Julian Dorey Podcast - #263 - WW2 Soldier on Japanese Torture Unit & Getting Shot by Nazi Sniper | Ernie Moger

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

- FOLLOW RISHI SHARMA’S AMAZING “REMEMBERING WW2” CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/@RememberWW2  - SUPPORT RISHI’S MISSION TO INTERVIEW ALL SURVING WW2 VETERANS: http://Www.gofundme.com/250ww2heroes  (***TIMESTAMPS in description below) ~ Ernie Mogor is a WW2 Veteran who served in George Patton’s 3rd Army. He was shot by a Nazi Sniper in 1945 and survived. PATREON https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey  FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY INSTAGRAM (Podcast): https://www.instagram.com/juliandoreypodcast/   INSTAGRAM (Personal): https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/   X: https://twitter.com/julianddorey  GUEST LINKS RISHI SHARMA TT: https://www.tiktok.com/@rememberww2  JULIAN YT CHANNELS - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDorey  - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@juliandoreyclips    - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily    ****TIMESTAMPS**** 0:00 - Growing up in NJ; Ernie’s “baby” (his gun) 6:18 - Getting drafted into WW2 10:08 - Serving under “Blood & Guts” George Patton 20:14 - What basic training was like 24:18 - Fighting in Germany vs. Japan 26:08 - Japanese Unit 731 T*rture Program 37:08 - Ernie heads to the front 42:53 - Ernie’s insane first day in combat 49:13 - Crossing the River 52:48 - Ernie gets shot by Nazi Sniper 1:00:18 - The Castle where Ernie was hit 1:07:03 - The actual Bullet pulled from Ernie 1:10:26 - What it’s like to fire at a Nazi 1:11:49 - Reuniting w/ Harry Nazi Luger 1:16:28 - Ernie’s Medals explained (& Purple Heart); The executed deserter 1:22:54 - The Dead Radio Man Story 1:27:49 - War will always exist 1:32:30 - Something amazing happened outside the studio today 1:36:14 - Ernie gives Julian a gift ***PODCAST 2 BEGINS (RISHI)*** 1:38:30 - ***POD 2 BEGINS: Rishi’s purpose w/ WW2 veterans 1:44:59 - How Rishi got into doing WW2 interviews; First veteran (Story) 1:55:09 - Rishi visits WW2 vets in high school 2:02:54 - Rishi starts hitting the road to make WW2 content 2:07:43 - Rishi decides to skip college 2:13:20 - Rishi creates GoFundMe for WW2 interviews; Robert M. story 2:21:54 - Oregion meeting, Trench foot, AP Story 2:28:09 - Rishi and his dad 2:29:35 - Rishi gets mistaken for a terrorist 2:41:57 - Rishi feels like he’s homeless, Support Rishi’s Mission CREDITS: - Host, Producer, and Editor: Julian Dorey - In-Studio Producer: Alessi Allaman - https://www.instagram.com/allaman.docyou/  Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 263 - Ernie Mogor Music by Artlist.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ernie, thank you so much for being here, sir. It's a real honor to talk with you. It's my honor to be here. You look amazing. I can't believe you're almost 100 years old. Yes, I am. God's been good to me. Clearly, clearly. And we have your lovely wife Carol here as well yes in the back corner joining us for

the entire story today that I'm sure she's never heard before right and as always I'd like to introduce our good friend and the person making this all possible

our mutual friend Rishi Sharma for people who have heard me talk about Rishi on the podcast before he has an amazing channel on YouTube called Remembering World War talk about Rishi on the podcast before. He has an amazing channel on YouTube called Remembering World War II with Rishi Sharma, where he has interviewed over 2,500 of you and your fellow Allied veterans, which is just incredible.

Yes, it's unbelievable. Right? Yes, absolutely. As someone who fought in the war, whose story is a part of history, it's got to be pretty cool to see that there's an oral history of it on YouTube now, right? Yes, and he's a wonderful man. Absolutely. A wonderful interpreter. I spoke with him in detail, and I told him some situations in a war.

But I would like to start all over again and have you, Frank, start over and ask me questions and I will answer your questions directly to you. Perfect. Perfect. By the way, we are, Alessia and I just got our names for the day. We're Frank and Ernest.

So when people hear me called Frank, I'm Frank for today. That's just what it is. Alessia, write us down on a piece of paper for me. I don't need to give you a sign. We got enough to worry about. Let's get the white wine flowing. We're going to be good. So why don't we start it right at the beginning?

Yes. If that's cool. So where are you originally from? I'm from New Brunswick, New Jersey. Oh, right over here. Yes, yes. Jersey your whole life then, huh? Yes.

Hey guys, there's going gonna be two podcasts in this episode one is with ernie moger who fought in george patton's third army and is a world war ii vet has some amazing stories and the other is going to be with rishi they switch seats for the second half of it where rishi sharma is the guy who has essentially gone around the world and interviewed over 2600 world war ii veterans on camera it's truly incredible he's done. So please make sure you subscribe to his channel. That link is in the description below. And if you are not subscribed to my channel, please hit that subscribe button

as well as that like button. And if you can't watch this video right now, I'd really appreciate it if you'd save it to your watch later playlist. Finally, you can follow me on Instagram and X by hitting the links in my description below. My father had a baker shop in New Jersey. My father was a baker in the beginning of the century.

It used to be the name of Moger's Bakery on Patterson Street in New Brunswick. And he had a delivery unit. He baked the bread and the cake right there in the baker shop. He had a baker shop in the back. And he used to, after baking, he would load up the mogul's truck, and he would make deliveries to the people who were living in the location that were close enough.

There were some names that I remember, but I don't want to repeat the names. But my dad was a baker, a very good baker. He wanted me to... he wanted to leave the business to me. But I was a young whippersnapper at the time, and I didn't want to have anything to do with it. So then dad finally, after being a baker for so many years, he finally closed the business. He gave it up. And shortly after that, Uncle Sam sent me a notice. Oh, he did?

Yes, he did. And what did he say? He said, I want you in the Army. And I said, no, I don't want to go. And he said, you have to go. If you don't go, we will come after you, which was an actual fact. When I got my certificate to go into the Army, I signed it and I filled it out. And before I knew it, I got a notice from Camp Dix, which was a training base for civilians. When you go in there, you train in there,

and when you leave, you're a veteran. I can remember the first days I was there. They interviewed me, and before I knew it, they handed me a rifle. The rifle was the M1 Garand. It was a rifle that carried a magazine with eight rounds in it. And when it was first handed to me, I said, oh my God, I said, this thing

is heavy. I said, how am I going to handle it? Well, let me tell you something. As time went by, that was my best baby. In fact, we were told that VAR is your lifeline. Treat it like a million dollars. And that's God's honest truth. That is your lifeline. Treat it like a million dollars.

And that's God's honest truth. That was my lifeline. But then shortly after that, I found out that they needed some B-A-R men. Those are automatic weapons, Browning automatic weapons. They issued that to me and took my M1 away from me now I complained that the M1 was heavy

the BAR was almost twice as heavy it had a round of a magazine with a round of 20 cartridges 20 bullets as compared to 8 again I was issued that in combat the Browning automatic rifle was taken away from me Again, I was issued that in combat. The Browning automatic rifle was taken away from me. And I fought with the M1 was taken away from me.

And the BAR was my baby from there on in. I remember the first day of combat. Well, can we back up for a second? Oh, absolutely. If that's all right, because you were so young when you went in. You were showing me a picture before. Can I actually take this for a second and show this to the camera? Sure. So we're going to go through all these different medals you have and everything,

but if you can see on my camera right now. That was in Camp Landing, Florida. I was 18 years old. I was drafted. I was a private, private earnest smoker. I struggled to screw in a light bulb when I was 18. So you were ahead of the game on me. But that's so cool.

So that's what kind of blows my mind about the greatest generation, your generation, you guys, many of you had to take the call at such a young age where you're not even, you're forced to be like the most mature person in the world, but you know, you're an 18 year old kid and you got to go over there and do something unthinkable that you've never experienced. So I'm just curious when you first got the call from Uncle Sam and got drafted, obviously we were at least a couple years into the war ourselves. Had you been, I assume you had been following the war a lot? Had you thought about, you know, wanting to be over there before you got the call? In fact, I was still in high school. I did not receive the call at first. My fourth year in high school, I received my induction letter. In other words, before I knew it, I was in the Army,

and I went to Camp Dix, where I was training to be a veteran. I was not in any unit at that time. I was a private, private first class earnest smoker. Then shortly after that, our country was at war. I never dreamt that I'd get into the war, actually, at 18 years old. I figured the war would be over. And lo and behold, the war continued. And before I knew it, I was inducted

into the service. I was a little reluctant because I knew what the war was like. And being that I was young, I said to myself, well, you're young. You have to go. I had no choice. I had to go. So I went, and once I put the uniform on, I felt, I'm telling you, fantastic. I just felt like a different individual. Now, this is before war. This is before combat. And then I went, I had to go to Camp Landing, Florida, where I took my basic training. I think it was something like 42 weeks. 42 weeks. Yes, there's 52 weeks in a year, so it was almost a year. I took my basic training there.

I remember we were billeted in Quonset huts. This is a little hut. First of all, Florida is good country. It's warm in Florida. So we were billeted in these little barracks. It had a roof on it, screened in. There was no heat because we didn't need any heat we were in florida so i trained in there and before i knew it i was shipping out from camp landing florida to wisconsin and in wisconsin they were uh forming a division the 76 division right on the we have that right

here that was the 76 division and that was our shoulder patch and oh this right here on the, we have that right here. That was the 76th Division. And that was our shoulder patch. Oh, this right here on the, on your. Yeah, that's the shoulder patch, yes. So the top left right here. And before that, before the other one, which is the 3rd Army. Which one is that? That's the one with the A. Oh, right here.

So that's another shoulder patch. Yes, that's another shoulder patch. and we were issued those shoulder patches and one day they said to me i can remember that vividly now you're under general george s patton and i said oh yes and we said general george s patton well he was our commander I'm telling you, he was the most wonderful commander that I ever had. And I honored him. He's deceased now, but I can visualize him today, almost 80 years later, as he was standing in front of me. I don't want to go into the details on that at this time, but I will. Now, you have another different question?

No, please continue on. All right. That's great. Oh, yeah. I think you were talking about his nickname. What was his nickname? Oh, yes. General Patton had a nickname.

And don't get frightened, but the nickname was Blood and Guts Patton. It was our guts and his blood. Ernie, go ahead and say it was the other way, right? Was it the other way? It was our blood and his guts. Yeah, I think that sounds right. All right. So anyway, I vividly can remember General Patton. I was on a truck with many soldiers, and I sat in the back of the truck where they had the,

they dropped the tailgate or whatever you got on. So anyway, we stopped at this stop sign, Stop Street in Europe. Lo and behold, there was my general. He had his two pistols on him, steel helmet. He had his boots on. He was directing traffic. Please let me tell you a little about General. He was standing

there, and he would put up his arms, and it was four-way traffic, and he would stop the traffic, and he'd say, all right, you guys stop. All right, you guys come on, move, move, move, move, move. And if we didn't move fast enough, he'd say, come on, get your ass and move, you guys, and then he would stop us. Then it would be another line of trucks that he would administer, say, come on, come on, you guys come. That's the way he directed traffic, and if it wasn't for him directing traffic, there would have been such a mess with trucks there. Each truck would be running into each other. This way he directed traffic. And to me, he was a super general, General George S. Patton. Then on our trucks, we kept moving.

And I remember being billeted in Echternach. Ernie, real quick, I just want to go back, if that's okay. Yes. So that's unbelievable that you were under one of the most legendary generals in the history of the country. Absolutely, absolutely. And that was the first time you saw him. He was directing traffic in Europe.

I'll never forget that. Never forget that. So you have one of the greatest generals ever. No job is too low for him. Nope. That's pretty cool. That's leading from the front, as they say, right? But the way he did it, he had us laughing.

He'd wave us on, and my truck would go past him, and we'd say, hey, General, how are you doing? All right, you guys. Then he'd direct traffic again. He was a likable man, believe me. General George S. Patton. I don't know. I'm sure we'll get into this a little bit later. But isn't there a famous photograph, Ernie, of when General Patton,

after you guys captured the Rhine River, the first thing he did, he took a piss? There's a photograph of General Patton peeing. Can we pull that up?den yeah you'll find it isn't it he had a photograph of himself peeing in the rhine river because the rhine river is what marks you know germany so once you get past that you're into the nazi homeland the heartland and that just shows what he thought of it yeah no but i i i didn know General Patton at that time. I knew him on our first day that we were over there.

Yep, it's right there. Do you see that, Ernie? Yes. Oh, there he is. It might be one of the other ones. Wait, he's not taking a... Oh, that's a robe. That's him with the boots on, facing... I think he's taking a piss.

Is he really? Is he? Well. There's definitely a different photo. I don't ever. I don't. That's him.

No, no. He's just standing there. He's just relieving himself off the bridge. Yeah. I mean, that would be it. That's General Patton. Yeah.

Yeah. That is it. Looks like he's holding his Johnson. With the boots, steel helmet. You can't see his pistol because his hand

is covering it. Right. But he had two pistols, pearl-handled pistols. Unbelievable, this man was. Did you ever see the movie Patton with George C. Scott playing him? Yes, I did. How did he do? I thought he did a very good job.

Yeah. I thought he did a very good job. It can't be 100% because it's not available, but I'll give you 100%. Right. I mean, I thought it was pretty... I had heard before some veterans talk about,

again, just like you said, he's acting, so it's not quite the same, but man, did he really get it right, for sure. He did. He did. It was saddening the way he died. There have been several versions of the way he died. The version that I was given and what I remember was he was in an automobile accident. He was severely injured and I think he succumbed to the accident, and that was the end of the great General George S. Patton, World War II. I believe that was in 1946, right? It was after the war?

