Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 08-18-25_MONDAY_6AM

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

08-18-25_MONDAY_6AM

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. So good to have you here this Monday, August 18th, 2025, rather crisp cool 66, at least crisp, and cooler that has been there for a while. Join in at 770-5663-770KMED. My email is Bill at Billmyershow.com.

I just want to give you a heads up on some of the people I'll be talking to this morning. Karen Tanabi and Victoria Kelly are the two people featured in the documentary. Atomic Echoes, Untold Stories of World War II. I guess it's been getting some play on public television, Southern Oregon, public TV. I don't know if it's still on the schedule or not. I had not really heard much about it until, well, actually, we had the anniversary of the Hiroshima Dronbop. Domb, bomb drop, there we go. get that right. And we'll have a little talk about this documentary that the two of them

ended up conducting here a little bit later this hour, about 10 to 7 or so. We're also going to be talking about the artificial intelligence standards, which really aren't all that tough right now. And I know that states are not allowed to do anything about, well, no, I guess the states could technically do something about AI if they wanted to. But the story is out now that the meta chat bots are having or are allowed to have sensual and sexy talks with kids. Now, that sounds a little weird. I know why would you even, you know, want to have an artificial intelligence making that kind of friendship with the kids and grandkids? I don't know, but we're going to talk with Haley McNamara, who is from the National Center

on Sexual Exploitation. And she's going to be... This big group, by the way, it's been around since 1962. She'll have more than a little bit to talk about it. Kevin Starritt from Morgan Firearms Federation will also be coming on the program at 730. And there was just a story that came out over the weekend about Cash Patel's FBI, Trump administration's FBI, because they ended up handing out a ton of awards to agents and teams. And one of the teams that they ended up handing out some big awards to was the same team that ended up shooting and killing LaVoy Finnecom.

This was after the Malher, you know, the Malheur occupation, rather. Remember this happened about, gosh, what was it, about almost 10 years, not quite 10 years. But, yeah, I ended up mentioning this yesterday on Facebook, and the response was not real good. In other words, the memories in the, I guess you're going to call it the Southern Oregon and the Patriot folks, you know, out there, not real happy. They saw what they thought was a lot of Hinky that happened with the shooting of Lavoie and also the investigation after. And there was one of the hostage team members. They ended up also getting an award. I think his name was Aristidea, I think is what his name was.

and he had been charged and accused of lying about having not shot at Finnecom's truck, but apparently there's evidence to it. Jury said no, they didn't find him guilty of it, but there was so much hanky going on. And remember, this was also the situation in which the former Governor Brown got involved in this one, with more or less a kind of take them out kind of a approach. Boy, it wouldn't have been interesting if she used the same approach to Antifa in Portland. But I know it, yeah, we had that dead man's barricade, that roadblock out that road. And from what I recall, and see, that's just it.

So much water under the bridge since that time, there's a lot of this story that I've forgotten about. And maybe you've forgotten about my wife Linda and I were talking about it. And said, well, this is kind of the basics of what happens. says, I don't really understand this. Yeah. And Kevin was all over this story at the time. And so we're going to kick that around. But Max Bernstein from the Oregoni ended up writing this out.

And, yeah, they ended up giving that hostage rescue team for the FBI a whole bunch of rewards. And what next are we going to have Lon Horiuchi given rewards of what happened over at Ruby Ridge, right? You know, that famed shooting a number of years ago. I know. It seems like an odd time to be, well, I mean, you think about it. It happened nine years ago, and they're just getting around to giving the hostage rescue team awards right now. It feels very odd, and I'm kind of wondering what might be the situation driving this. I don't know. I'll be the first to say I know much less about this particular story than many others. I was concerned back then when they had the Malheur occupation.

