The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Love, Norm: Inspiration of a Jewish American Fighter Pilot (Modern Jewish History) by Norman M. Shulman

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

Love, Norm: Inspiration of a Jewish American Fighter Pilot (Modern Jewish History) by Norman M. Shulman Amazon.com Lovenormmemoir.com Norm Shulman’s relationship with his stepson Greg Levenson had always been stable and warm, but it altered when Greg decided to enlist in the Air Force at age 27. This unexpected decision brought them even closer together, and Norm came to realize that his whole family history had much support to offer Greg. Cognizant of past anti-Semitic stereotypes persisting about Jewish participation in the military, Norm wanted to help prepare Greg to feel comfortable in his own identity. So, Norm decided to write letters that connected Greg to the many Jewish military heroes who had preceded him. From Judah Maccabee to fighter pilots from today’s recent history, these profiles in courage and heroism brought Greg foundation and strength, and they offer readers a breadth of knowledge from every corner of Jewish history. Norm’s letters to Greg make up one core of Love, Norm; the other is Norm’s own multigenerational story of Jewish military heroes. As the son of Jewish immigrants whose place in America was hard-won, Norm chronicles what it was like to feel his identity pulled in different directions and how to hold fast to it nonetheless. Love, Norm is a multifaceted retelling of inspirational profiles of famous Jewish fighters from across history, and it is also the singular story of how one man dug into his own past and found pieces to preserve his Jewish identity. Together, empathetically channeled through his heartfelt letters and remembrances, Love, Norm shares a collected wisdom with the next generation.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

I don't know. Maybe I should have her do the podcast. The Iron Lady, she's got such a beautiful operatic voice. Maybe she can sing the whole podcast. Today, welcome to the show, my family and friends, for over 2,100 episodes. We're going on 2,200 actually now. And over 16 going on 17 years as a podcast. Because, you know, we had nothing better to do all day long except bring inspirational people.

People who share their journeys, their stories of life, as we call them, the Owner's Manual to Life, the stories. And they share them with you to let you know you're not alone and let you know that there's resources out there and people that have solved maybe some of the jams you run into and stuff. And they can help you inspire and motivate your life. Today we have another wonderful young gentleman on the show with us. Dr. Norman M. Schulman is with us.

He has written the latest book that just came out July 27, 2022. It's called Love, Norm! Inspiration of a Jewish American Fighter Pilot. And it gets into some modern Jewish history there as well. So we're going to're talking about his insights and all that good stuff in looking at his experience in life journey he's going to be sharing much of that with us in what he's done and how he's doing it he was born and raised in syracuse new york and he is a psychologist who has treated and improved the lives of patients over 50 years i told you he was young He has a lifelong interest in history, particularly in that of Jewish faith,

and he and his wife live in Lubbock, Texas. That's a very popular place. We have a lot of people from there. Captain Greg Glick Levinson is a combat-decorated F-16 pilot who protected coalition forces during Operation Iraq Freedom. Welcome to the show. How are you, sir? I'm good. Thank you for having me, Chris.

Thanks for coming. We really appreciate having you. Give us your dot coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? Lovenormmemoir.com is my webpage. And give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside the book and what it's about? In 2004, my stepson unexpectedly announced that he was going to leave his job and enter the Air Force to become an F-16 pilot. And we were very surprised. And he was accepted into this pilot training program, shortly after which we had a phone call when he mentioned that he thought that he was the only person of Jewish faith on the base of over 900 men and women at

Vance Air Force Base in Indiana, Oklahoma. And it inspired me to think of a way to tie him to his roots so he wouldn't feel so isolated. So i began writing a series of letters over the over the course of the next year and at the end of each letter i added these characters from jewish military history as a means of inspiration almost kind of you know when seneca was writing his friends and that made a great book there you've got a you've got a wonderful book of inspiration and i believe it gets into some of the history of Jewish military history and helps him understand the militaries of not just the United States, but I wanted to make it a book of international character, so Greg would feel even more connected to his Jewish roots.

