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Bannon`s War Room
Episode 5396: WarRoom Memorial Day Special
Episode 5396: WarRoom Memorial Day Special ...
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- [00:03]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
This Memorial Day, America honors her fallen heroes. Live from Arlington National Cemetery, President Donald Trump participates in the traditional wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, paying tribute to the brave men and women who gave everything for this country. Real America's voice and the War Room present special coverage starting right now.
- [00:58]
Steve Bannon
Sam. Samoan Memorial Day, Monday the 25th of May in the year of our Lord 2026. We're here in the War Room and we are live for the next four hours to bring you as only real America's voice in the world could do, Memorial Day 2026 as the President, United States commander in Chief, negotiates a end to the war in Persia, the Persian Gulf and Iran. We'll be bringing you updates on all that and also stick to our traditional coverage. We'll do a little bit of the parade and some of the speeches. I've got my wingman as I've had I think now for 14 years, Patrick K. O'.
- [02:42]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Donnell.
- [02:42]
Steve Bannon
He did this at Breitbart Radio News for many years. Then over here at the War Room, the finest combat historian of his generation. We're going to talk about Memorial Day, not Veterans Day, but Memorial Day of our honored dead. So it'll be a couple hours this morning in our traditional ten to noon time frame going through all of this and talking about the beginning of Memorial Day, how it started in Washington. We'll have some guests on as we can pull people in. We had such a tremendous feedback from Saturday show on Peleliu and Tarawa and particularly the condition of the remains of these Marine and Navy, the remains of these heroes that we will also have Mark Noah from History Flights will join us. And of course Cleo Pascal, who is out in the Pacific right now, the great strategic pivot of the United States. I think Mo's going to join us later. Also she was at the commencement on Saturday at West Point. United States Military. Can I get update from her? And then it's starting at noon. The President, the vice president and others in his official party will head towards Arlington National Cemetery of which we will cover live as we always do, the wreath laying and appropriate remarks from the commander in Chief. PATRICK K. O', donnell, thanks brother. Good to see you again.
- [04:07]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
It's great to be here, Steve. It's an honor to be here.
- [04:10]
Steve Bannon
Reason I'm so excited about this is all the great work you've been putting out and really the that you're about to publish. And as you know, I wanted this to focus kind of the center of gravity of this Memorial Day to be on 250, given we're in the 250th year now worth. And we can see the door, as they say in prison for July 4th. And one of the things I've always appreciated about our coverage on July 4, it was really coming through knowing you, was about how, you know, the American Revolution, I say, kind of ended on the signing of the document July 4th. The war of Independence, which we were in, had already started, really picked up steam. And of course they tried to crush. The reason why Moral Day is so important is for our honored dead is how important actual the bearing of arms and conflict has been in our freedom. Because right after the promulgation of the document that was our Declaration of Independence, really a declaration of war against the British Empire and the king. The expeditionary force, I think the first elements of it landed. Landed in Staten island, like two days later, the fort elements. But it shows you. And we're going to do a lot of coverage on that this year to commemorate the 250th of the battle of Brooklyn, Long Island. All the things you've been experts in. But tell the audience quickly, we're gonna get some other guys in here too. Tell us about your third in the trilogy is coming out of the American Revolution.
- [05:45]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
For the last 16 years, Steve, I've been working on three books on the American Revolution.
- [05:50]
Steve Bannon
And the third book, 16 Years of your Life.
- [05:52]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
16 Years of Life for research and writing. Yes. And it's been a pleasure. It's a journey. Each one of those books has found me in one way or another. And each one of those books is. Is a journey. And it's been an amazing journey. And the Revolutionary snipers will be out in the next few months. And it's on the elite unit, another elite unit. And that would be the Riflemen or the first snipers of the American Revolutionary War Untold Story until this time. And they were also the first members of the Continental Army. The first.
- [06:22]
Steve Bannon
Then your three books, they all are elite units. You've got the Maryland Regiment in Washington's Immortals. You've got the then kind of the naval aspect of it or the amphibious aspect in the men from Gloucester, Marblehead, Marble from Marblehead and the naval element of it. And now you've got the sniper, more of the even Special Forces. But when you say they're elite units, it's interesting. Up until the war, if you take these guys background, they are ordinary citizens. These are people going about their lives and living their lives. And because they're drawn into they all volunteer but they're drawn into this conflict as patriots. They form these units. And every one of those units is historical in the fact that it does extraordinary, extraordinary work.
- [07:11]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
This is about just really ordinary individuals. It's a transformation between subjects and citizens, and these men make that transformation. And revolutionary snipers and some of the, you know, true members of the backwoods that lived in the Appalachians or on the frontier, they had to constantly battle Native Americans, the elements, just for survival. It's all about rugged individualism. It's about men that could shoot some of the best shooters in the world at the time, that could shoot a target. I mean, the book, they would literally demonstrate their skills as they were marching up to Boston. They would stop at a town and then they would put apples on their heads at 100 yards. And they, as one guy said that they lost a lot of apples because they shot the apples right off the head of their. Their fellow riflemen through boards. 200 yards. Amazing shots.
- [08:14]
Steve Bannon
The British knew they had something they didn't realize they bit off more than they could chew. But on the retreat, Lexington and Concord, which happened a year before, this is the revolutionary year, the 250th, the year before, in taking the arsenal or attempting to take the arsenal at Concord in the retreat back to Boston, they realized that these were pretty tough hombres, and we're just going to roll over the. The sniper effect and sniper fire coming from behind every rock and tree because they had, you know, they had already fought the Native Americans. They had to survive and hunt every day to survive. Pretty good shots and pretty tough. Pretty tough individuals.
- [08:55]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
It's an absolute miracle that. That. That force that went in to take the powder and the cannon at Concord and Lexington actually survived. It's called Battle Road because that's what it was. It was 700 men that had to somehow fight for their lives, the British, to make their way back towards Cambridge and Boston. And they faced ordinary Americans, the minutemen, the militia, 10 members of my family. The Mills fought at Lexington and Concord. Two died at the Jason Russell House, which was a charnel house, where there were over 10 bodies. The blood was like, according to one account, was ankle deep because there were so many bottles. Bodies on the floor at the Russell house. But this is. This is some of the. The vortex of the battle was. It was now Arlington. You've been.
- [09:53]
Steve Bannon
You've been at this for how many decades? You started. Some people just coming onto us the last couple of years may not know your deep background. You started because you started doing oral histories of the greatest generation. Because there was a great fear that if those oral histories weren't put on tape, that we would lose the entire first person account of. Not the Eisenhowers and patents and all that, which are fully documented, but you would lose it from the ordinary citizen soldier.
- [10:29]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Yeah, absolutely, Steve. For me, this goes back. It wasn't something. It goes back to when I was five years old and I pulled out a World War I book that weighed almost as much as I did. And it was a photo history of the aef. And I just became consumed by it.
- [10:47]
Steve Bannon
The American Expeditionary Force.
- [10:48]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Pershing's, Pershing's Boys. And then it was World War II and everybody was into dinosaur books, but I was into World War II books. And it just grew and grew and grew on me. And when I got out of college, I started interviewing the members of the World War II generation. I specifically started with the 82nd Airborne, had some relatives in that unit. And then I moved to the 101st and the Independent units and the Rangers. And I created a website called the dropzone.org and that was a virtual community, community of all these individuals, hundreds of men. And I'd go to their reunions and just interview them for the whole weekend. And they eventually said to me, hey, why don't you write a book? And I wrote this bestselling book by Simon Schuster called Beyond Valor.
- [11:38]
Steve Bannon
Can we get that on the camera? Can we hold that up?
- [11:40]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
And that was the beginning of it. And it was just a powerful story.
- [11:44]
Steve Bannon
It came out of your interviews.
- [11:46]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
It did, it did. It came out of my interviews. And it, you know, I mean, I have. I knew the legends of D Day as personal friends. You know, Leonard Lamel, who helped disabled the big guns at point du Hak, Colonel Louis Mendez, who was the battalion commander of the 508 at Normandy. You know, these personal stories. I mean, he was telling me about. I'll never forget, I went to his house and he said to me, love and respect. And I'm like, okay, where are we going to go with this? Love and respect. That's how I believed I should treat my men, with love and respect. And it was powerful. And I just sort of. That's how I sort of try to treat people I interact with too, because it's. It's so true. Just love and respect. So simple but true. And his simplicity to that. But this guy was a brilliant leader on D Day. And he talked about how he lost his radio operator, Gavin, General Gavin, who was the division commander of the 82nd at the time, Assistant Division Commander, I should say, ordered the 508 and his battalion to take a ridge that was heavily defended. And they were, you know, under MG42 machine gun fire. They were getting chewed up. And he just, he said, look, General, you've got to come down here if you want to make that or Mendez pushed the attack and they made the attack. And at that point, his radio operator was hitting and Mendez went out there personally, put him in a fireman's carry and took him off. And as he was taking him off, he was hit in the head by a MG42 round. And I'll never forget he told me how his, the man's wife blamed him for his death. And it just took him so hard, although he was trying to save his life. Yeah, but that's the stories, that's the stories that are in Beyond Valor. It's kind of the hidden war of World War II. It's the feelings and emotions that many of these men went through.