I said, this is not going to end well. And unfortunately, it was right about that particular situation. But it pretty much collapsed after the... Now, it ended up being OSP officers who ended up actually shooting and killing LaVoy Finnecom. But the FBI had this all set up. This whole... This was, you know, kind of driving the bus, so to speak. So we'll talk with Kevin O'Brien.

about that. Also, where a past meets president, Dr. Dennis Powers, joining me. We'll talk more about what happened with President Trump. Friday, of course, he ended up meeting with Vladimir Putin, and it seems like they're taking a guardedly optimistic approach of what happened. I know it's kind of funny, you know, to have Vladimir Putin say, he said words of the effect of, yes, if President Trump had been president, there would have been no war. Now, I don't if this was an attempt by Vladimir just to flatter President Trump or not, but it was an interesting quote

that came out of that. And today, well, at least Zelensky is going to be in town, and President Zelensky will be, of Ukraine, rather, will be visiting the White House today, town hall.com reporting this, and joined by a whole bunch of other European

leaders. European Commission President Ursula van der Leiden, German Chancellor Frederick Merse, Finnish President the Finnish president, the Italian Prime Minister Maloney, French President Macron, President Prime, the British, rather, Prime Minister Kier Sturmer, and Zelensky is kind of concerned about security guarantees, but President Trump is reportedly offering security guarantees, kind of like membership in NATO, but not quite.

not membership in NATO, but a NATO Article 5 kind of protection security guarantees for Ukraine if Vlad were to get sportier in the future. And of course, they're going to have to be talking about land swaps or who's going to give back Watt and who's going to keep Watt and this and that and the other. So that will be happening a little bit later today. All right. A little closer to home, the city of Grands, Pass is now able to enforce homelessness restrictions again.

They haven't been able to because of that disability rights Oregon lawsuit. And that was settled Friday. And K-O-B-I-5 and others reporting that this morning here. And this is, in order to not have the lawsuit moving forward, this is what the City of Grants Pass has to do. It's quite the laundry list here. The City of Grants Pass has to provide low-barrier shovels. capacity, no less than 150 homeless people for one year, to be on property owned and operated

by the city, operated or operated by a city contracted third party. Yeah. A low barrier shelter, the low barrier shelter capacity, low barrier, just remember, low barrier means drinking, drug taking, you know, whatever it takes, you can pretty much do it. Uh, low barrier, drug Dan's shelter capacity, maybe that's what we just start calling it, shall be generally available to homeless individuals, and the city may not impose limitations beyond safety requirements as a means to prohibit homeless individuals from entering the premises. They can't impose any other limitations beyond safety requirements, but apparently, now, sticking a needle in your arm might not qualify as a safety requirement.

I don't know. It's like, well, you know, we have to protect you from everything except your own drug addiction. problem, I guess. But this is what is going to have to happen, apparently, what everybody agreed to. The city also has to ensure drinking water, clean water for drinking and washing at the

property, also hand washing stations, shade around the water stations in portable toilets, maybe some Spotify, you know, for music, something, I'm just kidding about that part, but Grats Pass will create a reasonable accommodation

process for disabled homeless, individuals, who are unable to use park space or designated resting sites. So does that mean that the city of Grants Pass is going to have to, I don't know. Will they have to go? I know there's a homeless community there or in a park right down there by the Hyperion Inn or that, you know, that lodge in Grants Pass. They have one of those small city parks. I forget the name of it. but they have a, you know, a bunch of the concrete campers there, you know, right by it.

If you have someone who is disabled, does this mean the end of the city of Grants Pass has to purchase a nice hotel room? Maybe that one at the Hyperion next door. I don't know. I'm just posing the question when I see this kind of, you see, reasonable accommodation process is something big enough to drive a whole lot of nonprofit organizations, NGOs that are there to, care for the homeless. I could see all sorts of stuff going on here. Maybe we'll, you know, we'll have to get in touch with some of the people. This is once again trying to avoid the lawsuit from moving forward. So anytime I see reasonable accommodation, what is that for disabled homeless who can't use the park space or designating resting sites? So that means, that sounds to me like

a reasonable accommodation means that city taxpayers will be paying for disabled homeless to be put in hotels or motels of some sort. Isn't that what that sounds like? It does to me. But like I said, it's pure speculation on my part. But when you hear reasonable, what would they consider reasonable? I doubt the disability rights, Oregon would like to see a reasonable accommodation like, okay, we're going to provide a few cars and then if you're disabled, you can sleep in your car.

