct artillery hits, the pervasive stench hanging in the air of gas, gangrene escaping from thousands of dead and dying men. But what it did not have, at least to us we talked about it didnt have a through line. It didnt have a narrative. And it didnt have a happy ending narrative. As macdonald, the historian, makes clear, we were for those three months. We were pretty much getting our kicked by the german vermont in the hurricane. I mean, they were fighting for the fatherland. This was right on the german border. They werent fighting in france or the netherlands, belgium, and they had orders from adolf hitler himself. You will fight to the last man to the last cartridge. You will stand or die and im thinking, yeah, its girl who wants to read about this america. I mean, its a catastrophe where, you know, its a good story, but nobody wants to read about a losing battle and. Then suddenly, as a despite all the individual heroics, im like, he i dont know. I dont know if this is our story, but then but then i get to a page in macdonalds book. It was a brief mention, no more than a couple of paragraphs about how this battered ranger battalion, the second ranger battalion, reduced this point in the war to some 400 officers noncombat enlisted men. They proven and proven themselves. Normandy beach. They had proven themselves even at the Brittany Campaign they had hoped to take the city brest and as a last resort, eisenhower and the allied chief of staff threw these 400 rangers into the hurricane forest to try to turn the tide of the battle. Im like, wow, thousands upon thousands of men been trying to take this hill. 400 watts. What are four or 400 guys going to do . Which led us, of course, to the classic question that Butch Cassidy posed to the kid. Who are these guys . Who are these guys that they thought that 400 of them could turn the tide . So this when we when i was telling tom about these rangers, you could tell even over the phone we talked alarm bells. I mean, choose your metaphor alarm bells. Antenna going up. Theres here. Theres some kind of good here. And so the next step, of course, was to find out who are these guys. So tom was digging into papers of the pack rag. Eichner, and was finding jeffrey blocked blocks living son and procuring a xerox copy of doc blocks handwritten combat journal. We were collecting all this stuff and im reading and. It was almost coincidental that i found out that one of the rangers, one of the heroic turns out to the hero, one of the hero protagonist of our book, len laemmle, was his name, and he grew up. And after the war returned to the next over from the town where i live, on the jersey shore. So i went to the library over there. Tom the library. The library and said, do you know colonel paul zeiger . I said, no. He said, oh, well, paul is an amateur military historian. Hes retired army colonel, and he is hes running a campaign for ten years. He ran a campaign to try to get linda lemole, who died at the age of 91, in 2011, to try to get lynn lemole a posthumous medal of honor. Our militarys highest award. And so i tracked paul zeiger, called him, say, i buy you a cup of coffee. Im waiting in the coffee shop and here comes zeiger. And hes coming in with his big briefcase, and he pulls out files that are this thick. And im like, the motherlode mother lode. The mother lode. So not only colonel zango collected letters from now deceased rangers, attesting to lendl, emails a top hill, 400. The title of our book, titular hill in our book, but from these letters from la la mills ranger mates, there were describing their own experiences, their experiences, just parenthetically as well, i took a bullet in my side i saw len took one in his side and we figured if we that kind of stuff and were seeing other if the official word histories and the married lives and the after action reports if they supply the the bone heres the meat that tom clavin and i can put on phone. I mean were talking a little amount, for instance, not only is pauls ego trying to get him a posthumous medal of honor. But it turns we were found out in one of these in james in the Commanding Officer of the second battalion, in his papers. He wanted to put len lemole in for the medal of honor for his actions at normandy beach. And lemole went to him, said, please dont, please dont, because lemole knew that War Department, if you were awarded the medal of honor, the War Department pulled you from combat. They couldnt afford to have a medal of honor recipient die or worse, be captured by the enemy paraded about. So heres, linda mell turning it. Please dont please dont that is not in the official War Department stuff. This is the stuff were finding out. As it turns out, they gave lemole a field promotion. He was a sergeant to Second Lieutenant and distinguished service cross, which is our second highest. I mean, heres a bob. You know what im going to let tom tell you about bob. And hes one of our favorites here. The captain, harold, the duke slater. I mean, the duke, even his nickname swaggered. The duke was blown off his Landing Craft a half mile from beach from floated in the freezing waters for hours, was finally up, was a boat, was going to be taken to a hospital ship suffering from severe hypothermia. Instead, he pulls his sidearm, says, youre taking me back to that . I got to lead my men. This is the