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- [00:01]
Sarah Austin Janess
The Moth is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.
- [00:27]
Ophira Eisenberg
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- [00:53]
Sarah Austin Janess
Supported by Zingerman's, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Zingerman's has been one of America's best food markets for decades and and with Zingerman's mail order this holiday season, you can give the gift of delicious food to your family and friends all over the country. From handmade breads and pastries to artisan cheese cut by hand. The day it's shipped, Zingerman's has something for everyone. Visit zingermanns.com to browse their assortment of gift boxes and baskets. Again, that's Z I N G E R m a n s.com from PRX this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin Janess from the Moth, and I'll be your host this time. This episode is devoted to American veterans. The four stories you'll hear in this hour from the battlefield and behind the front lines were told live at the Moth without notes in theaters across our country. A soldier and his family cling to routine during wartime. A female pilot and an African American Marine remember World War II and our first storyteller, Mike Scotti battles post war darkness after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mike told this story in Albany, New York, at a Moth night we produced with public radio station wamc. A word of caution. This story includes frank descriptions of the effects of combat. Here's Mike Scotti live with them all.
- [02:36]
Mike Scotti
So I can still remember the sound of the front door slamming behind me in my old apartment. It's a small studio in New York City, and I remember I had just gotten home from a run and I threw my keys up on the counter and they slid across and they ran into my BlackBerry, which just happened to be ringing at that moment. And at this point in my life, I'd been home from the war in Iraq for about a year and a half Things were starting to feel a little bit more normal. I was in grad school. I felt good that day because of the run. But when I saw the name on the ID on the BlackBerry, my heart dropped because it was my old commanding officer from the Marine Corps. And in the year and a half that I'd been home, I learned that when somebody from the Marines calls you during the week, especially while it's still light out, it means that somebody that I knew was dead. So, you know, a few seconds later, my fears were confirmed and the tears were falling. And, you know, that was the reality. I'd lost another brother, and it wouldn't be the last. Now, I joined the Marine Corps because I wanted to defend my country. I wanted to earn the title of United States Marine. I wanted to see if I had what it took. After September 11th, obviously, everything changed. I'd been in for a few years at that point. I was a first lieutenant, and I lost two friends in the World Trade Center. Beth Quigley and Peter Apollo. And I would think about how they died. They died violently on some random day at work while they were trying to earn a living. And so I knew that I would do whatever it took to help find those weapons of mass destruction. I would do whatever it took to make sure that nothing like that ever happened again on US soil. That was something I was willing to fight for and I was certainly willing to die for. Now, my job in the Marine Corps specifically was that of artillery, forward observer. And I would call in over the radio the enemy's position. I'd be up front with the infantry, and I call in those enemy positions to the artillery units who were parked behind us, and they would shoot these large barrages of these shells on the enemy. And if they missed, I would make a correction over the radio. Now, these shells are big, they're heavy. They weigh over 100 pounds each. They're made of high explosive and steel and iron, and they're designed to burst into large pieces of shrapnel. Each piece can be up to the size of a man's arm. And each piece is very dense and heavy, like a crowbar, but jagged. And these things, when they blow up. The shrapnel covers an area the size of a football field. And that's for one round. And we'd shoot 50 or 100 of these things in the same area to just obliterate everything. So that was my job. I would call in the shrapnel onto people. I can remember very quickly understanding what that meant in Iraq from seeing all of the. The dead bodies on the sides of the roads. As we drove along, we'd hit an area and then drive through it. And I can remember the bodies would be in these very unnatural positions, and their eyes would have many times turned this very deep black, and their mouths would be open. And I thought I could see the looks of pain on many of their faces. And unfortunately, sometimes they were the faces of children who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And those faces, they stay with me. So I realized quickly that once all the politics have been stripped away, for those who are fighting it and those who are caught in the middle of it, war is nothing more than a slaughter. And it is filled with things like chaos and hesitation and uncertainty and fear. There's fear that you are going to make a mistake and get your friends killed. There's fear that there