Like listening to the MOTH Radio Hour

Karnig Thomasian

   Recently, I was interviewed on the radio on WNPR. The producer asked me to send some audio clips to give an idea of some of the interviews I've done. I put together a set of ten clips, although only four were used on the air due to my propensity to talk a little more than I should (it was an interview, after all).
   However, although it was difficult to choose a set of ten relatively brief clips, the ones I selected, and many that I didn't, reminded me just how powerful these voices, and the stories they tell, are. As I listened to them, I thought I could just as easily be listening to the MOTH Radio Hour, a popular storytelling program that has recognized and promoted the entertainment value of storytelling, sharing the stories not only of comedians and entertainers, but of ordinary people as well.
   Following are the ten audio clips I sent the radio station, with a little commentary on each (note: because these were recorded at different volume levels, you may have to adjust the volume up or down on some of the clips):

 Karnig Thomasian

 1) Karnig, who lives in River Edge, N.J., was a prisoner of war of the Japanese after bailing out of a B-29 that exploded. In this short excerpt, in which he describes the plane carrying him home, he shifts from tears to laughter in a matter of moments. (Karnig's full interview is included in the collection titled "POW! Right in the Keister" in my eBay store.)

Dan Diel

 2) Dan Diel. Dan was a lieutenant in my father's tank battalion. The war made philosophers of some of its veterans. In this excerpt he describes a sentiment that was almost universal among combat veterans: fatalism, aka if a bullet has your name on it, there's nothing you can do. (Every time I cross the street, I'm thankful my father didn't name me Peterbilt). (Dan's full interview is included in "The Tanker Tapes" in my eBay store.)

 Ed Boccafogli

3 Ed Boccafogli. Ed was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. In this excerpt, he describes the moment he was wounded at Baupte, France. One aspect of many of the interviews I've done is the veteran's recreation of sound effects. This always blows me away when I'm listening to it. (Ed's full interview is included in "The D-Day Tapes" in my eBay store but can also be downloaded for free from the home page of tankbooks.com

 

Sam Cropanese 

 4) Sam Cropanese. Ditto the above. Brace yourself for Sam's description of a shell hitting a tank. Sam was a Pfc. in my dad's tank battalion. (Sam's interview is included in "The Tanker Tapes")

George Bussell

5) George Bussell. George was a tank driver. This excerpt shows the lighter side of the war, in which he describes going to Paris on a three-day pass with five hundred dollars and returns with 75 cents. Maybe I shouldn't have, but for the radio I edited out his descriptions of Piccadilly and Pigalle. (George Bussell's interview is included in both "The Tanker Tapes" and "The Men Who Drove the Tanks," both of which are available in my eBay store.)

John Sweren 

6) John Sweren. John was a prisoner of war who endured the grueling 700 mile march across Germany near the end of the war in Europe so that the prisoners could be surrendered to the Americans and not the Russians, who would have executed all the guards. Get out a handkerchief for this one. (John's interview is included in "March Madness" in my eBay store. A transcript of the interview is available from Amazon.com in the book "Merry Christmas in July.")

 Arnold Brown

7) Arnold Brown. I need to re-edit the original on this now that I know a little about noise reduction; this was one of my first and favorite interviews but I rarely promote it until it's re-done. This is a very short excerpt but is pretty powerful in its statement. (This interview will be available on audio cd soon. A transcript of Arnold's interview is in my book 9 Lives)

Kay Brainard Hutchins

 8) Kay Hutchins. I realized I ought to include at least one of the women I've interviewed. Most of them were widows or siblings of men who were killed, and as such would be more appropriate for Memorial Day. Kay's brother Newell was killed but he and another brother were both missing in action, so Kay joined the Red Cross, hoping she would be in England and closer to them when they were liberated. Incidentally, her maiden name was Brainard and she was originally from Hartford but her family moved to Florida when she was young. (Kay Hutchins' interview is included in "The Kassel Cassettes" and is also included in my book 9 Lives)

 Patsy J. Giacchi

9) Pfc. Patsy J. Giacchi. This excerpt is a bit long, I whittled it down to about five minutes. It's one of my most popular tracks and for good reason. Patsy was a survivor of Exercise Tiger, a pre-D-Day landing exercise in which two fully loaded landing ships were torpedoed and sunk. Patsy was a little excitable, and his entire tape sounds like the actor Joe Pesci on steroids. (Patsy Giacchi's audio CD is included in "The D-Day Tapes" and his story is included in 9 Lives)

 Dale Albee

10) Dale Albee. Many veterans went into schools to talk to students. Dale was a sergeant in the horse cavalry who was promoted to lieutenant on the battlefield with my father's tank battalion.  (Dale's interview is included in "The Tanker Tapes.)

The Accidental Conspiracy Theorist

A scene from The Twilight Zone, "The Purple Testament"

   I should have known better than to reference The Twilight Zone in the introduction to my new two-CD audiobook "Premonitions, Visions, Nightmares and Other Unexplained Circumstances." Of course I remembered the episode about a World War II soldier who can look into another soldier's face and tell if that soldier is going to be killed, what could be wrong with mentioning that? YouTube, that's what.