Yes. And it was in Germany? We can, you know, we can check it. Can we pull that up george c patton and let's just because there were to your point there were there's multiple theories if you will on his death and some people wonder if that was an accident i i mean i guess that's what they officially reported december of 45 yeah let's hit the wikipedia that's him and let's go down to this section death which is that's more of it but oh you guys are up to date yeah we're trying we're trying here and he keeps on he's got a lot this is this is fantastic go way down so this is a page that just shows pretty much everything today all

right accident and death patton's chief of staff major general hobert gay invited him on a december 9th 1945 pheasant hunting trip near Speyer, Germany, to lift his spirits. Observing derelict cars along the side of the road, Patton said how awful war is. Think of the waste. Moments later, the 1938 Cadillac limousine driving them to the trip collided with

an American Army truck at low speed. Gay and others were only slightly injured, but Patton hit his head on the glass partition that separated the front and back seat. He began bleeding from a gash to the head and complained that he was paralyzed and having trouble breathing. Taken to a hospital in Heidelberg, Patton was discovered to have a compression fracture and dislocation of the cervical third and fourth vertebrae, resulting in a broken neck and cervical spinal cord injury that rendered him paralyzed from the neck down. Patton spent most

of the next 12 days in spinal traction to decrease the pressure on his spine. All non-medical visitors except Patton's wife Beatrice, who had flown in from the U.S., were forbidden. Patton, who had been told he had no chance to ever again ride a horse or resume a normal life, at one point commented, this is a hell of a way to die. He died in his sleep of pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure at about 6 p.m. on December 21st, 1945. Can you scroll up real fast, Alessi? There was something that happened, though. I can't remember. He had a fight with somebody shortly before his death, right? There was some sort of like military disagreement. It says relieved of command. Yeah. Can I read this, Ernie? Yes, go ahead. Okay. So when he faced questions from the press

about his reluctance to denazify post-war Germany, Patton noted that most of the people with experience in infrastructure management had been compelled to join the party in the war. He compared Nazis to Democrats and Republicans, bringing negative press stateside and angering Eisenhower. When Eisenhower ordered him to hold a press conference correcting his statements, Patton instead repeated them. On December 28th, 1945, after a heated exchange with Eisenhower over the denazification controversy, Patton was relieved of his military governorship. He was relieved of command of the Third Army on October 7th, and in a somber change of command ceremony, Patton concluded his farewell remarks, all good things must come to an end. The best thing that has ever happened to me thus far is the honor and privilege of having commanded the Third Army.

So there was a disagreement, I guess, on how to rebuild post-war Germany, and that's why some people have some conspiracy theories on that. Don't forget I was wounded. And I think all this took place after I was wounded. When I saw the general, that was when I was in combat. After I was wounded, I was hospitalized and I went back to France and England. However, I think it was either in France or in England that I heard the news about General Patton. And the news that I heard about General Patton is what I told you,

that I remember about Patton dying. And he was never relieved of his duties, as far as I know. He remained General George S. Patton until the day that he died. But there was a controversy of how he died, and the one that I remember was he was in an automobile accident, and apparently he did fracture his skull, and in due time he succumbed to his injuries well you you were saying you had started i forget the name of the of the camp but you were down in florida and this camp landing camp landing yes and then you were sent to wisconsin which is quite a different climate than Florida.

Yes. How long, and you said all the training was 42 weeks. How long were you in Wisconsin for? Well, 42 weeks was basic training. Yeah. Period. Was that all Florida? Yes, it was.

Okay. That I recall, yes. Okay. And what we went through there is, that's where we were issued our weapons. And I was issued the BAR in Florida. And basic training was nothing more than to build us up to the extent that we were stronger. We could carry our weapons with no failure. And we went through tests of combat.

I can remember they had an infiltration course there where we were crossing on our, we were down on our knees and our hands, and we were crawling with a rifle under barbed wire. And what they tried to do is, I guess the word is assimilate or assimilate actual combat, and that was part of our training. Then we had the rifle range. That's when I still had the M1 rifle, and the rifle range was to see how your accuracy was, not only that but how to fire their weapon,

but the best part, not the best part, but what was the most important before we even fired a weapon was to clean the weapon. I think they call it the nomenclature where you would take the rifle completely apart. You would clean it and then you would assemble it back to firing condition. I remember vividly now, there was another man in our barracks there, and he failed the cleaning aspect. And what I mean by the cleaning aspect was an officer would come by, he would take your weapon, he would lift it up, and he would look through the barrel, and if that barrel was dirty, you were penalized for it. Right. Now, this one fellow, I can remember, his rifle was dirty.

He was penalized by not getting a leave of absence. In other words, leave of absence to go home for maybe a week or what have you. He was from the South, and vividly I can remember, he almost cracked up. And what I mean that he almost cracked up, he wanted to go home and see his family. And they said to him, no, your rifle is dirty. You're being penalized. You will get no leave. And what hurt him again was when the others got leave, we went on leave, and he couldn't go. I don't remember his name. What happened to him, I really don't know.

I went on from there. I have to think of where I want to go. Oh, after basic training. Oh, yes. After basic training in Florida, that was a preliminary for us GIs to acclimate ourselves to basic training. Then I was shipped to Wisconsin, McCoy, Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. This is where they told you 76th, right? Yes.

We were there for a while, and then we were told, you are now in the 76th Division, 3rd Army. Not only that, but at that time, or shortly after that, we were told we are under General George S. Patton, who was the commander of the 3rd Army. We stayed in McCoy, Wisconsin for a while. We did no more training there because we were preparing to go overseas, over the Atlantic Ocean. As I remember, we were fighting two wars at that time. We were fighting a German war and we were fighting a Japanese war. Well, I thank God in some respects that I was given the war in Germany,

and I preferred that than the Japanese war. Why? Because the Japanese were more blood and guts. In other words, they wouldn't take prisoners. They would kill the prisoners right after they interviewed them and got the information that they won from the prisoners, and they would automatically shoot them and I can just

visualize, I saw some movies before I even went into the service where a GI would kneel down on the ground and a Japanese would take out his pistol and he'd shoot them right there. It was a horrible war with the Japanese.

In some ways, my war was just as horrible but it was in germany and they they respected life uh better than the uh japanese did low bar low bar low yeah low low bar right there on the respect for life. Okay, yes, yes. I think Ernie's just referencing the treatment of prisoners, right? Because the Germans, you know, they signed the Geneva Convention. And so if you were taken prisoner, the odds are that you would survive German captivity. But when you were under the Japanese, I mean. They didn't respect it. Yeah, I mean, they killed prisoners.

I mean, that was routine. They tortured, made them do slave labor. I think if you actually look at the statistics, it was about 8% of POWs under German rule did not survive, whereas it was like 34% of the POWs of the Japanese did not survive yeah whereas it was like 34 percent of the japanese of the pows of the japanese did not make it there was a i don't know if it was a base or a program and i can't remember the name and it's killing me but i don't know if it involved pows maybe you would know rishi but the japanese would do biological experiments on i know there were a lot of Chinese they were doing it on.

Do you know if they did it on US and allied soldiers as well? Yeah, the Americans would tell you for sure. It's unit 737. Can we pull this up, Alessi? This was biological warfare that the Japanese were doing. And the reality is the Germans and the Japanese were both evil. I mean, that's the only word you could describe. But it seems like in post-World War II, the Germans have gotten so much flack, and rightfully

so, for the Holocaust and a lot of the atrocities. But it seems like a lot of the atrocities that the Japanese did during the war have been kind of pushed under the rug and they've gotten some kind of except it's almost accepted in to a degree because of the asian culture uh that it's that it's okay uh and it was just different but if you look at some of the atrocities like the rape of nan king where they murdered millions of civilians yeah unit sorry seven three whatnot yeah yeah we're gonna read this in a second i you make a good point i think part of it is there were two atomic bombs dropped on them and there was a little bit of a hey all right we took out a lot we'll shove that one under the rug maybe i mean but the reality is i've interviewed 2500 world war ii veterans i've never met one that thought the atomic bombs were a bad idea I mean, but the reality is I've interviewed 2,500 World War II veterans.

I've never met one that thought the atomic bombs were a bad idea. And yeah, yeah, there's a lot of Monday morning quarterback in there. I'm with you on that. Yeah. I mean, they know none of the veterans jump up in joy and say, oh, you know, they deserve to die because it was civilians that were killed. But if you look, what people don't realize, and even I didn't realize till I started to meet people who fought in the war, we were on the way to invade Japan. I mean, in November of 1945, we were going to make landfall

on the home islands of Japan. The War Department estimated half a million American dead. This is the information that President Truman has given after a war that's already killed 429,000 Americans. The Germans surrender in May of 45. And what's interesting is a lot of those veterans who got there later in the war were shipped in the European theater or shipped back to the States in preparation for the invasion of Japan. And there were ships literally on the way to make the landings. And if you look at Okinawa, which was the last battle of World War II, it happened April 1st of 1945, 15,000 Americans were killed through kamikaze attacks, through the fighting. And that's

considered one of the Japanese home islands. And so that was a precursor to what the Americans would face had they actually landed on Japan. I mean, there's propaganda videos of women and children with bamboo spears preparing for the American invaders. And the last part I'll just say about this, the War Department, as I mentioned, estimated half a million American dead. They issued so many Purple Hearts in preparation for that invasion that the War Department has not actually had

to make them since. Whoa. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, all the subsequent wars are using the same stockpile of 1945 Purple Hearts. Left over. Now, I'm not saying they didn't make some new ones, you know, for special situations. But the actual original stockpile is still in circulation and still used because we were going to invade. Well, yeah.

And that's something people don't realize. And I mean, what's interesting, President Truman, when he was asked about the bombs, he said he never had a hard time sleeping. And I don't want to sugarcoat the fact that people died, obviously, and it's unfortunate. But I also remember distinctly a Pearl Harbor survivor who I've interviewed, his fridge magnet. I could make a whole YouTube video just about the different fridge magnets of World War II veterans. But he's a Pearl Harbor survivor. And it said, if there was no Pearl Harbor, there'd be no Hiroshima. And, you know, there is some truth to that, for sure. And it's just one of those situations. And people talk about how big the atom bombs were. And even in the YouTube videos we put out with

the veterans, unfortunately, we get trolls, as you call it people saying oh the u.s is so bad you guys are evil for dropping the bombs but i've never heard anyone complain about the fire bombing of tokyo which killed more people hundreds of thousands of the japanese were killed in the bombings that went on from 1944 to 1945 but just the fact that it was one bomb that did so much damage, there's a lot of, you know, limelight. What do you think, Ernie? Well, what I think is I thank God that I fought in Europe. I know the fight in Japan was a bloody gruesome fight

I reiterate that I fought in Germany we were treated somewhat as prisoners of war but in Japan I don't think they took many POWs, they would prefer to kill them

that was a dirty bloody war war. And again, I reiterate that, thank God, I was sent over to Germany, and I fought the Germans instead of the Japanese. And everything that you said is true. You must have done a lot of research. And as I listened to you, I'm saying to myself, boy, you couldn't say it any greater than you did. You did a wonderful job on the research. Although, in each war, you can be killed. And the old saying is, kill or be killed. It's either you or he.

I don't remember actually killing a German. I've taken German prisoners. We escorted them back to battalion, turned them over to battalion for questioning, and I went back to combat. Where do you want me to go from this? You were about to tell us about going overseas, Ernie. Yeah, yeah, we were about to go.

I just want to make sure before we go on, Ernie, if you don't mind, we left a little cliffhanger with the audience. Just Rishi had brought this up. I want to make sure we read this. The Unit 731, which you referred to. Thank you for remembering that. But this was one of the atrocities that you talked about reading about, Ernie, because you were over in Germany, but Unit 731, short for Manchu Detachment 731, and also as the Kamo Detachment and the Ishii Unit, was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing

during Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. Estimates vary as to how many were killed. Between 1936 to 1945, roughly 14,000 victims were murdered in Unit 731. It is estimated at least 300,000 individuals have died due to infectious illnesses caused by the activities of 731 and its affiliated research facilities. It was based in Pingfang District of Harbin, the largest city in the japanese puppet state of menshuko and i'm going to skip down here established in 1936 unit 731 was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes committed by the japanese armed forces it routinely conducted tests on people who were dehumanized and internally referred to as logs that's in quotes

experiments included disease injections, controlled dehydration, biological weapons testing, hyperbaric pressure chamber testing, vivisection, organ harvesting, amputation, and standard weapons testing. Victims included not only kidnapped men, women, including pregnant women and children, but also babies born from the systemic

perpetrated by the staff inside the compound. The victims also came from different nationalities, with the majority being Chinese and a significant minority being Russian. And I just want to point out for the YouTube reviewers out there, this is strictly educational context. This is not a sensitive event in the sense that we are showing any of this. We're simply reading something that is historical facts. So please do not demonetize this video. But that is absolutely wild that this occurred and isn't talked about as much. And even though the numbers are not as large as the Japanese victims, there were Americans, prisoners taken in the Philippines who were subjected to this.

Crazy. Yeah, from what I remember, the Japanese showed no mercy to our troops. We've lost a lot of men in Japan, in Japanese country, what have you. It was, excuse my expression, compared to Germany, the Japanese, it was a dirty, vicious war. They dismembered our troops. At least the Germans had some respect. Although we did lose a lot of men that were disemboweled.

We lost them through artillery fire. The Japanese had not only taken our prisoners away, but they not only shot them, but as I can recall, at that time, I was home, and I read the newspaper and the news, and they would bayonet our Americans. I can just picture that. I do not recall ever of a German bayoneting any one of our soldiers. I wasn't in the service that long because I was wounded shortly after I was in combat. I survived and I came home and I kept up to date on the Japanese war. The Germans surrendered in, I think, December of 1945 or 46. The Germans?

Germans, yes. The Germans would have surrendered at, I believe it was the end of April, beginning of May. May 8th. May 8th, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then the Japanese, I want to say, was December. December 7th. September 2nd.

It was September. Yeah. We dropped the bombs in August and the official surrender on the Missouri was September 2nd. Got it. What year? 1945. 1945. So, Ernie, you are at this time.

Let's get to your timeline here. So you leave Wisconsin after some more training that was after basic training. Yes. Where did you ship to before going to Europe? We had someone in here the other day who got shipped to Hoboken and then New York and headed to Europe. What did they do with you? I think I was shipped to Newark and then from Newark directly to England. Where in England? Bournemouth, England. Bournemouth was on the coast, on the English coast. And I can remember we were billeted in this building. In fact, as I recall now,

my whole division was billeted in England getting ready for a penetration into Germany. What month is this? This would be about December of 1944. December 25th was Christmas Day. I remember being in barracks in England, getting ready to go overseas. That was December 7th. January 24th, a couple of days after my birthday, my birthday was January the 21st.

