Wont go into that. I was lucky enough to be able to interview several of those veterans. Pretty remarkable bunch. They were started by arnold, some of you may have heard of him, at the behest of franklin roosevelt, who was requested by the guy named church hill. Winston i think was his first name. There were some flyers out there, i dont know if you all got any. If you didnt, i dont know what to tell you. I dont have any more. But it tells you about this book, project nine, both of the air commandos in world war ii. Propublished by the university f any soury press, and let me point out to you that if you call this number or order online from the university of Missouri Press and give them the secret code of afs 14, afs 14, youll get 20 discount. Thats six bucks. Okay. So let us begin. For those of you who are really sharp eyes, you might take a look at that numeral one. What can i say . These guys were young guys a long way from home. Im not going to say anything else. There were three
His time during the war, he said i would lie down on my cot at night and i had a 45 automatic under each side of my pillow in case the japanese called in at night to attack us. And then finally, one marine grunt on one of the islands told this story. He said im a roman catholic, ive been to Holy Communion and all kinds of environments and places in this war but he said i was in the most singular one ive ever seen. He said, i heard that over in the clearing there was going to be a mass said and we could receive communion and he said i went over and he said the priest had his communion set out on top of a flat rock with a piece of wood holding it up at a level place and leaning next his was his flag that showed it was a christian flag showing were having a service. But he said leaning next to that was an m1 car m1 rifle. And he said, i said, whats with this rifle. He said, oh, well im not a combatant, but we are allowed to have weapons to kill snakes. The marine said, i wonder how he def
Because most protestants in germany were lutherans and one who was roman catholic. So he called upon two highly decorated, highlyrespected men who were fluent in german. Henry garriky was a missouri lutheran who grew up in southern missouri and had been in a germanspeaking family. There was a chaplain priest. He agreed to stay behind and so did henry. They decided to stay behind and minister to these guys that were on trial. Four of them would be acquitted. 11 ultimately were lynched. The others were given long prison terms. It never occurred to me what the two chaplains had to go through. Many of the american soldiers, including highranking officers said, we shouldnt give these nazis any comfort. They shouldnt have our chaplains. We dont want them to stay there. There was great pressure on these two men not to say. Oconnor was a priest. Catholic priest, he didnt have a family back home waiting for him, a wife and children. But henry had a wife and three sons that he hadnt seen for oth
Said to him, i died for all men and women, i want you to tell them what ive done for them and give them an opportunity to come unto me. Chaplain oconnor said very little about what the men that he worked with said or went through. He had a very high view of the stole and the fact that confession and discussion shouldnt be told. Garriky didnt say a whole lot. He said enough to say this. He said three or four of the men gave their lives to jesus christ and went and went and prayed for days on end seeking forgiveness for their sins. And he said i assured them he is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrye chestness. They went back to the states, lived out their careers and their lives with peace in their hearts that they had done the right thing given biblical guidelines. I tell you, a lot of people in the United States never for gave them. They got hate mail over the years for what theyd done. With that, ill wrap up and say nothing is simple, things are difficult,
They came to be and what they did, and at the same time, i will give you some excerpts from the book, just enough to give you some flavor of this rather unusual bunch of american veterans. Then i will ask a few of these veterans to join me on the stage, and i will introduce them at that time. I will ask them a few questions to jumpstart the conversation, but at some point, i will just turn it over to you all and let you have a conversation with these pretty incredible guys. This book, project 9, is a result of a lot of research from around the country, and i will not go into that. But i was lucky enough to be able to interview several of the remaining veterans from that campaign of so long ago in burma. Pretty remarkable bunch. They were started by a guy named cap arnold happ arnold. Some of you may have heard of him. It was requested by a guy named churchill. Winston, i think, was his first name. Let me take you through some of these photos, and we will see what happens. I think i rem