- [14:01]
Steve Bannon
But hang on, tell me about that for a second, because the difference, we always make a big difference here in the War room. I'll tell you what we're gonna bring. We make a big difference here in the war room because we do a lot of coverage of Veterans Day also, because there's a lot, tons of veterans in the audience and obviously veterans put the show on. It's also the right thing to do. But there's a big difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Veterans Day is to, is to appreciate everybody's service. Memorial Day is for the honored dead. We don't need appreciation for our service because this is the, the elite of the 1 million, slightly over 1 million that have died in combat or KIA for their country. Okay, Minstrel boy from Blackhawk down, the classic is going to take us out and we're going to return. Return with Patrick K. O' Donnell on a Memorial Day special. Real American Voice of Warriors. In a moment. It's Memorial day. It's Monday, the 25th of May, in the year of our Lord 2026. It is a not a cool, it's been a very cool, almost cold last couple of days in rain constantly. But the American south and Washington D.C. need it. We've had a kind of a drought going on. And so in God's graces, we're getting beautiful, almost like a spring rain. PATRICK K. O' Donnell I'm going to go to Gary Sinise. Gary Sinise, one of the great patriots in our country. Country in a very close, very close friend of Andrew Breitbart. When Gary really first started doing. Getting very involved in his patriotic activity. A lot of that was with Andrew Breitbart. So that goes way back. Hold up. Beyond Valor. One things we do is make sure that you get full access to Patrick's website and all that. And the reason is these books are almost read like novels because they're first person accounts. Right. You're seeing.
- [16:05]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
This one is an oral history of the. The elite units of the war, the Rangers and the Airborne. And it's their stories here.
- [16:11]
Steve Bannon
Hold it up so we see their stories. We got it. Okay, fine.
- [16:14]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Their stories from the D UP raid. I'll stop directing all the way through the liberation of the camp.
- [16:21]
Steve Bannon
But here's the important thing for the audience. This is why I love you. One of the many reasons I love you, besides the fact you're a brawler, is that you came out of college. And we're doing this because you're obsessed and you have a love for it. And love, absolutely. As soon as you went to a couple of these reunions, you started recording it. This was all for free. You weren't charging any money. You weren't doing a book. You did it for the love. And it was in that thing where people say, why don't you do a book? Beyond Valor was really done kind of before the Tom Brokow and in Citizen Soldier Ambrose, which is fantastic. But Brokaw and Ambrose really focused on the greatest generation and made it a thing. You know, the one thing about the greatest generation being raised and going to all those family reunions and just family gatherings every summer is that the veterans of World War II for a long time did not talk about the war. Right. When they first had the first couple commemorations of D day, like the 5 year and 10 year, were not really. There wasn't a thing. They didn't even go back for it. I think it was the Longest day. The movie came out in 61, 62. And then people started thinking about going back. It's quite interesting. In France, I was reading somewhere, somebody went back in the fifth anniversary just to kind of walk around because it had been so traumatic for them. And the French were actually down. They were like negative on the Americans and British coming to France because their economy was so depressed that they had had it better under the Germans. So just human nature being what it is, it's like the woman who gets after Mendez for trying to save her husband because he does die in his grass. It just. Human nature is such that it will look for people to blame, even though people are trying to do are trying to free you and sacrificing themselves to free you.
- [18:09]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
For the guys that I interviewed, they never wanted to talk about it any. Ever. And I always went to the guys that never wanted to talk about it deliberately. It was. I would. I would say seek them out because those are the guys that were in the hardest of combat. And in most cases, they didn't want
- [18:26]
Steve Bannon
to talk about it for a reason because it was.
- [18:28]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
It was traumatic and it was very traumatic for them. And they wanted to bury the war.
- [18:33]
Steve Bannon
That's one of the. That's one of the reasons they're such heroes. Is that the. What we call PTSD today or. Or, you know, battle shock or. It was like, not talked about. Right.
- [18:45]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
My guys I went through were some of the. They had seriously hardcore ptsd. Some of them went through electric shock therapy. Stuff that was experimental at the time. Just never talked about the war. And I would seek them out and I would have their friends tell me who to talk to. And I did this all for free for years before it was anybody was doing any of this stuff. And I was just gathering the stories and they put them online on the drop zone. And that was a virtual community. And it was the veterans themselves that said, hey, why don't you do a book?
- [19:17]
Steve Bannon
Was survivor's guilt a big thing for these guys? So many of their comrades had died in combat. Somehow divine providence had sought them to actually live right.
- [19:27]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
There was that, and then there was Survivor's Guild, and then there were guys that. That just. They. They hung up the uniform after the war and then they got back to work and they built a family, they built a country. And it's. You know, it's. It's a. It's a variety of things. It's. It's. It's what I call the hidden war of World War II is what I brought out in. In Beyond Valor and Risings. I did a book on the Pacific too.
- [19:51]
Steve Bannon
TCM does a. A great job every Memorial Day of playing for. They started with Bridge on the River Kwai on Thursday night, and then they play for the whole weekend. They. They curate, you know, some of the best horror films ever. Last night they. I think they Traditionally, on the Sunday night before, if I remember a Sunday night for Memorial Day, they play Best year. Their. Their primetime is Best Years of Our Lives. And they had the Dana Andrews character. That's. That he's a bombardier. Navigator. A bombardier actually on a. On a B17. And. And he's back. You know, they all come at Frederick March and in the, in the naval, it wasn't an actor. He actually lost both his hands. And Dana Andrews plays the vet. But as soon as he gets back, he wants to take that uniform off. He's very proud of his service, but he wants to take that uniform off and never put it back on again. In fact, his soon to be ex wife kind of forced him to put it on because it looks so great. And he looks like. He just looks like an average schmo in his civilian attire. And she had married him before the war. She wants him to wear that uniform and he wears it like one time with her, but does not want to put that uniform. He just wants to put it in the closet, hang it up, close the closet, and those memories stay there.
- [21:00]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
That's absolutely right. I mean, one of my close friends was Sid Solomon, 2nd Ranger Battalion, Charlie Company. These are the guys that took the other extreme place called Point de la Pase. And he scaled a 100 foot cliff with a bayonet, no ropes, and then took out a mortar position atop Point de la Plac, which was hitting, you know, Omaha beach. And then just moved forward. And then after the war, he said to me, look, Patrick, I didn't want to loaf, I didn't want to sit around. I hung up the uniform and I just moved forward. This guy was rowing, you know, he was a rower and he was rowing up into his late 80s, the Schuylkill River.
- [21:42]
Steve Bannon
Early on, I think it was 1868, and I think it was observance day. It started what became Memorial Day, Observers Day with Civil war. But is that great generation in the late 19th and early 20th century that understood, in a way that I don't think we understand today, the importance of having institutions that work right and institutions that reflect the core central values of this republic, really understood that, hey, the other nations of the earth had these memorials for their, you know, the British, the French. And somehow, because we're, you know, the French are on the French battlefields, the English, you know, but we are going to be in battlefields all over the. All over the world. And so the whole official. The function that we're about to see today, this traditional function of not simply a parade, but the commander in chief going to Arlington National Cemetery to have. At the national cemetery the other day On Thursday, Neil McCabe said they put up 250,000 flags. I think there's 480,000 remains, but there's 250,000 flags put on by the old guard. Right. But very early on, I think, as you know, I'm a fan of all your books. I love, I Devour.
- [22:59]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Thank you very much for that.
- [23:00]
Steve Bannon
But one of the most powerful books that you have is about how this whole thing started and how it started in France. It is so moving. And I and even other retellings of it, you do the best job of how we actually get to the date. Let's take a couple minutes and tee our audience up of how that actually started.
- [23:19]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
This is my very special book. To me, it's the Unknowns.
- [23:25]
Steve Bannon
Do we have that?
- [23:25]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
And it's on the Tomb of the Unknowns.
- [23:29]
Steve Bannon
It's called the Unknown.
- [23:30]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
It's called the Unknowns because it's also about the body bearers and the men that brought the tomb, the remains of the. The first soldier that's in the tomb from World War I home. And this book found me too, because I was asked by Colonel Willie Buell, who was at the time the commander of the 5th Marines.
- [23:52]
Steve Bannon
They were going back is in my film the last 600 meters.
- [23:55]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
He is.
- [23:55]
Steve Bannon
He's a warrior and he was an old school Marine.
- [23:58]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
He's a. He's a fighting Marine Corps officer. That's just an incredibly amazing guy. But he was the brigade. He was the battalion commander of 31 in Fallujah when I was with them as a volunteer combat historian in uniform and went house to house with those guys. And he said to me, hey, you want to come to France with us with the 5th Marines? We're going back for the first time since World War I. And they were going to Belleau Wood to honor the marines of the 5th and 6th Marine regiments that fought in the 2nd Division that were the boys at Belleau Wood that stopped the great.
- [24:37]
Steve Bannon
And Marines, this is why it's so important, is that Marines were built coming out of the beginning of the Navy as like the Royal Marines were with the Royal Navy. They are there on ships. They're amphibious force. They're not. Belleau Wood is kind of a ways inland, right? You naturally would not think of the United States Marines. There's no beach at Belleau Wood. It's kind of like, why are the Marines there?