Around January 24th, we shipped out from England over to France to Le Havre. I can remember. Hold that up. Right? Yeah, yeah, you're good. We're pulling up a map back here. Sorry about that. I can remember when we crossed.

I'm going back to the Atlantic, crossing the Atlantic Ocean. My outfit was on a freighter, F-R-E-I-G-H-T-E-R. We were on a freighter going over to England. And lo and behold, I got sick, you wouldn't believe, from being seasick. Then I went down to the lavatory where many GIs were. This ship had a steel, not only steel hull, but steel compartments. And I was one of them. We were so sick that we were just laying down and just vomiting. It was unbelievable.

I must have lost 10 pounds. I was skinny at the time. I lost 10 pounds. This is all relating and coming back to me now. I lost 10 pounds because as soon as I would smell the food, I could not eat. And I didn't eat because if I ate, I'd be sick again. And it was just unbelievable the number of men that were sick. Once I got over into England, it's almost like sobering up.

Everything just came back to normal. I said, thank God I'm back on land again. From there, I'm trying to think of... You were telling us, so you went across the channel to Le Havre. And so once you get to Le Havre, France... And we have that on a map right here, Ernie, just so people out there can follow and see. But I'm looking and I see that this is a little bit east

of where the Normandy invasion was. Right? Is that right? Yeah, so Le Havre is a little bit east of where the Normandy invasion was. Right? Is that right? Yeah, so Le Havre is a natural port. So after the landings were taking place and German territory had been retaken, we started to use actual ports to get the replacement divisions coming in because the Normandy beaches are not meant for people to actually come in we went there because it was unexpected of where people would land uh but eventually a lot of the soldiers coming in for later for the later in the war would go to sherberg and laharve because those would be natural ports that were already there before the war okay so you land in lahar was that

were you joining the 76 who was already there or they went overseas 76 the whole division went across the same the whole division went across how many men about 15 000 right ernie there's at least what four platoons uh a company, and each platoon carried about 35 men. Multiply that by maybe half a dozen. It was probably in the hundreds of thousands, yes, that we went across on it. Tens of thousands? Yeah. In a division in World War II, it was structured really, you have a division

and then you have three regiments. Each regiment has three battalions. And like first battalion would be companies A, B, C, D. Second battalion, E, F, G, H. Third battalion, I, J, K, L. Sorry, no J. I, K, L, M.

And so, but each regiment would be about 5,000. So together, 15,000. So this is a big... He's impressive. He knows what he's doing. This is about you, Ernie. This is really, this is your program. I like this back and forth today.

I love the education coming. This guy knows his stuff, Ernie. Oh, he certainly does. Thank God. I couldn't tell it any better than you do. Yes, you can. Yes, I can. No.

You're doing pretty good yourself, Ernie. What I'm telling is blood and guts. That's what they want to hear, though. And you didn't see blood and guts from what you're telling me. Of course not. These are stories that you either heard about or you read about. Yes. Yeah.

So you landed at Le Havre. Le Havre, France. Le Havre. And what happens next? My first day of combat, I can remember we were waiting. We were not in combat as yet. We were waiting for flat were not in combat as yet we were waiting for flat bottom boats we were billeted there

and we were ready to cross the river and again I reiterate we were waiting for flat bottom boats now these flat bottom boats accompanied at least 10 GIs and I remember crossing the river the Saar River

we used the butt of our rifles as oars to get GIs, and I remember crossing the river, the Saar River. We used the butt of our rifles as oars to get across. And Joey Gulo was a buddy of mine, a good buddy of mine. We were very close. Joey was in a different boat than I. As we were crossing,

artillery hit his flat-bottom boat, and I think everyone that was in that boat, including Joey, were killed. They were wounded, and they drowned. I was lucky. I got across. I got to the other side. But you wouldn't believe that the current was just astronomically strong.

In other words, you'd get in a boat in point A, and maybe a mile or mile and a half down, your boat would finally get to the other side. Then when we got to the other side, that's where the Germans were dug in and what have you. And I remember firing my BAR, they were dug in, and my whole company was lined up after we got across the other side, the ones who survived the crossing, because the Germans were on that side, and they were using artillery at us, and all we did was move forward. We knew where the enemy was. We kept firing so that they would keep their heads down. And as we moved along, all we saw, a lot of—it was near dark. All we saw was a lot of arms and hands going up, and they surrendered.

I remember the name of surrender was... Comrade. Oh, Comrade. Our unit, our country, took prisoners. We did not kill them at that time. We took prisoners. After that, I just continued to move along and fight. I don't remember the towns I went through,

but I remember this one field vividly that my outfit was supposed to go across this field. And ahead of us was another outfit, American outfit, and one of the GIs stepped on a landmine. And when that happened, everybody just stood still. He was the only one that was killed from his group. When that happened, we had been trained how to look for landmines. And what you did was you took your bayonet

and you dropped down on your hands and knees and you probed and you probed and you probed. All of a sudden your bayonet would hit a piece of metal. Then you'd stop. The way to set off a landmine is it has a pin that you can barely see it above the ground. And as you're walking along and you step on that pin, that's what sets it off. Yes, I've seen legs blown off. I've seen bodies shattered because the impact from that bomb is from the ground up.

And just picturize yourself walking, and that bomb goes off, and you set it off. It's just devastating. And it took us a while to secure the ground. And the reason for that is there were troops behind us, and we secured the ground so that they could come along. And we had these little flags. And when we found landmines,

we put these little flags in the ground by the landmine that went off, and others that we detected. Like I said, not all landmines went off because we detected a lot of them with our bayonets. And if we found one, we put the flag in there. And the reason for the flag is to notify the ones behind us that there's a landmine there. That was very frightening, as far as I can remember. I made it across again, and we continued to fight. We went through towns. Bastogne, oh, that was a big town.

Our outfit had cleared the Bastogne already so I was lucky enough that my outfit walked through Bastogne then we continued forward Ernie can I stop you for one sec just before we go past Bastogne that's a, if you don't mind me saying a pretty insane scene to be baptism of fire into war. It was devastated by stones. No, before that, what you saw.

He's talking about the river crossing the minefields. That's a lot for an 18-year-old. You had never seen, you know, you're just being thrown into battle at this point. Were you just in shock? Well, when I saw arms fly off, legs blown up, it impacted me. But then we had a motto in the service, move forward. We have to move forward. We can't stop there.

We can't run back anymore. We have to continue to move forward. And like I said before, the flags were all marked, and we went around those flags hoping that we wouldn't stand on the landmine. Then when we got through the field that held the landmines, then we proceeded on marching again to another town. And as I remember, in Bastogne, that was pretty well leveled. I walked through Bastogne, and so did my outfit,

and we continued going through the war until, I guess, the Rhine River. Before, no, before the Rhine River... Oh, no, yes, yes. I was stationed in that building, yes. Just take a breather, Ernie. Do you want something to drink? Just take a swig of something.

Want a little swig of that white wine? I think you really, yeah. There we go. Let me reiterate. Yeah, really talk about that river crossing, Ernie. What was the enemy fire like? Crossing the river, again, let me start from, we were in flat-bottom boats with our oars.

And I can remember my company, and that was how many men, 50 or 60 men or something like that. And we were crossing in these flat-bottom boats, and the artillery was coming in. We had to get across, when we wanted to get across. We lost so many flat-bottomed boats, it was unbelievable. The artillery was coming at us. Firepower was coming at us.

I can remember artillery hitting some of the boats, and I could see bullets hitting the water. I was scared. I almost said SHIT. I was really frightened that I had to go through that to get to the other side. I was one of the lucky ones. I made it across.

We took German prisoners and we continued to fight. Can you talk a little bit, Ernie? How long did it take you guys to get across, and what did you use for oars? Oh, yes. We waited, I forget how many days for the flat-bottom boats or how many hours for flat-bottom boats. They had no oars.

Now, how were we supposed to get across? Well, someone passed the word, use your butt of your rifle. That's just what we did. Turned the rifle upside down. We took the butt, and you figure 10 men in the boat all using the butt of the rifle. We got us across.

But the current was so disastrous that if you got into the boat, at one point, like let us say point A, and let us say point B might be a mile downstream. But when you got in the boat at point A, you wound up downstream at point B, what have you. Didn't you have a buddy? Yes. Can you talk, downstream at point B, what have you. Didn't you have a buddy? Yes. What was his name, Red?

Red Alice. There was a buddy of mine, Red Alice. He made it across, but he was taken down. He went downstream. Germans were still down in there. His boat, when he went down there, he was taken POW, Red Alice.

The war was over for him. But I still continued because I did not succumb to German fire or to German capturing, what have you. But Red Alice did. And he was out of the war. He was a German prisoner until the war was over in Germany. So he survived. He survived, yes. Whereas Joey Gullo did not survive, and Ernie Moger survived.

Ernie Moger survived to continue to fight France up to the Rhine River. Legend says Ernie Moger is still alive today. Oh, yes, I am. I'm very fortunate I'm still alive today. You know, these towns that we went through, some of them were already leveled by the Americans, by American tanks, American artillery, American infantry. I happened to be lucky, and I came along a little bit later, and some of these towns had already been cleared, and I walked through the towns.

However, when I got up near Germany, we were under fire again. I was in this building at Kabul in France, and this building was an old farmhouse. Farmers were still in this building. The building, I would say, was probably about 30 feet wide by maybe 60 feet in length, and the people were still living in there. And we had to administer self-control.

And what I mean by that is there were women in there, children in there, and no men, because the men were already in the German army. So we had to condition ourselves. We slept in those buildings as we occupied the buildings. Well, one day we were standing guard duty outside these buildings because we were afraid of infiltration

or the Germans coming back. And I had another buddy by the name of Harry, I can't think of his last name right now. Goedy. Harry Goedy, G-O-E-D-E, Harry Goedy. He was on guard duty in front of the building. Now, as you stand in front of the building before any action had happened or anything,

and you would look down the hill, you could see the Rhine River. You could even see the castle from where we were builded on this mountainside that we had to get down and cross. So anyway, Harry was pulling guard duty. Now, yes, Harry was pulling guard duty. an officer came up to me said relieve harry and what they mean by relieving harry is i go down where harry is and i say harry okay go on back so as i went down there to talk to harry and i'm talking with harry all of a sudden I heard a bang. Before I could even think or before I could do anything, I went down. The bang had to come from the castle.

And there had to be a sniper in there. Well, he got me. I went down. I went down on my back. Where were you hit? My steel helmet flew off. I dropped my rifle. I had a pack on my back. Where were you hit? My steel helmet flew off. I dropped my rifle. I had a pack on my back that was still on me,

and I fell back after I was shot. However, I don't know how I turned around, but I was wounded on the opposite side. I guess when I fell down, I turned over. I was shot in the left groin, and I found out when they took me back to battalion headquarters or battalion hospital that there's a femoral artery right there where I was wounded on the left groin.

I was very lucky. Had that bullet penetrated that artery, I would have bled to death right then and there. Even if they called the medics, by the time the medics would have gotten there, it would have been too late. I was saved by one quarter of an inch. It missed that femoral artery.

When I went down, I went numb, completely numb. I couldn't feel anything. The medics came down. They examined me. At that time, they could not determine where I was wounded. They took me back further to Battalion A Station on a stretcher. Fortunately, that sniper didn't shoot any one of them. For some reason, he took a bead on me and Harry, and he got us.

So they took me back to the aid station where the doctor told me what had happened. He said, you're one lucky boy. And he called me a boy because I was only 19 years old. And he explained to me what had happened. At a quarter of an inch or more, he said to me, I wouldn't be talking to him and he wouldn't be talking to him, and he wouldn't be talking to me. Then I went back to a hospital. I was convalescing for almost two months because my injury was so severe, although I survived, that I couldn't move my left leg. They put a pillow under my left leg to ease the pain.

That left leg had that pillow under there for almost three weeks to a month. When they took the pillow out, I could no longer straighten out my leg because there's an angle of the pillow or what have you. So I laid there for I don't know how long, administering first aid to my leg until I could straighten it out. I think I was in combat and being wounded a total of, in basic training, a total of a little bit over a year. When I was wounded, the war was over for me because I could no longer fight.

I stayed in the hospital, and I can remember when this officer came back. He was going through the buildings, okay. I was in a building that had two floors on it, and this was a medical building from injured veterans. And he was an officer, and I can remember him. I was told to take off all my clothes except my skivvies. Now, this is in a hospital now, a hospital barracks. So I stripped down, and I stood there, and there were my footlocker boards in front of me.

And we were told to stand out of attention, and our bunks were right behind us. And I can remember this doctor vividly. I looked a little bit to my right, because we were told, stand shut, eyes forward, and then this general would come down here, loose end of the office, and he'd stand in front of a GI, and he would chat with the GI a little bit. Then he came over to me. There was a little humor in this. As he stood in front of me, he said to me, I was only in my skivvies.

He said, boy, you got ostrich legs. Well, let me tell you something. Under my breath, under my breath, and not showing any emotion, I said to myself, Sir, I don't give a good goddamn, just get me out of this army and send me home. And this is a God's honest truth. I wanted to go home. And then before he even left, he looked at me and he said to me soldier and i said yes sir he said how would you like to go home i said sir i gave him a salute like you wouldn't believe

i would love to go home he says you're going home wow honest to god and i survived that uh where am i now ernie just going back to the war because yeah you're just you're such a humble person but if you could talk to julian that bullet that hit you you weren't the only one that got wounded with it right could you explain that whole story we're gonna come back to that bullet too i got okay remember i told you that harry was put on guard duty and i came out of the building to relieve him. So it was like this. The castle was down here. The building that we were in

was up here. I was on no, Harry was on guard duty. And I was told to go out and relieve Harry. So I went to relieve Harry, and I went down to where he was. Like I said, we were way up here. There's a building right up here.