So I've got the characters, Jewish characters from Britain and Russia, and any country where there was a military was a person of military significance. I came up with 113 characters, and one of the criteria, the main criteria, was that we tried to avoid combat and avoid military service altogether, which I wanted to combat. The book evolved from just trying to help Greg to trying to explode certain myths that have followed Jewish people throughout history. I was listening to Sam Harris recently, and he had a wonderful historian on, and the historian, am I pronouncing historian right? I seem like I'm giving it a

her story. What am I doing? I'm clearly slurring my words at this point, but that's probably a sign. It was Sam Harris, and he had a gentleman on, and they talk about history repeating itself and I'm trying to get the name so I can have this right here Simon Sabag Montefiore I believe I'm probably butchering that name he had a book called he has a lot of books on history but they talk about the Jewish history and where some of those I mentioned them earlier some, some of the misconceptions, some of the anti-Semitism of Jews come from and some of the history over eons of time, you know, Ottoman Empire and even before that. And, you know, the battles between, you know, peoples and all that sort of stuff.

So I imagine there's a lot of that going on. It was kind of interesting to hear some of the roots of it from the Sam Harris podcast. But I know that the Jewish people, the people in Israel, you know, everybody has to go in the military. And so they kind of do have a big military history, I'm sure. Yeah, people somehow discriminate between pre-Israel and post-Israeli Jews. There was a TV show on about 20 years ago called Oz. It was about a life in a penitentiary. And there's a scene where these two guys are talking about this murder that took place, and it happened to be a Jewish victim. And one guy says to the other thought i thought all jews were were tough and the other

guy said you know only the only since israel was formed before that there was a different impression of this but when we had control of our own country and our own military the tables got turned yeah most definitely and then is it interweaved with the stories from your life or is some of the inspiration you spread what are some of the other aspects of it other than just i was asked to to make it a make it personal and uh and make it into a memoir and connect as much as i could of my own life to some of the characters. I mean, many of the characters were living during my lifetime. My father, for example, was a World War I veteran, a draftee. I had three maternal uncles who served, one of which received a Brown Star. Greg's father or grandfather was a navigator on the C-47.

His grandmother, who was not Jewish, was in the First Regiment of Waves in World War II. She took the place of one of the women who took the place of men at the front. So I could draw from my own experiences by knowing these people, not just from a textbook. Yeah. So, in helping know the history, I mean, there's one thing that, this is a quote from me, the one thing man can learn from his history is that man never learns from his history, and thereby we go round and round. And so, it's really important to study history and understand, you know, where we come from

and what we're about, because sometimes the mistakes we make in the future are mistakes that have been repeated, and we're like, we should be able to look back and go, we shouldn't do that again. But, you know, we are human and we're fallible and it's kind of our thing we do. I certainly took that into consideration when I read about some of the more difficult events that Jews had to go through. Darrell Bock Mm-hmm.

Tell us about, a little bit about yourself. What was your journey through life? What got you down these roads, made you become a doctor, and eventually write the book? Richard Averbeck I'm a psychologist, but I like to write as a hobby. I've got 20-some publications, chapters and articles, half of which are just human interest stories. And when I got this, when I was inspired to write the book, I could fall back on what I've learned over the years. And I actually applied some psychological principles to to the body of the book for example the power

of letter writing which is becoming a lost art yeah yeah i i people ask me to write stuff or you know i can barely do an autograph for a book and people look at the autograph and go what the fuck did you write there is that really your signature i get accused of being a doctor with my with my writing all the time they're like are you a doctor i'm like no but i guess i should be because i have the writing for it but i can't stand blood so that's a different thing well i can't yeah i'm not crazy about it either that's why i'm a psychologist i mean that's what i probably should have went i probably should have went and been a psychologist i've been single all my life dating so i technically am a psychologist at this point, I think.

That's right. All the cry stories I've heard. But that's another story. So what do you hope people come away from when they read the book? I want them to take their children's desires and grandchildren's desires seriously, even if it's something that's ridiculously difficult. For example, if a kid is interested in the arts or wants to do something like fly a fighter, which is extremely difficult, to take them seriously, because you don't have to talk about backup plans or any of that.