stuff you find out these diaries in these letters, in these journals the Staff Sergeant that herman herman, bobby stein, new york city kid. And as it turns out, he scampered up sheer cliff face of point to Hawk Normandy beach still wearing his mae west his mae west life preserver everybody remember what the hell is bobby doing with his life preserver and that cliff up there . But everybody remembered that. And as it turns out, steins natural climbing ability. He was the best climber in the battalion. And in one of the letters we read, rangers were, you know, you think all herm was a second story man for the jewish back in new york city before the war you know, and one of our favorites, sergeant elrod petty, a georgia boy from loblolly in the south, the red dirt and. Elrod was a Staff Sergeant company of baker man browning automatic rifle became the heart soul of fox company, but not before the battalion commander, big jim rutter, wanted him out. You see, elrod grew up tough. He had a tough life. He had a battered childhood. He always getting into street fights, even played a year of football at the university of georgia before dropping and enlisting. And he had no front teeth, top or bottom and rudder every he saw this toothless guy. He he just didnt he didnt. Didnt look like a squared away United States ranger too big jim rutter. So finally rutter him in and said im sorry, sergeant but and he was going to transfer him out and rod pled his case. The rangers had become my family. I didnt have a family. And rutters thinking, thinking. And finally, what convinced them to let elrod stay in the battalion elrod looked at it and said, and besides, colonel, i am planning a bite. No, that two desks. So so when we talk about contemporary personal contemporaneous writings thats what were talking about thats what puts the meat on the bone of our narratives and through these letters, through these diaries, through these journals, we were able to follow this battalion all the way from its inception and dusty army camp, tennessee, to its training in england on, the cliffs of southwest england, through combat, normandy and the european peninsula. And i tom will talk a little bit about that now. I warned you id be back. One of the things that we talked about, some of the more unsavory or violent, disturbing aspects of the story. One of the things that made it enjoyable for us is that as we were getting more information and certainly during the writing process, so much of it resembled to us one of those old Warner Brothers movies from the 1940s that were made about World War Two. You know, theres a contemporary movies had the, you know, you had played by frank mchugh and alan hale and George Tobias and some of the others that all character actors a ragtag outfit waiting somebody like pat obrien or randolph to come along and whip them into shape. Thats basically what the big part of the story is about. The the first ranger battalion was known as rangers, and it got a lot of attention. So and for participating in combat in africa, in italy, the second ranger battalion was sort of like almost an afterthought, a footnote. It was a bunch of lets get a couple bunch of people together and put them in a camp in tennessee and see what happens. And not much happened until. Bob made a reference to james earl rutter, big jim. He was a texas man who took over the battalion and whipped him into shape. He was that pat obrien. He was that Randolph Scott and. The battalion finally was in good enough shape that they were able to deploy first over to england in the early part of 1944, and they participate in the dday. Their objective was to bob made a Reference Point to hawk which these tall cliffs on top of which were these artillery pieces that if not disabled could have been made it even more deadly for the invading and so when they land on dday, that was their objective to scale those cliffs. Theres there is a book that was written about that specific event by douglas brinkley, who i think is here this morning, giving a talk elsewhere called the boys point to hawk. So what we take are we take our second ranger battalion. So from that Training Camp to their deployment over in england to getting ready for dday. For dday, then they established themselves a position on dday, precariously. Theyre on top of the cliffs, rudders wounded. But he doesnt want to leave his battalion and then as the next few go by, they are part of that allied effort working its way eastward across france and thats an important part of our story i wont go into any detail about it, but this one part of it that i have to tell you, one of our main characters that bob made reference to is a man named bob edlund. Hes an indiana fella. And he was kind of a free spirit, put it that way. He had no. Of anything of a free spirit, and he had three other guys sort of formed. What they what they called it became known as the fabulous. They were without without authorization. Go on these scouting and go behind that he would sneak behind enemy lines and during this one particular period, there was a fortress there that was part of the restaurant australia campaign. And the allied forces are saying weve got to take this fortress. Its so strategically weve got to make sure we dont know how many guys are there, but we got to get all artillery set up, all our kind of regiments