And Harry was there, and I said, Harry, I came to relieve you. And he says, okay, thanks. And as we're talking there a little bit, I forget what we were talking about, all of a sudden this sound rung out. Before I realized what it was, it hit me, and it knocked me off my two feet. It was a bullet. Later on, I relived it. I have a picture of the bullet that they took out of me.

A picture? You have the bullet? In fact, I'm sorry, you're right. I have a piece of the bullet, and in me is still another piece of the bullet that was near my femoral artery, and they decided to leave it in there, and that other piece of bullet has been in there for 80 years. Does it still say hello every day? That's unbelievable. It is.

Yeah, real quick, before we show this, I don't want to bury the lead. But up on the screen, Alessia, if we can make this full screen. Oh, this is the building. This is the castle where the shots came from. No question about it. No question about it. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And Ernie, you just went back recently. Yes, and I was in the boat. I went back in, when was it, Cal, December? Yep. I went back in December, and we were in a boat. At that time, that road there, you see there, wasn't there. Because in that boat, I went clear around the castle, and I looked at it, and I said,

I tried to visualize where the shot came from. That's the castle castle no question about it do you know how that was that was excuse me that was uh about 80 years ago carol yeah 80 years ago do you know how i mean there's multi-layers to this castle was he all the way up in the top bell tower i know i would say yes yes you see the houses there look Look behind the houses. See those hills going up there? Let's pause it right there. Yeah, we're looking. He shot up those mountains.

I was building. There was another building that was up there. You have all these buildings here. Then you had that land there that was going up. Then up there was this one castle. It was a coal mine from what I understand now. Eventually it was a coal mine from what i understand now eventually it was a coal mine and i had tracks railroad tracks and they had these railroad cars where they used to fill coal

and it's all coming back whoa that's that's that's the castle that's got a i mean it feels like that puts you right there when you see that yes and then in December, we went down the river here, all the way down, and we came back on the other side. I think there's a boat right now on the left-hand side. Yeah, yeah, right there. There's a boat there now. That's amazing. That's the Rhine River.

What was that like when you went back for the first time to where you almost died? You know, it had a great impact on me. I looked and I said to myself, my God, I was, a sniper was in that building and I looked across the river and I tried to look up the mountain where I was and I said, 80 years later, I'm back here that castle is still here I don't know from what current the shot came from most likely it would be the one facing that hill that I was on

but that's a sucker that's incredible I can't oh let me forget this when I was in that building remember I told you? Yep. Okay.

When I first went in there, see, this is all coming back. There was a picture on the wall. You won't believe this. My outfit was billeted in this building, and I was one of the first ones in there. And I went into the building, and I looked on the wall. I said, oh, my God. It was a panoramic view of the building that I was in, the whole building.

I tore part of it in half where I was billeted. I bought it home. Carol knows that. I bought half of that picture home, and I still have it after 80 years it shows you the part of the building where I was billeted and like I say I put it in my knapsack and I brought it home

that's the building if you walk out in the front you look down you can see the Rhine River you can see the castle and that's how he got me because I was right in front of the building Mark Turner would be talking about he was talking shit on clock towers see the castle and that's how he got me because i was right in front of the building yeah mark

mark turner would be talking about he was he was talking shit on clock towers when he was here he's like you don't go up in a clock tower and they were up in a clock tower shooting you so we're calling you out mark okay ernie yes were you the only one hit no you're right. Joey, no, Harry Goatee was standing in front of me. Visualize the mountain, and Harry was in guard duty. There were railroad tracks there. And I walked down, and I'm talking to him. So this was Harry, and this was Ernie. It went through the calf of Harry's legs.

The calf? The calf, the lower part. And being that I was standing behind him, the upgrade was through the lower, right into my groin. He got a flesh wound. It was severe enough. But then that, maybe that flesh wound saved my life. Yeah.

I don't know. I think so. Because it went through the calf of his leg. I'm standing behind him talking, and it was the upgrade that caught me in the groin so that quarter of an inch well just just like what's what's what's his name trump oh yeah yeah if he doesn't turn his head he's dead yeah right he'd have been dead unbelievable yeah like at the last second too yep you know yep but we have it i buried the lead here a little bit okay if you look right here you just referred to it a few minutes ago but on this

on this board here which we went through a couple of the metals earlier but i think we'll go through all of them at some point here's the bullet here's the piece of the bullet that they pulled from you yes ernie what type of bullet was this i think it was equivalent to a 30 caliber of our bullet this was a german bullet german there's a hole in there and i think i remember there's such a thing as a dum-dum and what that is is a bullet that hits you and it kind of opens up. What do you mean opens up? The casing is made of copper. And it has a, like my fingernail, okay?

That was, let's say, the length of the rifle. Okay? The bullet. The bullet. This was all powder. And what you're looking at is what the powder, you know, shot. You know what I'm trying to say. Yeah.

Yeah. Ernie, so you were telling Julian, though, what the dum-dum is? The reason it has a hole? They have little pellets in that hole. And when that hits, it shatters. And instead of a straight piece of bullet, you have all those little shatters. They have them in shotguns for hunting. I don't know if they're permitted.

And, you know, shotgun is made of paper or what have you shotgun shell most of them and these little pieces shatter well I don't remember a piece of shattering in me other than another piece of that and I the only way I know that is when I came home

I went for x-ray for a reason I don't remember. And the x-ray technician came up to me and says, I have to take another x-ray. And I remember this vividly now. And I said, what happened? And he explained to me, he said, there's an object in there that I don't recognize. And I said, say that again? He said, there's an object in there that I didn't recognize, the x-ray technician. And I said to myself, that must be the other piece of the bullet that the doctor said to me at the time.

I cannot remove it because it was so close to your femoral artery that you would bleed to death. Now I recall that quite vividly. That's incredible. I mean, that's amazing. So the Germans used these dum-dum bullets. Apparently they did. And that was against the war. You were

not allowed to use the dum-dum bullets. That was against the war. Yeah, they didn't follow a lot of rules. But they also used some of the veterans who i've who i have interviewed that fought in normandy the germans would use wooden bullets and those are really tough to take out because it would splinter in the body oh yeah and that would really cause infection in the wounds on the men um well that was not a wooden bullet, believe me. Ernie, though, I mean, you joke and you make light of this, because that's your happy-go-lucky kind of guy,

but could you talk a little bit about being a BAR man, firing at the enemy? What's that like at 18, 19, to have to be in that position? Well, all right. They had what they call a line of fire. And the line of fire is your whole squad, there's ten men in the squad. You have ten men in another squad,

another squad, another squad. And what you do is you know the enemy is there. To get them to crawl out of the hole or what have you, you set up a line of fire. You all fire at the same time. I had a BAR, 20 round, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. The others had an M1 rifle.

We couldn't see any enemy. They were dug in. When we fired at them, I can visualize them being in a foxhole and they hear ding, ting, ting, ting going over their heads. Believe me, they surrendered. They came out of those foxholes and they put their hands up and they said, comrade. That was the word, comrade. And they surrendered.

And we took prisoners. But I'll never forget that. That was a line of fire. Ernie, there's a whole story. Go ahead. Because when you got wounded, that was the last time you saw Harry Goatee for a long time. Yes.

What's the story of how you guys reunited? Okay. I knew of Harry. He lived in, what was it, Washington? Washington State. Somehow I was talking to him, and we spoke with each other, we've got to get together and discuss the war. I told him where I lived, and he told me where he lived.

And he called me one day, and he said to me, I'm coming to Jersey. I want to see you. So on Highway US 1 there where I live was a Howard Johnson's. And he said, I'll meet you there. And I said, okay.

Lo and behold, he called me and he says, I'm at the Howard Johnson's. I says, oh my god Harry, I'll be there as fast as I can. So I got in my car. You weren't with me then, were you? No. I guess I was done with you.

What did you say, dear? Carol goes, B.C., before Carol. She's a doll. That's awesome. I agree. You did very well. Yeah, she's a doll. That's awesome. I agree. You did very well. Yeah, she's my backbone. So then when I went in, I saw Harry.

We went up to each other and we hugged each other. And he was wounded with the same bullet that I got shot with. And we got together and we're talking there. And then, oh, I did take prisoners of war. Yeah. This one officer had a pistol on him. And being that I took him as a prisoner, I got that pistol from him. It was a German, either a German.38 or a German Luger.

Ooh. Ooh. That's worth something. So I came home with German Luger. Oh, that's worth something. So I came home with that Luger. So anyway, before that, Harry and I were talking there. And the Luger, I'm trying to think of how I got hold of it. But anyway, Harry had another P38. And I had two pistols. And when I got hit, I gave one to Harry.

I said, you hold it for me. So when we met each other, I said, Harry, remember that pistol I gave you? What pistol? I said, didn't I give you a pistol in combat? Because I'm afraid I'm going to go to the hospital, and they'll take it away from me, and somebody will take it. No, you did not. I'm going to go to the hospital, and they'll take it away from me, and somebody will take it. No, you did not.

So when he was here, we went somewhere, I forget what, and I went to sit in the back seat with my first wife, and he was in the front seat. He hit the brakes, and this thing came sliding back. I said, Harry. What? Isn't this the P- 38 that I gave you? I swear to God.

I swear to God. He said, that's buddies for you. That's good. That's really buddies. That's pretty good. He said to me, oh, no, no, no. I lifted it up and I said, Harry, it's got to be. He says, no, no, no. So I gave it back to him and he took it. To this day

he denied that. That was it. Now Harry's gone now. He's gone now. He gave the pistol to somebody else. I would think that he would send it back to me and say, but that would admit admission

if he sent it back to me that he lied to me. Ernie, how many years was it until you saw Harry Goaty for the first time? It was like 40 years, right? No, maybe what, 25 years, Cal? 25. About 25 years. That's a long time, though. Oh, it is.

That's a long time. Still has to be. And that bond, though, never leaves. years count 25 about 25 years that's a long time though oh it is that's a long time still and that bond that bond though never leaves forget the fact that you guys were literally shot with the same bullet oh yes that's insane blood brothers but literally but you guys also you know you were on the field of battle together oh and one of the most high octane places in the most important war in the history of this world. Yes, World War II. I think the war was over shortly after that. Yes.

I was wounded March 24th, and the war was over in April something. Yeah, you were one of the last casualties of the war in Europe. If somebody had held back on that bullet, on that gun, I could have gone through the war not wounded or what have you. But anyway, I lived anyway you made it here look at you you look incredible too that's 80 years

well I have a beautiful young wife that's helping I can see that can I actually I wanted to bring this over here and I wanted to go through these medals

if that's okay with you yes alright let's do that so you can go one by one do you want my seat I'll try accurately alright so you had been telling us one. Do you want my seat? I'll try accurately. All right. So you had been telling us,

are we on camera, Alessi? Bring it down. Bring it down? Right. Okay. So you had been telling us, if people can see the camera pretty clearly there, you told us about the shoulder patches at the beginning.

76th Division shoulder patch. Right. Yep. And then this was what again? Third Army, General Patton. Third Army. Got it. And then what's this up here? Combat Infantry Badge.

Combat had, wow. You have to be in combat. And I was in the infantry. Yeah. That's a Combat Infantry Badge on top. That's the most important one, right, Ernie? Yes. You think that's the most important one?

No. This one right here. Which one? The Purple Heart? Yes, sir. That gets the ladies? That is the most important one? No. This one right here. Which one? The Purple Heart? Yes, sir. That gets the ladies? That is the most beautiful weapon, but you have to show...

They used to say you have to show blood in order to... And if you're wounded, you usually show blood. So I got the Purple Heart. Some men had two Purple Hearts, and what they did was they gave them a Purple Heart and a little star on top and another little star,

meaning they were in three battles. Oh, wow. I was only in one battle. So you don't see those stars up there because I was only in one battle. And then there's a Good Conduct Medal. How did you get that one? Which one is that? The green one?

I guess it is, yes. Okay. And the other one is a service medal, what I view. The one in the middle? Yes. And then what are we looking at? This is the Bronze Star right here? That's the Bronze Star, yes.

I got the Bronze Star. When were you given that? That's 80 years ago. Act of Congress. Where? Act of Congress gave it. All combat infantry in the Second World War. Cool.

And then what are we looking at? We missed this one. Distinguished service. Well, distinguished service. I served in the Army, combat infantry, and I didn't, what's the word I'm looking for? Some guys that were in the Army, deserter. We had a lot of deserters. Oh, you did?

Oh. Really? Even at that time in the war? Well, no, you can't desert at war. This was like basic training. Oh, back in basic. Oh, yeah. Okay.

So they would just leave the base? I don't know. I don't know of anyone who was in combat was a deserter. Because if you were in combat, you were a deserter, you were arrested, and you were eligible for the firing squad. This happened, honest to God, honest to God. If you were a deserter in combat, they even made a movie on that, showing this man.

Yeah, Eddie Slovak. You remember that? Your memory is terrific. Who was Eddie Slovak? He was a— He's terrific. He's a guy who didn't want to be in the Army. I think he had a stint in jail, and he was a young kid.

And anyways, it doesn't excuse his behavior. He gets sent to the front lines and he kept deserting uh and they kept giving him a lot of opportunities to go back to the front and do his job he was in the 28th division excellent and they fought in the hurtgen forest but he uh he kept leaving his line of duty. His post again. And so eventually he used up all his points with the officers and they sent him back to the headquarters unit. He went on trial. Yeah. Eisenhower, this was at a time, you know, when the Hurtgen Forrest, the war was supposed to be over by Christmas of 45, but it was getting bogged down and they needed to keep the morale up of the men. So Eisenhower decided to make an example out of him. And he was the only soldier in World War II from the U.S. that was executed by firing squad. That's right.

For desertion, yeah. That's for desertion, yep. I got to check that out. Yep, you can check it out. That's true. I mean, he's not— You were talking about more in basic training you'd see that rather than in combat, but that was an exception. Warren, you were telling us on the car ride over, wasn't there a guy,

the guy, Joe, with the Hershey bars? Oh. Tell Julian about him. You are so good. He's the best. I'm telling you. I love him, really. Lies on him, they're paying rent.

He's telling me what I had forgotten, and he remembers. In basic training, Joe Scalia. No. Was it Joe Scalia? Oh, yes, yes. He and I were good friends. He was a shrewdy.