are other human beings out there who are trying to kill you. There's fear that you could be maimed or wounded or burned. And there are things like chaos. The chaos like the day that we finally made it to Baghdad and we transitioned from fighting in the countryside where if you could see it, you could kill it, to fighting in a city where you couldn't see more than across the street or maybe half a block. And it was chaos. And your radios wouldn't work so well because the buildings blocked the signal. And you had 1500 Marines assigned to 80 square blocks. And you're all trying not to shoot each other because the enemy's in between you. And you've got another 1500 Marines on your left and on your right, and the bullets would snap through the air and you wouldn't know where they'd be coming from. And I remember that every time a Marine would get killed, none of us would look each other in the eye for a little while, the guys in my vehicle, because it was all just becoming a little bit too much. And we hadn't slept in two or three days and nights. And I remember I looked to the west, just happened to be looking to the west one instant, and I saw a very large artillery barrage land on the edge of our battalion's position. And I knew by the way that it landed that it was U.S. artillery. And I knew what was happening at that instant. We had just hit our brothers with our own fire. So I picked up the radio and I screamed, check firing. Check firing. And I shut down all of the artillery in Iraq that the Marines were shooting for a few minutes because I had no time to figure out what was happening. And I knew the next barrage was going to land directly on us, and it would. It hit one Marine and it took out a few of his organs and entered him through the abdomen. The next one would have been a lot worse. I remember slamming the radio handset down and being angry, shaking my head because somebody had shot into our zone without permission. And I realized that in a war, the difference between life and death can be a few millimeters here or there, a few seconds, or the fact that one tired Marine happened to be looking in the right direction at the right moment. And I thought to myself, you know, I shook my head, I said, this all better be worth it because we've been fighting for months and we haven't found any weapons of mass destruction. So when I came home, there was a day that sticks in my mind. It was November. I'd been home for about a year. I was driving from Manhattan out to Long Island. I had a fresh haircut, my dress blue uniform was very neatly pressed, and I was on my way to be the pallbearer in yet another Marine's funeral. This Marine's name was Lieutenant Matt Lynch. And his older brother Tim had called me and asked me to carry his little brother's coffin. Tim and I had served in Afghanistan together. I can remember carrying Matt's coffin with my white gloved hand and gripping the rails very tightly, the rail that runs along the edge of the coffin, because I didn't want to drop it. And I remember a few minutes later, trying not to wince as the rifles went off, as they gave Matt his final salute in front of his loved ones, because it was the first time that I had heard gunfire since the war. And later that evening, I sat in the. At the bar in the Maid Made Inn in Long island. And I just drank and drank beer after beer, and the tears came, and I didn't care who saw them. I was still wearing my dress blues because at that point, I had just given up of ever finding any hope of finding weapons of mass destruction. And I was searching for meaning in the deaths of men like Lieutenant Matt lynch and others that I'd lost. And I couldn't find any. And as a warrior, my belief system began to unravel. And that took me to a very, very dark place. It took me to the edge of the abyss. And I stood there looking in, and I remember wondering whether or not I was going to just jump off, whether or not wondering whether or not suicide for me was going to be the way to go. And I would have these conversations with myself, like whether I Should make it look like an accident and go for a run in New York City one day right into the path of a bus. Or should I make a spectacle of the whole thing and take a flight to San Francisco, do a swan dive or something off of the Golden Gate Bridge? Just like the first person to ever kill themselves there, that was a veteran from World War I. And then I thought about my mom and dad and what it would do to them if I went through with it. And I knew that I just couldn't do it. I knew that I had to survive for them. So I started talking, I started listening, started reading and opening up a little bit, getting out there. And the Marine Corps, you know, the first thing that I realized was that there were a lot of other veterans my age who felt the same way. And then I realized that even the Marine Corps knew that it had a problem on its hands and they needed to help do something to stop the few and the proud, trained killers from killing ourselves, because we were doing it in record numbers. And the Marine Corps put out this video that was on their website and had a bunch of colonels and generals on there and high ranking sergeants talking about how they struggled about the war after the war. And about halfway through the video, this woman comes on, and she's a