Medal Of Honor Monday featuring U.S. Special Forces Vietnam War vet Captain Roger H.C. Donlin...A history lesson on Italy in World War 1

going back in time. We're gonna learn about history. We're gonna walk away from politics in the stock market and the tariffs and the left, and I'm done with all of it. But before we get into history, we're going to do what we always do on Monday at this time, Medal of Honor Monday. All we do is we take a citation and Medal of Honor citation and we read it.

Celebrate a hero, remember his name, remember his deeds. I want to once again encourage you that you can and probably should do this in your own life, not like I do anything here. I'm not doing anything. You can read citations with your family. If you're a teacher, kids love it, love it. It's heroic, it's awesome. If you're a coach, whatever, it's worth looking at. It's like it's like reading a it's like reading a movie. It's what it's like half the time. Yeah, good point, Chris Scout Leader,

boy Scout leader. Something like that. Kids eat that stuff up. And yes, we take emails, love, hate, death threats. Ask doctor Jesse questions or Medal of Honor citations you love or have some sort of a relation to, like this one. Mister Kelly, A friend just mentioned your to me your show Medal of Honor Monday? Does your show cover just living Medal of Honor recipients? My uncle, Colonel Roger Donlan was at All of Honor recipient. He passed away in

January twenty twenty four. Dang, just last year. Maybe you already had a show on his story. I think it's wonderful you have the show each week. It's important the public is kept aware of the sacrifices these men and all of our veterans have made for our nation. He said, God bless and so without further Ado, Roger H. C. Donlan was born in Saggarts, which is Ulster County, New York.

And I'm not one hundred percent sure I said Saggarty's Sagarty's right, so apologies to his birthplace, but nevertheless that's where he was from. Hey.

During the violent battle that ensued, lasting five hours and resulting in heavy casualties on both sides, Captain Donlin directed the defense operations in the midst of an enemy barrage of mortar shells, falling grenades in extremely heavy gunfire. Upon the initial onslaught, he swiftly marshaled his forces and ordered the removal of the needed ammunition from a blazing building. He then dashed through a hail of small arms and exploding hand grenades to abort a breach of the main gate.

En route to his position, he detected an enemy demolition team of three in the proximity of the main gate and quickly annihilated them. Although exposed to the intense grenade attack, he then succeeded in reaching a sixty millimeter mortar position, despite sustaining a severe stomach wound, as he was within

five yards of the gunpit. When he discovered that most of the men in this gunpit were also wounded, he completely disregarded his own injury, directed their withdrawal to a location thirty meters away, and again risked his life by remaining behind and covering the movement with the utmost effectiveness. Noting that his team sergeant was unable to evacuate the gunpit, he crawled toward him, and while dragging the fallen soldier out of the gunpit, an enemy mortar exploded and inflicted

a wound in Captain Donlan's left shoulder. How many about halfway done with this, by the way, although suffering from multiple wounds, he carried the abandoned sixty milimeter mortar to a new location thirty meters away, where he found three he wounded defenders. After administering first aid and encouragement to these men, he left the weapon with them, headed toward

another position and which retrieved a fifty seven millimeter recoilless rifle. Then, with great courage and coolness under fire, he returned to the abandoned gunpit, evacuated ammunition for the two weapons, and while crawling and dragging the urgently needed ammunition, received a third wound in his leg by an enemy hand grenade.

Despite his critical physical condition, he again crawled a one hundred and seventy five meters that's two football fields by the way to an eighty one millimeter mortar position and directed firing operations which protected the seriously threatened east sector

of the camp. He then moved to an eastern sixty milimeter mortar position, and, upon determining that the vicious enemy assault had weakened, crawled back to the gunpit with the sixty milimeters mortar set it up for defense, moved from position to position around the beleaguered perimeter while hurling hand grenades at the enemy and inspiring his men to superhuman effort. Good grief this guy, and he bravely continued to move

around the perimeter. Or as he bravely continued to move around the perimeter, a mortar shell exploded, wounding him in the face and body. So, by the way, for those keeping track, that's his shoulder, his stomach, his leg, now his face and the rest of his body. As the long daylight along away to daylight brought the defeat to the enemy forces and their retreat back to the jungle, leaving behind fifty four of their dead, many weapons in grenades.