- [25:01]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
They're there because in 1918, in the summer of 1918, the Germans launched another great offensive and they are very, very close to taking Paris. And it's the boys of the fifth and sixth and the second Division and the third Division of Pershing's American expedition, Air Force that are rushed to the front. And the French army is evaporating, Steve. And there's nothing. Four main casualties there's nothing holding it back. And these boys go into the line and it's at places like Belleau that they hold the front and they stop the Germans with accurate rifle fire. You know, Marine is a rifleman first and they're just picking every Marine's a rifle. They're picking off the Hun with their Springfields, bolt action Springfields and they're stopping them and dead in their tracks. And it's, you know, here that, you know, you have, you know, retreat. Hell, we just got here. You know, the Marine Corps digs in and you know, I was asked to be a guide for the Normandy beaches, but I was there at Belleau Wood with Ray Shearer who's whose great uncle fought there. And he mentions the fact that that Ernest Jansen is a medal of honor recipient@hill142 and he's also a body bearer for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And it was like there I knew my next book found. Really?
- [26:27]
Steve Bannon
It came to you just.
- [26:28]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Yes. I was like, who are these other guys?
- [26:31]
Steve Bannon
Somebody just telling you a random story. Hang on a second.
- [26:33]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Just a random. That's how all my books have been found.
- [26:35]
Steve Bannon
You told me that your books find you. I want to thank our sponsors. Birch Gold. Birchgold.com bandit endothedollar empire. Make sure you go check it out. This holiday weekend. We got a lot to talk about on capital markets, but not today. Today is Memorial Day. We'll do that starting tomorrow, but make sure you go check it out. I want to thank Portugal and all of our sponsors here in the world. Patrick K. O' Donnell's with us. The dollar's convertibility into gold ended in 1971. Gold was fixed at $35 an ounce. Well, fast forward to today and the US dollar has lost over 85% of its purchasing power. Gold, on the other hand, is increased in value by over 12,000%. That's why Central banks are buying gold at record levels. That's why major firms like Vanguard and BlackRock hold significant positions in gold. And that's why I encourage you to consider diversifying your savings with physical gold from Birch Gold Group. But it starts with education. Birch Gold just announced their Learn and Earn Precious Metals events. This free online event rewards you for learning the basics of investing in precious metals. Sign up to get a free silver on your next purchase. Get even larger incentives as you go. The more you learn, the more you can earn. But you must act now, as this special event only runs through April 30th. The dollar lost its anchor in 1971. You don't have to lose yours. Text my name, Bannon B A N N O N to the number 989-898 to join Birch Gold's Learn and Earn Precious Metals event by April 30th. Text Bannon B A N N O N to 989-898 and do it today. Memorial Day, 25 million. The year of our Lord 2026. We're in the middle of a conflict. President Trump, as commander in chief, is negotiating. We're going to have a little update on that, I think, later in the show. That is back and forth. But I think you can tell some of the people are not happy about coming to a peace accord because they're already all over President Trump with very little information coming out about this. We're going to come back to the foundation of this Blackjack Pershing the unknowns to tee up what the President's going to do. But I also want to tie this into. We're going to have Mark Noah and Cleopascal. Cleo's out in the Pacific and Mark Noah going to come. We're going to talk about. Because I think you were very moved, too, about the situation in Tarawa and Peleliu, particularly given you were in bed as a combat historical historian with the Marines. In fact, one of your most moving books is Was it We Are One. We Were one at Fallujah.
- [29:33]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Yeah. I just posted on Twitter or X the dead, the fallen from this first platoon. We lost five men in the squad.
- [29:45]
Steve Bannon
I was in four just in the battle of Fallujah.
- [29:48]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Just in Fallujah. And the. I mean, the platoon had 60, some men that went in and only 19 were standing at the end of the battle.
- [29:57]
Steve Bannon
And it was five kias and a bunch of casualties.
- [30:01]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Yeah. Like multiple, multiple Purple Hearts.
- [30:04]
Steve Bannon
The reason that I did that film with Michael Pack is that people.
- [30:07]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
But they kept going. That was the thing that was amazing.
- [30:09]
Steve Bannon
Fallujah is a horrible battle. Yeah. Door to door.
- [30:12]
Mark Noah
Yeah.
- [30:12]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
I posted the. Our fallen today and just, you know, reflecting on them and just what, you know, today is really all about.
- [30:20]
Steve Bannon
I'd like to pull that and read those names in a second. Let's go to. I want to play Gary Sinise. Gary Sinise is one of the guys who've really gone out of his way for veterans and Memorial Day and families and all that. He is the, I guess the grand marshal of the parade today. Let's go ahead and hear the opening remarks of Gary Sinise.
- [30:40]
Gary Sinise
Thank you so much. How many veterans active Duty first responders are here. If you're, if you're over there and you're a veteran, could you stand up? And our active duty folks here and our veterans, God bless you all. I didn't serve in the military. I have family members who did. I have great respect for those who serve. I have Vietnam veterans in my family, on my wife's side of the family. And I remember what it was like for them to come home to a nation that was kind of torn apart and divided at that time. And it was a difficult, difficult time for our military at that time. I learned a lot from the Vietnam veterans in my family. I learned how difficult it was for them to go off to war and then come home to a nation that had turned its back on them. And we could never, ever let that happen again. That's so after September 11, 2001, having been involved with veterans in the 80s and 90s, I felt that there was a call to action at that point to step up. And I realized there was a great role for citizens to play in backing up our military. These are our defenders, they're our providers of freedom. And so we, as citizens, we can take some responsibility to make sure that the at least know how much they are appreciated and their families know they're appreciated and that we never forget those who fall in freedom's defense. So what I do at the Gary Sinise foundation is just try to be this little rallying point for the American people who want to support our military. And we have thousands, hundreds of thousands, who go to our website and support us because they care about you, they care about our veterans, they care about our first responders, they care about our families, they care about our wounded and they care about our active duty folks. We can never do enough, but we can always do more. God bless you and God bless America. Enjoy the parade today. Thank you very much.
- [33:04]
Steve Bannon
So what a classy guy is. It's always about somebody else, never talks about himself. Gary Sinise, the grand marshal, I think, for the parade today and done so much in freedom's defense. It starts, you can tell in all your books and throughout American military history, the honored dead. It is in freedom's defense. And they know the institutions they're defending, they know their families, what the country, what American values are in the country. But when you read into the details of it, when it comes to the hottest parts, the toughest parts, the ones that separate these, these heroes, it gets down to the guys to the left and right of them. They're fighting for the unit the unit pride in the, in the camaraderie and their. And this kind of brotherhood at arms is really the dividing point.
- [33:50]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
I mean, it was. I saw it firsthand in Fallujah.
- [33:54]
Steve Bannon
It's.
- [33:55]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
They were fighting for each other, you know, and that after all the casualties, I'll never forget we lost Lance Corporal Michael Hanks. And I'll never forget just looking back and I saw that, you know, the guys were kind of on one knee with their weapons and just that forlorn look, the thousand yard stare. And Corporal Soita lost his best friend. And he's like, let's move out. Next house. That's what they did.
- [34:32]
Steve Bannon
I just.
- [34:32]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
It was remarkable, remarkable courage. And then there were guys that came out of the aid station that were wounded to get back, just to get back in the fight. Like Aaron Kent, who was one of our guys. Just, he showed me his paperwork from the aid station. And then the guy was still wounded. He somehow stole a weapon and got back with everybody. That's just the kind of guys that were there. They're incredible.
- [34:59]
Steve Bannon
You talk about the million dollar, you know, the wounds, you know, to get guys out and get them back, you don't see that. I don't think you see that a lot when you really study this. In the last 600 meters, one of the biggest fights they had was the combat Marines that were wounded and some very seriously wounded. The fight they had was medics and personnel and corpsmen that they wanted to get back in the fight, and they want to get back in the fight right away for their buddies because they understood they were kind of outnumbered.
- [35:26]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Yeah, the corpsmen that we had were just incredible. Just constantly, you know, braving fire to do their job and save lives. Incredible.
- [35:37]
Steve Bannon
Amazing where that training comes in. Mo, you were West Point on, I guess, Saturday for the commencement. Pete Hexseth, our Secretary of War. Great. Pete Hexseth was there to give the commencement address. The president had done, I think the debut before we covered live, he did at the United States Coast Guard Academy. What was the commencement of West Point like?
- [36:02]
Maureen Bannon
Ma', am, it was truly an honor to be there. I was one of a few board members that were there, and I think that Secretary Hegseth gave a great speech. It truly was inspiring. You know, if I was able to, I'd get right back in the fight. You know, he motivated the crowd, I think, just as much as the graduates. And they understand that they signed up in a time when we were not at war. And now they most likely will have a high Probability of seeing war. So they understand, like Pete Hegset said, it's send me, send me, send us. So it was very inspiring to be there.
- [36:52]
Steve Bannon
Talk to me about that for a second because Pete, obviously from the liberal media is getting a lot of grief, and particularly he's there. One of the things he's been a great role model is inspiring. You know, he was a combat veteran, I think a major at the time, a rose to major in a, I think a National Guard or Reserve unit. But he saw combat. What was his message to the cadets in that very moment where they're about. They're just a few minutes away from, you know, putting stop being cadets and start, you know, getting their commissions and being junior officers. What, what was his. What was his pitch?
- [37:27]
Maureen Bannon
Well, he wanted them to know that he stands behind them, that he's going to make sure that they have what they need to be the best leaders in this army and that there is not going to be a push for this WOKE agenda DEI anymore. We are, as he said in his speech, snapping back. And they are the snap back to their correct and high standards that the army was at before we started going down this DEI awoke agenda rabbit hole. So it was very motivating. And you could tell it fired up the cadets slash second lieutenants, and they were ready to get out of that stadium and take their oath again because they take it at the end of the ceremony. So technically they are second lieutenants as soon as they are dismissed. However, they were so excited to get out of Mikey Stadium and go do their commissioning ceremonies.
