Veterans Day 2025 w/the Greater St. Louis Honor Flight

The Mid-America Veterans Museum is a nonprofit relying on community donations to preserve veteran stories. The Operation Insight podcast provides general information and educates, covering sensitive topics. Veterans Day is about honoring all veterans' service, not just those who died in combat. The podcast highlights the importance of recognizing and celebrating veterans. The Greater St. Louis Honor Flight honors veterans by taking them to war memorials in D.C. Started in 2008, the organization has flown thousands of veterans as a tribute to their service. The Mid-America Veterans Museum is a 501c3 nonprofit business. The museum would not exist without the donations of our generous community. Your donations ensure the museum continues to share and preserve the stories of our veterans. To donate, visit mavm.org and click on Donate. The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only. The primary purpose of the Operation Insight podcast is to educate. The views, information, or opinions expressed on the Operation Insight podcast are solely the views of the individuals or guests involved and by no means represent absolute facts. Operation Insight does not accept responsibility for their views or comments. The Operation Insight podcast may at times cover sensitive topics, including but not limited to suicide, abuse, violence, severe mental illness, sex, drugs, and alcohol addiction. You are advised to refrain from watching or listening to the Operation Insight podcast if you are likely to be offended or adversely impacted by any of these topics. Neither the company, host, director, or the guest shall at any time be liable for the content covered causing offense, distress, or any other reaction. [♪ music playing ♪ Welcome to the Operation Insight podcast from the Mid-America Veterans Museum with your host, Jason Galvin, and co-host, Sergeant Ethan Gross. Well, welcome back, family. We have two very special guests in the museum tonight, and we're very glad to have these two gentlemen here. Ethan, go ahead and kick us off. Great. Thanks, Jason. For our special Veterans Day commemorative episode, we have Captain Jim Pettit, United States Air Force, September 1966 until December of 1970, and we have Captain Joel Eisenstein, Marine Corps, from December 1968 to June of 1977. The main thrust of this conversation for Veterans Day this year will be about an organization that's very close to Jim's heart and an organization that Joel has benefited from as well, and that's the Honor Flight, the Greater St. Louis Honor Flight. Before we get into that, I just want to talk a little bit about Veterans Day and the importance of a holiday like this, and a holiday kind of is a weird way to describe it. That's technically what it is. So in 2025, we had multiple anniversaries that are important, the first of which, for which if we didn't have this, we would have nothing, was the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. In addition to that, it was the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, VE Day and VJ Day. And then finally, something that's relevant to Joel's story, this past April marked the 50th anniversary of Operation Frequent Wind, otherwise known as the end of the Vietnam War and our involvement in the Vietnam War, more specifically. Whenever I can say that we don't want to reinvent the wheel, I want to say that. So for our listeners out there who are listening to this episode who may want to hear more about Veterans Day and the history of Veterans Day, I'd encourage you to listen to a previous episode on the Dog Tag podcast. Jason and Don Masters spoke pretty thoroughly about Veterans Day, its origin as Armistice Day, which commemorated the end of World War I. 1954 was when Veterans Day was officially recognized and took the place of Armistice Day. Veterans Day is, as I mentioned earlier, a bit of an odd holiday on our calendar. Many people recognize Memorial Day as a day to commemorate and honor and recognize the sacrifice of our soldiers, Marines, airmen, airwomen, guardians, whoever it is who wears the uniform, paying the ultimate sacrifice. Veterans Day is a little bit different. Veterans Day is not specifically about those who fought and died in combat. Veterans Day is broader, I think you could say. But it's still about acknowledging. It's about celebrating. It's about recognizing the service of the men and women who give of themselves, put on the uniform, and fight and are ready to die for their country in some instances. A remark I wanted to make because I've listened, obviously, to that Veterans Day 2023 episode with Jason and Don. Jason had referred to, I don't think you said the title of the song, Jason, but Toby Keeps American Soldiers, one of your favorite songs. Thank you for remembering that. It kind of sums up a veteran. I just want to critique Toby for a second, if I may. I want to recognize that it's not just soldiers. As I said earlier, it's Marines, sailors, airmen, airwomen, guardians, coasties, all of those men and women who serve in whichever uniform they choose, whichever branch they decide to enter, they should be recognized on Veterans Day. The last thing I want to say is this museum, the Mid-America Veterans Museum, it's led primarily by volunteers. We have a volunteer in our presence tonight in our audience, Mike LeBlanc, who's on the board, a Navy veteran. If you're a listener of our podcast and if you've enjoyed the individuals we've gotten to speak to, we've been so fortunate to hear their stories, and you're looking for a way to give back or you're looking for a way to meet a veteran so you can thank them personally, Jason and I and Mike would encourage you to come to the museum. Come to the museum, visit the museum. Chances are the volunteer that you see at the museum is either a veteran, a Gold Star family member, or someone who is adjacent to the veteran community. With all that said, captains, thank you for being here this evening. We really appreciate you guys taking your time to speak with us. What I'd like to do is I want us to end the interview talking about the Honor Flight, the Greater St. Louis Honor Flight, but just a few things I want to note, and then, Jim, I'll ask you if you could give us kind of a synopsis. I hope I'm not stealing your thunder with this, but I did some research. The motto of the Greater St. Louis Honor Flight is, Their war is over, but our appreciation is not. I think that really sums up what they're all about. The Greater St. Louis Honor Flight started in 2008. It was an offshoot of the original National Honor Flight, which started in 2005. Jim, I'm probably telling you things you already know, but the Honor Flight started in 2005 in Springfield, Ohio. Now, my brain works in a weird way. When I saw