ready to go. So one day bob edlund and his three guys, he says, lets go check it out. So they sneak off and they go these trails and pass these minefields and everything, and they get to the fortress and they see, well, theres the fortress we got this far. Why we see if anybodys here. So they one guy is left behind and three guys base essentially just knock on the door and say, anybody home. So they they they the door is open. They burst in. Theres a bunch of shocked german soldiers. Theyre like, who are guys . What are you doing here . So one of them speaks english, so edlund lieutenant bob edlund, who ends up getting, not so surprisingly, the nickname the full lieutenant, he basically says uses that line, take me to your leader. And so work their way up to this compound, which it which has over 800 german soldiers in it. They work their way through the compound, get the guns on the on the officers bring them there. Then they burst into the room of the the commandant of the fortress and the colonel, what do you want . And edlund says, you know, weve got this whole place surrounded by army rangers, so you better surrender the the colonel says, oh, no, that does sound kind of dangerous. Let me make let me make a phone call. He makes a phone call. He gets back off the phone. He says, theres only four of you. I got 800 men. So actually youre going to surrender to me. It says, no, i dont think so. So he takes a grenade, pulls the pin, and he sticks it in the colonels crotch crotch and he says, you know, weve basically got 6 seconds to make a decision. You surrender or die and as he as the count got to five the colonel that i surrender this literally happened we have we have actually accounts that were written about and sent back and that again that news chain about this and so next thing you know the is given and these four army rangers of the Fabulous Four are watching as 800 men empty the fortress out and throw their down in the courtyard. And it was it was an interesting scene afterwards when adalind reports back to colonel rutter and says, colonel, ive got something to show you. Tell everybody else to stand down. One more quickly. Very quickly a footnote to this is that when ceremony is held the next day, where the colonel, the german colonel, determined aligned up and all the army rangers and other units race for the officials surrender ceremony, the german colonel goes to give his gun, surrender his gun to to colonel rutter. And its missing edlund its stolen it. The colonel turns to ed lindseys. Come on. Hes got to take gun out where we hit it. Give who gives it to rutter . Who gives it to the colonel, puts it back in his holster. They do it again, it out of his holes and surrenders it to rutter. So that that took place. If i remember correctly that took place september 1944. Bob talked about the horror that was the hurricane forrest and things going well, though theyre theyre advancing theyre going to be knocking on the door of germany a lot of the soldiers and officers are starting to think, you know, were going to be home by christmas. But then comes the hurricane forest and then top of what the rangers had to deal with in hurricane forest. Theres this particular hill bob referenced is called hill 400 because thats how high it was, 400 meters. Also in, his castle hill and the germans had occupied it because if you got past this hill, it basically opens the door to germany. So from a Strategic Point of view, taking this hill was important for a view as important hill. Because if take this hill, the fatherland becomes exposed. You know, youre the germans are realizing we are. Not only have they taken france back or they taken belgium back, denmark back, theyre now in the fatherland and our homeland itself. So psychologically was a blow. And so they are going they they manned the hill with elite of the elite german troops. Other units tried to take it. But along our guys from second ranger battalion and now going to tell you a little bit the rest. Tom did mention, too, is the newspaper reports for the full lieutenant. They all had him sticking the grenade in the german colonels chest. And. No, no, we found out that tom found an unpublished thing. Word wrote exactly where he put that grenade out. Yeah. So i, i, i realize. I recognize the four most important words in any public speakers vocabulary. And so in conclusion, so in in in so in conclusion, ill tell you one more quick story. On the morning of december 6th, 1944, six months to the day from dday, as the bulk of what remained of the second ranger battalion is spreading out. They have fought through the hurricane forest. They are now on the eastern edge hill. 400 is in sight. The of the battalion spreads out to provide covering fire on that morning december six. 130 rangers two companies are prepared to ascend and captured that hill they assault at dawn. 100 of those 130 rangers make it to top vicious handtohand. Fighting ensues. They dont have time to reload their bases. M1 rifles. Theyre fighting their sidearms with entrenching, with bayonets. With helmets. Theyre their helmets to kill germans. Finally, after handtohand fighting, the germans retreat down the hill. They have taken a hill, a hundred rangers that had for three months has withstood attacks from thousands of guys. They managed to secure perimeter and as the day wore on they