“Dad, I Can’t Talk About It.”

I was going to set the world on fire. This season on Service, we've been following World War Two veterans as they traverse land and sea, finding sustenance and feeding others along the way. Thanksgiving that was our kp the size and says, let's through something special cigarette, No little kids like that cigarette. With fewer than four hundred thousand veterans of this era left, making space for these conversations is more important now than ever. I was going to

go to one school. That's D Day Army veteran John Bistrica, and the history teacher he didn't want to hear about it. That hurt me pretty bad. Every single one of us owes a huge debt of gratitude to these greatest generation veterans. So let's slow down and explore a little of the history behind why some of them have or have not talked about their service until recently. And then we'll hear from younger veterans and volunteers, creating communities that keep conversations rolling.

Everybody fanning up. Now the boys go on the way? Can you hear the music? The ban here? It come here that Tom come. This is a ninety five clip from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show Welcome Home, letther com Bug of the marvelous things the now light Well, we've dubbed World War two the last good War. There were clear good guys, the Allies, and bad guys, the Axis triumphant.

We haven't had a world war since. Returning veterans like New York Yankees Catcher, Yogi, Bearra, actor Jimmy Stewart and director Mel Brooks contributed to a cheery post war Tinseltown. The newly minted g I Bill helped millions embrace their future at colleges and in starter homes, and the economy flourished. Soon followed a record number of marriages and the notorious baby boom. But then there were the lesser spoken of realities. It will seem odd when, at some given hour the

shooting stops and everything changes again. It will be odd to drive down an unknown road without that little not of fear in your stomach. Odd not to listen with animal like alertness for the meaning of every distant sound. Odd to have your spirit released from the perpetual weight that has compounded of fear and death and dirt and anguish.

We have won this war. That's Bob Hope, reading a letter from beloved war journalist Ernie Pyle, known for capturing frontline humanity in an almost folk style, before he was killed by Japanese machine gun fire less than five months before World War Two ended. This last Good War was also the deadliest in human history, causing seven times more casualties than US troops would later meet in the horrors

of Vietnam. These veterans came home to start new businesses and raise a prosperous generation, but they also had to digest and make sense of what they had faced while deployed. Our Air Corps veteran Harold bud Long returned to Upstate New York with memories of breaking down concentration camp gates. We had k rashes with when we started breaking open and say don't We'll kill them. It's ay ate too

much at once, give him a little bit time. Coast Guard veteran Frank Davida remember so many details of Omaha Beach on D Day from there. Having overfed the troops that morning about two o'clock, we started feeding them eggs, sources, pancakes, ice cream, everything that you could think of. It was the worst thing we out them. We overfend them. To his last thoughts before sleeping that night, I sat down on the cold deck and I said to myself, what

that would just happen to you you? And why am I alive? Interviewing Frank and his quiet New Jersey home, it seems like he must have told these stories over and over during the years to keep them so vibrant. At I asked him point blank if he had for seventy years, I couldn't talk about while I'm telling you, I couldn't talk about it. At that time, I didn't want to bring the war home to my family. I suffered to it. Why should they have to suffer to it. My dad,

he was in the army first of all. He would ask me questions. I said that I can't talk about it. My grandfather, Pat de Ambrosio, rarely talked about his time serving in the war either. I surmised his silence was mostly out of gratitude and a hum bow guilt for his not having seen combat. Repeating this question to other veterans, we start to understand why one would feel so indebted to such fellows. Killing a human being is not a natural thing. The human body. You don't consider it like

an animal or the object. But we had to think that way. Laws and Ichirosaki survived months of heavy combat as one of the Armies four hundred and forty second Regimental Combat Team, the niss A Japanese American troops, infamous both for their honorable service records and catastrophic casualty count. Some men broke down in the heat of battle, bodies flying all over it. You have to put it out of your mind, because if you think about it, your

mind can't handle that. In prior wars, huge regiments of men would fight together in short bursts of small arms skirmishes. There was camaraderie, and then there was rest. World War two veterans faced a new kind of warfare with the

introduction of better planes and huge field weapons. Smaller units could now be dispersed four weeks at a time, they'd fight the enemy, cut off from support systems like food and medical attention, and sometimes not be given even forty eight hours to rest before being thrust back into battle. As such, where it had been presumed that mental breakdowns during combat were caused by unrelated mental weakness, hospitals soon

filled with those suffering from battle fatigue. It wasn't until nineteen eighty thirty five years after the end of this war and after these veterans had quieted so to support their children through Vietnam, that battle fatigue was renamed with a diagnostic term. We recognized today that's what PTSD is all about. When we were discharged in nine military tolas irrisive alien, Now take off your uniform and just get

out of here. There was no mention of your mental status, particularly else being in the infantry where everyone was filled with PTSD. We're now societally aware of the dangers of PTSD not being taken seriously by medical professionals or communities. But post war newspapers were just as likely to joke about what they called warner roses as they were to report on the lives of disabled veterans. Controversial syndicated columnist Henry McLamore once justed, if I am late for dinner,

I can blame it on battle fatigue. This casual dismissal is one of the reasons why our most affected veterans often stay quiet. You could talk to a thousand veterans were in combat and they'll tell you I never talked about the war. Did you talk about your experiences with your family? No, of course not. I just tried to lock out everything. The things that happened in combat just unspeakable, unthinkable, and unprintable. And I was saying, you shouldn't be maintaining

to anybody else. PTSD rates for World War Two combat veterans have proved comparable to those who returned from Vietnam, Yet treatment has come far too late in the game for many. What did most of those veterans do in the meantime? The only cure that we could manufacture ourselves was to drink alcohol. And you drank until you passed out.

