Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - *PREVIEW* History of Armenia 44: Victor Maghakian

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

For this month's History of Armenia, Joe and Ani discuss the history of the most decorated Armenian-American military veteran in US history: a midwest Armenian-American named Victor Maghakian who was, without exaggeration, an absolute beast during the Pacific campaign of World War II. Get the whole episode on Patreon here! https://www.patreon.com/posts/137451794 Livestream tickets for our October 4 show in Glasgow are still available! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/livestream-lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast-live-in-glasgow-4th-october-2025-tickets-1532091008449 Our merch store is open! https://www.llbdpodcast.com

Now, Ani, you're a producer for the lines of by donkey, so you listen to a lot of our dumb military stories, both personally and from history, I should say. Do I get therapy for it? No. Okay. This job does not come with benefits. The emotional trauma is actually part of the hiring process. And brain injuries, which you don't have yet. So, we're going to have to look at your, like, employee review packet at the end of the year.

And they just hit you in the head with a break. You just can't read my medical records. But today you're going to be the guest on a dumb military story. Because today we're talking about a guy that I know you've never heard of. And that is because he is one of the most decorated United States Marines to ever live. And he's certainly the most decorated American Armenian to ever serve in the U.S. military. And I don't know how to describe him, as we'll go on. but a strange murderous jungle cryptid of the Pacific War,

Victor Machakian. Or I will say, I'm going to put on my American hat here, which I actually am wearing. It's a true Red Wings hat. And say, I think I know how Americans pronounced his name. And it was Victor Maghackian. Macahecian. If I was the guess.

If I was, because he is also from the Midwest. He's from Chicago. I think it should be pronounced Marakian. He pronounced Mahakian. Well, you know. I also say Kasabian. Well, Armenians say my surname is actually Kasavian. Yeah, because, I mean, it's using the wrong Armenian, you know, the Western Armenian.

He is also Western Armenian. So once again... Just using the wrong Armenian one case. Western Armenian excellence. And he's a Western Armenian from the Midwest, from Chicago, just like me, Midwest champion. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Western Armenian also doesn't exist, so... I will revisit that statement in about 10 years, see how Eastern Armenia is doing.

Eastern Armenia is still there somehow. It's hanging in there. So take that Glendale, take that watertown. We're talking Midwest Armenian-American excellence. Oh, hell yeah. It's our time to shine. And he was born in December 1915 in Chicago, just a few months before the beginning of the Armenian genocide. His parents had previously fled the Ottoman Empire because they had survived the Hamidian pogroms.

Yeah, because, you know, like there's always some people who get the kind of clue. first time things go wrong, you know, like kind of the first time you get genocided, you kind of get the idea, you're like, this is not trending towards the positive outcome. So you leave. So that they got lucky. I don't like our odds the second time around. Yeah, yeah. You want to guess how big this family is? Okay, let me guess. So they fled the Hermitian genocide. So assuming not their entire family perhaps survive. Just mom and dad. And they probably had, I don't know, fucking 18 kids or something. Seven. Seven. Okay. Well, you know, room to grow. I like that his parents are personally trying to repopulate our villages. So shout out to that. Victor's father worked in a steel factory because this is an era of Midwesterners who had jobs. Sounds like an Asian district.

It really is. It's 1915. Not a lot of workers' rights about almost the same, actually, between 1915 and 2025 in the United States. And it meant that he worked 12 to 16 hours a day. He's almost never at home. And if you're from the Midwest, you could have like the factory worker who's at work all the time, or you could be like me whose dad was never at home, but also did not have a job. Great. Get the best of both worlds, baby. And because they had so many kids, Victor's mother also worked, which was the first time that she had done that. Obviously, this was not normal for a village woman before. But this left.

caring for the other kids, largely up to Victor, because he was the oldest. So this is what year? 1915. He was born in 1915. So in 20th, America. Yeah. So by 1920, he's solidly in charge of the family. Like, watch the kids while we go to work.

So this is when people also just got like human rights and stuff. We're talking about work rights. Well. Debatable. Okay. You have to remember this is also an era where Armenians are not legally white in the United States yet. Yeah.

And do you know, that's a crime. to not be legally white in the United States. So you'll find that your rights are quite fungible. Yeah. And I know as someone who had a big brother, I have a feeling that caring for his siblings mostly just meant Victor beat the shit out of them. Oh, hell yeah. You should never.