Springfield, Ohio, I wondered, oh, I wonder if that's close to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and it is. It's just down the road from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which is near Dayton, which obviously is where the Wright brothers were born and raised, who we have to thank for the invention of flight, essentially. So with all that being said, with that long introduction, Jim, if you would, from your perspective, as Operations Director of the Greater St. Louis Honor Flight, give us a synopsis of what you are all about and the kind of service that you provide for local veterans. Well, what we're all about is providing a day of honor to all of the veterans who served in either World War II, Korea, or Vietnam. And a day of honor to us means we will take you to Washington, D.C., and let you visit your memorial that was built to honor your service and your sacrifice. And we do that because the Honor Flight came about because the three war memorials in Washington were built in the exact opposite order of the wars that they commemorate. So the first one that was built was actually the Vietnam Wall, and it was completed in 1982, seven years after the war ended in 75. And then the next one was the Korean War Memorial in 1995, and that was 42 years after the war stopped. It didn't end, wasn't won or lost, but stopped in 1953. And the last one that was built was the World War II Memorial, which wasn't finished until 2004. By the time that memorial was finished, the veterans who served in that war, and there were 16 million Americans who served in World War II, by the time that memorial was finished, those veterans were already in their 70s and had no way, either physically or financially, to get to Washington to see the memorials that had been built to honor their service, for heaven's sake. And so the man that we're talking about in Springfield, Ohio, Earl Morse, worked in a VA hospital there, and he had a lot of World War II patients in 2004 and was talking with all these patients about this new memorial that had finally been finished in that year. And they all wanted to go see it. All of the veterans wanted to go, and a year later, in 2005, not a single one had. Not one. And Earl was a pilot, and he had a single-engine airplane, could carry two passengers. He belonged to a flying club, and he recruited five other pilots, each of whom had a single-engine airplane, two passengers. And those six pilots took 12 veterans from that hospital to Washington, D.C., and that was the very first honor flight. Now here we are 20 years later. There are 128 honor flights in 46 states, and we've taken 317,000 veterans to Washington, D.C. As you mentioned, here in St. Louis, we organized ourselves in 2008. We took our first flight in 2009. And as of October the 29th, just a couple of weeks ago, we took our 113th flight, and we've taken 3,500 veterans just on our own. That's amazing. So that's how we came about. And our motto is every day is Veterans Day. That's what we believe in the honor flight. Love it. And then, Joel, I'll bring you in here. Tell us about your experience on the honor flight. Well, let me put it in perspective. The World War II veterans were well-received when they returned home. There were parades. You see those in the newsreels. To some extent, the Korean veterans were the same. Well, Korea wasn't a popular war. It wasn't villainized. Those who participated in it were not villainized. And everybody in World War II was patriotic and a hero. Fast forward to Vietnam. It was a very unpopular war. And the personification of that unpopularity was heaped upon the soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen who returned. They were not welcomed home. There were no parades. They were spit upon. They were cursed. I will tell you from my own personal experience, when I arrived in San Francisco in June of 1972, an officer came on board the plane. And he said to the participants on that plane who were home on their freedom bird, go directly to the head, to the restroom, change out of your uniform, and put on your civilian clothes. It was not a welcomed environment. So the honor flight to me, or I think to those who put it on, has changed to some extent because they are now providing Vietnam veterans with an honor, a true sense of the word, and welcoming them home many, many years, 50 years after they've returned. They're doing something that was well-deserved, in my opinion, but neglected for a variety of reasons. And I think that is the essence of the importance now of the honor flight for those of us from Vietnam who were treated badly and now for once have been treated superbly. Beautiful. So that's exactly what I was thinking, Joel, and I'm really happy that you brought it up. Jim had mentioned that the impetus for the honor flight in 2005 was primarily for World War II veterans. But I've gotten to watch news coverage, articles, read articles, that kind of thing, about the honor flight now. And what Joel says I think really rings true. In spite of the honor flight having originated for World War II veterans, I think it's doing a tremendous amount of good for the Vietnam veterans. And it's almost as if it was made for Vietnam veterans. You know, one thing that strikes me is that, like Joel said, the officer comes on board and says, go straight to the head, creates isolation and aloneness, you know what I mean? You're alone. But in this honor separation, in this honor flight, not only are you being honored this time, but now you're going to get honored with the guys that maybe not that you were with at that time but are still your brothers in arms and you don't have to go to the head and be alone. Well, there are other things at play. And Jim touched upon this. Many veterans are unable to afford a trip to Washington, D.C. When it was first originated, I guess, with those six planes and 12 individuals, they were veterans in a home who could not afford on their own to go visit Washington, D.C., where all of the memorials are. I think to some extent that is still true. I think that the honor flight today still offers an opportunity for those who are unable, financially or otherwise, to do it on their own. I think that there's a great deal of importance to any veteran to have the opportunity to visit our nation's capital and see the memorials that have been erected in their honor, regardless of which war you were in. And that, I think, transcends all wars and all veterans alike, in my opinion. And to your point, Joel, it's completely free of charge to the veteran. You guys accept donations, and those donations go towards those flights for veterans to go to D.C. and back. Yeah, that's right. That is the only way that we're able to exist. We're 100% dependent upon donations to do what we do, and it's expensive to do what we