You believe in your kid, and if life prevents them from making it, it won't be you who did it. That's true. And they won't be able to push back on you. It'll be the fact that they tried to do something extraordinary. Plus, it seems like anything you tell kids not to do nowadays, they'll do that. So, yeah, if you avoid. It'll just alienate you from the kid if it's a real passion. That's true.

Greg was always passionate about flying. He was flying privately at 17, which made it easy to keep him in line because the FAA is an intolerant organization. So he knew in order to keep flying and keep this dream alive, which we didn't really know about until his early 20s, he had to fly in the straight and narrow. Yeah. I mean, they don't let just anybody into these places, right? No. I mean, they don't let just anybody into these places, right? No, I read somewhere it was less than 10% of the applicants are accepted for a single or double-seat fighters. Yeah, I mean, you've got to have, you know, I probably could never be a pilot because of my eyesight. I have one bad eye that has keratoconus in it and bad back and everything else.

They're never going to call me up to war unless they're really desperate. They're like, this is one broken down jalopy we got here. And then anytime I play Call of Duty and it's the hard mode where you can friendly fire, I end up killing lots of my friends. So they're never going to let me in the military. But, you know, I mean, when you're young and if you've got the you know the gumption to do it i mean i meant we've had a lot of air force folks on the on the show we have a lot military i shouldn't i isolate that that we've had military people from all branches and we're very proud of their

service and what they do for this country in protecting democracy and freedom yes and you know i've seen the changes that it's made on their lives. One of the great things I love talking about military people with is leadership and self-actualization and building of character. And our military, unlike any other military in the world, builds great leaders and great people and you see the difference like in the the ukraine war with russia and you see how russia fails so hard with their military structure and and and their ethics you know they don't even recover the bodies right you know it sends a message and so you you you ever since that war started i've really kind of identified and you know we've talked to so many military people on the show about how good we are at doing that and you know they go most of them go on to being

incredible leaders speakers book writers you know i mean the first if you're looking at someone from the military versus someone who's not in a job hire hire the person for the military they have discipline they've been trained and they're used to running billions of dollars worth of equipment yeah yeah they're entrusted with billions of dollars of equipment not to break it that's probably a good idea i think when greg was flying he told me that his fighter would cost 33 million yeah yeah i mean this guy got trusted with a 33 million r jet you can probably probably trust him with that Windows laptop or whatever. He's very patriotic and very trustworthy, I can assure you. And most of these guys are. I mean, they love to support a country.

They love what they do. And yeah, without them, we'd be a mess if you really understand history, which sadly a lot of people don't seem to this today. But this is probably why it's important for your book is to explain the history of of where we're at now yes so you know i want to emphasize that it's really it's a jewish story in a way but it's a universal story in the sense that any parent can benefit from finding certain ways to inspire their children and these letters i had no idea if they would work or how he'd take it but he told me that he he used to save two or three over a period of

weeks then if he had a very difficult assignment he would read these letters right before he went out on to the flight line that encouraged me to keep writing these letters yeah plus a connection from home you know when you're out for the first oh absolutely yeah i can't emphasize enough how important it is when you you know actually sit down write in your own handwriting something intimate and and strengthening for kids or adults if they're going through a tough time. Letters are special. Yeah, and I love how the title of the book is Love, Norm, which is probably how those letters ended.

That's how I signed it. Again, I wasn't thinking about making the book when I was writing the letters. That happened years later when a relative who was working at the Oklahoma University Press gave me a green light on the idea. But this was much later. And now it's in book form. People can read it. People can share it.

Maybe those people that are out there that they have maybe children in the military, it might be a good help for them. I think my mom used to write my brother when he was in the Marines and send letters and cookies. You can't just call them up, especially if they're in a theater of war. Hey, how's it going? I'm in a foxhole, and I got 20 people shooting at me, but how's your day going? When Greg was in combat, we were in communicado. And actually, the letters I kept writing, he really didn't get to them until after he got back because it took so long to get there.