They probably wouldn't like something like that. Does it mean you have to provide a tiny home? type thing like the gospel rescue mission is well no they're doing some of that right now who is doing the tiny homes and grants pass we got tiny homes going in all ever uh everywhere that's like the uh the new growth industry in the southern oregon real estate world it seems tiny homes for the homeless yeah you don't own it but uh and no they don't pay taxes but hey there they are right but we'll see we'll see i just have a few questions about this also by the end of next year the city agrees to give

$60,000 to a nonprofit for services to homeless individuals. In other words, that sounds like a legalized enforced bribe. So you're going to give $60,000 city of grads pass to some NGO that I don't know, probably provides needles or some other services or just enables the, enables poor choices within the homeless community. I could be wrong about that, but that is my suspicion. I would love to be wrong about all of my concerns when I look at this list. Also, in exchange for waiving other costs, fees, or damages,

grants pass agrees to pay $85,000 to the Disability Rights Oregon Trust account. Okay, sue and settle and make money. There we go. So now that the city is going to pay all of that, now they can enforce homelessness rules in Grants Pass. Unless it may be you're homeless, if you are a homeless, disabled person, then we have to make reasonable accommodations. And how many disabled homeless do you think are going to require a reasonable accommodation? That sounds like a little bit of a get-out-of-jail-free car, doesn't it? Once again, I am open to being wrong about this.

I could be, but anytime there's kind of an interesting, you know, any sort of an option that reasonable, see, reasonable, those are weasel words that are put in law. Reasonable means as extreme as possible, according to the progressive way of looking at the world. I think it's probably what we're looking at, isn't it? What do you think, Grants Pass residents? But we can talk about it and others, if you wish. 770563, the Bill Meier's show, and you're waking up on KMED. This is Insurance Agent A.

Hey. Sober or get pulled over. Paid for by Netsa. Hi, I'm Steve Potter, body shop manager of Lithuibati and paint, and I'm on 106.7 at KMED. And I appreciate you waking up here Monday. You're talking about the story that broke late on Friday. about the city of Grants Pass settling the lawsuit with disability rights

Oregon and there's just a whole bunch of stuff that they have to do now but they've agreed to do it and because of that the well I guess because of this now they can start enforcing homelessness rules

but they have to take a light touch it would seem according to the settlement rules here according to a disability rights Oregon what they ended up getting here. And this is the one that really sticks out of me. Grants Pass will create a reasonable accommodation process for disabled homeless individuals who are unable to use park spaces or designated resting sites. That sounds to me like motel rooms and hotel rooms, doesn't it? Or else is it a accommodation to let you sleep out wherever you want?

Something tells me that's not what disability rights Oregon was all about. But once again, Again, I could be wrong, but it just seems that way. Let me talk with Vicki. Hello, Vicki. You're out in the avalgate. Does this story kind of strike some curiosity or generate some curiosity in you as how this will actually play out? Well, yeah, because there's so many definitions of disability. It could be mental.

It could be physical. It could be emotional. It could be, you know, what exactly are they defining as disabled? When I think of disabled, well, there is a lot of mental disabilities, but when I initially think of disabled, I'm thinking wheelchair, a limp, you know, a physical, where they really don't have a chance to. Yeah, not able to move, not able to, yeah, or having difficulty doing certain things. Well, it just so happens since I knew you're going to ask this question.

I ended up looking up what the actual law is and the definition of disability. Would you like to hear what that is? Yes, I would. In Oregon law, a person with a disability, although it's a disabled person, is defined as someone who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. Someone who has a record of such impairment or is regarded as having such an impairment, the definition is outlined in the Oregon revised statutes.

But that's sort of the short, you know, the shorthand definition. Anything mental or physical. But remember, drug addiction, any kind of drug addiction is now, you know, that is considered a disease, right? We're told that this addictive behavior is a disease. So it would seem to mean that when you have disability rights Oregon negotiating this deal with the city of Grants Pass and saying that, You know, if you have a disabled person who is unable to use the parks or the other,

the homelessness encampments provided that you must make a reasonable accommodation. Now, I'm jumping, I might be jumping ahead of myself, but that sounds to me like the city taxpayers are going to have to pay for some kind of nice homes or nicer homes of some sort for disabled people. Is that a reasonable assumption that the people are going to be on the hook for this? What do you think? I think it is, and the problem with the mental disability, if these people weren't alcoholics or drug abusers, what would their mental state be if they were just like a normal society?

You know, I think that there's cause for mental, you know, services for people. Well, yeah, but I would imagine, though, it's like what did the mental illness cause you to become a, opiate addict or are the opiates or the heroin or whatever else you might be using causing a mental illness but of course that would be termed according to my reading of the definitions of of Oregon law here that would be disabled and so it strikes me that you could have hundreds of people that are just defined as disabled from their drug addiction. Just from their drug addiction, I am disabled, I can't hold down a job.