do. We try to take as many veterans as we can as quickly as we can, because we're talking about people that are in their 70s, 80s and above, and time is important. So we try to take as many as we can as quickly as we can, and toward that end, we now charter our own airplane, and that's expensive. And so any donations that we get certainly go directly towards funding the flights themselves. We're one of the farthest honor flights west that can go and come back from Washington in the same day. Oh, wow. And we kind of enjoy that prestige, because if we get to the airport very early in the morning, 3 a.m., the plane takes off at 5 a.m., and we're back by 8 o'clock the same day. Contrast that with honor flights in Alaska and Hawaii, it's a several-day trip, which is significantly more difficult to do. Putting on an honor flight is difficult as it is, but to have the veterans for three or four days as opposed to 12 or 15 hours is a whole different story. And the expense increases significantly. Of course. Support staff and things of that nature? Yeah, sure. Now, the support staff is all volunteers, of course, but you're going to have, with those western honor flights, you're going to have hotel expenses and meal expenses much higher than what we incur. Are you getting sponsorships from major corporations or individuals or both, or how does that look? Yeah, all of that. We do have some corporate sponsors that help us. We have organizations that support us regularly. We have an organization in the credit union over in Illinois that has put on a golf tournament for us each year for the past nine years in a row at $35,000 per year. So that's very helpful. We have civic groups that help us. We have individuals that help us. We have schoolchildren that raise money for us in small amounts, penny awards, enough to send one veteran, and it's a really big deal to the schoolchildren, and it's just as important to us. So, yes, we get the donations from all walks of life. Roughly what does it cost for one veteran to go? Right at $800. And we take about 250 veterans in any flight season. Even those students that are, like you said, chimpanzee wars, you know, just basically getting money out of the jar and donating it, it gives them that active participation in honoring veterans. So I think that's a great service. Whatever they can offer, whatever they can donate is well worth the effort. One thing I wanted to say before we get into each of your stories, I want to give a shout-out to Mr. Harry Hope. He's the chairman emeritus of the Greater St. Louis Honor Flight. He's been a guest on the podcast, the Dog Tag podcast. He's a friend of the museum, and I think it's fair to say he's a local legend. What do you think, Mike? Well, for sure. Well, so let's do this. Let me say something. Oh, please. Jim downplays the superlative performance that's provided to the veterans by the Honor Flight staff. They go extra on everything. You get swag bags of hats and gifts of all different sorts that all have meaning and all cost somebody something. A lot of the things are volunteered, but the process that they provide and the manner in which it's executed is absolutely first rate. They have at least one-to-one on, I would think, correct me if I'm wrong, one-to-one on, I call them guardians, the staff who are there to assist the veterans. In our flight that I went on back in September, we had two gentlemen in wheelchairs who were 100 years old, Jim, and then my sergeant major was 93. There were a lot of guys from Korea who were in their 90s, and then the rest of us were, I'm 80, there were people, the range of age was from 100 to there might have been some 72, 73-year-olds there. So you were just a kid on the flight. I was an 80-year-old kid. Ask my wife, she'll tell you. He's just a full-grown little baby. Well, as I said, we're celebrating and commemorating Veterans Day, and we are in the presence of two veterans, of capturing their stories. So, Jim, I had mentioned Air Force. You were commissioned to the Air Force in 1967 but signed on in September of 66, and then your end of service was in December of 1970. If you would, tell us about your service in its entirety as best as you can. Well, when Joe and I were in the service, there was a draft, in effect, in the United States, which meant that anybody that was 18 years or older, was not in school full-time, and was healthy was going to be drafted, whether you wanted to be or not. So all of us faced that when we got out of college, and you had to make a decision about doing nothing and being drafted into the Army or taking your future into your own hands and joining a particular branch of the service. In my case, I got out of college in January and moved here to St. Louis where my parents lived and had trouble finding a job because everybody said, you've got to be kidding, you're draft eligible. You're going to be in the military, very short order. Come back when you're out and we'll take on a chance for you to go to work then, except for Southwestern Bell. And Southwestern Bell said, we're willing to hire you knowing full well that you're going to go into the service. Not only that, when you do go into the service, we're going to count all the time that you're gone towards your retirement, and you can come back as long as you just do the minimum enlistment for whatever branch that you choose. So I signed on with them for that reason. My very first boss was, unbeknownst to me, a reserve Air Force colonel. And he took me aside and said, you know, Jim, you're going to go into service in the next several months no matter what. And he said, you might want to consider going into the Air Force. And before that, go and take the officer's exam. And he said, I think you'll enjoy your service time a little better than if you wait and get drafted into the Army. So I took his advice, and sure enough, I passed the test and went into the service and was there for the four-year enlistment. And I loved it. I loved being in the Air Force. When my enlistment came to an end, we were living overseas at that time and had been for three years. And the Air Force came to me and said, we'd like for you to stay in. Incredibly, in the same week, Southwestern Bell called me and said, your military leave is over. You've either got to come back now or you can't come back at all. So it was a tough decision to make at that age, kind of life-changing no matter which way you go. But my wife and I talked it over, and we decided to come home. So in a nutshell, that's what our military experience was. We did two years service at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and then three years at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. I'm glad you mentioned your duty stations, Jim, because you just mentioned Dover Air Force Base. And as I'm sure all