Captain Donlan immediately reorganized his defenses and administered first aid to the wounded. His dynamic leadership, fortitude, and valiant efforts inspired not only the American personnel, but the friendly Vietnamese defenders as well, and resulted in the successful defense of the camp. Captain Donland's extraordinary heroism at the risk, above and beyond the call of duty are in the highest traditions of the US Army and reflect great credit upon

himself in the armed forces of this country. And I need to explain something to you real quick before we get on to the history, which is actually not going to be Vietnam. We're going clear back to World War One. Just the heads up. These camps, these special Forces camps, these are Green Beret camps. You'll hear a lot about them. And whenever you read a story or a Medal of Honor citation about a Special Forces camp of some kind,

what they usually were was this. They were more remote, not necessarily right next to some big, well defended army camp. They were more remote. The Green Berets were generally some of the only American troops in these camps. Because what the Green Berets were doing is really what the Green Bereys bread and butter is the Green Berets bread bread

and Butter is. They go into a country, they organize and train the forces of that country that are against what we consider to be the enemy in that country. So in this case, the North Vietnamese, the viet Cong, they had plenty of enemies inside Vietnam, guides like the Monton Yards, which were like a warrior like tribal people in Vietnam mountain, like really really cool people. Anyway, the Green Berets, the Special Forces of Vietnam, they would go in and in these camps they would bring in the

montag Yards. The Yards will call them that's what they called them. They would bring in the yards. They would constantly be training the yards, and then the yards oftentimes most of the time with the Green Berets would go out and do various operations wherever they may be operations. Sometimes it's just observing. Sometimes it's us match and grab, where you're kidnapping somebody and taking him in for interrogation.

But in these camps, what this guy was doing, Donlin, he probably was not dealing with a bunch of Green Berets. I just wanted to clarify that because when you say special Forces automatically, people assume that Don Than was there and he had one hundred Green Berets at his command, and that's why they were no no, no, no, no no. Now I don't know the exact number because I don't know this specific story that well, he might have had eight of them, ten of them, maybe not even that,

depending on the size of the camp. It's not like he had Tip of the Spear guys. Lots of these guys. Yeah, they were trained by Green Berets, but they were Vietnamese that we had trained up. That's why he's running around having to encourage everybody. Hey, let me get this on you. Hey you shoot there, Hey, you do this, and that they're working with lesser forces. I'll put it to you that way, lesser forces. All right, now, I have we've argued before, we've debated before. You email me and debate

it with me, and I love that. That's fine. I'm not I don't know everything. What was the worst place to be in the history of combat? What was it? Everyone has a great argument for it was that the war in the Pacific. A crusader or army stuck out in the desert without water. What is it? There's all kinds of debate. I will tell you, having finished my research for the story we're about to tell. I know I've made my choice. I found it. Let's talk about it. Next,

get to Cure for Rhinos. It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday. We just finished up Medal of Honor Monday Member. If you miss any part of the show, you can download the whole thing on I Heart iTunes. We will hopefully get back to some news next hour. No, I'll try to get back to the news next hour. But I want you to imagine something. I want you to imagine. You're a young man and you grew up on the family farm in Salerno, Italy. Okay, Salerno. I

don't expect you to know where that is. It's southern Italy, you know, Italy shaped like a boot. Everyone knows that it's more towards the lower end of it. It's south of Rome, south of Naples. And it's warmth. You grew up, like I said, in the fields, and all you know is the warmth. In fact, in the winter time it's seventy seven, seventy eight. Sometimes it gets pretty chilly at night,

close sixties, sixty three, sixty four. And this is not only how you've lived your life, it's how your father lived. This is the only life you've ever known. You're twenty years old, but your country is young, and you know that we'll get to that in a little bit. And your country is trying to figure out its borders, and you hear about this big war that has started, and you're wondering should you join, should you not join? Not really sure, you're afraid, but you want to see more