were stood after counterattack in between taking constant constant shelling. The next morning they take a head count. By now, lieutenant linda lemole is the only officer left stand on the top of a hill. 400. Hes taken a shell through his left hand. Its mangled pinkies are kind of his fingers are hanging on by the ligaments. Its all wrapped up. The concussion from the shell. Hes bleeding from the nose, from his mouth. No one knew it from his. And he takes a head count. Youre down to 50 men by that. That 36 hours has gone by two more counter attacks constant land lommel takes another head count. Hes got 20 to effective 22 men left. He calls the only four noncommissioned officers, four sergeants, calls them together. And he says, im well that the United States army is not a democ, but in this case, im willing to make an exception. The five of us, we are going to vote whether to retreat back down the hill, rejoin with the bulk of the second battalion, and then retake hill, or whether to stand and fight and all the while they could look down the east side of the hill and they see the vermont, the preparing for another counterattack. And now they could tell by uniforms to their mark. Infantrymen are being reinforced by a company of yegor paratroopers theyre coming. Theyre coming for us and of those 22 men, several of them had crawled out of this makeshift aid grab their rifles, their wounded to hell. But if im going to die and, to die in the line. So len lommel puts the decision to a vote and how those five men cast their ballots. Well, if you want to know how those five men cast your ballot, youre going to have read a book, arent you . Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any questions to talk . Tom will answer the hard ones. Ill answer the easy ones. I guess. Lets all go get a drink. This will have a beer and commemorate you, tom crowley. Great book. The one thing i would just say that i found i really appreciated was your up on what happened to all these men in their lives and. I think that was i appreciate that you doing the extra research for families. We started that with all these typhoon and kind of an extra a long afterword, but we got good feedback about. So thats what archie de went on to do or in this case, thats what elrod went on to do that. Its become a kind of drink living thing. So high the jewish vfw had a National Meeting here some years ago and they said, we need to start teaching this back in our high schools when they go to teach and lecture in high school of the kids will come up and say it was vietnam before World War Two at the state of. So i know if you guys have maybe thought about forming some sort of a of a curriculum that could taught in our our schools to tell the kids what would great courage it took to to win their freedom that there they seem to be taking advantage. Its a good idea we havent done that the one time we tried Something Like that. Theres a book of ours called the heart of everything that is about the Lakota Indian leader, red cloud. And we did after that book came out and it was well received. We did. We collaborated with another author who specializes writing for what they call middle grade. I guess thats 8 to 14 years old in that area to come out with a middle grade version of it because that was the thought that, you know, theres some little about the Indigenous People of the United States, the school curriculums. So we did with that time, but we havent done with anything since and i dont know, you know, wed certainly be open to it, but its not something that weve weve weve looked into but but youre right. Theres so much that is not known even about 20th century American History that that theres so many gaps. And its a shame to since were losing those those those men and women that that were in that war. And just quickly so have the platform when you collaborate on a book, how is it how do you go about how we write this chapter . How do we do this where it where and i write a paragraph, i said in the bar, even though we dont, i have to send i write the next thing i write now i know its easier now with electronic communications, but once a time you might have had go on letters or phone or something. Well, we were on the phone with each other almost every day, certainly emailing a lot, but most of a of the research is what i handle. Bob does the writing because from the very first book, paul this typhoon and bob has had had a lot more experience with combat writing and experiences that just seem like his style of writing would work better. So hes telling the story, hes writing the story, telling that story for both of us. And i think it works well for that kind of material. Thank you. Thank you. That was kind of my question, too, but how did you all get together in the first place . I you know, heres how i would have i heard tom mentioned, can you hear me . So i get the mike. Im sorry. And then we want to know what to that grenade where the pin was moved. Its explosive. Yeah. I had as tom mentioned, i was a war correspondent for, like almost two decades. You know, i was i was the unluckiest war correspondent. I mean, i took shrapnel in sarajevo. I got taliban sniper, i got shot in the leg in afghanistan. I got blown off a pave hawk helicopter in iraq. Id go to some camp in the other combat. Reporter oh,. Drurys here and incoming is sure