of you are aware, especially you, Jim, obviously, Dover Air Force Base is, and I'm going to show my own ignorance here, I think almost always where the remains of fallen service members are returned to the states. That's partially true. They are all of the veterans that live east of the Mississippi River. So Dover Air Force Base handles all of the east side, and Travis Air Force Base in California handles the west side. And that was true while I was there, not only at Dover, where we had the remains come back on a daily basis, but also on Okinawa because we were a fuel stop, not only for the cargo planes that were bringing the remains back, but also the medevac flights that were bringing the very seriously wounded out of Vietnam and back to the United States stopped in Okinawa. So I think it would be fair to say, Jim, that your life has been steeped in honoring and commemorating and doing right by our veterans. That's true. And my father was a World War II and a Korean War veteran. He was in the Army, served in World War II, and got recalled in Korea. So we have a long history of service in my family, and it seems to continue since I'm still actively involved with military and veterans to this moment. We really appreciate your volunteerism and your devotion. It's much appreciated by your nation, Jim. Thank you, Jim. Now, funny enough, I didn't know this, but, Joel, your story is not that different from Jim's, if I understand correctly. You had kind of an inside woman, in this case, telling your parents that you were going to be on the draft list in a few months. And also your father was a World War II veteran who got recalled for the Korean War. Is that all correct? Those are true statements. So if you would, I have a few tidbits of your story, Joel, that I'd like to go through. The first thing I want to say is I'll just get it out of the way because it seems like everyone in your life tells you this. You're crazy, Joel. I've been told that. So it's out of the way. It's been said. He doesn't even flinch, man. My father gave me very little advice when I went in. He said a couple things. He said, don't be the first one out the door and don't be the last one out the door. And never, ever volunteer. You did the opposite of that. I made the fatal mistake almost of violating those rules regularly. If you would, I think your story fits in perfectly with the honor flight in some humorous ways and others not so much. But one of your first experiences after you had enlisted was you took a flight to Washington, D.C., but it wasn't for the purpose of visiting the memorials or our nation's capital. It was for the purpose of finding your way into the Marine Corps. You're talking to someone who paid to get into the Marine Corps. Exactly. Tell us the story. Well, I was—let me go back a minute if you have a moment. In 1963 when I graduated high school, two of my friends and I decided to go into the National Guard. We went downtown. We took the tests. We went to the same place that they gave physicals later on. We went through the line. I had worn a back brace in high school and hurt myself playing ball for a short period of time, and I had asthma. Get to the end of the line, 4F. Okay, fine. I go to college, go to Mizzou. Got out of ROTC. Didn't want to do that. Didn't like marching. And I started law school because I didn't know what else to do. Graduated in 67. In 67, you had a one-year deferment. Went to law school. I finished my first two semesters. At the end of the second semester, I got reclassified. I got sent down to the same induction center in St. Louis. Went through the same line. Had all my papers under my arm. And I got to the end and I said to the doctor, I don't understand this. Five years ago, I was 4F, and he looked up at me and smiled and said, son, there's a war going on. I'm stamped at 1A. I appealed, came home after my third semester of law school, and my father said, this is so-and-so from 222 South Central Avenue. I still remember that address. That's where the draft board was. And Clayton called and said, you're on their January quota. I had choices. The choices were, if you're going to be drafted, you need to be as well-trained as possible. And if you're an officer, you have a little bit of say in what goes on. And the Marine Corps had the best uniforms. So I went downtown and I got sworn in to the Marine Corps on my birthday, December 23, 1968. I was married. We gave up our apartment in Columbia, Missouri. My wife went back home to Beverly Hills. I'm at home with my parents, getting ready to go. I get a letter. The letter says, thank you very much for your interest in the Marine Corps, but no thank you. My life had been turned upside down. So I got on the phone and I called this major at Headquarters Marine Corps, which is, by the way, at the old Navy annex, which is where the Air Force Memorial is now built. That was the old Navy annex outside the Pentagon. I couldn't get him on the phone. I put on a coat and tie. I went to the airport. I got on a plane. I flew to D.C. I got a hotel. I got a car. The next morning, 9 o'clock, I'm standing in front of the major's desk with the letter. And I hand him the letter and I said, I don't understand what this means. I couldn't get you on the phone. He looks at me and he says, how did you get here? Well, I flew, obviously. I didn't say obviously. Who paid for this? Now I'm starting to be suspicious about this guy. Well, I paid for it. Where did you stay? I rented a hotel. And then I rented a car and I came here and I want to know why you rejected me. Wait here. He walks away, comes back a few minutes later, and he's got a file. One of the things you learn in law school is how to read upside down. So I'm looking and it says, can't do squat thrusts. It's circled. And it has the word back injury. It says, well, you had a back injury. You can't do squat thrusts. He said, I had a back injury in the late 50s, early 60s, and I'm fine. And, by the way, what's a squat thrust? He stands up, he gets down, puts his hands between his knees, kicks back into a push-up position, does a push-up, kicks back up, stands up. I get down and do the same exact thing. I sit there. He says, wait a minute. He leaves, comes back. He says, okay, when you go back to St. Louis, you call this guy, he was a sergeant somebody, and the telephone number was for, he says, you're going to go out to 324. I had no idea what 324 was. And you're going to take a PFT. I didn't know what a PFT was either. So I go home. I call. PFT is a physical fitness test. I go out to the reserve unit at Lamber Field. I run around the gym. I climb a rope. I do some push-ups and pull-ups. Next thing I know, I get a letter. You're in our March 1969 OCC class 1269. So in March of 1969, I drove into Quantico, Virginia, in my wife's little red Volkswagen with her