than just the farm. But you hesitate a little bit. Wait, let's see how things shake out. But one day a government man comes to your family farm with your name on a piece of paper and says, hey, you're joining. Congratulations, You've just been conscripted into the Italian Army. You're excited, you're scared. Your mom's crying. Your father shakes your hand, and you find yourself on a train heading up north and it's beautiful hills, mountains, but it is getting cold. Finally,

you find yourself in a valley. There's a river in front of you. It's freezing. The valley's beautiful, and in front of you is a mountain range and you're told that you have to go up that mountain and remove the men who are entrenched on top of the mountain, and they have machine guns pointing down at you. The mountain is covered with snow. You've actually never seen snow in your life. It's the first time for you. They start giving you clothing to try to make you warmer,

but your nose is still cold. It hurts when you breathe in. You and all your new found army buddies, you start up the slopes and your friends start dying in the worst possible ways. The very first day, it just missed you. You you heard what sounded like thunder coming from the top of the mountain. You looked up in time to see an avalanche sweep away one hundred men from your unit gone off the mountain, right off a cliff cliff. You went to sleep that night thinking

about their screams. The next morning you wake up and your toes are black. Then then the next morning you hear a shout, a warning, and you look up to see a gigantic steel ball rolling down the mountain side towards your unit, where it explodes and fifty of your friends, their body parts are blown all over you. You are in the worst in my opinion, you are officially in the worst battle conditions ever fought. This is the Italian campaign.

It's known as the Italian Campaign of World War One, and I have never read or consumed anything like it in my life. When I mentioned going into the break that it was going to be the worst battlefield conditions ever, Jewish producer Chris said, world War one, the trenches of World War one, no question, Western Front, world War one, And I myself have said, the same thing. Okay, so picture this. Trenches of World War One are what trenches

on each side? You got that the artillery, the misery, the rats, the disease, the gas, the everything that comes with World War One, the horrible no man's land. So picture that in your mind, the Western Front World War One. Okay, your trench there, trench, barbed wire, no man's land, gas, misery, death, all you got, all that? Okay, all right, I'll give you that. Now you're in your trench. You're picturing their trench, Chris, Okay, let's cover their trench with snow. Let's make their trench

about three thousand feet above your trench. And now do you think maybe that would be worse? The Italian campaign of World War One combines all the worst parts of the Western Front and somehow makes them worse. It adds in freezing cold, it adds in rock shrapnel, which we're going to get to. It's going to be a huge part of this ice caves, you're losing limbs, Men throw themselves off of cliffs and shoot themselves in the head

to stop being there anymore. It is the only place in World War One that I have found where there are multiple accounts, not one or two sporadic, multiple accounts of the armies refusing to shoot at each other because it's so bad and so many men are dying. You feel heartbreak for the other side, the men you're slaughtering on that side. Italian Campaign of World War One. Let's begin and discuss what it was and how it came to be. Let's do some background on it. Do you

enjoy history? By the way, I love it. I eat it up. I did it all weekend long. I was just reading reading stuff. You know, Hillsdale College makes it so you don't have to read about some of this stuff. Hillsdale College will just teach you. Hillsdale College, that incredible university, the one we all want our kids to get into. They're offering more than forty courses for free. Did you know that they're online. They're for everybody, old, young men, women, families, single.