- [38:26]
Steve Bannon
That's fantastic. I know the president's made it a high priority to get to stop this WOKE nonsense and DEI and get back to war fighting. Correct. All the guidance that you and Sean Spicer has over at the Naval Academy, you have at West Point all the presidential appointees, and of course, you had. I think Congressman Womack was there, also the chairman of the board. The mandate is to get back to war fighting and to get back to not simply war fighting, but the winning of our wars. Correct?
- [38:54]
Maureen Bannon
Correct. And I saw it when I went up for the Sandhurst competition. I saw the training that the academy is doing. They are getting back to what Secretary Hex had said, that snapback. They are focused on war fighting and getting rid of the world agenda that infiltrated our service academies. So I think West Point is doing a very good job and I look forward to making sure that we continue to build leaders of character at my alma mater so that they can be great leaders in the United States Army.
- [39:29]
Steve Bannon
Mo, what's your social media? How can people follow you?
- [39:32]
Maureen Bannon
They can follow me at real Maureen Bannon on Twitter or on Instagram. Sorry. And Maureen, underscore Bannon on Getter and Twitter. And I just wanted to say today to everyone I know I've said this before on Memorial Day. Today is not a day to thank a veteran. Today is a day to honor those that paid the ultimate sacrifice for this country. So if you live near a military cemetery, get out and see those graves, those men and women that gave their lives, gave everything for this country. In honor of Memorial Day, I am wearing a teammate of one of our security, Carl Fisher, his teammate that was killed in Afghanistan in 2016, to honor him because he gave his life fighting for this country.
- [40:21]
Steve Bannon
Mo Bannon, we'll take that to heart. Thank you so much. Appreciate you.
- [40:25]
Maureen Bannon
Thank you.
- [40:28]
Steve Bannon
Mark Lucas, talk to me from Article 3. You're a veteran. Memorial Day, sir.
- [40:35]
Mark Lucas
Yeah, it's a very special weekend and I was able to take my 13 year old daughter to a memorial over the weekend. I was able to show her some of the service members I served with in Afghanistan that pay the ultimate cost. But then also there was a service member that committed suicide here in Iowa that was one of those deaths that we never saw coming. And just reminding her of what the cost is for combat. But it's a weekend of mixed emotions. I also celebrate my wedding anniversary with my wife and it reminds me that these service members would do anything to spend another dinner with their spouse or to throw a football with their son. So I spent this day and started it like I try to do every day in prayer. You know, I lead veteran action and I'm all about action, action, action. But I tell people that one of the greatest actions you can do is to pray. And so I offer up these memories and these prayers to, for these service members, to God that they can see the light of their face. But especially today when we've had 14 casualties in Iran, there's going to be a big gap in families all across this country. And pray for those spouses, those parents, those children that they can have peace. Because after the weeks go by and the months go by, there's an outpouring of support, but they become lonely and they will always remember that hole in their heart. So today is a very special day that we take seriously. Like Mo Bannon said, it's not about veterans. Although we're very proud of our service, the best thing that we can do is offer up these prayers and to honor those people. That pay the ultimate sacrifice.
- [42:06]
Steve Bannon
Talk to me about this scourge. I'm going to get to you on this topic. Tell me about the scourge of suicides. Why haven't we been able, you know, the greatest generation, you know, kept it internally. And obviously that paid with broken families and alcoholism and all types of things. But it seems today the suicide rates are still very high, or any suicide coming out of a veteran is unacceptable. Mark, why do you think we have this still, this scourge of suicide? Among veterans who, particularly people that saw
- [42:37]
Mark Lucas
combat, it's because of despair. And really, oftentimes despair is driven by traumatic events, but also it's driven by the fact they don't feel like they can get help. And so when people go to the va, for instance, and they want to talk to somebody and the VA turns them away, it increases that despair. And I think one of the greatest drivers of veteran suicide that we see today is the fact that the Department of Veterans affairs isn't serving people. Now, there's different hospitals across the country that do good work. But we had two veterans at the same hospital in San Antonio, Texas, at the Audie Murphy VA Hospital who committed suicide. One of them was actually a Navy veteran who wrote a book about veteran suicide with his father. He stepped into the hospital, he wanted to talk to somebody. Nobody wanted to talk to them. He said that they were like robots that just wanted to give me pills. And he committed suicide on the front step of that va. A few months later, a Marine did the exact same thing. These guys face despair and they want to get help. And the va, the exact institution that was built to help these people, are failing them. And that's why Veteran Action, we're supporting the Veterans Access act, which is a bill that's right now in the House of Representatives. President Trump supports this bill. The White House does. This will codify the reforms that President Trump passed in his first term. The Mission act, which would give a veteran choice in health care, that the VA can't see you in a timely fashion, that you can go to a private health care facility. And I truly believe that if we pass this bill and also the Veterans Bill of Rights act, that this will allow veterans to seek help faster. It'll help get them the help that they need right now. And so hopefully it can save lives. And these bills not only are the right thing to do, they're politically very popular. I commissioned a poll with Mark Mitchell at Rasmussen. The Veterans Bill of Rights act of 26, 2026, has 96% support. The Veterans Access act has 84% support. And if you talk to military voters and veterans, there's 75% more likely to vote for somebody to support these bills.
- [44:46]
Steve Bannon
But this, I don't understand. This has been a priority from President Trump from the first campaign and we did the executive orders and all that. He's gone through a couple of VA heads, but I mean, this is not kind of a priority. This is a very high priority for President Trump and people that are close to him, like Ike Permo, Mutter and others that have made this a priority. How can it have been a priority for President Trump? And we're still, as you're saying, we're still having. Is the va, Is it that bureaucratic? I mean, there's the audience out here would support anything that helped help veterans, and particularly in this issue, which is of, you know, veterans that have served their country, served in uniform, served in combat, that come back and have such despair that they take their own lives. So there has to be some reason it's not delivering the va. I think the people over there understand its priorities because they just feel they've given somebody a pill that takes care of it. This, this, this also scourge we've had to try to medicate our way out of. This is, is that the issue. Is the issue that modern society doesn't have the spiritual or religious underpinnings or under structure. Axios today has a huge story just about on the practical politics side, how the secularization of the nation to a large start making it very difficult to actually reach people. But is that. What's the underlying reason for this? This has to be something. And why are we not delivering to make sure that we're on Memorial Day? It's, you know, the million that are honored dead are not increasing every year because of people that take their own lives.
- [46:19]
Mark Lucas
We have a bipartisan problem when it comes to veteran issues on Capitol Hill. And unless there's a political incentive, they just seem not to really pay attention to it. And that's why I started Veteran Action. We have to change the politics on veteran issues. This has vast bipartisan support. The American people believe that veterans deserve choice in their health care. They believe that they deserve better health care from the va. And that's why I had to commission the poll. I had to show these politicians, I've briefed the nrcc, I've briefed the White House. I've showed them that I've delivered some great opportunities for victories on a silver platter, that 75% of voters who they see a congressman support this bill are more likely to vote for that person. We see a 5 percentage gap between the support of President Trump and congressional Republicans. Here are two bipartisan bills that they can pass right now that will help them with veteran voters. Because right now we're seeing that veteran support is softening for Republicans. And it's why. It's because they haven't done anything. President Trump passed the Mission act in 2018. He passed the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection act in 2017. I worked with him on both those bills. That's why he had such solid veteran support. But veterans are like the NFL. They ask you, what have you done for me lately? And right now, the VA is continuing to fail. These two bills can help solidify veteran support, but more importantly, it will help veteran lives save them today.
- [47:48]
Steve Bannon
Mark, where do people go? One more time where they go. To find out all this information, go
- [47:52]
Mark Lucas
to veterinaction.org I created a action center like I did for the Article 3 project so the War Room posse can go there and they can contact their lawmakers to tell them to support the Veterans Access Act.
- [48:03]
Steve Bannon
Good, Mark, thank you. Thank you for everything you do for the veterans and particularly here on Memorial Day. Thank you, sir.
- [48:10]
Mark Lucas
Thank you.
- [48:12]
Steve Bannon
You got to help me out here, o'. Donnell. If you look at these giants in the late 19th and early 20th century and it gets back to the Blackjack Pershing, they did not. I realize it wasn't covered. So there were people that had PTSD and had severe coming out of World War I with the mustard gas.
- [48:33]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Shell shock.
- [48:34]
Steve Bannon
Shell shock and some of the horrific things. But I don't believe we had this issue with suicides. Right. You had suicides or you're saying it's different?
- [48:44]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
I think we did. I just think it was. Is publicized as much, but it's.
- [48:48]
Steve Bannon
But not the scourge it is today.
- [48:49]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
It is. It's a much. It's. It's a big issue.
- [48:52]
Steve Bannon
What do you mean it's an issue? You serve with the.
- [48:54]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
I mean, I was there and we now have more men that have committed suicide than were killed in action in Iraq and Fallujah.
- [49:01]
Steve Bannon
Give me that again.
- [49:02]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
More men have committed suicide than were killed in action in Iraq.
- [49:07]
Steve Bannon
More men that served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yeah, we have higher. It's higher suicide.