I certainly, I am unable to take care of myself in a tent on the side of the road or on the side of the Bear Creek Greenway, or I'm not able to take care of myself inside a tiny house. I don't know. What could it mean? Well, I think it means, I think that it should be defined as disabling, not disabled, but their actions are disabling them from having a job, keeping a home, raising a family. Yeah, but I don't think that the Oregon State law cares whether or not you generated it yourself. The fact that you are is all that would appear to matter, at least, for getting a reasonable accommodation and reasonable accommodation.

That sounds like a huge loophole to drive a lot of services through. I could be wrong, but... Okay, well, I've had a lot of things happen in my... life where people could say oh my god she's went cuckoo crazy and I don't have anyone helping me pay my bills well maybe you just haven't been working the right grift oh hey Vicki you may not have been working the right grift you just haven't been making the right claim okay all right okay thanks for the cool though no you know and once again you know it's um I was saying last week I don't want to be cruel to the homeless

people and the folks there and to drug addicts and things like that but But on the other hand, I'm really hoping we could craft something that we're not coddling it. And it sounds like all you have to do is, oh, I'm not able to stay in this particular homelessness camp. I don't like it and like the look of it. There's not a freedom or whatever it is. And what, do we have to put you up in the Hyperion? I don't know. It could be.

I could. Maybe I'm off base too and just looking too much into this. But when I see the weasel words reasonable, I always get concerned. But, hi, good morning. Who's this? Good to have you on. Good morning, Bill, David, and Phoenix. Hello, David.

What do you think in this morning? Well, number one, Ron Wyden's going to be in Grants Pass at Rogue Community College this afternoon, and it's going to be a small venue controlled. So I'm hoping all my libertarian and Republican and a little bit right of center and center friends will show up there, come at three, to get good feet. Yeah, yesterday he was a speak. And yesterday he was speaking at Crater Lake. He did an event out there, and he was decrying the Trump administration's cuts to, you know, the park's budget, et cetera. Like you knew you would.

Right, right. But what I'm saying is they always hold it in a place where he's just going to have his, you know, blue-haired crowd, whether they're young or old. And used to be old ladies. Now it's young people. It's confusing. Well, it's kind of like if you're going to come to Southern Oregon or, you know, you always go to Stevenson Union at Southern Oregon University. right? You know that same kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, what I really called about was this shakedown by Disability Rights

Oregon, I can't believe that Grants Pass caved in just because the lawsuit was going, you can sue anybody, and that's how they do it. They balance it. They say, this is going to be $80,000 to disability rights, how sweet, and $60,000 for this, and we've got to do all these things that is just really coddling them. Yeah, well, disability rights essentially has demanded the cost of a full-time grants-pass police officer in exchange for letting go of the lawsuit. Now, maybe the city probably has contingencies for such things in reserves, but still. But what I'm trying to say, I'm attempting to, is that instead of having a NGO, because they're losing their funding, be in charge, why don't we turn this also over to? just like they did with the foundry, you know, on Foundry Road where AllCare gave the money,

which I hope All Care goes out of business. Anyways, All Care gave the money to the city, the city built it, and they turned it over to that set-free ministry that used to be run by Chad McComas to run it. Well, why don't we let Chad McComis run it and take it out of this local NGO? because that's how they're doing. They're looking for money to replace the money that they're losing that they shouldn't have been getting from the taxpayer in the first place. So it really frosts me a little bit.

So that's what you're thinking then that the lawsuit was partially connected with that, that ultimately getting some extra NGO funding. You could be right. Could be right. That's what you said this morning that they had to hire. Well, I said they had to. This was terms of the agreement. I didn't say they filed the lawsuit to do this.