At least you had some relief while you're unconscious. Slower in development than a successful g I bill for the development of rehabilitation centers for those suffering from battle fatigue or alcoholism in alcoholics. Anonymous had two thousand members. By one report shows that number had jumped to seven hundred and fifty thousand. Today, one point two million members meet nationwide. Community and conversation have proved invaluable tools for long term healing.

Getting the conversation started is often the challenge for Frank. The anniversary of D Day and our renewed attention to these veterans led to an invitation to speak on a national stage. It took me seventy years, and only because the thumb broke he opened. Is it helping you to talk about it? Though? Now it does a monkey on my shoulder. The monk is off the shoulder once I started talking. Then I want them to talk about the war because I want them to bring some of these

kids into what I went through. When we come back, we'll hear how a unique community war memorial brought veterans and their families together, shifting the conversation entirely. You're listening to service stories of hunger and war from my heart radio. Stay with us. Yeah, you're listening to service stories of hunger and war from my Heart radio. I'm JaQuel and Opposo. If it's hard for us to start conversations with our veterans. It's a bit surreal to listen as they laugh through

some of the most intense moments. In his episode, Harold bud Long flies us from d Day through Central Europe with his buddy Dewey by his side. Here he is again reflecting on just how wild that ride was. Kind of you get your sense of humor about all of this because he's told the crazy stories. But a year or two after Julia come home and got married, go up there fishing for a week. And the first night we get up there, we sat there and talking off stuff that happened to us at that time was scary.

Remember the time we heard a racket telling the hanger and said yeah, and she went down and kicked the door and it was about a hundred Germans in there. But yeah, already through the give up. We take them back to the major. He said, what are we gonna do with him? As we heard loss in detail. Most veterans based challenges upon returning to civilian life that the overwhelmed v A can't always address with intimate and individualized approaches.

Countless local organizations work to bring veterans out into their communities to sit with Bud for his episode. We drove far upstate to Livingston County, New York, a rural community almost at our border with Canada, where the creation of a unique veterans monument is doing just that. We don't usually gain this kind of traction. I think we've had nearly two hundred people come together just for hot dogs

and soda around this program. This is Jason Skinner, army veteran of the Iraq War and director of Veteran Services for Livingston County. Jason invited us to interview Bud on a day when they were working on their memorial. It's a collaboration between the county and the Genesee Valley Educational Partnership, Career and Tech Center headed up by metal trades instructor Ollie Olsen. Jason Skinner asked me about doing something he

had shown me an illustration in London. There's some poppies coming down off the castle wall and it's very impressive. On my desk, I had a small American flag, so that was the driving force for creating the poppies, but to have it in the shape of the American flag, so the red stripes will be the poppies. And then

the white stripes will be the concrete. The National American Legion adopted the poppy as the symbol of remembrance for fallen soldiers in ninety inspired by Canadian World War One Lieutenant Colonel surgeon John McCrae's poem in flanders Field and flanders Field, the poppies blow between the crosses row on row, McRae wrote. Each metal Livingston County poppy is two ft wide, painted red and fused, atop a green iron stem of varying height, connected to the ground by bearings so that

they'll sway when the wind blows. When completed this spring, the flag will cover one eight five ft white concrete flag stripes between them make handicapped accessible rows perfect for wandering and quiet contemplation. It's a monument designed to inspire awe, but the process has been just as important as the product. And when I first presented the idea, I said, I'll do this project, but with this stipulation. I want veterans coming into the school being shown how to use the

equipment and create their own poppies. I could have done under poppies, but it's not about me. That significant should be them being recognized for their service. And so this does that every coppy is designed, traced, cut, molded, welded, and painted by the individual. A dog tag on each identifies their name, dates of service, and any other information deemed particularly significant. Then a unique totem welded into the

center or on a pedal adds a personal touch. Only made one for his father, a veteran of the Canadian Air Force, so his poppy is a maple leaf. There's all sorts of really unique centers in them stars. One his uncle was a pilot and he put an airplane. There's one with a VFW and one with an American Legion emblem. I've built five copies, one for a friend and restauran all family members, three of which word World War Two veterans. That's Rory Benkleman, teacher's aide at the