- [49:13]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
At least in the, at least in the. In three. In some of the units I was in. Yeah, the unit you were in three one.
- [49:19]
Steve Bannon
You're. You're saying that the suicides after. That's what I'VE been told are higher than the kias.
- [49:25]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Yes. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a terrible thing. And, and I, I've seen it firsthand.
- [49:34]
Steve Bannon
Is that, is that modern? Is that modernity is. Because people don't have.
- [49:37]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
It's all, it's. There's different factors that are involved and it's. People respond to this trauma in different ways and what they saw was extremely traumatic because it was house to house, it was fighting that was hand to hand, you know, in your face, personal combat and then different things. I. One of our guys, you know, as he mentioned earlier, VA would just give him pills to deal with the problem and not attack the root.
- [50:14]
Steve Bannon
To medicate it.
- [50:15]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
To medicate it. And then people would self medicate with alcohol and other. A variety of other things to somehow get through it. And then there was this situation then I'm not sure how much it's changed that if you sought help, you could not be promoted. And if you can't be promoted, you cannot stay in. And that was a vicious cycle.
- [50:41]
Steve Bannon
Give me this internally. If you seek help, if you seek help, they log it into your service.
- [50:47]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
I'm not sure how this is today, but this is when I was writing we were one, I would hear the stories constantly. People couldn't seek help because if they did it would be a detriment. And then they would. So then they would therefore pile on the alcohol or the pills to somehow deal with it. And we had one of our guys, terrible situation where he was self medicating and he got a dui. And the DUI they said was an automatic expulsion from the Marine Corps. And his entire life was based on service. And all he wanted to do was be a Marine. And he took out his service pistol and he killed himself after that. And that's just it. Just. I was the first one of the first people to get the call. It was just a terrible thing to have to. You have to sacrifice your dream, you know, just not right. And now there's efforts to restore his, you know, his service record. And he deserves it because he was a great marine in Fallujah. In his service afterwards.
- [52:02]
Steve Bannon
Unbelievable. Okay, hang on. We're gonna take a short commercial break at the top of the hour. President is going to leave, I think the White House close to noon. I believe the actual ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery will commence at 12:30. I believe that the President, the Vice President will be there. There'll be some appropriate remarks. There'll be laying of the wreath. We'll do the traditional evolution as they call it at Arlington National Cemetery Day, the Tomb of the Unknown. We're going to get to how that all started. Patrick Gaydon wrote a book about called the Unknowns. But first, when we come back from commercial break, we're going to go to the vast Pacific. We're going to go to two of the bloodiest battles with more heroes than maybe a lot of you have not heard of Tarawa and Pelu. And what is Memorial Day like there today? Mark Noah from History Flights and our own Cleo Pascal will join a short commercial break.
- [53:25]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
This Memorial Day, America honors her fallen heroes. Live from Arlington National Cemetery, President Donald Trump participates in the traditional wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, paying tribute to the brave men and women who gave everything for this country. Real America's voice and the War Room present special coverage starting right now.
- [54:07]
Steve Bannon
26, 25 May, the special annual special coverage we give every Memorial Day for our honored dead. The over million that have died in killed in action or died in defense of their country, their republic. Might add that Tina Peters, I think there's a prayer vigil might try to pick up some of that. Tina Peters gets that first, a gold star mother, a gold star mother who is in prison in a high security prison in Colorado embraced that on Memorial Day. How's that feel? Gave her son for for in defense of his country. The gold star mothers are actually speaking up at Arlington or gold star families. We're going to jump to that, get a little of that, maybe dip into the parade. Want to thank the engine room is on point. Today. The engine room had a I think this is one, I think this is the Texas, one of the Texas branches of our engine room said Steve, let's keep it simple. Veterans should get all benefits of illegal aliens. Boom. I don't want to get too political today, but I think that is a great recommendation. We had two very special individuals on the show on on Saturday and the overwhelming and I mean my phone blew up the entire day and as I said, we're we're going to get this thing sorted out. Mark Noah from History Flights and our own Cleo Pascal. Mark, I want to start with you. What is history Flights? And tell me about Tarawa and Peleliu, particularly terroir that I know that you're trying to work on but being blunted by the Chinese Communist Party and just bureaucratic ineptitude. What is History Flights? What do you do, sir?
- [55:55]
Mark Noah
History Flight is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that has conducted more than 150 missions overseas in the last 20 years, finding lost sites of MIAs and recovering them. And we've succeeded in recovering more than 350 missing American individuals. And including complete individuals, we've, we've recovered lost graveyards that we found on Tarawa, and we've also recovered numerous air crew that were lost in, in the Pacific and in Europe. And those individuals were often, you know, there's a misconception that a person who's deceased from a large explosion is not recoverable, but that's not really true. We recovered a B26 bomber crew that had had four 1000 pound bombs on board that detonated when the plane crashed, and we recovered those individuals. So there's a wide range of possibilities if there is enough interest from the country to support it.
- [57:05]
Steve Bannon
I think this is what, and I want to make sure we're very clear about this. We're not trying to be critical of anybody, but we're just, I think when most audience members, because you've been on Breitbart Radio, as Patrick had been years ago, when most people hear this, they go, look, I know there's an MIA situation in Vietnam and maybe even part of Korea, and there are people very involved in that, and some of the governments want to look the other way, et cetera, et cetera. But when you talk about World War II, right. I thought, isn't it. They're kind of shocked that there's a group like yours that is going out and doing this effort and when you put out the number 80,000, that there are 80,000 individuals who remains, have not been, have not been gathered up or collected and buried with appropriate military honors? I think people are like stunned. Like, isn't this the kind of compact you make as you sign up that if you're going to give all, if you're wounded in combat, what did Lincoln say in the Gettysburg. No, not Gettysburg Address. He said in the second inaugural address, that powerful second order address, that we give comfort to the widow and the orphan and those hurt in battle, that most people assume that the government not just takes care of you medically. Right? And clearly in this ptsd there's a gap, but that there remains. If you die in combat, if you're killed in action in defense of your country, that the government and the American people not just have an obligation, they have a willing obligation to find your remains and to somehow reunite that with your family, or if they choose to be buried in one of these magnificent, simple but powerful cemeteries we have throughout the world. Sir?
- [58:59]
Mark Noah
Well, it's a dramatic conflagration is what World War II was. And in the summer of 1944, America was losing 100,000 people per month, killed, wounded or missing. And by law, they were required to publish the KIA is in the local newspaper, but the missing were not required to be to be written down in the local newspaper. And so by the end of the war, there were 78,979 that were still missing and over 8,000 from the merchant Marine. And certainly finding people who disappeared in lost instances in the ocean is extremely difficult and often impossible, but not impossible. There have been many MIAs that have been recovered from underwater crash sites of aircraft. And then there were also 7,400 missing from Korea. And today there's still 1,566 missing from Vietnam. But the MIA issue for World War II is enormous. And so that's why we elected to put our limited resources in the World War II theater to see how much success.
- [60:23]
Steve Bannon
Hang on one second. Hang on one second. I just want to make sure I get the math right. And people should keep this in mind. One of the finest books I ever read about World War II was called annihilation. And it's about. As these wars continue, they get more vicious because, you know, you just get angrier, both sides right. Of the killing and the thing. And they get more intense. They reach crescendos of combat on both sides, as World War II did. Obviously stop by the dropping of the in the Pacific theater ended all Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although I might add that a lot of that was because the Japanese Imperial command knew that the Russians took what, Hokata island, that there would be a very different post war for Japan than if the Americans they surrendered to the Americans. You said 100,000 in 1944. There was 100,000amonth. Kii is missing in action or casualties on the missing in actions from World War II. There were how many at the end of the war there were, you said 975,000 roughly missing in action.
- [61:30]
Mark Noah
Well, there were 415,000American Kias in World War II. And after they did the post war recovery effort, there were still 78,979 missing. And there were also over 8,000 from the merchant Marine that were still missing.
- [61:48]
Steve Bannon
So how did. But we had a major government effort post war to find the missing or to find even the KIAs and foreign battlefields and to either return them to their home for burial or to bury them in a national military cemetery, whether it's in the Philippines or in the cliffs of Normandy or throughout Europe, Correct?
- [62:11]
Mark Noah
That is correct. There was an enormous effort. I think they recovered more than 300,000 individuals and brought them back to burial in America or in the American battlefield monument, cemeteries that are overseas.
- [62:28]
Steve Bannon
And so the remainder, the 78,000, is that. Is that from the time that stopped? I think four or five years after the war? Right. When the money ran out? That was never was in the 1950s, was there any program still with 80,000 missing in action? Was there any concerted effort to continue on and try to find those. They figured, hey, they're airmen over Europe or their navy or merchant Marines, or they'll be in the deep jungle or the beaches of terror. Was, it's going to be too tough that we just quit.
- [63:03]
Mark Noah
There was no effort in the 50s, the 60s, or the 70s. And when the Defense Department started to do with. They were forced to do an MIA program for Vietnam because of the outpouring of public anger about the Vietnam MIA issue. When they. When they did that, they started a very small, unfun, underfunded organization at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii run by a retired colonel named Johnny Webb, who's a friend of mine, a very good guy, and he used some of his own money to fund the search for some of these people. And. And because they were given money just for Vietnam. And so they would get reports, you know, hey, we were digging a building on Tarawa, and we dug up a grave. I mean, that. That has happened on Tarawa since before I was born in 1965. The first grave on Tarawa that was dug up in construction that I'm aware of was dug up in. In 1961. But, you know, we recovered a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, Alexander Bonnieman, on Tarawa in a mass grave with 52 other individuals. And there was a building built on top of the grave. And we dug down through the floor and recovered 12 individuals that were underneath the building. But when we did that, we found evidence that when they had built a building, local construction workers had dug right through some of these people's bodies and had taken the gold fillings out of their teeth. And, you know, that's the kind of degradation that has happened from the neglect of not looking for people in the most effective way possible.