No, no, no. But that's the terms of the agreement. these people these people are working this all the time they don't think the way normal people do they don't these people these people have a long game plan they'll still hang in here for till we we went an election and then and we think okay now we can go back to sleep no he can't do that going to be fine and these people are still they don't they they don't surrender and they know that Trump, Trump really only has about another year, and then he'll be a lame duck. It'll be election time again. They've got elections two years early. So if Congress doesn't

get some stuff done, which they didn't, shame on them, we're going to be right back in the same mess we were. And they'll come back with a vengeance. They'll come back roaring. Our head spun the last time. We haven't seen anything yet. Yeah, we'll probably be, we'll probably, David, in the wet dream of progressives, providing first-class housing for homeless people at Crater Lake, you know, for vacation. We'll have to take them there in order to accommodate their needs for vacations, and it's just not enough to be by the Rogue River. Well, what they really want, Bill, is they want private property landlords to go out of business,

and they want this to be taken over by the government. We want to go back to projects like we used to have in the 60s and the 70s that were hellholes. They finally tore the one down in Chicago in 82, the big projects, and they finally started getting rid of the projects where they're redoing the projects, but we just call it by different names now. And we put a little different look instead of a block building that's nine stories tall. We three-story apartments, but they're still projects because you put in the concentrators. Yeah, the social pathologies are still there. Same social pathologies.

And so what's going to happen is once they've gotten that, once they've gotten that, they'll pull the rug out from under even these people. People don't really understand that they're just pawns and useful idiots, these homeless people or one group against another. The people that are doing this, they're just like the old Soviet Union, and people just better wake up. I'm sorry. All right.

David from Phoenix, I appreciate your call this morning. Thanks for checking in, okay. It's a 637. We'll catch up on what else is going on here, too. Bill London has a report this morning, town hall news. More of your calls coming up. We're also going to talk about some of the forgotten, well, the forgotten facts, forgotten stories of World War II involving the atomic draw. Gosh, I did.

I'm doing this again. The atomic drop bomb, right. The atomic bomb drop. We had the 80th anniversary of that, just a few, days ago. And we'll have a couple of people involved in a documentary. Documentary available over on Public TV, Southern Oregon. I don't know if it's still on Southern Oregon PBS or not. It was, but

it's available on the PBS website, too. We'll talk about that coming up. At Montana Roofing, it's one of the most wonderful times of the MD, sponsored by Grange Co-op. The Phil Myers Show on 1063, KMED. and change. I appreciate you waking up here this Monday. Beautiful, beautiful day. Going to be that way. And getting back to the low 90s or so, especially middle of this week, and the heat kind of back on. By the way, a little programming note, I will be on vacation the final week of August and going to burn off some vacation, hopefully not under any kind of wildfire

burns or anything else like that. I'll be coming back after Labor Day. So just wanted to give you a heads up because people always get kind of teet-es. off at me if I don't kind of let you know what is going on and nothing wrong and and I might do a little bit of camping. I know Linda and I are going to go out to the coast this weekend, blow the stink off us, so to speak, and play around a little bit. A big thing we love to do is go out to some of the coastal thrift shops. There's one that we have never gone to that is off a highway 101 that we're looking

forward to heading out to on Saturday to see because normally we'll go there on a Saturday, and we'll get there in the afternoon. You check in the motel, you know, the hotel, rather, at 3 p.m. And then after that, you know, everything shuts down. And then Brookings shuts down except for some of the tourist shops for Sunday and various other things. So we want to get there a little bit early on Saturday so we can actually see some of the other. Just thrifting, just having fun. And looking at things that can be redone.

Now, last time I was there a few months ago, I ended up getting a couple of vintage. One of them was a Sony transistor radio from the early 1960s, and a transistor radio back then was about the size of a laptop because it had short wave and everything else on it. And it was, I've been, you know, it's up on my workbench and I play that. It's just sort of a little fun thing to do. I love taking vintage electronics and getting them working again and back in shape, and then most of the time kind of pass them along. and I was looking at this, this Sony, you can still get about 60, 70 bucks for this, a particular Sony from 1962 on eBay that I had. And I looked up how much it cost to buy in 1962, and it was $129. Whoa, for a transistor radio was shortwave on it.

That was a serious commitment of cash in those days. You know, you think about it, that typical car was what? a couple thousand dollars a year maybe maybe a couple thousand twenty three hundred dollars for for a nice car maybe even less than that in 1960 remember in 1971 it was a big deal for the pinto being 1919 you know that's how much they charged for then as it was when I was a little boy remember when I family bought once so you think about that $129 for an AM and shortwave radio but that's what it took that's what it took handmade point-to-point wiring yeah interesting stuff I love

working on those kind of things. Now, this is not the homelessness story like we were talking about with the City of Grants Pass, City of Grants Pass having to agree to disability rights Oregon to, it looks like to be quite accommodating when it comes to disabled homelessness individuals, but we'll probably talk with someone from the city about that. Here's a story which I'm intrigued with, and we're going to look more into this one. It's on the Oregon Roundup Substack. If you go to substack.com and then search for Oregon Roundup.