Instead of scrolling through the channels looking at the social media app because there's no cost, why don't you try one course from Hillsdale and see what you think. You could take Constitution one oh one. If you don't want to do that kind of thing, you could do Roman Republic. Maybe you're into literature C. S. Lewis, the Works of C. S. Lewis. Hillsdale has all these classes at no costs for you. Hillsdale dot Edu slash Jesse is where you go to

enroll Hillsdale dot Edu slash Jesse. We'll be back Jesse Kelly's Show on a Monday. Of course, it's been an incredible Monday. We did a bunch of talking the first hour about culture, war stuff. We did Medal of Honor Monday. Now we are into history. We're talking about the Italian Front of World War One, that kind of history. Don't worry, you didn't miss much already, just a little story to

start it off with. Now let's do some background before we get to the worst battlefield conditions in the history of warfare World War One. You know, one side had Britain France. Yes, eventually that's the side we joined. By the way. One side was Britain in France and you got all that in Russia. Russia was part of that too for a while. We'll get to that in a little bit. And the other side was mainly Germany and Austria,

Hungary and the Ottoman Empire Turkey. I don't want to dismiss them, actually the Ottoman Empire Turkey, but it was mainly Germany and Austria, Hungary. But for our purposes we're only going to focus on Austria, Hungary and the Italians. Now, one thing we must understand here is the newness. How new so many European nations are. We don't think about it in that way. Most Americans would tell you, well, America's young, especially compared to Europe. We're about to have

our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary next year. That's a young Placepe. We're not old like Europe is. America is much older than Italy. America is much older than Germany. I'm talking about I'm talking about as a unified nation. I know about Rome and things like that, but Italy focused on that for a moment. Italy after the Roman Empire and after its collapse, and Italy had been so many different countries in different little city states, warring with

each other, killing each other for the longest time. Remember I told you we went to Italy at Christmas time? What are the places? We were up close to Florence, Italy, And one of the places we ate at was this tiny little mountaintop hilltop, tiny little hilltop fort. The guy our tour guide had said, oh, you gotta eat there. It was a place I too do. What was it? Forty four people lived there? Something something crazy like that. It wasn't many. A miniscule amount of people live there.

It's a tiny little fort. The walls are still there, and you could eat in this restaurant, and then they have a couple of little gift shops. But people's lawn it's hanging out on clothes lines. It's just a wee little mountaintop village, but obviously very old. And we started talking to the tour guy about it, and he was explaining that it was it was there as a lookout in a fighting fortress for the wars between Florence and Rome. Italy was divided forever. It was only in the eighteen sixties.

Eighteen sixties Italy came together and formed one unified country. Germany they're not really going to feature in this story, but Germany was very similar. Germany was eighteen seventies. Yes, I know about Prussia and all the different areas, but as far as a unified country, Germany was new, a new place. But we'll go down to Italy because that's the purpose of our story here. Italy was new and being one unified country was a new thing for them.

And we don't realize how blessed we are as a country because of how we started versus some of these other countries. Okay, so Italy finally unified, it finally became Italy. But what are united around? America had something to unite around. We wanted to be free from the British. We wanted a free country. We wanted there were unifying principles around it. Italy had been at war with each other for so long. A picture picture this picture. Texas is at war with Nebraska.

Who's at war when New York? Who's at war with Virginia? Who's at war with South Carolina? And they fight this war for two hundred years and then we wake up one day after two hundred years of fighting and hey, by the way, you guys are a country now. Sound good? Well wait, wait a minute. What case Italy was adjusting? Part of the adjustment was what kind of government do the people want? What kind of government do the people who decide what kind of government they want? What kind

of government do they want? And what are your borders? How do you decide on a nation's borders? How do you decide?

to be in the northeastern portion of Italy. With me, the northeastern portion of Italy. Now, if you're looking at a map, you may notice the northeastern portion of Italy is looks a little mountainey. In fact, things have changed. It's because it is. Those are the Alps you see. And Italy as it formed, it wanted it wanted its territory to extend into the Alps, because you want mountainous territory,

because there's nothing easier to defend than mountainous territory. Even if you have the benefit of plains, it's hard to get people out of mountainous territory. Why do you think we had so many struggles in Afghanistan? How can that be? We have all these planes and bombs and fancy things, But they're in the friggin mountains. Even with modern modern everything, modern artillery and flight and bombs and things like that, when someone is dug into the mountains, it's hard get