A what? He was shrewd. Shrewdy. We were? He was shrewd. Shrewdy. We were going out on maneuvers. And before we went out, he bought Hershey bars. They were five cents each back in those days. He bought money back then. Yes.

You know what he did? He bought up Hershey bars. He took it with him. He took the Hershey bars with him. We went on basic training. And he was selling them to us for like 10 cents and 15 cents a Hershey bar. He was shrewd, I kid you not. I think he was discharged, I think, a full ref.

Find him, feel him, and forget him or something like that. Well, we were down to the last couple down here. We went through these. This is your... Private first class. Private first class. Yep. Okay.

And then these are your actual dog tags. Yes, they are. Yep. And up here is the bullet. That's the bullet. And this is a ruptured duck. It's a ruptured. What's a ruptured duck?

Freedom from the Army. Honorable discharge. Honorable discharge, yes. So better than the guy 4F for sure. Oh. A few rings up above you. Yeah. That's amazing.

I was 18 right here. That was in Camberland in Florida. I was 18. 18. Unbelievable. And today I'm 18 and 19, so that's what. You still look it. Don't worry about it.

You're good. Do I, Carol? Yes. Thanks, sweetheart. You're doing great. You're doing amazing. There's one other. By the way, I want to, before you say this, this is why Rishi is so amazing.

Forget all the historical knowledge, but like, you know, every single, you've talked to 25, 2600 of these guys you know every single part of the story i told you before this one from the other one the other day to be more active today and i'm glad i did because like he remembers on track well i just interviewed her like four days ago so he's too humble he's fresh yeah i can tell you can't really forget someone like him. No. I can tell him my whole story today. Tomorrow I'll say, can you reiterate and tell me that whole story again? I'd screw it up. No, that's not true, Ernie.

You're doing great. No, he remembers it to a T. Honestly, God. And Ernie, when Julian puts it together, they're going to portray you in a good way. Oh, yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it. Most of this has been great. There were a couple times where we went back to something, but other than that, it's been awesome.

Does he get in on this? Oh, yeah. Ernie, there's a really... Go ahead. Yeah, we're on air right now. You're good. Talk to the mic. Talk to the mic.

I'm going to do the edit on this one myself, so everything will be clean. Ernie, there's that story about the radio. But before you get into it, remember the whole thing about his injuries and the officer telling you what to do. And so that's a really harrowing story. And that really shows when you're, you know, that you have to, you're the opposite of that deserter in that situation. Yes, yes. So, but pretend we don't know anything. Okay.

We were in combat. We're in this town. I don't remember the name of the town. That's okay. I was billeted in this building with other GIs. It must have been about 10 or 15 I was billeted in this building with other GIs. There must have been about 10 or 15 of us billeted. Out on the street was an intersection, a four-way intersection.

And there was a dead GI out there. He was laying on his back. He was a radio man. We could see him from the windows of the building that we were in. And this officer, who had the right to say what he did say, came up to me and said, Moger. And I said, yes, sir.

He said, we need the radio off of his back. And I said, sir? He said, we need the radio off his back. And I said, but he's dead. And he said, we know he's dead, but we need, are you telling me, sir, to go get the radio? He said, yes, I am telling you to go get the radio. Well, I was SC, I'm telling you. When I was given that order, I could not turn it down because he was an officer. So I left my helmet back in the house. I don't even know if I took my rifle with me. I looked out the window and I saw him lying there.

I ran out, saying to myself, well, if he was shot by a sniper and that sniper's still there, I'm gone. Well, I continued. And he was laying on his back. And I had to get the radio off his back and I turned him over. He must have been dead for several days

because I think the term rigor mortis had set in on him. He was stiff, his arms and legs. I turned him over. Somehow I got the radio office back. I ran back into the building and I made it. Now this is the God's honest truth. There was a woodpile in this building and I was so scared, I was so frightened when I got back I had to do what I had to do. I don't want to go into details.

You think about it and you'll know what I had to do. I gave the radio to the captain, the officer. All of a behold, he could not use the radio because the sniper shot him through the radio, through his back, and that's what killed him. And in that event, I said to myself, whoa, if I hadn't been killed myself, I would have been killed

for no reason at all because we could not use the radio I'll never forget that incident that was incredible oh, I meant I was shit scared oh yeah so it went

through the radio. We couldn't use the radio. Went through the radio, and it was back. And that's what killed him. Real quick, Rishi, I just want to add something on this. You know, you look at World War II and both

theaters, the fact that the Allied forces came together and did the job for the world is one of the most important things to ever happen right it's still war though you know and and it's strange because it can bring people together with a brotherhood and all that for sure but you guys see the worst that humanity has to offer and i asked this question of a lot of different veterans from all different wars i've had in here. But do you think war is something that will always be natural, unfortunately, to humanity, meaning it will always have to exist?

Or do you think we could eventually live in a world where that's not necessary? We will always have a war for some reason or another. There's always, there's people who resent us. Not as Americans, or maybe as Americans. They resent our life. We have a good human life in this country. We have freedom in this country. If you're an individual,

we have forces that, if you're an individual we have forces that if you join them I'm talking about like jobs, manufacturing, what have you you can make a life of your own in this country you may envy somebody and say well he has a house and I don't well if you don't have a house there's a reason for it because you can also have a house if you dedicate yourself to our country

and you favor and you love our country. Now, our country may sometime call upon you to go to war. And you may say to yourself, well, then I don't want to join your country. Well, that's your, whatever. And I said, if you don't like that bit, I said, well, then why don't you leave our country and leave the people here that deserve to live in this country. They love our country, and I love my country. I stayed in my country.

My parents were foreigners, and when I was called upon for duty, I went as a good civilian. Did I know that I could be killed? Not until after I was in the service. Then I realized, yes, I could be killed. But I was fortunate. I survived. I'm here to tell you I'm 98 years old. I'm here to tell you I'm 98 years old. I'm here to tell you about my war history.

There's a lot that I forgot because for me to go into detail on everything, I would spend probably a half a day describing from town to town, from digging a foxhole here, digging a foxhole there, going through buildings where the Germans had evacuated, and they left some of their own dead companions in these buildings. Because I can remember one building I went into, and on this bunk here was this dead German. I think I, if I recall correctly, I had seen one of our own on there.

When you were wounded, as I realize what happened, when you were wounded and you went down, and you were killed, supposedly killed, we had to continue to move on. We had to leave our bodies. We didn't want to do that, but we had to move on. And what they had coming, after we moved on, the body was not left there for a long time.

We had these outfits that would come along, Americans, and pick up the dead bodies and take them back to an area where they would lay out these dead bodies and cover them up. We did not leave our own there for any length of time. In fact, you can always say we never left our own there. We always

picked up our dead. That's about that. That's about that that's about I remember of that aspect of it that we never leave our own it's the American way no man left behind thank you

your wording is much better than mine it was pretty good you're on fire you don't leave them behind but if I could fight for my country again and possibly not be wounded and possibly come home safe i would do that i don't have any doubt about that there was there was a really cool moment today outside of the studio when you were getting here that i want to tell the audience about and

rishi you got some video of this right right before i walk down so maybe we can put that on the screen i'll do that in the post edit but you know i had been outside just for a little context i've been outside like a week ago film picking up colonel greg gadsden who was coming in here to film with me greg was west point and then 17 years doing all kinds of stuff with the army and was injured in Iraq and lost both his legs, like above the kneecap. And he's this unbelievably inspiring guy. So he was coming in here for a podcast set up by my buddy, John Rondy. And so when he went to park downstairs, cause they're doing construction on the street right now, we had to make sure that cause they were just starting that where he was parking was okay. And so when I went down there, there was a guy who came up who was a part of the contracting company who started talking with us and was helping us out.

And we quickly gathered that his dad was a 98-year-old World War II veteran just like you. And so I was talking about Rishi was going to be coming in here and doing some stuff. And so didn't see that guy again. But then today when you guys came, they had the whole block blocked off because they were actually doing the paving today. So I was like, oh, no, like we're going to have to, you know, we're going to have to walk from a little farther out. Not ideal. But apparently, Rishi, what happened? You pulled up and then and then how did this go down? Ernie put on his World War Two veteran cap.

Yeah, and I did it, didn't I? No, really. He said, watch this, guys. And you know how they say Moses parted the sea? Very similar situation happened when he puts on the cap and there was this nice young police officer who comes up immediately. It says, thank you for your service. 21 years old. Yeah.

Yeah. And he shakes his hand. He says, how can I help you guys? I said, we're here for the Julian Dory show. And he's like, you guys know Julian Dory? And then he says, I said, yeah, it's up there in the. And so he says, well, let me have you guys come around and we'll make an exception so they don't have to walk very far. So he brings us, he lets us basically, takes down the barricade because of him being a World War II veteran.

But they were, he got like, I think the son of the guy you're talking about. The son of the guy I was talking about, yeah. It's their construction company. He also was there. And they were just so amazed to see a 98-year-old Purple Heart recipient out and about. He's cracking jokes with them. And we got some great photos of them together.

But it really shows the intergenerational bonds. It was unbelievable. Yeah. Oh, he was holding his hand. I'm shaking his hand, and he's overwhelmingly telling me what I did and all that. And the other – he's in here, isn't he, the other fellow? Yeah. Yeah.

They were just – they were so amazed by his stories. Yeah, and it was cool because you have a 21 year old police officer there yes who's who's doing something really positive for for the country serving in here and you it was cool i don't really know what you said to him because i wasn't standing right next to you but the two of you were having a moment and you were giving some advice on your experiences and praising his that was really really, really special. We even hugged each other. It was very special. I mean, they walked, they escorted Ernie and his wife Carol right to the door.

Right to the door. Yeah, I walked downstairs. I'm like, oh, shit, we got a posse. Let's go. Before we go any further, may I? What's this? This is, we call this a challenge coin. Okay.

And it has General George Washington on the front. That's for you. Oh, thank you so much. And that's for you. You have yours, yes? Yes, sir. General George Washington, 1776. And on one side it has my name engraved,

Private Ernest Smoger, World War II, and on the other side it has our different states in our country. Yes, yes. Army, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Air Force, and then I can't see the other one because it's blocked. So the Purple Heart is not a general award. You have to be wounded to receive the Purple Heart. And you're giving this to us?

Yeah, I'm lucky I have access to them. Are we allowed to have this? That's yours. Thank you. And that's yours. Yes, of course. So I'm actually actually we don't we don't have a ton on here yet but my friend dr brian keating who's a world-renowned physicist

he was in here last year and he gave us i forget how old is this unless he like 10 billion or some shit he gave us a like 10 billion year old piece from the galaxy so that's the only thing we have sitting on yeah i was wondering i'm looking at this and i said this is a collection from somewhere yeah this is just mine but as far as guests bringing in stuff that's the only thing we have sitting on here but i'm going to put this on here permanently as well that would be great honor to do it as you wish that's that's amazing thank you so much i wish i had more to give i don't have any more power no you've given plenty today. This was absolutely incredible, and your recall of stories is amazing.

And take it from us. This is ours. We fought for it, and God bless America. Ernie, thanks so much for coming today, sir. It was a real honor. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

We're going to switch seats, thank you thank you we're gonna switch seats and rishi we're gonna do a podcast with you and ernie's gonna join us for that as well all right everybody we have a special bonus episode here and we are filled in the studio with rishi sharma and ernie moger who we just did an episode with. This episode would come out after that one, I believe. But, you know, Rishi, we have done a couple episodes now with Jake and Ernie. And now we're going to do one with you because I want people to know about what you've been doing. And you're one of the most humble guys I've ever met. And, you know, there's some things I'm sure you wouldn't say about yourself.

So at the outset here, I want to set the groundwork, if you don't mind, for people to understand what I see and what you've been doing and what I know the World War II veterans I've spoken with also see as well. And so, you know, you're going to get into the details of your story, but for the better part of the last decade, you have recorded over 2,500 in-person interviews on camera with World War II veterans around the world in all the allied countries. You have been putting up this content on your YouTube channel and then also clipped up on TikTok. We will put the links to that down in the description, Remembering World War II with Rishi Sharma, I think it's highly underrated because you're basically getting an oral history of the greatest generation and what they did while they're still here with us. And we're grateful to have those who are still around. But I've also gotten to know you over the past few months. And shout out, by the way, to Ken McGee from episode 140 and 141 for putting this together. My man Ken said, you got to talk to this guy, Rishi.

He's something else, man. So getting to know you over the past few months, you essentially live off of a 501c3 that you created. We're going to get into how you did that, but you live out of cars. And occasionally when you're lucky in Airbnb, you travel across the US and all these other countries on minimal money. You currently carry credit card debt of like $15,000. You're constantly in your own hole so that you can be on the mission that your shirt says and that you have lived now for all these years to tell the stories of these guys who are still here. So what makes someone stop their whole life, which is what you did as a kid, and go do what you're doing? I just want to thank you for the introduction and for highlighting the World War II veterans on your show, and for having me on as well, Julian. To answer your question, it's a complicated question.

But to put it simply, in my heart of hearts, I believe that I am alive because of the sacrifices made by the World War II veterans. And it's not just me, but millions and millions of other people, my family. We get to wake up in a world every day in which our homes are not bombed out. We could go up to anyone on the street and say whatever we want without any fear of, you know, oppression, of being arrested. Little kids get to play on the street, dream about their lives 80 years from now instead of worrying about whether or not they'll be alive this time tomorrow. We have so many blessings, and we take so many of our luxuries, our comforts for granted. But at the end of the day, I look in the mirror, and I realize that someone that looks like me, we don't exist in an Aryan empire under the Third Reich. You know, the Japanese had their own racial profiles. It is very real to me that my existence is because of the bloodshed and sacrifice

of countless sacrifices of countless young men of the allied countries. And I feel it is my obligation to make sure that their stories of the survivors are recorded so that future generations will innately understand that real men died and that they had lives that they gave up for us. They gave everything so that we may have anything. And that's what keeps me going. Because I owe my existence to people like Mr. Moger and the other World War II veterans. And you can't compare, you know, living in a car to someone living in a foxhole, especially with artillery coming down, people trying to kill them.