It's a great site where they have a lot of Oregon news in there. Oregon Health Authority paid $2.3 million to a company running the home of an alleged gangster and attempted murderer. This was a drug dealer type thing. And it was money from Medicaid. Remember, we're listening to all the Oregon politicians right now that are saying, oh, the Trump cuts are so horrible. It's cutting Medicaid, and it's, you know, cutting Medicaid and Medicaid, like Governor Kotech said last week, a stuff that Oregonians depend on.

Well, some of that Medicaid was shifted over to running the uplifting journey company for drug treatment. There was this residential home that was used in Lake Oswego, and they paid, the state, rather, paid addiction, Medicaid money over less than a year to a company operating this Lake Oswego. group home while it housed an alleged attempted murder and member of a human and drug trafficking Venezuelan gang, Trend de Aragua. This is according to the Oregon Health Authority records obtained by Oregon Roundup with a public records request and also King County charging documents that they had for this. Officers arrested this alleged gangbanger, Kevin Daniel Sanabria Ojeda of Venezuela, a resident of that home, January 30th, on charges of taking.

taking part in the kidnapping, torture, and attempted murder and robbery of a Seattle woman. They took this woman, drilled into her hands with a power drill to force her to provide them the pin number for her debit card. They robbed her of gold and cash, shot and wounded her and left her for dead in rural Washington. And she survived after crawling to safety. So I just, so the guy in the meanwhile was, I guess, you know, Oregon is so generous that we were willing to provide. drug addiction counseling for a cartel member charged with putting a drill through a woman's hand. But I'm sure, well, he was disabled, right? It's the deaf. Hey, that's it. If he was, if he was, you know, drug addicted down to the city of Grads Pass, where they have to give him

an accommodation, put him up in a really nice place. You see, this is the sort of stuff I wonder about. I don't know, but it is an interesting time where we're finding ourselves. The The devil's in the details, right? This is the Bill Myers Show on KMED. Hi, it's John at Wilburn's Weapons. The only thing better. New documentary has been making its way through public television and still available on PBS. I don't know if it's on Southern Oregon PBS still or not, but it's worth mentioning.

It's making some noise. Atomic echoes, untold stories of World War II. It's a new documentary. And two of the people that are in this, Karen Tanabi. Hello, Karen Tanabi. How are you doing this morning? Welcome. Hello, Bill. I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having us on.

Yeah, great. Now, so you're a novelist, a journalist, and documentary film producer. Is this your first documentary, Karen? This is my first, but certainly not my left. Okay. All right, so it's going to be a new career here. Also, we have Victoria Kelly, who is here. Victoria, you are a novelist and a poet and producer and a veteran's advocate. How are you doing this morning? Welcome to the show. Great to have you on. Hi, good. Thank you so much for having me on. All right, so could you tell me then how you and Karen, or I don't know who wants to take it either Karen or Victoria First on how did you get together and decide to work this story, these lost stories of the dropping of the atomic bombs at the end of World War II?

Atomic echoes untold stories of World War II. How did this end up starting? What got you all together? well we've been friends for about six years as novelists and when the Oppenheimer movie came out we had a conversation about it and how we thought that they should have shown more about what happened underneath the mushroom cloud when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and I learned that Victoria's grandfather was an atomic veteran, a medic in Nagasaki. who came to Nagasaki 45 days after the bomb dropped and then suffered from PTSD from what he saw.

And my father was born in Japan outside of Tokyo in 1943, experienced World War II, and one of my relatives was the first president of Hiroshima University helping to build it up from ash after the bomb dropped. So we were like, wow, we have this unique connection we never knew about. we really agree that America needs to be educated differently about the atomic bombs. What can we do to do this? But let me tell you, a documentary was not our first thought. As writers, we were like, let's write something. Yeah.