But it sure was nice that maybe he could take some of those into the field. And when you're in communicado, you can't call, you can't text anybody, you can't watch TikToks. You know, you've got that to fall back on. You know, we talk about it on the show. You know, the one thing about the human condition is, you know, realize that we're not alone, that we're still here for each other, that we're still together. And so having those moments or resources can really help. Yes, sir. Yeah, we're not, they're not alone today, and they're not alone historically either. They're at the end point of where we are historically. Like I said, Gregor, the last

of 113 people I put on this pyramid that was part of the Star of David that started at the American Revolution. And I worked my way up through every major conflict. I found Jewish characters from every major conflict, including the Alamo, the Indian Wars. Yeah, it was fascinating. Spanish-American war. Every conflict, there was somebody of note. Wow. You know, I mean, the Jewish people, I mean, there was Jewish armies and stuff back in the, I don't know, B.C. days or post-B.C. days, I think.

Yeah, I didn't go back that far. I went back to the holiday of Hanukkah is based on a military conflict that was successfully led by Judah the Maccabee. And he provides the underpinning of the entire pyramid that I constructed, which was part of a Jewish star. He's at the base of it. He led a successful revolt against Syrian Greeks at the time. They were trying to influence Jews to abandon their faith and assimilate, and he was heading the resistance against that. So I started with him. Darrell Bock You know, there's a large story to history

in defending your country, patriotism, all that sort of good stuff. It can make all the difference. So as we go out, final thoughts you want to tell people? Where can they find out more? I know you have a great website on the thing there. I've got a second edition that just came out. As a result of the first book, stories started flooding in that i started documenting and my editor said you know you keep going with this and we can integrate these stories in with the main body of the first book so that came out just on november 5th and it's available on amazon audible on an ebook format and hard and soft cover up as published by texas tech press awesome awesome and

now everyone knows any future books maybe you might be working on or projects you want to plug okay i'm finishing up a book that's i thought i needed to do something in my field more than to talk about letter writing so i've got a book that, again, it's a myth buster of sorts. The myths that people have that prevent them from getting necessary mental health care. Myths about mental health professionals and psychology. So I decided to do a primer, in a sense, for people who know nothing about that as a way of breaking down barriers that prevent them getting proper health care. Ah, that should be good. There's a lot of discussion in health care right now.

Unfortunately, there was a gentleman who was slain in New York who was a health care executive, and people are talking about issues. That's right. That's absolutely right. UnitedHealthcare. And, you know, we shouldn't celebrate someone being murdered in cold blood over something. They have family and children. But, you know, maybe the conversation is late. You know, it's funny to me that people choose these things to get upset about, but they don't really follow up on them. You know, they just, I'm upset for 24 hours about this, and then they forget about them.

Yeah, like with the news cycle. Yeah. And I think people are either tuned in or tuned out by that. And so they just, you know, they'll pound the desk today over, you know, whatever the meme is on social media, and then they'll forget about it tomorrow. And then they'll forget about it in the voting booth, too. And then, you know, worse than that. That's right, sir. Yes.

They don't hold politicians accountable. they don't hold accountants or politicians accountable like they don't hold accountants politicians whatever it's friday people what are we doing anyway thank you very much for coming the show norman we really appreciate it and what a heartfelt story and journey we need to do more letter writing to each other there's a skill i think i i think i heard someone on a podcast once it might have been sam harris there's a lot of sam harris going on today do we owe him a check actually we pay for his podcast but he they talked about how writing letters and using you know script and stuff is actually a good activity for the brain you know to keep it sharp and active which may explain

social media at this point. I don't know. Anyway, thank you very much, Norm, for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Hey, Chris, thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate it. Thank you. And thanks to our audience for tuning in. Order the book where refined books are sold out July 27, 2022.

Love, Norm. Inspiration of a Jewish-American fighter pilot, modern Jewish history. There's also a book called Love, Norm, and I think it's the guy from Cheers, isn't it? The big guy? Love, Norm? That's probably a different story there. A little bit different.

Probably a story about beer drinking. Anyway, thank you very much, Norman. Thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com for just Christmas. LinkedIn.com for just Christmas. And all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe, or else don't make me come back internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe or else

don't make me come back there. Be good to each other. We'll see you next time. Thank you so much.