Like, I had to take care of my brother maybe just a couple of days and, you know, here and there. And it did not go well for him. I had two older siblings. We're all three years apart, almost like that was planned, but none of us were. And I have a sister who's six years older than me and a brother who's three years older than me. And obviously at first, the labor of caring for all of us fell to my sister because mom had to work, how are many jobs. And my sister took care of us in the best way a big sibling can, which is just ignoring our existence. She went to her bedroom and only came outside when one of us screamed very loudly in pain.

And that means it was to left to my brother who just smacked me around a lot. I used to beat up my brother, and then, like, he was also quite a corruptible kid. So I used to just bribe him with candy. Yeah. So he, you know, doesn't tell on me. Always worked. Yeah, I also had a price. It was mostly candy and or Pokemon based.

Jenny, my older sister, would be like, look, don't tell mom what happened. It would, like, slid me $5. I'm like, all right, crumbled up and put it my title. So I guess that's what Victor was doing. Just submitting to shit out of his siblings. By 1930, Victor and his family betrayed all that they knew. They sold out all of their morals and ethics, and they moved to Fresno, California. I'm like...

They moved to a place called, surprise, surprise, old Armenia town. So they moved to Fresno because obviously a lot of Armenians lived in Fresno and a lot of Armenians live in Fresno today. William Saroyan. Yeah. That would actually be the Mahakian family's neighbor. Oh, well, that's nice. And there's a reason why all Armenians lived in Fresno at the time. And this is probably a lot of things from old-timey racist America

that a lot of outsiders are not familiar with. And they were all completely legal. This is a process known as racial confidence. I don't know if you've ever heard of this. Well, I'm assuming it's, you know, if you're like slightly off white, you have a special zone to live in. Not legally. But what happened was as a legal clause was written in.

property deeds who would restrict who the owner of that property could sell to or rent to. Normally, this was used in the grand scope of America against black Americans. But in the case of California, and to a lesser extent, Massachusetts, this is also deployed against Armenians, Mexicans, Hispanics, Asians, to make white dominated neighborhoods and to keep out racial minorities. Another system in places called redlining where financial resources were restricted from those specific neighborhoods because when you create what is effectively racial ghettos, they become, you know, they make less money, they get less taxes spent on them from the government, you get less of a tax base, maybe crime starts to rise because people are desperate and they need money. So banks can be like, ah, well, you live in that neighborhood. I'm not giving you alone.

Yeah, exactly. So that's like Russia today, exactly, because in today's Russia, I mean, this has been going on forever, obviously, but there's this saying, which is true, like, it's really happening in real life when renters would be like, we're renting only to Slavs. So when we had like this big influx of Russians into the Caucasus effectively, like they put up signs mocking them saying renting only to like, you know, Caucasians, but like people from Caucasus. So like rent is not available for the Slavs. But like this is a real thing that is still happening, but obviously not in the way that you, you've described. But yeah. I don't remember how

many Russian Armenians who moved to Armenia after the war started said that they were, they would be like looking for an apartment. And it would effectively say no blank. It was a slur in Russian that effect when no Caucasians can apply. Yeah. And if I remember correctly, it roughly translates to black ass or something like that. Yeah. I mean, it would have. I don't necessarily. I don't speak Russian. Okay, it's like Slaviansky in which means Slavic appearance, which means Slavs effectively. So that excludes everybody else and there's like lots of stories when like people would

call and speak like perfect Russian, you know, the whole lives. Yeah, they are Russian. Yeah, they're all Russian. I mean, it's not their fault. Russia was like, Vladig Afghaz, Russia today, you know? And they would call to these places and then they were like, okay, what's your name? and it's like, okay, now I have to say my name, for example, you know, something that Jamshut doesn't sound very Russian. So now I have to, you know, like I lose my opportunity

to rent an apartment. Or you're Armenian or Georgian or even like Tatar or something. Oh, they're absolutely racist because there was unfortunately a time that we lived in Russia for a little bit. And I was at that time, the second time, we were there. I was maybe six, seven years old. I do remember there was this woman who is renting to us and she would come to check like every week and she was so gross that she would put on her shoes using a spoon effectively, you know, as something, you know, to just help you to get your feet in there.

Like I vividly remember this. And I'm like, you are so gross and you're checking on us. Like this is unbelievable. Just coming around here to make sure you Armenians aren't seasoning any of that meat product I've heard so much about. Exactly.