flower imprints on it. Perfect for the Marines. I'd taken the flowers off it. You could still see the outline. Oh, my goodness. And I started OCS. The story that I want to contrast that with is another flight that you took. This one might even be described as unwillingly into North Vietnam territory. Tell us that story. I had a variety of MOSs, military occupational specialty. If you graduate from your classes, everything in the Marine Corps is done by merit. So if you're in the top 10%, you get to choose what your MOS is going to be. Studying wasn't that hard. So they said, where do you want to go for training? I took artillery school, Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Twenty Marine Corps officers, 200 Army officers, because the Marine Corps doesn't have their own artillery school. The Army does. So that delayed my departure. When I left that school, I had orders to Vietnam. I sent my wife back again to Beverly Hills, but we had a little baby. They left. I get a call, and then I get orders. Instead of going to Vietnam, I go to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. I call my wife. She said, you and I have had enough of the Marine Corps. I'm not going to North Carolina. Good luck. When I was at North Carolina, I broke my rules, and I was with an artillery battery after we got off of a Caribbean cruise, and I volunteered to go out to ITR, which is where we train recruits. You don't want me to tell you the golf story. It's too long, and it's boring, but I play golf most of the summer. I'm the regimental golf team. New River is the air station at Camp Lejeune, and they had built a brand-new bachelor officer's quarters. I applied for Naval Aerial Observer School, aerial observers of the Marine Corps' way of talking about being a forward air controller. So I got my wings. Fast forward, I'm in Quang Tri, South Vietnam, and I was flying with the Army, who was co-stationed at our base, their pilots. Everything was fine. But when they finally pulled out in January, at the end of December of 1971, we were to train the Vietnamese. Now I'm getting to the point you were raising. This was with the Arvin. The Arvins had their own pilots. We were flying in old World War II O1s, observation planes that flew like 90 miles an hour, and you could get rid of them with bullets and nothing would happen. So one day I go up with a Vietnamese pilot. He speaks a little bit of English, and we take off. We're going to go find targets. I was part of the naval gunfire team. That's another part of the story. But we had ships off coast, and we would go up, and I would call in naval gunfire when we acquired targets. So we're flying, and I'm looking down in the back seat, and I see us go by Dong Ha, and I see us go over the Qua Viet River, and then I see us go over Alpha 2, which is the northernmost fire base in South Vietnam. And he keeps flying. And now all of a sudden we're over the Ben Hai River in North Vietnam, and I'm thinking this guy's going to surrender. He's going to deliver a Marine Corps lieutenant and be a hero. And so I'm whacking on his helmet, and all of a sudden we start taking flak. And then all of a sudden he turns around to me, and I said, I'm pointing to them, you idiots, towards North Vietnam. He turns green. He rolls to the right, gets down on the deck, goes out to the beach, flies back to Quang Tri, pulls up, jumps out of the plane, and runs away. I unstrap and get out and go into the tower and say, who was that guy? I'm never flying with him again. If I catch him, I'm going to kill him. That was the flight that you're talking about. I flew into North Vietnam. Did you ever see him again? That's the first question. No, I did not. That might have been one of the last times that I flew. I wouldn't blame you for an experience like that. And I just want to say the only reason I'm cutting you off, Joel, and we're not getting further into Jim's story is because I want to have both of you on individually at some point. Jason and I would both like that. So that's the reason we're only kind of touching the surface, coming to the surface here. Giving the listeners something to chew on. Yes, exactly, and look forward to their episodes. There you go. A few more things, Joel, because I've had the advantage of watching your Veterans History Project interview, so that's why I know some of these things. I just want to get your perspective on, if you want to call it luck, there's a story you told about being one out of three Marines who avoided machine gun fire and the impact that had on you. I will say this as a preface. I am reluctant to talk about actual combat. It's not something that I enjoy. It's upsetting to me, and it's hard to tell the stories without making yourself seem more than you really are. The story you're referring to is when I was an advisor with the Korean Marines south of Da Nang in the Kwai San Mountains, and we were on an operation on a sweep. What my position was is I was with First Air and Naval Gunfire Liaison Company. It's a specialized unit. We had teams all over the country, from the DMZ to the Mekong Delta. In Quang Tri, this is before I went up to Quang Tri. When I was an advisor with the Korean Marines, we would go out on sweeps, and we would go out on missions, and it would be me and a couple of my Marines. And when something happened, we're the ones that called in artillery. We called in naval gunfire. We called in helicopter support, medevacs in particular. We were on a sweep, and we were going through rice paddies, and there was a village, and we started taking fire. And as we're running, three of us, two Korean Marines and myself, the guy in front of me was hit, the guy behind me was hit. I take it to the other side, get up, go back, pick up one of the guys. As I'm carrying him over to get out of the line of fire, he's hit again. If you're familiar with machine guns or any weapon, they have a cyclical rate of fire. If I squeeze the trigger on the machine gun, it will fire out a certain number of rounds per second. So if you have a gun that is firing constantly and you run through it, and the guy in front of you and the guy behind you gets hit and you don't get scratched, and you go back and he gets hit again and you don't get scratched, that's what I call running through raindrops. And I make that reference oftentimes. It's luck. It's God's will. It's whatever you want to call it. By all rights, I shouldn't be here. This is one of a number of why am I still here events. But if you're a favoritist like I am, it wasn't my time. I always like to talk about the guy that's interviewed in some town in rural Tennessee, and he's 100 years old. His longevity is accounted for by drinking a bottle of bourbon every day and smoking two cigars. And then you've got a guy like Jim Fixx who started the running craze. At 50 