You know, it's just, these are my heroes. Every time I meet a World War II veteran, it's like a little kid getting to meet Superman. That's how I look at it. These are the, and at the end of the day, you know, I would argue that the World War II generation, the men especially, are the epitome of what it means to be a righteous person, a righteous man. The way they carry themselves, not just during the war, but before the war and the Great Depression, after the war, how they reared their families, and this idea of community service is their whole ethos. It's hard to explain to people who may not have interacted with any World War II veteran, but I know anyone who has a World War II veteran in their family or who has met them through

veteran organizations, the World War II generation has a very special spirit about them that every day of their lives is about helping those around them. And for me, the most attractive quality in a person is selflessness. And these heroes have it in droves and in a culture and in a generation where it's me, me, me, self-glory. I don't want any of that. I want this altruistic idea of life that the World War II veterans seem to embody so subconsciously. It's just, you know, the way they were brought up, they were really formed, forged in very unique circumstances with the Great Depression, with their families, with, you know, there's so much to go into their faith. But at the end of the day, when I meet the World War II veterans and it's really just getting to meet my heroes and

there's nothing I wouldn't do for them. But you're 26. I mean, that's beautiful, but you're 26 now and like you're wise beyond your years in that department to have that appreciation. But it's even deeper than that because the way I understand it talking to you, this really started when you were like still in high school, like 16. Can you tell the story of like the first time you got a chance to meet your real life heroes? Absolutely. I've always been interested in World War II and history at large, you know, in general. The weird thing, it's hard to explain, but whenever I would see like Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, I would get a very weird feeling in my stomach. And not about the gore, it's not a queasy feeling, but it was just a very odd feeling, especially in some of the scenes of Saving Private Ryan, the beach landing,

but also some of the patrols that they went on when they knocked out a German machine gun nest. And I even get the same feeling in The Patriot, right, when Mel Gibson's running with the flag. But as I've gotten older, I've really honed down on that feeling because I distinctly remember this, you know, watching this as like a 10-year-old and having that gut feeling. And what it is, it's the awe-inspiring emotion that comes over a person when you're watching 18, 19-year-olds willingly sacrifice their lives for others. And that, it's just so hard to comprehend, especially at such a young age. But that really, I know that that feeling has always resonated with me. When I was a kid, all I ever wanted to be was a Marine. But when I thought of a Marine, I thought of a 18-year-old with nothing but the shirt on his back and a rifle in his hand

fighting in the jungles of Guadalcanal or the sands of Iwo Jima, you know, this good versus evil fight. World War II was so black and white. And as I got older, I mean, I really believed that, you know, we were living in a World War II time. My mom's a teacher. And I remember we were visiting with another teacher at her school. And the teacher had just been back from a trip to Germany. And she was telling my mom, you should really visit Berlin. It's really nice. And you're like, fuck that. I'm like, mom, no, Hitler. Hitler's there. I said said that's no good we don't want to go there mom and and so that's the kind of world you know i was living in um but so that always had been in the background but when i was in high school i mean it's

just to state the obvious i wasn't the the cool guy, but I would read books about World War II. And there's one particular book called Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose. And I love that title, Citizen Soldiers, because that's what the World War II veterans are. They're not a professional army, career military. These are guys from everyday walks of life, joint together for one common cause, one common purpose, one war, get in, get out. We got one right here, just like that. Absolutely. And so I was reading that book and the way the book is written, it's basically firsthand accounts of different veterans from D-Day on. Stephen Ambrose did a whole book about

D-Day. So this book was about D-Day plus one to the end of the war in Europe. And it was from the perspective of different veterans. And I was reading this sophomore year of high school. And there was one chapter about the Battle of the Bulge, about a gentleman named Lyle Book, who was a 90-day wonder. He went to officer candidate school and then did 90 days, and he ended up becoming a second lieutenant. He shipped to the front lines with the 99th Infantry Division. They were put in a very quiet sector because it was a new division, just like Mr. Moger's outfit. They were after D-Day, but the quiet sector was the Ardennes Forest, where it was not expected any German attack would come from. It just so happened that when the Germans did the largest counteroffensive of

World War II, they went through the Ardennes Forest in what's known as the Battle of the Bulge. So here's this guy. He's in charge of the intelligence and reconnaissance platoon. And they took the full brunt of the German army, literally where he was. And so his platoon, it actually was under strength. What should be 42 men ended up being about 18. And they, the 18 of them under his leadership were on the side of a hill. And there were SS soldiers coming, the spearhead of the Hitler's offensive. And he basically, they didn't retreat, they didn't capitulate, they held their

ground. And half of them were killed, and the other half, including himself, were captured. But they held off the Germans for almost an entire day. I mean, they held off 500 SS soldiers. So what that means, and they didn't realize this until years later, but that gave General Patton enough time to bring in reinforcements to the front lines to repel the German attack. And so obviously, Lyle Book and his cohort, you know, were prisoners, they didn't know what happened. But that little platoon ended up being the highest decorated platoon of the war, pretty much. So I read about this account and I had the same reaction, Julian. I was like, wow, because I was 16 and he was 21, which is not a big difference. And I just had some feeling,

keep in mind, my parents immigrated from India who fought with the British in the war. And obviously there's a lot to say there, but they came to the United States as immigrants, and they are here as immigrants. And so I don't have any direct connections to World War II. A lot of the news coverage that I get about, you know, what my efforts and my mission, it can pretty much be summed up as why young one brown kid is interviewing World War II veterans, right? Because it's unusual from the outside, anyone who meets me, first thing they would think of is not, this is a guy who interviews World War II veterans. Right? They might think Metro PCS or something like that.

But especially if I have glasses on. But so the reality is, though, I read this account and I am just so floored by what this man, I mean, he, he suffered a lot as a prisoner of war as well when they were captured, but I knew that I wanted Mr. Book to know that what he went through 75 years ago in that war, that because of what he did, some family gets to live really nice lives in Southern California. And so it's really easy to find people's information today on the internet. And so I Googled his name and I found his phone number. He was living in Missouri, St. Louis area. Oh, you found that guy.

Yeah. He was still alive. Yeah. and you found that guy yeah yo he's still alive yeah and so i uh this is about maybe nine o'clock california time and i don't know i just couldn't wait it was at night nine o'clock at night and so i i i find his phone number and i just call it it's like 11 o'clock. Yeah, it was. But the whole point is I just wanted him to know so much that because of him, we exist. And so the phone rings. It's like 11 o'clock at night, as you said, at his place. And this lady answers the phone. And I said, is this Laubuk the war hero? And she starts laughing.

She's like, no. And then I feigned not knowing about time differences and all that. When she asked, do you know what time it is here? And I – You need to go in the Metro PCS voice at that point. I'm so sorry. It just flew up here. That would have been a good cover yeah um i i she said you know this is not la buc but if you call back in the morning he'll talk to you

and so it must have been his daughter or something i don't know but i just know i didn't sleep that night i was so excited because this is going to be my first time. You know, people see World War II veterans, most people see them as people on TV and movies vicariously through Band of Brothers, unless they had a direct connection in the war. But, you know, as I mentioned earlier, meeting these veterans is like meeting Superman. And so I'm about to meet Superman, you know, at least over the phone. And so I call the next morning and he picks up and it was as great as I expected. He was so friendly. He was telling me stories that weren't even in the chapter. He was, you know, making jokes and he really appreciated that someone had taken the time to thank him, especially someone that he didn't know halfway across the country. And that was my light bulb moment because I had opened the book, Citizen Soldiers, to his chapter in one hand.

And I had Mr. Book on the phone in the other hand. And that's when I realized if I wanted to talk to some silly celebrity like the Kardashians, I'd have to go through a million gatekeepers and not even get them. But to talk to a gentleman that had a real life, real involvement in my family and everyone else's existence, I could just pick up the phone and call him. And that's when I said, it can't be this easy, but it is. And so after that experience, I called a few more veterans from the book. And I just really got into it. I mean, this was, I really didn't have friends in high school. And so this was kind of an outlet for me to be able to talk to people who I really, I don't see the World War II veterans as old men. I never have.

I've always, I talk to them with respect, but I talk to them as if they are that 19, 18 year old because they are. You know, they're still that guy inside. Right, Ernie? Yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Hear Ernie say jokes, that's for sure. This 98-year-old's falling asleep.

I can't even tell. You're doing great. Am I that boring? Some of you. I gave you A++++. I can't keep. Go ahead. Fantastic.

So I decided I wanted to meet some veterans in real life. Now, I don't know, you know, they obviously don't live in one town or something. I don't know, where do you go to find a World War II veteran? I'm so disconnected from this world of World War II veterans. But someone at my high school had recommended a retirement community. And there happened to be a retirement community down the street from my high school. And I ride my bike to high school. So I was right after one day after school, I rode my bike to the retirement community. Where in California were you again?

Agora Hills. So Southern California, if you see Malibu, it's a town right next to Malibu. Oh, nice. So about an hour north of LA, Plessum. So I ride my bike to this retirement community, never gone in there before. Meadowbrook Senior Living, shout out to them. It's a retirement community, not a nursing home. Yeah, it is. Big difference. And this really was.

This was independent living. So I walk in and I go to the front desk. And I don't think at this point I'd ever even been in a retirement community. And for context, this is like 2015. I had hair down to here, actually. Oh, you did? So that was like a little fat I was going through. You look good now. Was it blonde? No. You changed your hair. No, no.

Don't put that on. No, you're good. I like that. We're keeping that. Overruled. You can't handle the truth um so i walk in and i walk up to the receptionist and i said a very innocuous question is what i thought could i please meet some world war ii heroes she was probably dipped in shit she was like what i said i would like to meet some world war ii veterans

almost as if it's a zoo, right? He's like, I want to see the zebra exhibit. But, you know, it's like they're just waiting there. She says, let me just have you talk to the director. So she goes into the back office, and out comes this burly man with a big mustache named Lloyd. And he says, you know, come in, come into my office, son. And at that point I realized, hang on a minute. I really hadn't thought this through. I thought it was very normal for people to just want to hang out with World War II veterans.

It was not. I mean, but I guess from the outside perspective, you have like a 15 year old saying he wants to hang out with 90 plus year old men. Right. And without any really real reason why, like for me, it's like, who wouldn't want to hang out with them? I want to be their groupie. I just want to hear their stories, you know, hang out, you know, buddies, you know. But then I realized, OK, I need some kind of cover. So in my walk from the receptionist office over to his office, I realized, okay, I can say I'm doing this for school. I want to interview them. That's really how it started. I never really wanted to start interviewing World War II veterans

or learn things about World War II. I mean, that sounds like a lot of time and effort. I really just wanted to hang out with them and just hear some war stories and hear their advice. I'm not close to my father. And so I guess some people who try to analyze me, they say, oh, this is Rishi trying to find the guy to play catch with, you know, is how I use the World War II veterans play baseball. Keep in mind, though, a lot of, I mean, yeah, I mean, I did like Sandlot a lot. I thought that was a true full-on movie when I was a kid. But I walk into the executive director's office, and he says, well, what do you want to do? And I said, I want to interview some World War II veterans. I'm learning about it in school,

and I want to meet some of these heroes. And he was just so happy to see a young person. He said, you're the first young person I've seen come in these doors voluntarily. And so he said, Lloyd said, here's what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to personally introduce you to all the World War II veterans that we have at the community. And they even had on the second floor an honor wall. So pictures of all the veterans back in the day. A lot of retirement communities do that. So it's really cool. But it's like, you know, they're army pictures or marine pictures and flags next to it. So we would go up to that honor wall. Lloyd would point out who he was going to about who he was going to introduce me to and that day he took me to 25 different world war ii veterans 25 25 knocks on their door says hey this kid from high school wants to meet you interview you is that okay and they all said yes did you like write it down yeah and so i uh i go home that day and I remember distinctly, and God bless my mom.

God bless my mom for doing this because I got on my knees and I cried saying, because I felt the world, the weight of the world was on my shoulders. All these World War II veterans had just agreed to be interviewed. And it was now my responsibility to get them on camera. And I didn't even know, I didn't even have a camera. Oh, so you had that in your head and that's when the idea was like, oh, I got to go get a camera. Yeah, yeah.

No, no, because like I said, the interviews just started as something to say. Right. Lloyd at the retirement committee said that I could use an empty office as an interview room next to his. And so I realized I need a camera. And so I go home and like I said, God bless my mom for doing this. She got me a $500 camera kit from Costco, which is a lot of money. Oh, yeah.

But I think she realizes, you know, just like looking at my eyes, how serious I am about, I want to preserve these veteran stories. And so that's just really how it started. I would ride my bike after school with my camera kit and I would interview the veterans and they would tell me these incredible true stories, things that you don't read about in the history books, things that you don't see in the movies, but frontline combat experiences. And, you know, my first question was, is this all legitimate? But I would go research what the veterans were saying. And I found not only was it all legitimate, they were under downplaying what they had gone through, not overplaying it.

They weren't exaggerating. This generation is not that type. They're not stolen valor. You know, they are just truthful people. And so I interviewed all the veterans of that community and i really got to become buddies with some of them how long is this time period now where you're doing them on camera are you doing this over like a four or five month period so it started sophomore year um high school yeah so it was probably probably yeah, probably a few months.

Like I said, I really didn't have any friends my age, so this is what I was doing with my time. Eventually the local paper picks it up, and they did a story on the front page about, you know, a local kid interviewing World War II veterans. And I started to get calls from people telling me about their neighbors or their dad or their grandparents that are World War II veterans. And so now I started to expand, you know, I'd ride my bike all across the community doing interviews. And eventually the local TV station, the ABC station did a story. And so now I'm getting, you know, my net is getting wider and wider. And now, you know, like I said, God bless my mom for doing this because she would keep, she would start to drive me to different interviews. And we would go to different

veteran functions. I would find out about ceremonies or you meet one veteran and he would know another. And it just got into this thing where I really, I found my calling. I fell into it. You know, I just really enjoyed visiting with the veterans and I could see the interviews I do are quite in depth and I could see how great of a feeling it was for the veterans that a total stranger would come up to them and want to hear all about their lives and was so interested and just wanted to hear more and more, especially for some of these veterans tucked away at the retirement communities. This is kind of an outlet. And so anyways, I kept expanding. This rolls into junior year, senior year. I'm doing more and more interviews.