them out. You know, people talk about prepping for a disaster today in the modern era. How do you prep What do you do? Where do you go? Hey? What's your look? I don't know what your plans are. I'll tell you this for a fact, depending on the scenario, I'm getting to the mountains. If I can get to the mountains, whether it's the Rockies, the Appalachians, wherever it is. If you can get to the mountains, if you have a place in the mountains, you're just safer than you

are anywhere else. Period. End of story. All right, Setting that aside, Italy wants that northeastern part, but they don't have it as we speak. They don't have it as it pertains to this story. Why because there is this empire that is crumbling, one you don't even know about anymore because it's gone, called the Austria Hungarian Empire Austria Hungary. I know it's weird because it's two countries now, but it was known as one thing back then Austria Hungary.

Austria Hungary was large, it had a royal family, and it was very much an empire, a fading empire, though fading, crumbling. They'd been an empire for a long time, gobbling up this, gobbling up that. But they were long past their primes, as all empires are. And Austria Hungary the northern neighbor of Italy. They held these alps at the time in Italy wanted it. Now, World War One kicks off, Who's Italy going to join? And this is where it gets a little dicey in Italian history. I say dicey, I

mean kind of dirty, to be honest with you. Italy had a signed agreement that they were part of Germany Austria Hungary, that they were as part of that alliance. They were to be on the side of Germany and Austria Hungary. But Italy was a very, very, very divided place. That's part of why I brought up how young they were. Politically, they were very divided. Which direction do we go left? Right? Mittow,

I don't legislature, I don't understand it. And the divisions at the highest levels of the Italian government were so pronounced that it caused all kinds of fighting and everything else, and Italy decides, maybe there's maybe there's an advantage if we're not part of the Austria Hungary thing. We'll continue on with our story in a moment. Before we do that,

let me talk to you about protecting yourself. Do you see that story about the UPS guy, not a real UPS guy, a fake one, got himself a fake uniform, armed felon, goes around kicking indoors. We love to think that we're in home, in our homes, in the grocery store, the gas station at the mall, that since we're local or something like that, we're safe. You're not. There are bad people everywhere. It doesn't mean you hide in a

locked room your whole life. You can't do that. It means you carry a burn a pistol launcher on you at all times. I have so many of these things I can't even count them. I have bought one for every person in my life. They are non lethal, so they're legal in all fifty states. You don't even need a permit, you don't need a background check. If someone accidentally shoots themselves with it, it's not the end of the world. You're just going to be in a whole lot of pain for a while. It shoots tear gas

rounds or pepper balls, or it'll save your life. Man, It'll stop a very very bad man and save the life of the person you love the most. Don't let someone you love be hurt and regret not having gotten them one you want a nice discount. B y Rna Berna dot com slash Jesse Burna dot com slash Jesse We'll be back, what Chris we can make you show on a Monday and incredible Monday. In case you're just

now joining us, we're in the middle of history. We're talking about the Italian War, the World War One portion that took place in the Alps northern Italy. Remember, if you want to email the show, you can Jesse at Jesse kellyshow dot com. Back to our story, World War One breaks out France, Britain. They're at war with Germany, Austria, Hungary, and yes, Russia is part of all this. On the

side of France and Britain. Italy, Yes they have an agreement with Germany and Austria Hungary, but they're kind of thinking about Reniggan on the whole thing. And the reason they're thinking about reniggan on the whole thing is Austria Hungary. They've grabbed those wonderful Alps on the northern part of Italy. I'll just say that so you know where it is. And Austria Hungry's hungry is not interested in giving them back because they want them the same reasons. The Italian

one of them. The Italians want one of them. They're wonderful for defense. It's like mountains are like the greatest wall you could ever build. Of course they want to keep the mountains well. Italy they decide instead of being instead of being part of this alliance with Germany and Austria Hungary, they kind of consider themselves more of a free agent, if you will. Hey, I'm open for business. And this is the point where diplomacy can help decide wars.