   So I go to YouTube and do my due diligence, typing Twilight Zone and World War II into their search thingie and before you can say Clem Kadiddlehopper I learned not only that I was looking for Episode 19 but that it was titled The Purple Testament.

   Naturally, I thought I'd watch the few minutes of it that were available on YouTube. The first segment I watched was either in Spanish or Portuguese, it was posted by a Brazilian so it was probably the latter, and even though I didn't understand a word, the music was sufficiently creepy to get the show's message across. Then I found pretty much the same footage in English and watched that.

   But was I finished? Nooooo. There was a picture from Episode 19 with the title "Was Kennedy's Death Predicted in Hollywood?" Click. The video begins with a line of text saying that we all know that Sept. 11 was predicted, superimposed over a scene of Homer Simpson looking at a tourist flier that says New York and a big dollar sign followed by the number 9, and just to the right of the number 9 are the twin towers so that it looks like 9 11. What? You have an argument with that? How about a screen shot from a 1993 Mario Bros. game showing smoke rising from the Twin Towers?

   And then the question: Did Hollywood predict the death of John F. Kennedy. The soldier who could see the strange light in the faces of those about to die was named Lieutenant Fitzgerald. John F. Kennedy was a lieutenant in World War II and his middle name was Fitzgerald. Of course the conspiracy theorist who uncovered this misspelled his name as Frizgerald, but we all know that JFK was not John Frizgerald Kennedy, why let a typographical error get in the way of a good conspiracy?

   Needless to say, there are eight minutes and 48 seconds of items like "This soldier's name was Freeman ... Orville Freeman nominated Kennedy for President."

   Oh. Did I mention that the video begins with a photo of a sign painted on a highway overpass that says: "Caution 9' 11" "

   Which brings me to my newest double audio CD, which will be available shortly in my eBay store. Here are some excerpts:

 

Dan Diel

 

 

Lou Putnoky

 

 

Patsy Giacchi

  

A tragic sense of deja vu

Christina Taylor Green

   I was terribly upset by the story of the young aspiring sportscaster who was killed in the Aurora, Colo., Dark Knight Rises massacre, and at the same time had a strong sense of deja vu. There was a similar tragic coincidence, but where?

  Then I found it. Nine year old Christina Green, who died in the Gabby Giffords shooting in Arizona, was born on 9/11.

   I tried to think if there were anything in my oral histories of a similar nature. I received an email once many years ago from the son of a member of the battalion who was killed near the end of the war, and he said his father had been on the USS West Virginia when Pearl Harbor was attacked, later transferring to the Army. But when I looked at a roster of the West Virginia that seemed to have the name of every sailor who served on it, I couldn't find the fellow's name, so I won't mention it here.

   I did, however, find one interesting item from my interviews. Dan Diel, a sergeant who received one of the battalion's 14 battlefield commissions, mentioned that when he was in the horse cavalry in 1941, they trained in San Ysidro, California. And he asked me if I knew what San Ysidro was famous for.

   Ironically, or perhaps coincidentally, perhaps even by design, the McDonald's massacre took place on July 18, 1984, the anniversary falling barely a day before the Dark Knight Rises killings. At first I thought San Ysidro was the first such massacre, but then I remembered Charles Whitman and the Texas tower shooting, which took place in 1966.

    Here is a portion of my interview with Dan Diel, in which he mentions San Ysidro:

Dan Diel

   We didn't necessarily get THE first, but we got amongst the first draftees of the war, in February of '41. We had guys that were sent back to some of the big cities like Chicago or Milwaukee, or Cleveland or New York, and escorted these guys back to the cavalry in California. At the time that they came in, I was going to horseshoeing school, and was working in the stable gang and learning to become a horseshoer.
   Later, I was in a machine gun troop. We had the old water-cooled heavy 30-caliber machine guns and we had an area where we set up and stayed there, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for two weeks. It was right outside of San Ysidro. I don't know if that name brings up anything to you or not. That's where the McDonald's was that had the big massacre several years ago and they tore the building down and they made a monument. That's where we were stationed. The border patrol would come along and pick up a couple of us and take us into the high school to take showers.
   They were getting us ready, theoretically they were going to ship us to the South Pacific, and we were being issued new equipment and being inoculated for different things, and the yellow jaundice came from yellow fever shots. I don’t know how many of them got sick, whether it was half of the regiment, there was a huge number, and if you went on sick call they told you, "Go back and just take it easy and eat light foods, salads and stuff," and that's about as stupid as you can answer somebody when you eat what they put out in the mess hall and you've got no choice.
   But we had one man that died from the yellow jaundice, his name was Lemke. I can't remember his first name. And there were a lot of others that were sick. I was sick for a few days from it, but it wasn't anything life-threatening, it was just that you were uncomfortable as hell.
   But I don't remember how many of them in the regiment that was bad enough to be hospitalized or anything, I just remember that this one guy that was in our troop that died.

The San Ysidro Monument

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