years old, he dropped dead of a heart attack. That's a dichotomy. It's hard to explain. It wasn't his time. Not the little guy in Tennessee's time. It was Jim Fixx's time. There's a time and place for everybody. You know it out there with your name on it, but you don't know when and where. And you've got to think if you're in combat for extended periods of time, you must become numb to the dangers or you can't perform. And when you're an officer, you have certain things that you have to do because people are depending upon you. So stopping to think about what's going on, no rational person would do most of the things that people do in combat. They'd get on the ground and try and bury themselves in a hole and stay there until somebody came to rescue them. But there's no explanation. But you have to have a mindset that sort of floats you away somewhere. And then you do what you're trained to do. If you've done any research, there's a chapter in a book about an exploit. And it's a funny chapter because the title is This is No Place for a Nice Jewish Boy. When we were rescued, my colonel came up from Saigon and he called me on the radio and he said, what's the status up there? And I said, knee-jerk reaction, this is no place for a nice Jewish boy. And he teased me about that for the rest of his life. But when the author came to St. Louis and he met me, the first thing he said was, why did you do what you did? And my answer was because that was my job. He didn't think about it. You get up and you do what you have to do. That's what officers have to do. That's what being a Marine means. That's what it meant to me. I'm not good at philosophy. As Forrest Gump would say, that's all I'm going to say about that. Had to bring that Forrest Gump in there. I love him. My favorite Forrest Gump. But, in fact, Joel, that story and what you're talking about lends itself pretty perfectly to I'm going to couple two things together. And I think this is something that Jim might be able to provide perspective on as well. If you would, Joel, there's two stories that I think are somewhat related in terms of perspective. The story about you and your brother at the dinner table fighting. Maybe that's a strong term. Fighting over who had it harder in combat. And the moment you realized you actually had PTSD. Would you relate those two stories to us? My father was in the Army in 39 and was in the Pacific the entire time with the Army Air Corps. Like Jim's father, he got called back up to Korea. I remember living in South Dakota at an air base there. I can't remember the name of it. Rapid City. Coldest place I'd ever been. I was only like four years old. In any event, my brother served in the 82nd Airborne. This unit was the first unit into Saudi Arabia and the last unit out. But I digress for a minute. I just spent a week, I just spent four days with a guy named Walt Boomer who was the general who led the Marines into Kuwait who shared a hole with me in the ground in Vietnam in 1972. One of the individuals that called you crazy, if I recall. He has opinions. But he's a four-star general and was assistant commandant. Whatever he says goes. In any event, the 82nd Airborne was on the left flank. The Marines were on the right flank. The Marines were the ones that went into Kuwait and took some casualties, not many. The 82nd Airborne spent five days collecting prisoners who had their hands up. When my brother got home, as mentioned earlier, he was a hero. Everybody was a hero because Desert Storm was a success, and he would go to his daughter's school dressed in his uniform, and he'd get free tickets to baseball games. All the things that I never got, that you never got, Jim. He was loaded with all that stuff, and he liked to rub it in. We're at the dinner table. He sits at my home, since I can remember, everybody has assigned seats. My father sits on one side, my mother sits on the other. I sit next to my dad, my little brother sits across from me, my other little brother sits there, and then next to us is whatever woman we're with at the time. I've had it several wives. I don't talk about my military experience, and I didn't talk about it with my mom and dad or my wife. Victor is talking about how difficult it was, how hard it was for him, five days of hell and driving and all that, and I finally had enough and I said, what are you talking about? I went out on operations that were seven, ten days, and we do that three times in two months or less, and you don't have any idea what you're talking about. What do you mean? You don't know how difficult it was. No, actually, I really do know how difficult it was, and you had it easy. Well, it escalated. He stood up and I stood up, and my father had to jump in, and my brother left the house, and we still don't talk to each other. I'm sorry to hear that, Joel, and that all stems from that argument. Am I understanding it correctly? Yes, it does. It's a compilation of other things that I did for my brother that he resented, and he's a complicated person. Well, if you would, please share the story about recognizing in real time that you had the symptoms of PTSD. As it was explained to me by my Veterans Administration psychiatrist, Dr. List, I came home, got back into where I left off, did my last three semesters of law school, got jobs, got married, remarried. I raised a family. In 2006, I finally found my radio operator, Joe Swift, and I drove to Columbus, Ohio for a Marine Corps reunion. Sitting around a room in Columbus, Ohio at a holiday inn with about five Marines, all of them had been in Anglico, and they started going around the room. I said, What do you do? I'm a disabled skipper. I've got 100% disability. I get money from the government. I go around the room. Everyone's 100% disabled. I get to Joe. Joe? Oh, skipper, I'm 100%. What do you mean you're 100%? You carried the radio walking behind me. And he looks at me and he says, You are too, and you should go and you should apply for benefits. I thought about it, and four years later I went to the VA. Four years. Before he gets to the VA, and to get to Dr. Liss who said, When I came home, I got back into the stream of life, and I repressed everything. He explained to me things that I never really understood until he said, You probably would yell at your kids for no reason. I said, Yeah, they complained about that from time to time. You probably did this, that, and the other. I said, I never thought about it, but, yeah, you're pinning all those things on me. He said, That's post-traumatic stress. You just accumulated to the point where you couldn't hold it anymore. So I have a rating with the VA, and they give you money. It's sort of like cash. Like what Yogi says, it's the same as cash. And you still attend meetings, isn't that correct, support meetings? I've been going to a monthly