Navy psychiatrist, and she had served in Fallujah on the front lines with the Marines, helping talk to them as they came off the line. And she had struggled. She talked about her struggle and she looked into the camera and she said, it's okay to be angry. It's okay, Maureen, to be sad. It's okay if you're not okay. And I remember those words, they hit me like a train. Because I'd never heard words like that before. It never occurred to me. And they were exactly the words that I needed to hear at that moment. Because the Marine Corps teaches you that vulnerability is weakness. Because in war, vulnerability is weakness. Because the enemy will exploit that vulnerability and kill you and all of your men. But when you come home, vulnerability is the one thing that will allow you to survive. It will allow you to take those demons that are inside of you and drag them from the darkness out into the light. And they cannot survive there. They cannot hurt you there. So now I no longer search for meaning in the war or in the deaths of these beautiful human beings, these Marines and soldiers. I find meaning in helping fellow veterans and allowing other veterans to help me. Because that's what we do. We take care of each other, just like we did in the war. So now when the phone rings, it's not 3pm on a Tuesday, you know, with the news that someone's been killed. It's 3am on a Sunday morning and a buddy is calling because he's upset. Maybe he's had a little bit too much to drink and he's angry or he's sad or both because his demons are eating him alive. And I say to him, I love you, brother. Lay it on me. And then we talk, and then we talk some more. And I listen. And before we say goodbye, I always say, no matter what happened over there or no matter what's happening to you right now, or no matter what will happen later on down the line, one thing is for certain and that's it's okay that you're not okay. Thank you.
- [16:24]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was Mike Scotti. Mike is the author of the Blue A Memoir of Life After War. As a former U.S. marine and veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, Mike is also a founding board member of the military charity Reserve Aid. We talked to Mike after he told his story.
- [16:44]
Mike Scotti
Telling my story up there was a very, I think, cleansing experience, enlightening in almost a way. The friendships that you make in the military, especially in kind of like combat units where you're training for something that is going to put all of you into harm's way together and you're relying on each other from a survival standpoint that forges a very, very deep and solid friendship that is, it's different than most people would experience. It really, really is a brotherhood and it spans generations. You know, if somebody comes up to me and tells me they're a Vietnam War vet and I can see it in their eyes, they've been through some things. There's just a trust that's there. And even though you don't know that person that well, there's kind of a baseline level of appreciation for each other.
- [17:37]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was Mike Scotti. To see photographs and find out more about all of our storytellers, go to themoth.org Coming up next, a story from 97 year old World War II veteran Dawn Seymour, who was a women's Air Force service pilot, also known as a wasp.
- [18:10]
William Cole
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by prx.
- [18:18]
Ophira Eisenberg
Winter's coming. And you know what that means. Going to your favorite cozy cafe on a chilly evening, holding a mug of tea with both hands while looking out the window, seeing that man who just pulled off the diamond heist that's been in the news, throwing on your cherry red crop puffer and tailing him through foggy alleys until he ducks into a building following only to find him waiting for you, smiling as he gives you a hug and pulls out the diamonds. You were in on it the whole time. Okay, maybe that is actually just the daydream I have while gazing out of cafe windows. But in the name of being prepared, I have secured the perfect crop puffer jacket from Quince. The kind a mystery heroine would wear, structured yet effortlessly cool. And what's underneath? A heavenly soft sweater. Also courtesy of Quince. My daydream self is out here looking good and being mysterious. Get cozy in Quince's high quality wardrobe. Essentials go to quince.commoth for free shipping on your order and 300 that's Q U I N C E.commoth to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.commoth this is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX.
- [19:29]
Sarah Austin Janess
I'm Sarah Austin. Janess World War II vets are becoming rare, and we produced a moth night dedicated to the greatest generation to help preserve their stories. Dawn Seymour, our next storyteller, was a pilot and military aircraft instructor in World War II. She was with the Women's Air Force Service pilots known as wasps, flying B17s and training men to go to war. The night dawn told her story was only a few days shy of the 75th anniversary of her first flight. On stage, she wore her blue and white wasp scarf and her silver wings on the lapel of her blazer. Our host that night, Ophira Eisenberg, welcomed Dawn to the stage like this. Now your next storyteller.