We dudes don't ever like to think of it that way, because dudes like wars to be bombs and bullets and things like that. But diplomacy is a huge, huge part of warfare now and always was. Italy wanted those Alps, or at least a much better deal than they currently had. Now, I need to explain what was currently going on. Before I go into where we're going, I'm talking about currently going going on in that region. In that region, it's not as if everybody was ethnically Italian or Austrian or

something like that. Italy itself, as I mentioned, was very divided, different dialects all. I mean from the north. If you're in the far northern part of Italy at this time and you talk to somebody from the far South, you may not even really understand each other and you're both speaking Italian. That's how different the different the different ethnic history of the whole place was. I guess I'll put it that way ethnicities. But even that's not necessarily fair.

You understand what I mean. It's a different place. Austria Hungary is the exact same thing. In the northern part of Italy. There's a border. They know where the border is, but there's all kinds of trade and commerce going on because these two countries are not at war with each other in this area. One part of this border was

a barbed wire fence across a field. If you were trading goods and services and they did, you'd be back and forth, and maybe you're in Italy technically but maybe your loyalty is more with Austria because you're dealing with those people, and vice versa. Maybe you're technically part of Austria, but you're mainly dealing with the Italian village that's a mile away. So it's a mess. It's not clear, it's

not defined. And again Italy is new, new, very very new at this point in time, about fifty sixty years old. At this point in times. New Italy decides they're a free agent. Germany. Germany goes to Austria Hungary. Germany was constantly frustrated with Austria Hungary. I should point out Germany goes to Austria Hungary and they said, hey, you really need to give something up to the Italians, the Italians,

we want them on our side. We don't want to have to deal with the Italians because that creates a third front in the war. Pause on everything. We'll come back to this third front. Let's talk about the other two just as a basic because a lot of people don't know there are two fronts at this time in World War One. There is the Western Front. Germany invaded France, France dug in. There are now trenches on both sides. That's the Western Front, and Britain's involved them. Just simplifying this,

So that's the Western Front. There's an Eastern Front, Russia, the Russians. Everyone was worried about the Russians getting in. They tried to talk the Russians out adjoining the war, but the Russians joined in the war, and Russians decided they were going to attack Germany and Austria Hungary. So Germany had to send troops. Austria Hungary had to send troops to the Eastern Front to fight the Russians off. So now Germany, Austra Hungary, the central Powers. That's why

they call them that. They're stuck there in the middle. They're the peanut butter. Russia's the bread, Britain, France is the bread. They're already sandwiched on two sides, two fronts. That's already one more front than you want. What they absolutely positively do not want is a third front on the bottom, a third front from the south. And Germany knows this. Germany knows how overstretched it is. Germany starts going to Austria Hungary and saying, please give them something

Italy wants. They want some territory year. They want this mountain ranch here. They want that. They want they want control of this. Okay, I know you don't want to, but we can't have Italy joining the side of the Allies. Please give them something. But Austria Hungary suffered at this point in time from something we all suffer from from time to time. Pride. Pride is one of those deadly sins, isn't it. In sales in our v sales which you as you know, I used to do. We used to

talk all the time about pride costing people deals. I'm not dealing with them. I'm not calling him back. Look I did it. I was guilty of it cost myself money. Pride is a killer man that kills nations too. Austria Hungary, the way they saw it was this, we are Austria hungry. We are this powerful empire, which they weren't really anymore. But we are this powerful empire. We're fighting this huge war against the biggest nations on Earth at the time,

the most powerful countries on Earth. We're not fighting this huge war to give up territory. We're Austria hungry. We're not giving up any territory. We're fighting this to reclaim our former glory and to gain territory. And they certainly weren't in the mood to give up the lush mountain fortresses on their southern border. And they definitely weren't in the mood to give up those lush mountain fortresses to a new country they didn't feel very fond of. In fact, remember,

racial prejudice is not new. It's the essence of man. Everyone's guilty of it. They thought Italians were lower and I'm not just talking about heightwise, which of course they are. They really thought Italians were of a lower species. All people thought that way back then, So we got a problem. This has been a podcast from wor