- [64:46]
Steve Bannon
Okay, so hang on. This is. I gotta make sure I fully comprehend this, because sometimes when I hear the story, it's so incomprehensible. You have airmen in the 8th Air Corps. I think somebody told me one time, you're 80,000 total. There may be up to 40, 30 or 40,000 of these airmen, all spread throughout Europe. Okay, you've got obviously Merchant Marines, you have Navy, you have people that are very. Obviously the remains are difficult to recover, if there even remains left. But at Tarawa and Peleliu, these were very specific objectives. These are essentially island atolls with beaches that were hit by the Marines in some of the bloodiest combat in American history. And that combat has been recorded by some of the most. The well documented, well written stories about that. It can't be lost on the Marine Corps or the United, or the War Department or Congress or whatever that X amount of people died. And these are the remains we got. I just, I can't get my head around as powerful and as great as this country was in the 50s and the 60s before the turmoil really started, that people didn't say, hey, at Tarawa, we're still missing a thousand people, or Peleliu, we're still missing and 500 people. How did that happen? How did we get to a situation where a Runway is built over a temporary. They bury these Marines where they died on the beach. Right. How do we get into a situation where somebody's building a Runway over or somebody's building a building over, or some backhoe goes through what you just said to, to, to desecrate the remains of, of the, of the, of the fallen and then allow somebody to go in and get the goal, get the gold out of their teeth? How could that possibly happen, sir?
- [66:37]
Mark Noah
Well, it, it happened quite a large amount of times all over the world from World War II casualties. But in Tarawa specifically, there were 42 temporary graves that were built by the Marines themselves, with the corpsmen and with their religious personnel. And, you know, like Father Francis Kelly helped to lead the burials on Tarawa. And I was fortunate enough to interview over 100 Tarawa veterans. And one of the guys who was stationed on the island after the, after the battle, that was an air base, told me that he was walking past his, from his tent to the mess hall, and they would walk past a grave, a large grave with, with more than 40American Marines buried in it. And then one day they walked past it and it was gone. And there had been a road built on top of it by the Seabees. And he said that his squadron commander went in to talk to the leader of the Seabees, the commander of the Seabees group on Tarawa, and the discussion denigrated into a fist fight. And that's exactly how they lost the graves on Tarawa. Is they built a modern air base and the tempo of the war effort was considered to be more important. And we recovered that grave that Rawls clot Felter told us about and we saw the road.
- [68:02]
Steve Bannon
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on one second. I gotta go to break. You're saying there were 42 great sites? Not just greats, 42 around Tarawa. We're going to get to all that. Patrick K. O' Donnell Cleopascal, Mark Noah in the war room. Foreign. Welcome back. Memorial Day 2026. It's 25 Monday 25 May, the year below 2026. I want to go mark Norah's going to stick with us. Clear Pascal. We're going to get to my wingman here at Patrick A. Dome. It's going to stick with us. I want to go to Jim Rickards, one of our best contributors on geopolitics capital markets. But today, Jim, tell about your was it your father that fought at Peleliu, sir?
- [68:57]
Jim Rickards
That's right. My father fought at Peleliu. He was as a child I wasn't an expert on the order of battle, but I once asked him what was your division or group? He said all firsts meant 1st Marine Division, 1st Regiment, known as the 1st Marines and 1st Battalion. They were they went into Palelu. The battle started on September 15th. That's thank you for putting up that picture. That's my father on the right with one of his Marine buddies. That picture is taken in 1944 in Pavuvu. Pavuvu is in the Solomon Islands. It was used as a basically a starting point, organizing point for Marine invasion. So you Pavuvu is where you got organized and set up and then you went out from there. They left in early September. By the way, quick footnote. My father was 17 when he enlisted, but he altered his birth certificate so he could do that to make it look like he was 18. He was I would say it was patriotic. The Marines would probably say gung ho. But he actually forged his birth certificate to make sure he got in as a 17 year old basic, you know, Parris island, live fire machine gun fired over your head, crawling through the swamp of barbed wire, but then onto Camp Pendleton, San Diego and then the Pacific. Pavu, that was the staging area for the invasion of Peleliu. The 1st Marines 1st Marine Regiment commanded by Colonel Lewis F. Puller, known as Chesty Puller. Our dad always called him Chesty. They went in on the northern beach. The beaches were kind of organized north to south, the northern beach was White beach, but that was immediately adjacent to a feature about a 90 foot cliff called the Point. And the Marines called it the Point. The Japanese had blasted a cave explosive, put heavy artillery in the cave, and then sealed it up mostly with steel doors so it could just open up enough to fire. But the Marines couldn't very easily or very well counter attack or do anything, but they had to actually assault the Point. From there. They moved inland to a feature, see if I could pronounce it, Uma Brogol Pocket. But the Marines called a Bloody Nose Ridge. And I'm sure you know, Steve, the historians have looked at Peleliu. I'm talking about the 1st Marines, because that was my father's unit. But the 5th Marine Division, 7th Marine Division were also in the fight. They were. The 5th Marines had the airfield objective. The 7th Marines were to kind of secure the southern part of the island. The first Marines were going further north into this. A bloody Nose rage, as it was called. Historians have considered this the bloodiest, most bitter fight of the entire war. And it's not to kind of denigrate any. We have the Battle of the Bulge and Patton and D Day and Okinawa. We know all the rest. But for intensity, high casualty rates, the number killed, the relative smallness of the objective, and even today, historians debate, well, did you really have to do it? Peleliu came out of a debate between MacArthur and Nimitz, Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur, and they actually met with FDR in Hawaii to sort it out. MacArthur wanted to attack the Philippines, take the Philippines. But that's why Peleliu was an objective, because at an airfield. And MacArthur wanted to protect his flank in the invasion of the Philippines. Nimitz wanted to skip the Philippines, go to Taiwan today. Taiwan at the time was Formosa. The ultimate objective was always Okinawa. Okinawa was the place you were going to get to. And then from there staged the invasion of the main islands of Japan, Kyushu. That, that invasion didn't happen because of the atomic bomb, but they, the war Department estimated 500,000 casualties. So I want, I want to.
- [72:49]
Steve Bannon
I want to go back to something just for a second, the Seabees, about the situation in terror. We are not disparaging the Seabees. The order of the day was take these islands. These islands are basically stationary aircraft carriers. You build a Runway. We got to get. We got to get air power. Air power was going to destroy the Imperial Japan so that we didn't have to have an invasion. Of course, that didn't until the atomic weapon came up. Even LeMay's firebombing of Japan. The Japanese were dug in and they're looking at 4 million man invasion with 500,000 to a million casualties. But that's why Tarawa, the objective of the Seabees is different than hey, we got to collect the bodies, etc. He's saying, hey, look, I got orders. I got to build a Runway, I'm going to build a Runway because we got to get planes up. What was, I want to go also to this concept of Peleliu. There was this big debate that you need to do. The terror was in the Pelelius. Could you just go around these objectives and actually hit and actually take things instead of doing these frontal attacks? You know, MacArthur was very.1 of the reasons the Navy and the Marine Corps were not high on General MacArthur. And he was not high on that. He didn't believe in frontal attacks. He believed in New Guinea. He had specialized in don't just take them, just don't go to every port. You got to skip around them and cut off their supply lines. What was it about Peleliu and Tarawa records?
- [74:15]
Jim Rickards
Well, Palelu had a landing ship and the Japanese controlled at the time before the invasion. And they could have used that to launch aircraft at any invasion of the Philippines. And that was MacArthur's reason for wanting to take Peleliu. Of course, Nimitz said, skip the Philippines and keep going north. So FDR came down on the side of MacArthur and that was the reason for the invasion. But whether, again, let historians debate whether it was necessary or not. The fact is it happened and it was one of the most bitter, bloodiest, hard fought battles in history. I mean, that's not an overstatement. Again, historians agree on that. My father's group, they went in under the 1st Battalion. The commander there was Everett Pope. When they were up in the pocket, the bloody Nose ridge, they went in with a company, basically 100 men, just under 100 men. Nine came out. They fought all night. They were out of ammunition. They fought with canteens, knives, rocks, hand to hand. Multiple assaults made it through the night and then eventually came out, but only nine survived. That was my father's group, but again, I'm talking about my father because that's my personal experience. But this was no different from what every, every Marine 1st Division or 5th or 7th for that matter, went through. It was just an unbelievably hard fought battle. General Robertus was the commander of the 1st Marine Division. Puller was the 1st Regiment, the 1st Marines. But General Leopardis was the commander of the 1st Division. He said before the invasion, this will take three or four days. It took two and a half months, again with record casualties. And as far as the Japanese willingness to fight, the Japanese did fight to the last man. Their commander committed a sepulchral, ritual suicide at the end. But then they eventually accomplished the objective. There was a Japanese lieutenant and a group of 20 men who held out till 1947. I mean, we've all heard their stories, but it was. This was true on Powell, though they never got to him. And he just held out in a cave and was. And was not kind of persuaded to surrender, so to speak, until 1947. The. The flamethrowers were crucial. When once the Marine. My father, by the way, he didn't talk about it much. We were little kids, 6, 7 years old. Like, hey, dad, how many, you know, the enemy did you kill or whatever? He would not talk about it. He told a couple stories. By the way, it was 115 degrees. You're walking over volcanic and coral. Sorry, not volcanic, coral rock in 115 degrees. It's cutting through your boots. They were low on water. The Navy supplied the water in barrels, but the barrels had been used for oil, so it was oil residues. The water was, in effect, poisoned. That was one of the most scarce resources. And they just kept going. They just kept fighting. The 1st Division had 70%. Sorry, 1st Regiment. I want to be clear. 1st Regiment had 70% casualties, as they say. There were certain pockets and battles where there were 90% casualties and fighting with. Fighting with bricks and stones.