- [20:13]
Dawn Seymour
Usually people, when they come and tell.
- [20:15]
Bill Krieger
Stories on the mouse stage, they stand.
- [20:18]
Mike Scotti
But our next storyteller is 97 years old.
- [20:23]
Dawn Seymour
And when you are 97 years old.
- [20:30]
Mike Scotti
You can do whatever you want.
- [20:36]
Dawn Seymour
In 1939, I was 22 years old, straight as an arrow, and I was newly graduated from Cornell University and did many things. But I was part of an experiment. I was a research subject. And one day our leader said to me his name was Dr. Richard Parmenter. He said, I am going to be the new director of flight research at cornell under the CPT, the civilian pilot training course under the CAA, a federal program. And one in 10 can be a girl. He said, and you can learn defy. And I said to him, Dr. Dick, I've never been in an airplane. He said, well, let's go try down to the Ithaca airport in a yellow Cub Piper Cub on a Beautiful October day, October 16, he took me up into this absolutely wonderful new world of sky and land below. And the air was full of sunbeams. The land below was clean and borderless. And the lake, the blue lake of Cayuga water which extended to the north and on beyond was this circle of land meeting sky. And I was just overwhelmed with the beauty of it, the earth, the sky. And signed up right away was chosen and spent the next few months learning how to the fundamentals of flight, and that is important. In May 1940, I received my private pilot certificate and that would allow me to take up passengers. I only had less about 40 hours. I don't know how they dared go up, but they did. And so I lived with this wonderful new experience. Now, 1941, December came along quickly and after Congress declared war, everyone able bodied was needed in the war effort and everybody needed training. And there was a flurry in America, an excitement, a determination to fight this new enemy. Well, we knew the enemy was there, but I mean to fight and to produce aircraft and to train men. And Jacqueline Cochran, who was a famous American woman pilot, had a program in mind that she sold to General Hap Arnold. And in the program she would train women pilots the same exact way that the male pilots were trained and have a supply of women who could then go out and do the housekeeping jobs in America, the training and the ferrying and so forth. And she sold this because we were very short of pilots and they were needed desperately as the planes were being produced in the factories. And I wanted to be near as I could into the fighting war. And I applied for her program and was accepted. And I found my way to Sweetwater, Texas, 200 miles west of Fort Worth. And here met my classmates. I was class of 43 5. There were 18 classes altogether, so I was an early bird and learned to fly primary basic in advance. In our last few months of training, 10 days before I graduated, my best friend, my buddy Peggy Sipe, was killed with her instructor and a fellow wasp, Helen Joe Seberson. And no reason was given for the accident. There was no ceremony held, they just disappeared. And it was a heart wrenching event. And Peggy had left a garden, the only garden any WASP had ever grown had in Sweetwater, Texas. And she planted seeds in the hard Texas soil in the hot Texas sun, and it bloomed. On our graduation day, Jacqueline Cochran came to give us our wings and presented them to me, thanked me and wished me well. I was pleased because I had won my wings. More training came into the picture and I was sent to the Lockburn Army Air Base in Columbus, Ohio. And here, to my astonishment, were over 180 B17s, Boeing B17s, Flying Fortresses, the big four engine plane that was flying raids over Germany with the 8th Air Force and the new CO of our squadron, Major Freddie Wilson, had received a telegram only two days before and said, Expect 17 women pilots for training. And he said, my God, what am I going to do with these? I'm a bachelor. I said, I don't know anything about women. And so it was. And my very first ride in the B17, I'm in the left seat, the instructor's in the