support meeting for 15 years. Wow. Same guys. Joe is about half the size that he originally was, which is part of the problem I have with my unit. Once I met Joe in 2010, I started putting together guys from our unit, and we started having a reunion every year in Quantico for the first several years. And we had probably 20 guys. We're down to seven. And that included from General Gray down to corporals, because we just had a reunion recently and there were only seven of us left, who fought together in a particular time in the spring of 1972, which is a watershed moment in the war in Vietnam, which is the Easter offensive. And North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam with a World War II type motif. It was artillery, infantry, and tanks. Nothing like waking up in the morning with a T-34 coming at you. Where am I? What the hell is going on here? I think that's a beautiful transition to us going back to the honor flight and specifically talking about Vietnam veterans, since we have two here in our presence. Joe, I'd like to start with you. What was it like going on the honor flight, getting to D.C., and being there at the wall amongst fellow service members? I'm the wrong person to ask that question of, and I'll tell you why. Because I had, in our reunions, taken all of my troops to the wall and to all the monuments. And when I took them, most of them, it was for the first time. Ezekiel George, who you met, Master Gunnery Sergeant, 32 years in the Marine Corps, got down on his knees and cried. It was moving for all of us. So I've been there repeatedly. I lived and worked in D.C. I visited D.C. regularly. When I worked there, I would sit on the top step of the Lincoln Memorial with my ice cream cone from the stand right next door, and it's the most peaceful thing in a spring or fall night. As the sun's going down, you look up the pool. It's fabulous. But the honor flight was beneficial in more ways than I can imagine because Jim was kind enough to accede to my demands. Seriously, I had been on a list and had been called on a number of occasions and then said, I don't want to go. Send somebody who needs to go. I've been there, done that. I can afford to go any time I want. I said to him, I'll go on one condition. I want to take three guys that I served with with me. He says, let me call you back. Two or three days later, he calls and says, I can get you all three of the guys you want on board. So I flew a man from 29 Palms, California, from San Antonio, Texas, and from South Bend, Indiana, to St. Louis on Sunday. We left on Tuesday. We had sort of a party for four days. The Sergeant Major, who I mentioned, is 93 and Zeke. My Master Gunnery Sergeant is 81, and the Sergeant is, I think he's 77 and I'm 80. The point of the story is I had the benefit of doing something that they don't normally come across with the honor flight. I went with people I served with. Of the 60, I think there were 60 of us, weren't there, Jim? There were 60 of us. But of those 60, four of us served together. The others were all strangers, not only to us but to each other. And I think that was a benefit to us, clearly, because we were able to enjoy our company together with people with whom we served in meaningful places. It enhanced the opportunity to go back and be with my boys in D.C. and see the things that we'd seen before, but this time all together again, and they treated us like kings. Jim, if you would, since this is something you've done for a long time that you've been part of and you're Director of Operations, would you tell us the impact that the honor flight has had on you? I think the impact for me is the fact that I get to continue to work with and be with veterans that served when I did and before that as we went through the World War II and Korea veterans. It allows me to see the reaction that the veterans that we take have during the day, during the flight, on the way home, over and over and over again. And every flight is different. Every veteran is different. It's like a new day every day for us. And so it's instant gratification for me over and over and over again because I see these people have the reactions that Joel and his Marines had with us every single time in different ways. We have brothers that go together. We've had men and women, married couples, both veterans go together. And then we have the people who just don't know anybody, but they still get treated the same way and they still have the same emotional reaction. Our veterans tell us that with the exception of the day they were married and the birth of their children, that their honor flight is the very best day of their life. If you think about that, you have these people of this age and you have them on the ground in Washington for six and a half hours, and that's the kind of reaction that they have and the emotions. We've had people buried in their honor flight shirts. I've had women call me and say, my husband wore his shirt every single day and he's flat out worn it out. He went 10 years ago. Could I possibly have another shirt for him? Absolutely you can have another shirt. I had a woman call me and said, my husband had a heart attack yesterday and the paramedics came and they cut his honor flight shirt off of him and he died last night. Could I possibly have a shirt to bury him in? Absolutely. I'll be there in an hour with it. So I get to experience what Joel experienced by virtue of my position over and over again. Who wouldn't want to do this job? I know this is going to be a tough question, but is there one particular story of a veteran or a pair of veterans that you remember specifically from an honor flight in the past? We had a veteran go with us whose brother was killed in Vietnam, and he and his brother were there at the same time. His brother was a pilot, and this veteran that we took was an Army veteran. And it happened that his brother and he were together in Japan, and they had had dinner at an officer's club on this particular night, and the next morning his brother said, I'm going to go out and do a run. I'll be back and we'll have dinner again. And, of course, his plane went down and was never found. Our veteran that we took was 19 years old. His brother was 25 and was an Air Force pilot. Fast forward 50 years, he and his brother were reunited at the wall, and he talked to his brother, and we recorded it. We just happened to be standing there and heard him start to talk, and so one of us started to record it on our phone, and he was talking to his brother that we're finally together again and I'll see you again soon. That's just one of the many, many stories. We had a Korean War veteran that went with us in August. He was a Marine as well. He wore his uniform, his original Korean War uniform, all wool, full dress, all day in August. Wow. Never broke a