to follow, but i had spent a year in one of my downrange trips. I had run across a platoon of para rescue jumpers, their air force special forces. And so i said, theres a book here. So i lived nine months in alaska living with pjs and. I was living in the next town over from tom at the time, and we were friends and i came back down and oddly enough, were having a drink. And tom had just published a book, this fishing boat that went down off montauk back in the thirties, in the fifties, overloaded rogue wave, hit it and he said, listen, whats your next project . I said, i dont know. I still work for magazines at the time. And he said, well, it was researching ran across this typhoon i calling it holes these typhoon. Three destroyers turned broke in half man 60 foot waves you know more lost in the battle of midway you you should look into that and looked into it and i said wow this is a great story here. So i called my agent my literary agent, who knows. Tom also now represents tom. And i told him this and he yeah, thats toms story. I said, no, no, no. Toms given it to me. No, no, no. And he said, in my literary our literary, hes old school. Hes not like the kind of guys see slick seattle. Hes old school, hes got values and, ethics. And he said he said, no, thats toms story. I said no, no, you dont understand, tom said i could. He said, im not im not ripping you on this because its toms story. Now, if you two want to write it together, think about that. And thats how it started out with the two of us. So it stuck with me. So and as far as the grenade goes, you could put the pin back in. So after the commandant i surrender, he said, okay, were great. Youll put it to put it back. You know, since you had to surrender. Yeah. Yes, sir. Im matt prickett. Im curious mentioned contemporaneous research. How about contemporary . We have three ranger battalions in the us army now. Two are in georgia. One is right here in savannah, georgia. Have you had any contact . The current guys that are serving . I gave a speech to them thursday morning. I went out there and the and the the c. O. , lieutenant colonel, necessary. He said to me, i appreciate if you talk about heritage lineage and also the contemporaneous that these World War Two men and infuse in my rangers. How memory bias seeps in but if they have things written that they could pass on to the next generation, it would help so much so boom. Question answered right on the nose. Said it was im sorry, ill be as brief as i can be. One of my one of my most Cherished Memories was. My first shop i worked at a coffee and an older gentleman came through wearing a World War Two veteran hat and he he was buying just regular drip coffee. I was like, oh, its like your World War Two veteran. He goes, yes, i was. I was like, please let me buy your coffee. I get a chance. Mine was coffee and went over and made it. And he was just completely in shock. It was like, that was so nice. You take an interest in me being there and i was lucky to have a grandfather who served in korea and then another grandfather who served honorably as a tell gunner in world war. So i guess my question to your is really sparked your interest finding out about the lives of, you know, our valiant men who in World War Two when the war is to come. Well, i like i like an expression that bob uses. He says its the sand of some of these some of these people have some of these have. And we we were not about super soldiers in our books you know, the way we put it is that our mostly focus on ordinary that have been placed in extraordinary circumstance. Ill give you one quick example in our book, the last stand, fox company, one of our main characters, is a fellow named benelli. Hes a 19 year old in brooklyn, and he got caught stealing a car and he got before the judge. And the judge said, listen, you two choices are going to send you to jail. He join the marine corps, tomorrow or today. So benelli joined the marine corps, just a 19 year old kid from the streets of brooklyn, six months later, hes on it. Hes on a mountain pass, part of his Company Holding off 10,000 chinese soldiers. So i think that answer your question. I think we found it increasingly fascinated as we got deeper into research on our first book and certainly our second book and every book after that that were not writing fantasy stories. Were not writing about these super soldiers that could do this extraordinary things. Were writing about sometimes women, but mostly men who were in, you know, typical walks of life, but they were either called upon or put themselves into face of danger because. They felt for fellow soldiers, their fellow men, their brothers, because of that love of country. And we found that they so remarkable that i could certainly, i think, speak for both of us. We felt privileged to be able to tell those stories. So i would have one thing and i know we probably have to get out of here soon, but the sand tom mentioned in the men we write about and its all men because of the wars the grit in my almost two decades downrange in hellholes around the world, i see the same and the same grit in the men and now women who are fighting for us today and have fought for us since 2001. And we should all be very proud of that. So i guess that ends it. So thank you very much. Renee dudley is a technology at propublica previously as an