- [77:37]
Steve Bannon
Unbelievable. And he didn't talk about. He didn't talk about it much to you as a. When you were a kid?
- [77:42]
Jim Rickards
Now there's one. One story he told us. He was entering a cave. Should be good. My father was a mortarman. Mortarman worked in two person teams. One guy carried the mortar itself and the sights and so forth. The other Marine carried the ammunition. And then they had to set up very quickly and elevate it and then do the sight and then drop the mortar shell into the mortar and then it would fire. But the accuracy was a little bit hit or miss. And they used a technique called bracketing. So you would have a target, you would think you had it right. You would fire if it went too far, like, okay, raise the elevation a little bit, try to get it the second time. But it took two or three tries to really get on target. And then that was, you know, a challenge in and of itself, the battles. You're part of the battle, but the battles are raging around you. But my father went into a cave with two other Marines at the time. He just had a sidearm because I guess he was the mortarman. So he didn't have a rifle. And a Japanese Imperial soldier came out from around the corner in the dark, practically didn't have a gun, had a samurai sword. And he just attacked, ran at them with the samurai sword and shouted, you know, you die, Marine kind of thing, you know, banzai type of shout. And as I said, my father just had a sidearm. He was kind of close to getting decapitated, but the guy next to him had a BAR Browning automatic rifle machine gun. Basically, it just cut the Japanese warrior in half. So that's, that's how it was. And to your earlier guests, a lot of these caves, once they secured it with explosives or plane throwers, whatever it was, they had bulldozers and they just sealed them up and kept going. So your prior guess is absolutely right. I'm talking about Peleliu. But it's true in other islands there are graves in Japanese and certainly some Americans buried in those caves. The one, one big thing about Peleliu. And again, your other guests, you were talking about Tarawa and Kwajalein Atoll in the, in the Marshall Island. Same thing. On those assaults. The Marines came ashore, but the Japanese put all their defensive power near the beach or just behind the beach. And they it was just a fight on the beach and bloody. There were navigation errors. Some of the landing craft opened up too early. The Marines came out and drowned.
- [80:06]
Steve Bannon
Jim. Jim, just hang on for, hang on one second. Take a short commercial break. Memorial Day 2026. We're turning them off. Welcome back to our wall to wall coverage. Church. We're coming up on the hour where the president, commander in chief will be heading towards Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown and have some appropriate remarks. Jim Rickards, your father was how old when he lied about his age to get into actually to volunteer for the Marine Corps?
- [80:51]
Jim Rickards
He was 17 in the spring of 1944. Forged his birth certificate or alter it in some way. I don't think the Marines were too particular, actually. And so he enlisted when he was 17, but saying he was 18 based on an altered birth certificate. But 17 is off at Parris island. And then by the time of the invasion, he had turned 18. One of the stories he did tell us he crossed the International Date Line on a vessel, of course, going to Pabovu on his birthday. So he said, I lost my birthday on the way. But yeah, 18 year old, basically in the most horrific conditions. I should point out, Steve, that the first Division won what's called a Presidential Unit Citation awarded by President Roosevelt. These are not participation trophies. They're highly specific as the time, date, place, et cetera. So it was 1st Marine Division, September 15th through 19th. It was the worst part of the fighting, although it continued for a long time. September 15, 1944. And the presidential Unit Citation is considered the equivalent of the Navy Cross in terms of power. So it's sort of like we can't even figure out who did what. If you're fighting with a knife and hand to hand, you get this as equivalent. Navy Cross. They gave him a Presidential Unit Citation.
- [82:10]
Steve Bannon
Unbelievable. Jim, what is your social media? Where do people, where do people follow you, sir?
- [82:15]
Jim Rickards
Yeah. Thanks, Steve. Rickardswarroom.com is our landing site. Go there and learn about our publications and so forth. So we hope people check it out. We put a lot into it, and we're specialized in predictive analytics. But one of our inputs, by the way, Steve, when we do the predictive analytics is history. So I think that what we're doing, what you're doing today, is excellent in that regard.
- [82:40]
Steve Bannon
I appreciate you, sir, and the audience does, too. Thank you so much. Rickardswarroom.com, the landing page for strategic intelligence. Our special relationship with Jim Rickards, one of our best contributors. Thank you. Comes from pretty good stock, doesn't he? Cleopascal the Pacific part of America, because we're a Pacific nation. Your thoughts, ma', am, on these battles on Memorial Day?
- [83:06]
Cleopascal
Yes. Thank you. So Peleliu. Go back to Peleliu for a minute. It's five square miles. It's a tiny little island in the ocean. And that's why so many of these battles were so pitched. There was nowhere to go. You had to take the whole island in order to be able to hop on to the next one or else secure it. And that's still the case. And I'd like to just talk a little bit about what those men who died on those beaches gave us, which was 80 years of peace in the Pacific and relationships with countries in the region that are unlike the US has with anywhere else. So Peleliu is in the country of Palau, independent country, in free association with the US and you mentioned President Trump was at the Coast Guard commencement. So was the president of Palau. President Sarangel Whips Jr. Was there because people from Palau independent country and the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia. The three countries in the Central Pacific in free association with the US can and do serve in the US Military, including in the Coast Guard. President Wipps was there. President Trump recognized him in order to congratulate Palawan who had graduated, along with the rest of the Coast Guard class. And this goes to what you talked about before in terms of the veterans, because the people, the citizens of Palaunesia, Marshall Islands who serve alongside, bleed alongside and die alongside American service members all over the world go home. And as per the compacts of free association with the US they're supposed to get veterans services, health care services when they go home. And in spite of the best efforts of Congress, and this really is a bipartisan issue, they're not getting them. There seems to be some issue at VHA Veterans Health. And you're seeing suicides of Marshallese. I know that specific case because the Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands is a veteran himself, US Service veteran who has recruited into the US Military. And he's had to attend the funeral of a service member who came home, couldn't get the care he needed and committed suicide in the Marshall Islands. So this relationship of deep trust that was born with the blood on the beaches of Peleliu and then grew into this relationship unlike any other between independent countries. Marshall Islands is where Kwajalein is the US Base, but also where one of those other battles that Mr. Rickards was just referring to was, that has now is being betrayed at a very fundamental level by the US Military not honoring its written commitments to those service members who fought alongside the US and died at home because of lack of treatment. So this issue of the Central Pacific and the peace that was bought on those beaches and those hundred thousand Americans that died in the Pacific and that gave us such an incredible period of peace and prosperity in the Pacific that the Chinese are now trying to undermine from Tarawa from not letting Mark Noah on History Flight bring back the men from Tarawa to the way that it's being sabotaged, perhaps inadvertently, one would hope, from within. The US Government is starting to fracture. And I'm actually today in Taiwan, which is feeling this very strongly. Palau is a country that recognizes Taiwan. So it's not just standing for freedom by sending Palauans to fight alongside Americans, but it's even standing up for Taiwan. I just. It's the strength of the bonds that were built in the sacrifice of just over 80 years ago is starting, starting to weaken. And I Think that personally I find that a very difficult burden to bear when talking to those who gave so much.
- [87:59]
Steve Bannon
Hang on for a second because we're going to come back and try to tie all this together with you. Including Taiwan. Was it Palawan? Remember Darren Beatty, one of the leaders of the MAGA movement is spent much of his youth in Palau. Little known fact. Little known MAGA fact. Mark Noah, Tarawa, the Chinese Communist Party in your efforts and other people's efforts now to get to go and make sure that we bring back our honored dead from Tarawa that has been interrupted, correct me if I'm wrong. Has that been interrupted by the Chinese Communist Party saying you can't, you cannot get access to these remains, sir?
- [88:40]
Mark Noah
Yes, that's correct. The Chinese Communist Party has moved into the central Pacific using the same footprint that the Japanese did in the 1930s and with the exception of the of the islands where America has influence. And in Tarawa they have moved into the main hotels are completely full with military age Chinese individuals in civilian clothing. And they have succeeded in, in having our work permits denied. And so we have not been able to go back out there for a year and a half now. And as we mentioned earlier, the American graves on Tarawa are routinely disturbed by accidental work and construction activity. And we were when we had an office out there, which we still have our office but we have, it's unstaffed. But we were able to rescue numerous American Marines that were hit in construction projects and today that's impossible.
- [89:45]
Steve Bannon
Mark, where do people go? To find out more about history flights, more what you do. Like I said, we're going to get hopefully get involved here and make sure you get access at the highest levels because this is a situation, it's just not acceptable particularly this party's trying to Thorpe So where do they go?