sweat. You know, that's one of the most poignant stories I've heard in a long, long time, and it's heartwarming. I don't want to spoil the event for someone who might be listening who ultimately goes, but I will say that the honor flight process was one of the most memorable experiences of my life, and when we go off record, I will tell you exactly why. Because it was and remains vivid in my memory. What they did for us was unbelievable. You have no idea how appreciative we were and are and will remain for what the honor flight did for us. I know, Joel, you have many experiences in D.C. You lived and worked in D.C. This is a question we always make sure to ask of any of our Vietnam veterans who are kind enough to join us on this podcast. When did you have your welcome home moment? When did I have my welcome home moment? On the honor flight. The honor flight. That's amazing. The welcome home moment is mild for what was done for us. Welcome home by my Marines. We get together, and I don't say this lightly, we get together to honor ourselves and those that have gone before us in our group every year. I talk to my guys sometimes daily, but not a week goes by that I don't get a hold of the people that he knows and others. There's a bond there, and when you get together, you compress time. I may not see you for three or four months, but when I get together with you, it's like I saw you yesterday, and we pick up right where we left off. You probably have those same relationships with people you went to high school with, people you went to college with. That is a way to relive or to regain your memories of your youth. It makes you young again in your mind. I don't know who the guy is I look at in the mirror in the morning. I don't know how he got to be that old, but inside he's not that old. He's just picking me every day. If each of you would, first of all, I want to say thank you to you both, not only for your service but for your vulnerability and your willingness to share your story of service with us and our audience this evening. It's a real honor. If you would, since we are celebrating and commemorating Veterans Day, from your perspective as veterans, if you got to choose how Americans observed Veterans Day, what would you have them do? I think I would say the same thing that we say in the honor flight, and that is we consider every day to be Veterans Day. And so I think that the American people have changed their outlook and their views about military service in the last several years. I'm treated much better now than I was back then. I also was told not to wear my uniform in the United States, which is a horrible indictment, not of me but of the American people, that you would say something like that to a military officer. But that's changed, and people regularly talk to me about my service and thank me for that, and part of it's because I display it. I wear honor flight materials all the time, shirts and hats and my own Air Force hat. So I think that I would want them to do that every day. I don't think I particularly put any great emphasis on Veterans Day except to say that I think veterans are much more appreciated now than they ever have been in the past. So I appreciate that. I hope that continues. And to the extent that we can make every day Veterans Day just like that, that's what I would do. Thank you, Jim. I think that service to your country is important. It's not oftentimes popular. Those who do it are not oftentimes looked upon as heroes, so to say. That's a bad word. Anybody who puts on the uniform and is willing to take the chance is a hero in my opinion. But it's a question I ponder a lot. What could we do, not necessarily for veterans, but to recognize the sacrifice that men and women make in serving our country? I'm a believer in national service. I believe that every 18-year-old or 24-year-old after college has a duty to serve this country. And we can do that in a variety of ways, whether it be in the service, the Peace Corps inside the United States or outside the United States, to gain an appreciation for what we have here. If you travel around this world, travel around this country, you oftentimes will realize how fortunate you are to have what we have. But it's not free. It wasn't free to our forefathers. It's not free for us. There are sacrifices that have to be made, and Veterans Day is an opportunity for us to remember what we have and how we got it and how we keep it and those people that were willing to go out of their way to preserve the life that we enjoy. It's taken for granted, and that's a problem. It's not often, Jason. We've had a lot of great stories told and great experiences related to us. I'm tearing up hearing both Jim and Joel share their experiences as Vietnam veterans and sharing their thoughts on what Veterans Day should be, what it should look like. Gentlemen, thank you both very much. It's an honor to be able to speak with each of you this evening. Appreciate it. Thank you. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being on the show. In light of the topic of the day, Ethan, with it being our Veterans Day show, of course I've mentioned this veteran before who is one of my heroes and also a Vietnam vet who's no longer with us, Steve Tuthill, one of my childhood heroes. I'm going to continue to say his name because I want to honor and respect him. So I take this very seriously. I think Veterans Day, especially for someone of my generation, is maybe looked at differently than previous generations and generations after me, but I think we need to bring it back to the forefront where the motto, Every Day is Veterans Day, is something that is not far from our mind and our words and our thoughts in this country. Of course, Veterans Day is going to mean something different to each person. It means something very, very special to me. I honor and respect all veterans, but, again, like I said, my childhood hero, Steve Tuthill, who's a Vietnam veteran and no longer with us, is a name that I'll continue to repeat over time. Gentlemen, again, thank you so much for your vulnerability, for sharing your story with us, for enlightening us and our audience on the honor flight and what it does for veterans being, for most, if not all, the best day outside of a couple important events, but one of the best days of their lives in those six hours they spend on the ground at a place where we memorialize our heroes. With that being said, we're going to go ahead and sign off of the podcast at the Mid-America Veterans Museum. Operation Insight. Thank you, Ethan. Thank you, gentlemen. Have a good night. ♪♪♪ Operation Insight is brought to you by the Mid-America Veterans Museum. Do you like our podcast? With your support, we'll continue to bring you great programming. If you'd like to donate, go to mavm.org and click on Donate.