I was doing research, finding veterans in different areas. Are you posting them on YouTube at this point? No, no. This was just for the veterans. We were making DVD copies for them. And so— Old school. So what we ended up doing, I was able to drive then. And so I was using my car to go do interviews, that kind of thing.

By the time senior year rolled around, Ernie's making a sign that I talk too much. No, no, no. You just have the, I can't think of the word. You're wonderful. You honor us veterans. Whoever you're working for, whoever's responsible for it, continue doing it. Because if it wasn't for people like you, we would be forgotten and never heard of again. So I want to thank you personally for what you're doing. I want you to continue now, and I will keep quiet.

No, no, we want your input. I hope you hear that when guys like this say that. Because that's what I said. When I looked at your channel, I said this at the outset. I said, oh, my God, this guy has an oral history of the biggest war that the world ever saw like you are getting it that there will i truly believe one day we know there's been like a lot of world war ii movies and stuff like that but and a lot of books but you know things come in cycles and as we get farther and farther away in time, I truly believe that there are going to be features made from people finding your stuff and then being like, oh my god.

Like they'll find one interview you did in November 2017 and another one you did in July 2022 with people who didn't even know each other but saw the world, saw the war from a similar spot. And then they're like, wait,'s a you know i could not even just be like hollywood but i could see the hollywood people just like oh my god and that will then you know you could get something like a saving private ryan which is so revered by so many guys who fought there and stuff it's very cool every veteran has like their own hollywood movie encapsulated in themselves yes so back back back to what you were saying though so yeah you know you're getting the oral history this you start at some point you start posting this stuff on youtube yeah when was that so just uh without getting into the the

trenches again and i apologize i get i'm so close to the subject that i just tend to talk ramble i guess don't worry keep Keep going. The main thing is after some of the local news coverage, we were, uh, I realized senior year after I graduated high school, that this is what I want to do. That I want to go interview as many world war two veterans as I can while they're with us. And I just needed to figure out how what about college you know especially with folks uh people think oh your parents are indian uh you have two options doctor lawyer three actually engineer you know and i really just academically i'm not that guy you got it wrong lawyer and then, and what was the other one?

Indian chief. Not that kind of Indian. You're doing a fantastic job. I'm just joking with you. But, I mean, so, no. It goes lawyer, teacher, Indian chief. That's all right. So, I just. Delete that, please.

No, we're keeping that. That one we might have to keep too. It's a weird – you ask about college, which I think is a normal question, but I really wasn't thinking about it. One thing I did realize, Julian, is I did, after I started to interview these veterans at mass, you know, like I was spending senior year of high school, I was ditching class to go do interviews because I was learning more from a hundred, near a hundred year old World War II veteran than I was in school. You just ditching class. That's a fact. My D in Spanish four can attest to that. I was just going to say.

And it's just the facts because, you know, senior year, people already know where they want to go to college or if they're going to go. I was just I just remember distinctly being in school with kids on their phone and they didn't care about anything about what was on their social media feed. And I felt like I was on an adventure with these World War II veterans. When I interview them, man, they take you on for the journey. You're there. And I just felt more mature because of the experiences I had interacting with the veterans. And so I just wanted to keep doing that. And so I would go, like I said, I literally would ditch class to go do interviews. Graduation comes. I need to figure out my game plan.

I need to figure it out fast. But I realized I did not want to be sitting behind a desk while these legends are out there and their stories are not being told. Had you applied to any colleges? I did. I applied to quite a few colleges. And to the best of my memory, I don't think I got into any. I may have gone into some. But I think that might be – it probably wasn't the schools I wanted to get into. I remember I applied to some schools for sure, like UCs, and I didn't get in.

There's one I know that you didn't get in. There's one I know that you're in the qualifying board. You didn't even think about it. New Jersey College for Women. Ernie, I told you I had long hair down here. There's one there in New Brunswick. They call it NJC. No, really. With that long hair, you're qualified.

You would have been qualified. I'm glad you didn't do that. Especially with the Indian chief background, right? I could have got some kind of scholarship. That's the best thing ever. All right, so you get right. So you don't, you get into maybe some, you didn't want to get into,

but that summer you decide I'm not going to college. So that summer, Julian, I decided that really that year before I graduated, I decided this is what I want to do. Interview as many world war two veterans as possible. That was just when I got my mind fixated on, and I have an addictive personality.

You don't say. When I like something, that's what I do. I know. And so I just knew that this is what I have to do. And I really meant it when I said earlier, I felt the world, the weight of the world was on my shoulders. Because I realized other people were not really going out and interviewing these veterans. And they certainly weren't interviewing the veterans in the way that I was capturing them. What I like in my interviews too is, you know, a lot of the History Channel stuff,

they use World War II veterans as talking heads to say some kind of cliche phrase like, this was really tough or, you know, something along those lines, or I'll never forget that day. I was hearing the veterans tell specific stories about their experiences, not just give an overview of the war, but what they saw, buddies they saw getting killed, killing the enemy. I mean, I felt they were painting the reality of war. And I felt that as a total civilian, even though I have no connection to the military, the onus is on me as a beneficiary of the countless luxuries and comfort that the sacrifices of people like Ernie Moger and his generation have made to understand what they had to do. This whole concept of having veterans not talk about the war when they come home, I think is not the right way to go about it. I think the civilian population needs to be so innately aware of the horrors of war. Because just because we weren't the ones going overseas, pulling the triggers, you know, giving first aid to wounded comrades, we have benefited from that.

And we owe it to them to understand why they went overseas and the sacrifices they made. So I had all these thoughts running around in my head. And I realized, I remember and think in May, so you graduate in June, in May, I heard of GoFundMe. And you see all these campaigns, these online fundraisers, right? Someone creates a GoFundMe, and the next day they have like a million dollars. And my principal at my high school, his grandfather was a World War II veteran, so he would kind of buddy-buddy with me. He was trying to help me create a website. I had a whole phase of life of trying to get a free website made, which is a long story

and a lot of international calls. But, but the, the principal, I remember being, waiting for him one day in his office and I created the GoFundMe account. And I was waiting for him one day in his office, and I created the GoFundMe account. And I was so excited because I said, okay, this time tomorrow, I'm going to have $1 million. And I legitimately thought this. So the next day rolls around, and there's no money. And now I'm looking for the phone number for the Better Business Bureau to report GoFundMe. Obviously, it's a scam. Somebody get the BBB on the phone number for the Better Business Bureau to report no fund me. Obviously, it's a scam. Not, you know, somebody get the BBB on the phone. But I realized, I realized at that moment, all the successful GoFundMes are tied to news coverage.

And so I had to then become a publicist, and I started finding press contacts for local media outlets. And I would use my local paper story as kind of an opener and say, hey, would you guys be interested in helping get the word out? I'm trying to interview all the World War II veterans. And it would go nowhere. But then one day, right after graduation, I found the Associated Press contact list, which is – and it had all their emails, which is really – and the emails are structured with a total lack of imagination, as you would expect from the Associated Press. At AP. Yeah. So it's just firstname.lastnameatap.com. But I found 200 names and I sent the same mass email to all these contacts and I didn't hear back from a single person. Except one.

That's all it takes. John Rogers with no G. John Rogers, with no G. No, there is a G. Either way. John Rogers, from the Associated Press, he was the pop culture reporter at the Los Angeles Bureau. And he emailed me. He says, this seems like an interesting story. Let me come to an interview and bring a photographer.

So he comes to an interview. I scheduled a really cool veteran, a Silver Star recipient, and they did the interview. They took the photos. And this was in the summer. And I'm telling Mr. Rogers, OK, great. Is this story going to be out like tomorrow, next week? He says, no, I think we're going to sit on it. We're going to wait for Veterans Day of 2016. And I said, you're killing me, Smalls. I mean, come on. I mean, I need some money now to go do interviews.

And he's like, you got to trust me on this. He was right. He said, because every newspaper in the country is looking for a newswire story about veterans on Veterans Day. And if we get this story out there early enough, this will be the story that everyone uses. And I said, okay. I didn't say that. But I said, you know, I mean, there's nothing I can do. But let's do it. And I said, okay. I didn't say that, but I said, you know, I mean, there's nothing I can do, but let's do it. And I said, I just appreciate you doing the story anyway. Anyways, so that summer I had done some busboying at a golf tournament to raise some money because the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor was coming up in December of 2016. And, you know, I was just doing some odd jobs. I did one class at a community college to appease my parents. But the people I was with, man, I mean, no offense to people who go to community college.

I mean, a lot of people do it for financial reasons who are very smart and everything. But the caliber of people I was interacting with in that class was, it was just, wasn't for me. It wasn't the people I wanted to be associated with. I wanted to hang out with the World War Two veterans. And I was learning so much about the world through them. Uh, and so I did that one class and said, no, I'm going to figure out this World War Two veteran thing to my parents. And they said, okay. So Veterans Day finally rolls around. And they put out the newswire. And in that interim time, I had actually done my first out of state trip, because I had saved some money doing odd jobs. I live in Southern California. And I found out about a Medal of Honor recipient, Robert Maxwell, who fought in France. He earned the Medal of Honor for landing on a grenade to save four other men.

It's really just a God thing, the fact that he was not killed. There was a bicycle that was next to him when he landed on the grenade, and that bicycle ended up being totally wrapped around him. I mean, he had shrapnel in him. It was a huge deal. But I remember I was coming back from an interview at a veteran's place, and I get a call from Oregon. He had gotten my letter. I was writing letters to veterans saying, hey, would you agree to an interview? And he says, yeah, you can come up to Bend, Oregon, and I'll do an interview. And he says, Yeah, you can come up to Bend, Oregon, and I'll do an interview. And so I was so over the moon. And I had saved about $300. And so that was in September of 2016. I do my first out of state trip. And I drive by myself on $300 for two weeks.

$300. What'd you eat? I didn't. So hardly. So what I did was I drew, I drove all the way from Southern California to Bend, Oregon. And I interviewed Mr. Maxwell. It was incredible. And one interesting little side note, it was like, it was in the summer, you know, September in Southern California. And I remember like the day I was leaving, it was like 105 degrees outside. And my mom, God bless her, she acts winter clothes in the car. And I'd already made all these provisions and everything. And I said, Mom, I mean, look how hot it is. This is just going to add more weight.

And I put the winter clothes away back in my room. So it turns out, for those who don't know, it snows in Oregon. I didn't know that, but it does. And so I make it up there. And that night, because I only have $300, right, I realized I'll be sleeping in the car. And I'd never done that before. But I said, you know, I'll give it a try. And I was outside of Mr. Maxwell's retirement community. And it's snowing. And I just remember shivering in the backseat of the car that entire night. I hardly slept. I would turn on the car for a little bit to get some heat. And then I would turn it back off. And I just did that the whole night. But at the back of my mind, I remembered something that I've kept with me my entire journey, Julian.

I had interviewed, you know, that summer, a Battle of the Bulge veteran who had survived the worst winter in over 50 years in Belgium. And he had frostbite. Some of his toes had to be amputated. Yep. And here I am complaining about being a little cold in the back of a car. And that perspective, people ask me, oh, what have you learned from the World War II veterans? There's so much, but one of the most important things I've learned is perspective. You know, you can't complain about traffic when you meet someone whose arm is blown

off at the age of 19, right? I remember when I was in school, I cared so much about social media, like what people thought of me, what I looked like, what every kid I think would think of. But the minute I started interviewing these veterans, all of that superficial thought went out of my head. It was really a chance to just live life, to be so grateful that here, not just I and my family, you know, we're all here healthy and happy. So anyways, that night I spend in the car in Oregon. I do an incredible two days of interviews with Mr. Maxwell and he had gone, he, every Monday, he would have this veterans group meet at a local restaurant called Jake's in Bend, Oregon. For those who don't know, Bend is central Oregon. It's a conservative,

everywhere except Portland. If you take out Portland, conservative is a very red, Oregon is a very red state. You know, a lot of rural people, hardworking. Bend, Oregon is in the central part of Oregon. And so it's kind of near the mountains. And every Monday, Mr. Maxwell, the Medal of Honor recipient, would go with this veterans group. And there was a bunch of other World War II veterans there. So they introduced me at one of the meetings. And so I had scheduled a bunch of interviews. And what I would do, because Jake's is a good old place, you know, they would give you a breakfast for $10.

It would be, you know, a huge plate. You're like packing it in. I learned how to ration at that time. And so I would eat a little bit for breakfast and then I would keep it in the car. I didn't have a fridge or anything in the car, but I would just eat a little bit during the day. And so that's how I lived for two weeks. I would eat a little bit in the morning of Jake's and then just go do some interviews locally. And I just had such an incredible time.

This is the first time I'm really on the road. And the Oregonian, their state paper actually even did a story. And it made front page. So I'm getting a bunch of leads. You never heard of chili dogs? No, but if I want a diarrhea, I'm sure that would be a place to start. No, not really. I want, I'm sure that would be a place to start. No, no, really. I want to go back a little further.

I hope I can remember. Oh, in combat, there was such a thing as trench feet or trench foot. You know about that, right? Yeah. That was horrible. I was lucky. And that trench feet would just eat your toes away, really. You couldn't fight anymore. The medics would come up to you and take you back.

They either had to amputate your toes, believe me, or you'd lose your leg. But you had combat boots and you're in combat and it's raining and we walk through water and when you walk through water your legs get completely wet and you couldn't dry

take your shoes off you couldn't dry your socks or what have you because you're in combat and you kept going, going, going and that's how trench foot originated. And I was sorry to see so many men lose it. So I interrupted you and I apologize. No, no, no.

You're giving the context exactly of what I'm talking about. Go ahead. Yes, go. Please go ahead. That's what I was thinking in that car that night. Perspective. And so anyways, it was around that time that the story airs on the AP. It hits the newswire.

I get a bunch of leads, Veterans Day. One of the persons that reached out to me was a producer for CBS Sunday Morning, the Steve Hartman program. He has a show called On the Road. And so they said, can we come out to Southern California and do a video interview of you interviewing a veteran? I said, yeah. So he comes, he does a program, and they also want to hold it until December 7, 2016. Oh, Pearl Harbor.