- [90:02]
Mark Noah
Www.historyflight.com and then also we're on Facebook at History Flight. And one last thing I'd like to mention. I was able to spend memorial day of 2017 recovering 10American Marines that were buried underneath the house. And we purchased the house, demolished it and then dug down through the floor and recovered these Marines. And it was a very, very moving day for all of us. But the third individual that we recovered, this is an example of the severity of the, of the sacrifice these people went through. He had a, his Shin, he had a Japanese 7 millimeter bullet lodged in his hip joint and he was missing his head. That is the example, the blunt example of what the sacrifice is like and people should, you know, and they rightly do respect that. And these people that are scattered all over the world and missing an action status deserve the same respect as everyone else.
- [91:10]
Steve Bannon
Mark Noah, thank you. One more time, where do people, where do people go?
- [91:16]
Mark Noah
Www.historyflight.com and you can check out all the different stuff we've done and support it if you like. It's a, it's a very worthwhile project.
- [91:27]
Steve Bannon
Thank you, brother. We'll talk to you after the show and have you back on.
- [91:31]
Mark Noah
Thank you.
- [91:33]
Steve Bannon
On Memorial Day history flight, the decision at World War I on the Unknowns, the president of the United States commander in chief is going to be heading shortly to Arlington National Cemetery to do an evolution that happens on every Memorial Day. Walk us through how this, how was the beginning of the Unknown Soldier and became such an iconic part of the United States of America, particularly in our, not just commemoration but in our memory of these wars and how we honor
- [92:11]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
the dead allies that began the tradition of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. First the French, then the English and then the United States had tens of
- [92:22]
Steve Bannon
thousands and the English and the, the French. We're going to go to break here in a minute, probably the last break we're going to be able to take for the next couple hours. The French and the English, it's right in the middle of their major metropolitan areas. I mean the Arc de Triompres is right there. The eternal flame is right. And that is considered the heart of Paris. The same with the English.
- [92:47]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Correct. And then these traditions, the tradition of bringing an unknown back and then honoring that soldier to then represent all that served and fell in combat. This tradition begins with the French and the English. And then there's a movement in the United States to do something similar. And you know, at first there's the War Department or the department says that they can, you can bring your, you know, soldier home. Well, they first thought they're just going to leave everybody there and then they'd be able to identify the bodies of individuals. But there's still thousands of unknown soldiers known.
- [93:28]
Steve Bannon
But to God.
- [93:29]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Yes, right.
- [93:30]
Steve Bannon
And you go to Normandy and then,
- [93:34]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
and then there's a, hang on one
- [93:36]
Steve Bannon
second, let's go to bridge, clean that up. And then we're going to come back. The Patrick K. O', Donnell, the finest combat historian of his generation. His stories get down to the, the Jim Rickards level where you're telling those personal stories of the 18 year old kids. Think about it there for a second. A kid lies about his age at 17 to get into the Marine Corps and then at 18 he's a in one of the highest casualties across the vast Pacific. It's Cleo's point. That is America. Cuz we are a Pacific nation. Short break, back in the world in a moment. Okay, you know what we're going to get and we're going to make this a war room project for the posse because everything the posse takes on we accomplish. If you don't quit, we'll win. On the situation with the the 80,000 still from World War II just it's. It's mind boggling in particular given the sacrifice. You heard from Rickards on Peleliu. Cleo nailed it. It's just. It's such. These are so small. In fact one of the criticisms later is why are you taking all these atolls and given such high casualty rates but there's no room to fight. Also about the Japanese fighting to death. When my ship pulled into Guam heading to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean in 79 after the hostage because we were in the Hawaiian AP area when the embassy was taken. So we immediately organized and departed. Not for the western Pacific where we were supposed to patrol, deploy and patrol for the second time when I was on the destroyer but head immediately to the North Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Strait of Hormuz, really the North Arabian Sea where the two or three, two carrier battle groups I think still a part of these negotiations with the President to the exact same spot. We pulled into Guam for some repairs. We had some sonar problems and they had an old dry dock there I think from World War II. That was 1979. In 1972 a Japanese soldier had walked out of the jungle in very famous. I think he's the last guy to surrender. 1972 he came out and basically gave up. And we one of the tours back then that Guam's very much changed now it's a big I think honeymoon thing. But back then it was still pretty raw. You get one of the tours you would take, I mean not official tour but we had time off in the ship. You go down and you go out and the tanks were still there and the half tracks were still there. And you can imagine their bodies were still just buried right under the sand. But it was kind of a living monument right there. In the 70s that war was still. And I will tell you even when President XI came to came to the. We had the Mar A Lago event in 2017. That lunch we spent on the last day, half of that lunch was spent on Xi talking about World War II and the impact on his Parents and his generation. The Second World War in the Pacific is like, it's like in the Middle east. These vendettas you got. The Second World War is of, you know, current. In fact today's Financial Times of London, the salmon colored, not pink. It's salmon colored. She railed against Japan's remilitization at the Trump meeting. This is just coming out now. It wasn't just simply Taiwan because they said what Ruby didn't get a chance to talk about what the media is now reporting. Xi's bigger problem was the rearmament or the remilitarization of Japan. So we're get to all that. We got a couple of minutes. I want to continue to particularly till the President gets up there. He's going to lay the reef at the tomb of the unknown. The old guards up there. How did we go from France doing it and England doing it to the United States? We want to do it. And then pershing these guys thinking through how you actually do it and bring it back to our.
- [97:57]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
It's a grassroots movement that is. It bubbles up.
- [98:00]
Steve Bannon
What do you mean grassroots?
- [98:01]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
It begins with multiple people saying, hey look, we need to do something similar. And it's the. A woman who's a very powerful woman, who's an editor of a paper called the Delineator, Maria Maloney, she writes one of the first pieces that this needs to happen. And then others fall into line like Congressman Hamilton Fish from New York, who's an officer in an all black unit, the Harlem Hellfighters. He recognizes this as a way to recognize some of his men and their sacrifices. And this movement just gained the New York Times jumps on board and others. And you know, there's. It's Fish that writes the, you know, the paperwork congressional stuff to move it forward. And then eventually what happens is the Graves Registration Service overseas goes to the major cemeteries that the AAF fought in, Belleau Wood and others, and they find the remains of those that are unidentified. And they specifically look in the pockets for any kind of identification. They want to make sure that the soldier has no identification whatsoever to identify them. They then remove very carefully the remains and then they burn the burial card of where that person was removed from. So they don't know ever. And they move that person back. There's four remains and they're brought to ship.
- [99:25]
Steve Bannon
They selected. There's going to be of all those. They're going to select curate four of
- [99:30]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
those remains that are. That have no identification whatsoever. They burn the burial cards. They can't find exactly who those People were from which grave. Then they bring the four back to Chalons, to the Hotel de Ville, and then they select an honor guard. They specifically select one of the members of the occupation force that's still there, a guy by the name of Sergeant Edward Younger, who was a grunt that had been seen through everything. But initially they were going to use a general officer to select of the four, which would be the unknown. And what happened is the next. The French kind of interceded. Hey, we always had an enlisted man. This isn't about an enlisted man.
- [100:14]
Steve Bannon
It's the French that they say that.
- [100:16]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
And then they pick Younger, who's sort of an unlikely choice in a sense, but he's perfect in the sense. He was the quintessential doughboy that had been with the second Division, that had fought in some of the great battles. And he's given this monumental task. He's given a bouquet of roses and he's told to select the unknown.
- [100:38]
Steve Bannon
And there's, you know, is this in the city hall? Where are the actual.
- [100:42]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
It's in the city hall.
- [100:43]
Steve Bannon
Put me in the room.
- [100:45]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
It's in the room. There's flowers, there's four flag draped caskets. There's somber music playing in the background. Younger is in his best uniform and he's given the bouquet. And he says in his handwritten notes that I found at the National Archives that his hand is just drawn to the casket as he lays down the flowers, the roses.
- [101:08]
Steve Bannon
He thought it was, was somehow some power outside of himself.
- [101:12]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Yes. And he thought it was somebody that he fought with. That was, that was his, that was his feeling.
- [101:17]
Steve Bannon
And he, that said, put it on
- [101:19]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
this casket and he lays it down. It was just his arm just moves effortlessly without any kind of motion. And the, the unknown is, is, is selected. And then it goes on A journey
- [101:32]
Steve Bannon
by c. Hang on. For that journey. We're going to get. The journey is unbelievable. That book is what? The Unknowns.
- [101:38]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
The Unknowns.
- [101:40]
Steve Bannon
If you've got a. How many books have you written?
- [101:43]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
14.
- [101:44]
Steve Bannon
This is one of my favorites.
- [101:45]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
This is a.
- [101:46]
Steve Bannon
So meticulous. Your research on this is so meticulous.
- [101:49]
Patrick K. O'Donnell
Thank you. I, I, I, Yeah, I love all the books I've written. This, this book is very powerful and it's about the, you know, the boys of 17 and 18 that just sort of the lost generation that hardly anybody knows about. But they changed the world and they change America into a superpower.
- [102:08]
Steve Bannon
The, the American Expeditionary Force brought the first World War to an end because the Germans figured if they're going to just pound in fresh troops. We can't do this. Short break. Cleo, Pascal, Patrick.