right seat. This is Lieutenant Logue Mitchell, later became good friends. Number three engine caught on fire, and before we knew it, he'd given me orders. And I knew enough, the two of us, the fire was out and I said, oh, my goodness, this is the plane for me. And it was an exciting time because the pilots were returning up from their 25 missions in Germany and they came back and they would tell us about the real war. And the real war was tough. Then my orders sent me down to Florida, Buckingham Army Airfield. And here we were asked, ordered to fly the plane, the B17 again, with student gunners and their instructor on board. And the mission was to train the gunners to fire at a moving target from a moving platform. And this was a routine that we did day after day, mornings this day and afternoons the next day. And it was glorious because some days the sky with the clouds and the sea itself would melt and there'd be no horizon. And this is when you had to trust your instruments to fly straight and level. This lasted for the rest of the time I was in the service. And in December 44, while the battle of the Bulge was going on and the war in Japan was not over, Hard leaf started. We had a letter from Hap Arnold, General Hap Arnold, saying that our program was going to be canceled, terminated. Congress had not appropriated the funds. It was a blow here we thought we were doing a good job. We felt the war wasn't over. And the message we received was, girls, go home. We don't need you anymore. So we packed up. No ceremonies, no. Just farewells to our friends in the base. And off we went to new lives. Years later, 30 years later, after all of the civil rights acts and so forth, there were women military pilots and they were allowed in the Navy and the Army Reserves. Women entered the Academy in 1976 for the very first time. And I thought of Peggy Seipp's garden and seeds that were planted. I think Perhaps that took 30 years, but yet women had persevered and were accepted now as military women pilots. We were volunteers coming in and we were volunteers going out. And our motto was, we live in the wind and the sand and our eyes are on the stars.
- [30:44]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was Dawn Seymour. After telling her story, dawn got a standing ovation from the audience. In 1977, three decades after the WASP program was terminated, dawn and the other female pilots were finally recognized as veterans. Their instructor, Lt. Logue Mitchell, wrote a letter to Congress in support of his WASP students. Here's dawn reading from that letter.
- [31:11]
Dawn Seymour
How did they do? I won't say super because I don't remember any student I rated super. I did rate them great. Great because they were dedicated, motivated and determined. They just plain worked harder than any class of men I ever instructed. To me, they were and still are fellow military pilots and veterans in every respect. Anything short of full recognition of these women by our elected leaders will, by my standards, disgrace this nation. Today there is frequent mention of women in combat. I am convinced that any or all of the six I trained would have gone if asked. I would have led or followed them as required, and I would not have worried about their performance. Respectfully, Logue Mitchell.
- [32:08]
Sarah Austin Janess
Dawn and the rest of the women Air Force service pilots were awarded Congressional gold medals in 2009. Since the time that this episode first aired, Dawn Seymour has passed away. She left this world 17 days after her 100th birthday. She was a business executive, mother of five, grandmother of eight, and author of In Memoriam honoring the 38 women pilots who gave their lives in World War II. To see photos of dawn flying a B17 and to hear an interview with dawn and her moth director, Catherine McCarthy, go to them. Next, a story from an Ann Arbor grand slam. We partner with Michigan Radio to make this open mic series happen. And the storyteller you're about to hear is Bill Krieger, who was a company commander in the Iraq War. Here's Bill live at the Moth.