Mount Morris Bosi Center in the Metal Trades program. He's assisting only with the monument. I'm also a veteran of the United States Air Force and New York Air National Guard. We're slowly losing family members, were slowly losing our World War Two vets and Vietnam vets. I'm proud to say I'm a veteran and so create with the organizations as one of them. They emphasize self generating veteran involvement has been the incidental key to their monument success. There were

veterans that were coming from other counties. I'm here to make a poppy by getting hooked up with their PPE gear, and as soon as we've gotten in the shop, other veterans that had been coming regularly they could see that there was a deer in the headlights. They just go, let me help you. This is where we start and then we go from one step to the next. Veterans helping other veterans to create this monument. And I wasn't

doing it. The finish is going to look great, but really that was the most impressive part of this whole project. Creating a poppy gets the veteran or family member in the door, but the greater service is their inviting veterans into a space where people want to listen. There were some nights that were had over forty veterans, which was almost too much because we're limited with the equipment and space. But they all work together and they shared equipment, they

shared their time, they shared their stories. Then they came back. Psychologists are recognizing the power of narrative storytelling to help veterans acclimate back into civilian life and to heal from combat conflict. Over months and years of military brigade training, the veteran's brain has become wired to move through the world in a specific way, to follow orders and to

make order of high stress scenarios. The therapeutic narrative approach helps to reverse that wiring by sharing a story allowed we first take control of the story, choosing to narrate with horror or as but does with humor. We can paint ourselves as the victim or the hero. That's been kind of all generations, and there's always a story behind each one of these copies. The vets get to tell their story to other veterans. That's been a very unique

and healing experience for some of these guys. It kind of brings them together and makes them more resilient as a bunch of veterans together with time, intention, and insight from new perspectives, the veteran can choose to mold that narrative until a story no longer has any power over them over their physical reaction to past experiences or current triggers. You can't talk to you strangers or family about that. They wouldn't understand. This seemingly unbreachable gap is often felt

by veterans loved ones as well. We want to help but don't know how. Rather than forcing conversation, creating a poppy becomes a gateway for a shared experience, a space for the veteran to talk and the loved one to simply offer compassion. Another young man that years old, his daughter came and said, I want to make a poppy

for my dad. But this is a little frail. So she's created this poppy, and springtime had come around here, and she goes, do you mind if one day I just drive him back here to show him the poppy. So overhead doors are open to the shop, and I see this car pull up. She steps out, opens the door for a day A tall man six four maybe six five. So his daughter says, Dad, I made this poppy for you, and he starts crying. A good friend of his supporter was here in the shop working on

his poppy. They were lifelong friends. They grew up in the same town, they were in the same service. And he looks up, goes over and gives him a big hug. He says, it's okay. I did the same thing because his daughter was started one and because I can do that. It was a father and daughter making this poppy. Some of the stories were like that. What started as a goal of one hundred poppies blossomed to two hundred and

fifty by the time we left them in September. But is their oldest veteran at their youngest participant is four. Without wanting to detail specifics, they related how one younger veteran had remained so reclusive since returning home. Loved ones had been worried about him. The project has gotten him returning to the group over and over again. Such accessible spaces invite veterans to come together and share their service

stories and the lives they're newly carving. They bring coffee and donuts or this being farm country, the varying kinds of garlic they're currently growing. We left with several heads, our pockets, maple syrup, and local restaurant referrals mapped out. Unless such spaces are created, the sacrifices that still burden many of them will remain trapped where they've remained for our World War two veterans in the past, largely speaking

at the bar or a a meetings. I'm a Iraq war and my period in time and service has been very well respected. People thank me for my service, and it always felt kind of weird until you look at it in the perspective of the job I hold now. I get to pay tribute to those people that served in Vietnam and various earlier conflicts that weren't either recognized

or were not appreciated for their service. And it's because of their service and how our country feels about my service now and what they had to go through to ensure that no other generation of veteran would be that disrespected. In their memorial, the Livingston County team reminds all of us that we have a choice, a choice to serve our country, to serve each other, and to serve the

best version of our future selves. When they walk into this now it's not a field of poppies, but it is, and they're standing there not just to see this, but to realize I love that went into the project. The veterans are loved. Ones of veterans created this monument as a service of our country that they chose to do it. Every one of these poppies has a story, and that's

what I would like people to know. The commemoration of our veterans in recent times has been great, but it has been long overdue for a long period of time. I believe the recognition because everybody has their freedoms because of what everybody else has given in the past. And the second part of this episode, we'll hear how on our flight Columbus opened the conversation for our Navy veteran William Walker, and then about a veteran food pantry bringing

veterans across generations to the table. Until then, you can learn more about this episode on our Instagram and Facebook are at Service podcast and at Service podcast dot org, where you can also send a message to any of the veterans you're hearing from this season. Don't forget to subscribe to Service on your favorite podcasting platform, and thanks for dropping a review while you're there. Service as a production of I Heart Radio. This episode was produced and

edited by me Jacqueline Oroposo. Mr Boddicker was the associate producer for this episode. Kobe McDonald and Andrew Stessler engineered our interviews with lawson Elizabeth Emery with William and Junie Ramckin with John. Our supervising producer is Gabrielle Collins, Our executive producer Christopher Hassiotis. Thank you for listening, and thank you to those serving and those who have served.