The 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. By that point, like I said, I was a busboy at a golf tournament, so I had saved up enough money to get to Pearl Harbor. And I had actually talked to the official Pearl Harbor commemoration team. I was allowed to be a photographer with them. So I got access to all these events with the veterans and everything. I was interviewing veterans. But when I was at Pearl Harbor, one interesting thing is a lot of people reached out to me on the AP story. And I should say you could not even pay for a better headline than what that reporter gave. His headline of the story was, teen dedicates life to finding and interviewing every single World War II combat veteran.

That's a great headline. That's the best headline. And there's a picture of me interviewing the veterans, one of the veterans. And it was just, that really got a lot of coverage. And that's, you know, like I said, the CBS Sunday morning piece, that's how they heard about it. So one of the persons that reached out to me was a guy in Hawaii named Bruce. He says, Hey, I saw the story in the Honolulu paper and about you interviewing veterans. I don't know if you're coming to Hawaii for the 75th anniversary, but if you are, you have a place to stay. Oh, that's awesome. And so Bruce,

he is, uh, he works on ships. So he's, he has a schedule where he's off for a month at sea, and then he's on for a month. He thought that he was actually going to be back in Hawaii during that month, but it turned out that he was going to be at sea. And so he calls me, and he says, hey, you know, I don't know you, but I really want to help. I'm not going to be there, but my wife and my kids will be home. You're more than welcome to come and stay with us to save cash. Whoa. That's so cool. That really, and I have so many stories like that, Julian, of people who I meet on the road

who show me that this is such a great world. There are so many lovely people out there. I went to Hawaii. I stay with his family. I get picked up by the commemoration people. We go to all these events. And when I was there at his house, that's when CBS news aired the story. And the great thing about his program, Steve Hartman on the road, they do it Friday evening and Sunday morning. So you get two doses of it. And overnight, I had a little bit of money from the AP story and the GoFundMe at that point. But we raised like $140,000 overnight. And then I realized, oh, it doesn't work that way. And where's my 860? So I then come back to the States. They hate that in Hawaii because they say they're one of the states.

I go back to the mainland. And what is interesting, like I said, I really am not close to my father. And I remember we had one dinner before when I had no money. And he said, you know, you'd have to raise over $115,000 in order for me to say you could go travel interviewing the veterans. So here I come back with $140,000 and he still says no. Oh, man. He was moving the goalposts. But I remember distinctly my mom and him and me, we were in the living room after I'd come back from Hawaii, after I'd met so many incredible veterans, I'd made so many contacts. And one other thing I should mention, that CBS News piece, I got 10,000 emails and phone calls, leads about veterans that people know. Yep. So, you know, to be able to support you, that GoFundMe still exists, right?

Through a 501c3, no? Yeah, well, people could, we don't have that. Original GoFundMe is hidden. Right, right. But it's, but you have, you have a place where people can, can donate, correct? Yeah, we're still, www.rememberww the number two.org we're still taking donations got it okay so i'm gonna put the link to that down here in the description so that people can go look at that but before we get out of here you you have also gone to other countries as well so you went to australia new zealand all these places, and you were telling me you had one situation where they thought you were a terrorist?

Yeah. Oh, my. Ernie's awake again. I've got to hear that. Oh, I want to hear it. Oh, my God. Well, I'm sorry. I was just trying to give the buildup.

But basically, after that CBS news piece, I hit the road. And I remember distinctly my mom and my dad, like I said, my mom says, whatever Rishi puts his mind to, he'll be able to do. And that I've always kept in the back of my head. Since December of 2016, I've been on the road full time. So I've interviewed just over 2, 2500 World War II veterans across all 50 states Canada, the UK, Australia New Zealand and the veterans all get copies

of the interviews for them and their families you put it on the YouTube channel that's really when I started to put out videos on the YouTube channel when I first came back from Pearl Harbor and I realized this is what I want to do, I have the funding most people who are creators they create to get funding. Here I had the funding, and now I – exactly.

And so I've had a lot of really crazy experiences on the road, but one of the things that I still can't believe is – one of my trips to New Zealand, I was profiled by the police as a terrorist. And that's just – you can't make that stuff. So what happens? So for those who don't know, New Zealand, I'm from California where you drive a lot. You know, it's normal to go anywhere in a car, many hours. New Zealand is a small country, but it's very, if the only way I can describe it, it's Jurassic.

And so it's a lot of mountains, a lot of curves. Their national speed limit is 60 miles per hour. And I had, for me, it's no problem to go from one end of the country to do an interview to the other end. And I remember, but for them, that would be like a four day, you know, journey, you know. 9-11. And so, I was in a place called Taronga, and I just finished an interview in New Zealand. It's so important for me, especially, you know, with the Indian heritage that we highlight all the allied countries, you know, who were involved. And so, I just finished an interview in a place

called Taronga. And I heard about this finished an interview in a place called Taronga, and I heard about this incredible World War II veteran. I remember his name, Jack Elliott, on the other side of the country, horizontally in New Plymouth. And it was like maybe a seven-hour journey, but he wanted to do the interview next day. And this is a man who had been captured in North Africa. And that was a big deal for me.

That's early war. It was even before the US got attacked at Pearl Harbor. So I said, okay, let's do it. So that night I'm driving. And then I pulled over, slept in the car. That's been my whole life. As I travel, I really sleep in the car to afford this. I pulled over and then the next morning I'm driving and I'm in the middle of nowhere. And some people say they're in the car to afford this. I pulled over and then the next morning I'm driving and I'm in the middle of nowhere. And some people say they're in the middle of nowhere and they're talking about like Indiana. But I mean, like, I'm literally in the middle of nowhere. There's just a lake and a side of a mountain. And all of a sudden, and keep in mind, they drive on the other side of the road.

Oh, you're driving on the left side. Yeah. Oh, my God. And all of a sudden, I see a police car behind me with the sirens. And, you know, that's like the European police cars with the neon colors. Now, I need to give a little background. My mom and my sister went to New Zealand for my sister's 25th. And they came back with so many stories about how friendly the New Zealanders are. The New Zealand people, the Kiwis, are known worldwide to be, you know, very liberal, open-minded, you know,

take the shirt off their back, help you kind of people. They travel, they're very, you know, well-learned. And so my mom and my sister came back with all these stories of just how friendly the New Zealanders are. And so I kept that in the back of my head, you know, when I traveled to New Zealand, you know, that everyone would be super hospitable, friendly. And so this police officer comes and I really, I'd only been in the country for a couple days, and I really didn't have that many one-on-one interactions with anyone besides the veterans. And, you know, he puts on his, you know, those European kind of girly sounding sirens. And I really don't know where he came from, to be honest, because I was driving, and I had not seen a police car. I would have seen one.

I thought maybe for a quick second he'd like come out of the water. Like it was one of those submerged normal cars. I said, wow, New Zealand's really putting their money into their police department. But I don't think he did. Anyway, so he comes up. He pulls me over. OK, so I'm pulled over and I. He comes over and like i said i'm ready for a very friendly kiwi interaction he didn't get it he comes over i put my window down he says

license and registration i said okay and i said you, it's a rental car. And I'm waiting for like the next part. Is this the part where he says, let me fill up your gas. Let me offer to take you to lunch. I mean, where is the New Zealand hospitality? Why didn't you tell him you knew me? Ernie, I didn't want to die that day. I have no doubt with the stories I've heard, Ernie, I have no doubt that his great grandmother've heard, Ernie, I have no doubt that his great-grandmother may have known you.

You don't strike me as the guy who stays in touch after. You are great. You are a great guy. So you're saying the guy asked for license registration. So the police officer asked for the license and registration. And I give it to him. I'd have taken you to jail, right? He looks at my license.

And I swear to you guys, he looks at my license and he looks right at me. And he says, are you a terrorist? Oh, he just came right out with it. He just says it like that. And I'm thinking to myself, wait a minute. Wait a minute. If by terrorism you mean giving World War II interviews around the world, then sir, yes, I am. So what did you tell him?

I said, what? And he says, are you a terrorist? And I'm thinking to myself, I've had interactions with police officers in America. You know, the American cops get a bad rap for being gruff, you know, kind of all this kind of. You're good. You're good. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.

We'll get it after. Relax. So, you know, the American police officers are known. I got it. You know where it is. So the American police officers, you know, get a bad rap. They're known for, you know, being tough and gruff. And, you know, if you say the wrong thing, you'll go to jail, that kind of thing.

Whatever you see on Reno 911. I don't think that's the best representation, but, you know, we'll leave that there. Or, I'm sorry, cops, right? Sorry, I don't watch those shows. Clearly. All right. Let me backtrack that. You can edit that. No, it's okay. It's good. Sorry. Let me just say it one more time. You know, I've had interactions with American police officers and they have a reputation for, you know, being gruff and tough and that kind of thing. And, you know, you got to watch what you say or they're going to lock you away. And so I was just shocked that here we are in a situation where the super liberal,

open-minded, take the shirt off his back person, you know, the New Zealander just says something that I would never even in my wildest imagination think I would hear from an American police officer. And I'm obviously not colorblind. I realize I'm brown. And so that is another element to the story is like, are you just asking me this question just based on looking at me? And there were so many thoughts going into my head. And all I could say, it was like putting a square in a round peg, right? It's like the square is New Zealand person friendly.

And then the circle is like, are you a terrorist? Are you a terrorist? And it just wasn't making sense to me. The only thing I could think of that day, or not day earlier that year they had seen and this is a white police officer by the way yeah no shit sherlock but earlier in that year um new zealand had that awful mosque shooting oh that's right where a white gunman had killed a bunch of muslim people but so that's the only thing that I could think of. But in that situation, I should have been asking him,

are you a terrorist? But I didn't say that, thank God. That would have been good. You're damn lucky you didn't say that. So I'm at the point, though. Bernie would have blown your head off. I'm at the point, though. He would have been in a brig.

When you know when you feel you're so right about something yes you get a little bit um what righteous you know you you feel like you can read them the riot act because what you're saying what you you know what you heard and you know the laws of the land and you can't do this and And so I got so confident that I said, you know what, sir, you can't talk to me like that. Let me talk to your supervisor. I said, I wasn't yelling, but I was not going to be called a terrorist. Here I am. I mean, I'm interviewing World War II veterans who saved the world. I mean, I'm the last thing from a terrorist um and i said you know can you even talk to me that way and he looks confused and he looks again at my license and he looks at like the driver's

registration and he says so do you live in california do you live in new zealand are you are you a tourist are you visiting the whole a tourist? Are you visiting? The whole time That should have been the first question. The whole time he was saying are you a tourist? Oh! You thought he was saying terrorist and he said tourist.

His accent, man. His accent. They'll wind you up in jail. No, no, no, no, no, no. In New Zealand that is the exact same word. Let me explain. Good, I might.

Are you a tourist? Good, I might. Are you a tourist? Good, I might. Are you a tourist? There's no difference. That is the same word. That is the same exact word. That took a minute. She's cranking up.

Carol's going to cry. See, the whole time he was asking me if I was a tourist. Oh, man. So how did you get out of that one? It's like, oh, I'm sorry, your accent. Well, I explained to him that, you know, some people speak English and you are not one of them. I didn't say that. But I just explained to him the situation.

I said, oh, sir, I thought you were saying terrorist. And so anyway, he let me go. And the whole reason he pulled me. He let you go? Yeah. I had to put you in jail and put handcuffs on you? So he had pulled me over just because I had gone over the line a little which is hard when you're driving on the other side of the road but but that's my you know these are the things you

run into on the road i've had so many i mean i mean it though when i was saying earlier in order to afford these interviews i literally live out of the car i mean it's a good thing it's like god knows that this is what i was meant to be because you can't even tell if I'm dirty for a couple weeks. I mean that's one of the benefits of being brown. I'm not saying any of this. I just want to make that clear. No, but you have to have a sense of humor. Yeah, you're good at that, man.

But if I'm being very much honest, it's not. I feel like an animal. It's amazing. Half of my YouTube subscribers, I would argue, are police officers who knock at my window and think I'm some homeless vagrant. You know, because I don't park like at Walmart or anything. I park in residential areas where it's safe. You know, I'm not trying to be buddy buddies with the crackheads. You're going to be George Zimmerman, bro.

You're going to get blown away. All right. Well, we got to get Ernie on the road. There would be a lot more to talk about. But I want to thank you for setting up two amazing sit-downs this week. The second one with Ernie and Carol here. We love doing this. I love what you're doing.

You've really dedicated your life to it. There's not a lot of people who take their childhood dreams and follow through with it even when there's nothing in it for them, which they're really – what you have in it for you is you get to meet your real-life heroes. So there is something in it in that way. But like you're not doing this for money. You're not doing this for fame. This is because it's something that's larger than you and larger than life, and that comes across. I want you to keep doing it. I really would like to see people go support this organization and pass around that link we put down there to remembering World War II veterans and donating to Rishi's cause. Because when I tell you he really puts his money on the line for this, my dude's in debt over here.

So we want him to keep doing this, and there's still like 90,000 World War II veterans alive around the world, something like that. Oh, over millions. There's millions of them still alive. I didn't realize. Millions? 300,000 in the US, 300,000 in the UK, a couple hundred thousand in Canada, a couple hundred thousand in Australia, New Zealand. Think about countries like Poland, India, there's a lot.

All right, well, let's get them on camera. So everyone go support. Rishi, thank you so much. I just want to thank you, Julian, for this opportunity. It's an honor. A lot of the... I thank you, too, really. Thank you, Ernie. I appreciate you. You guys for listening to us. I'm honored to be here. It's our honor. I'm looking at each of you.

Thank you. And thank you very much. God bless you all. God bless you. Rishi, thank you, brother. I appreciate you, all right? No, I appreciate it. We'll put this out. We'll have the other two episodes out.

And please go donate to the link so Rishi can keep doing this and subscribe to his channel. We got the YouTube channel down there. We got the YouTube and TikTok. Thank you. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give me a talk. Get back to me. Peace. Thank you guys for watching the episode. Before you leave, please be sure to hit that subscribe button and smash that like button on the video. It's a huge help. And also, if you're over on Instagram, be sure to follow the show at Julian Dory Podcast or also on my personal page at Julian D. Dory. Both links are in the description below.

Finally, if you'd like to catch up on our latest episodes, use the Julian Dory Podcast playlist link in the description below. Thank you.