- [33:14]
Bill Krieger
So I remember reading somewhere that routines are good for children. They help them develop, they're good for their self esteem, and they can help them through troubling times. And I would have to agree with that. But I think some of the best routines are the ones that we find by accident. And that's sort of the way it is with me and my two daughters, McKenna, my oldest, Caroline, my youngest. You see, every night since they've been very little, I tuck them in bed before I go to bed myself. And the way it works is I go to my oldest daughter McKenna's room. And I give her a kiss on the forehead and I give her a nice tight hug and I tuck her in and I tell her that I love her and that I'll see her in the morning. And then I close her door and I go across the hallway to my youngest daughter's room, Caroline. And I give her a kiss on the forehead and I give her a big hug and I tell her that I love her. And she looks at me and says, I love you more. And I say, no, you don't. I love you more. And she says, you're right, dad, you do. And then I say, well, I'll see you in the morning. And she says, not if I see you first. I don't know if you're seeing a theme here. She's kind of a smart ass. And as I leave her room and close her door, she'll always say, close the door just a little bit. And she'll laugh and I'll pop my head back in and say, don't tell me how to close the door. I know what I'm doing. I know how to close the door just a little bit. We have a good laugh and I go off to bed. And so that is our routine. And in the summer of 2006, I was called to active duty to serve in Iraq. And I had about two months to get everyone ready for this. And when I say get everyone ready, I was the company commander. So I had that responsibility of making sure everyone had the equipment they needed and the training they needed, and that their families would be taken care of while we were gone. And the days were long, sometimes 20 hours. And every night at 9:00, I had to go to this meeting. And so I would get in my car and I would drive 30 minutes to this meeting, and I would get out of my car and go to the building and climb up to the second floor where I would tuck my children in at night, because that was the most important thing I had to do every night to maybe make sure they were shielded from some of the reality that we were about to face as a family. And I remember the night before I left for Iraq, I went to my oldest daughter McKenna's room and I kissed her on the forehead and I gave her an extra tight squeeze and I told her I loved her and that I would see her in the morning. And I closed her door and I went across the hall to Caroline's room and I gave her a kiss on the forehead and I told her that I loved her. And she just sort of stared at me. And then I said, I'll see you in the morning. And she just sort of stared at me. And as I walked out of her room and began to close her door, she didn't say anything. And so I turned around and I said, honey, is everything okay? And she said, yeah, Daddy, everything's okay. And I asked her what she was doing and she told me that she was staring at me. And I said, well, I get it, you're staring at me, but why are you doing that? She said, because, Daddy, I want to burn you into my brain so that if you don't come home, I won't forget what you look like. It was all I could do to hold it together in that room and give her another kiss and walk out into the hallway. You see, for all the parenting and all the shielding and all the routines that we had, she got it. That little six year old blonde headed girl got it. And she knew what we were facing as a family. And the next day we got up very early in the morning and we had a breakfast together and we hugged and we kissed and we laughed and we cried and I walked out that front door and began my journey, which would be about 18 months, 18 months away from my family. 18 months of no hugs, no kisses, 18 months of not tucking anyone into bed. Because I will tell you from experience, soldiers do not like to be tucked into bed, don't like it. And in the fall of 2007, I returned home. I returned home to my family and I returned home to my routine of tucking my children in before I went to bed. And I can tell you that I learned a lot from these experiences. I learned that routines are very important for children. It gives them stability, it helps them through tough times, but they're also important for us adults. And I can tell you one thing that I know beyond the shadow of a doubt and that's how to close the door just a little bit.
- [38:28]
Sarah Austin Janess
Bill Krieger was a military police company commander stationed in Mosul, Iraq. He was a first lieutenant at the time. To see a photo of Bill and his family, go to them. After our break. Another story from the greatest generation. A 90 year old World War II vet tells us of the all black 93rd infantry and their service in the South Pacific.
- [38:54]
William Cole
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by the Public Radio Exchange. PRX.org.
- [39:07]
Sarah Austin Janess
I'm Sarah Austin Janess and you're listening to the Moth Radio Hour. Our next storyteller, William Cole served in the 93rd Infantry Division, an African American segregated unit of the army in World War II. Here's William Cole live at the Moth.