And then it kind of got bigger from there. And so, Victoria, did you both end up doing a lot of traveling and talking with veterans? How is this documentary laid out for people so they can go see it? Yeah, I mean, we traveled around the country. and to Japan for this. We were, yeah, we tracked down several atomic veterans. We include three of them in the film. They were located all over the U.S.

And then we also interviewed survivors in Japan. So we had the opportunity to really tell this story from many different locations. And if you could, of course, you know, when you're talking about a subject as big as the dropping of the bombs then, did you hear stories that you had never heard before or an example, maybe give us an example of something that maybe we don't know as much about

as to what actually happened under that mushroom cloud, so to speak. I don't know who would like to take it, but please be forthcoming. It would be great. Oh, absolutely. We learned so much during this process. The thing about the atomic veterans, Victoria's grandfather being one of them, was everything they experienced was classified. They were not allowed to talk about what they saw,

about what they lived through for over 40 years until their service was declassified. So nobody asked them about what happened. And they also came home in 1946. So a lot of the service members had already had this grand welcome home, and these guys came home without much fanfare, without people asking about their stories. So when they were telling us about what they experienced, one of them was with an autopsy

committee at 19 years old. They were in tears. We were in tears. I mean, their stories are so emotional and so valuable for really learning what atomic warfare is like. Karen, I appreciate you sharing that. And Victoria, there aren't many World War II veterans left at this point, much less atomic, when you say? Isn't that right about right now?

very few at this point. Yeah, we're, I mean, we're estimating that there's probably fewer than 10 who were in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We located eight of them and interviewed three for the film. So, I mean, it's just one of the reasons we were just racing to complete this to be able to preserve those stories. Yeah, and I know that, of course, the people who were attacked with the bomb, who got the bomb, naturally suffered incredibly, you know, physically. and with health-wise long-term. I'm kind of wondering, what happened to the atomic veterans? I know we have a local man who has his father was an atomic veteran,

and I think that he ended up suffering a lot of health problems with that. Is that a general case with atomic veterans and everybody else involved with this? Yeah, I mean, they all suffered from radiation to some extent. All of our veterans have had cancer at multiple times. times in their lives. And then the PTSD element on top of that, I think, was just really powerful and emotional for us to see. I mean, no one got out unscathed from that experience. Is it now unclassified so you can talk about your experiences if you were back then? And so are they able to speak freely? Everyone's allowed to?

everybody is allowed to but I will say when you really kept that in for decades we heard so many times from these veterans well nobody asked me nobody asked me to share my stories so for the ones who were sharing their stories with us we just could tell this was one of the first times they were opening up about not just what they witnessed their as service members, but what they carry with them today. So one of our veterans, Micahs, who's in Minnesota, he hasn't been able to have his PTSD recognized by the VA. Really?

He hasn't had, you know, the health care support he hopes he would have. So he's 98 years old, Victoria and I over there, like, we promise you, we're going to do what we can. And Victoria really went to bat with their congressmen getting them atomic service metal. So that was our first step in what we hope is, or many other things to recognize their service. Yeah, I'm sorry, you're not disabled or traumatized by it

until we say you're traumatized by it, right? Boy, that's kind of irony. Unfortunately, that's it. No, that's exactly it, and that's the struggle they've had. Karen, what was it like, what were the stories coming out of Japan like? You give me, like you said, your father was born in Japan. How do you give me something there briefly.

I only have about a minute left. I want to make sure and get that in, too. Yeah, I think a lot of the power of this film is showing both sides. So we have Japanese stories and we have the American veterans. In Japan, the survivors, known as Hibakusha, many of them have spent their entire lives being advocates for peace. and I think what's really powerful in the film is you see that no one's looking back, right? All of these survivors are looking forward, and they're saying, we lived through this,

we know the reality of it. The bombs today, some of them are up to 80 times stronger. This can never happen again, and they've devoted their lives to this. We certainly want their message to carry on. Karen Tanabi and Victoria Kelly, I appreciate you coming on this morning, and your documentary is really making some noise. It's Atomic Echoes, Untold Stories of World War II. I know it's still available on PBS, and I'm going to be checking our local for this, too.

Is there a separate website for this, too, for this documentary? I just want to make sure before we go, just someone shout out, if you could. Yes, thanks so much. It's Atomicechosfilm.com. All right. Very good. Thank you, Karen, and Victoria. Pleasure having you on.

Atomic Echoes, Untold Stories of World War II. This is KMED.