- [39:32]
William Cole
I'll start at Fairbanks Morse in Beloit, Wisconsin. It was a diesel plant that made submarines during the war. And I happen to be privileged to be working there in the kitchen, washing pots and pans. And one of the naval officers came through one day and told me, said, willie, would you like to be deferred and not have to go into the war? The war was just getting hot. And I said, well, I didn't think they would draft me right away. You know, hell, no, I don't. This job is nothing. Why would I want to be deferred and stay here? And it surprised me. That was in September. January. That was September of 42. 1942, January of 43. I was at Fort. I mean, Camp Custer, not, excuse me, at Fort Wheeler. I've got it all wrong now. I was at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, and that camp is in the middle of Wisconsin. And not very many black soldiers live up in that area. And as a matter of fact, where I lived, I was from Beloit, Wisconsin. There was not too many black people there at that time. And I went to schools where it was all integrated and everything. I didn't know anything about prejudice or segregation, all that type of thing. But when I got to Camp McCoy, there was two or three blacks in that group. And we went to Camp Custer, Michigan. When we got there, the group got blacker and blacker. And then from there we went to Camp Wheeler, Georgia. And that was a training camp to get soldiers ready in a hurry. I don't know if you know it, But World War II, the American soldiers were trained in 13 weeks, and they had to learn what would get put before them. If they didn't, the instructor would tell you, if you don't pass, you know what's going to happen, don't you? Know what, sir? You're going to be dead in a little while, because this is for keeps. You got to learn these things. Well, so happened that I was sent to Camp Wheeler, Georgia, and we had A black army career man was there. They called him Iron Jaw. He must have been 65 years old or so, but he was training troops. And he. When we came in, he said, well, I want to tell you fellows something. They think that you're not fit to serve in the army because most of you are cotton pickers and farmers, and you don't know anything about anything but milking cows and plowing horses. And we're going to make a liar out of them. Going to tell you how to use a rifle and how to use other instruments that are not rifles. Anything that you have in your hand, you want to be able to kill with it because you got a very capable enemy that we're fighting up against. They're well trained and most of their privates has as much education as our West Point men. That scared us to death. Being black and not having gone to the universities and schools and so forth. The most of us. And this is a terrible dilemma to be set into. I'll make iron jaws out of all of you. We got through our training and the next thing I knew we was in Guadalcanal. In Guadalcanal, a lot of American boys died there. There's a Wisconsin division known as the 32nd. When we got down there, the Wisconsin division was there to train us and break us into doing jungle warfare. And I was very proud of him, for I was from Wisconsin. And by the time we got to Guadalcanal, we had been well trained by this iron Jaw, this black man. The toners I touched. He taught the men how to shoot a Browning automatic running at top speed from the hip. And you could hit a bushel basket 50 yards away. And he said, you have to be able to be an expert with your weapon, otherwise you're going to die. And also with a knife, trench knife, you could throw the knife or you could do close hand to hand fighting with it and come out on top. This is the type of all the men had trained that. But then when we got down there, we were surprise that the jungle warfare was something that we were not used to, certainly. But the main thing that surprised us, we went down there and these were Imperial Marines. Have you ever heard the expression the Imperial Marines? The Imperial Marine is about 6 foot tall, the average one of them. A very able adversary in any man's army. And this is the type of people we came up against. Well, at the time I was. My mother got a letter that I was missing in action. I hadn't been missing in action. I'd been detailed to a group that was going under the hills and spy on the Japanese because they hadn't had a colonel down there was making fools out of the American army. His tactics and so forth. They just befuddled everybody. You know what was happening, what was going on. So we have to. We have to find out what's going on. So we observed from the hilltops and we found out that the airplane that was raiding us every Night or every two or three nights and disappearing into nowhere. Was coming out of a mountain. They had a mountain that they had put up a plane on a boxcar, a flat car. And it was on hydraulic pulleys. And it come out to the front and the plane would take off. And then they'd shut it up again. Just like it was a mountain that hadn't been disturbed. And that's how when he got through with his strife and bombing. He would go back there and close the mountain up and look, there's nothing there. When we found out that, and we reported that back to the headquarters and they took that mountain out. There's no more of that type of stuff. But then when we came back down out of the mountain. That's the first time that I got fired on. We was crossing a little hill and down a little river. A little creek. Wasn't a river. It was a small creek running across side by. We got about knee deep in the water and a machine gun fire opened up.50 caliber machine guns. Crossfire. That's when I thought I was going to meet my maker. One bullet hit on this side between my legs and another side didn't hit me. We went and took cover and called back down for support. And they dropped martyrs all over the top of the hill. When we went over there there was nothing there but split up, cut up and charred corpses. And that's the first time I had a close call. I said that's the time that my mother must have been praying for me. And God answered her prayer. Because I was not a Christian. And I didn't know anything much about God or anything then. But I was so thankful that I had a mother praying for me at home. Then we have to find this colonel that's doing all this dirt to us. His name was Colonel Uchi. And we had a bunch of young black boys that had been highly trained by Iron Jaw. And they said the only way we can get him without him killing himself. We'll have to go into his camp and take him by hand without firing a shot. We have to use trench knives and get to him and kill him so we can bring him back untouched. And they did just that. And they caught him in his bed sleep. And they brought him out with his hands tired and his feet tied and put up holes in. Brought him out to the headquarters and was in perfect shape. And they were able to interrogate him and so forth. But shortly after that we were back. And when the Emperor skirmish went down, you'd have a brief rest. We'd go back and you'd have American entertainers come over and USO girls, you heard of them, they'd come over and they was entertaining us and telling us all the grand things that were back in the States and singing to us. And so when all of a sudden the loudspeakers opened up. So we have a special announcement to make. What in the world could this be? The war is over. Japan has surrendered. They dropped the bomb on them and they surrendered. Unconditional surrender. You boys will be going home soon. And we were so happy. And the girls jumped off the stage in the middle of the soldiers and just had a time there. And then I got back home, I got back home to Pittsburgh, California and we marched down the tree to a de embarkation area where we sent back to our homes and that. And it was so wonderful to see these American girls, big, tall, king sized girls that we had. We're not used to. And this was America, which would be like kissing the ground that America was on because everything was so. It looked like going to heaven there. And when we got back to our hometown and so forth, we had our GI bills and all that, all these things had come along and I went to Rockford, Illinois to get a home and I got a surprise. They said, you people can't have a get by here. We don't have. We'll find you a place but you can't buy here. I was so disappointed. I thought I was a gladiator. I had fought for the country and come back and here they're throwing this type of stuff in my face. It was a long time before I bought a home. I was so discouraged with that. But I'm so proud to be an American soldier and I'm glad that I did what I did and came back to the United States. I think it's the best country in the world.
- [49:56]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was William Cole. He lives in Racine, Wisconsin, near his son Ivan, who is also a veteran. Recently I spoke to William about his story. You told me at one point that you were very proud of the other men in the 93rd.
- [50:13]
William Cole
Oh yeah, I was proud of them. They fought valiantly and they were glad to fight for the country. I come back home and nobody knew anything about us being in combat and that was kind of a letdown for me. I didn't, I didn't appreciate, you know, nobody knowing that.
- [50:32]
Sarah Austin Janess
Do you remember seeing your mom for the very first time after the war?
- [50:36]
Bill Krieger
Yes.
- [50:38]
William Cole
I came, I came home at about midnight and I. And then when I got got to Beloit. On the bus, I took my duffel bag and I walked about a mile to the house because nothing was running that time of night. And I knocked on the door and there she was. And she was just as happy as she could be, and she couldn't believe her eyes, you know, because then she wasn't an old woman then. She was only in her 50s. I guess she was just beside herself. It was joy that I was home, and so we just had a grand time after that.
- [51:19]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was World War II veteran William Cole. Are you a veteran with a story you'd like to tell? Anyone can call and pitch us a personal story by recording it right on our site. Or call 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. The best pitches are developed for moth shows all around the world. You can share these stories or others from the Moth Archive through our website, themoth.org we're also on Facebook and Twitter he moth that's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from the Moth.
- [52:12]
William Cole
This Moth Radio Hour Veterans Special was supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Your host for the hour was Sarah Austin. Janess Sarah also directed the stories in the show, along with Meg Bowles, Jennifer Hickson and Katherine McCarthy. The rest of the Moss directorial staff includes Katherine Burns and Sarah Haberman. Production support from Whitney Jones. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from the Album Leaf, the Andrews Sisters and Freddie Price. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by the Public Radio Exchange. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.