Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest this week is retired US Air Force Colonel Joe Peterburgs. He is a combat pilot who served in World War Two, Korea, and Vietnam. In the final weeks of World War Two, Peterburgs shot down one of the most prolific German aces of the war, but that very same day he was shot down as well, and then became a prisoner of war. In all, Colonel Peterburgs spent more than
thirty six years in uniform in service to our country. Today we will examine his service in World War II. Next week we explore his time in Korea and Vietnam, and Colonel Peterburgs began his time with us by discussing his roots in the Upper Midwest. I was born in the Saint Paul, Minnesota, on the twenty fifth of November nineteen twenty four, and when I was about five years old, we moved from Minnesota to Wisconsin in the Milwaukee area.
Basically my childhood and my grammar school there. Years was spent there. When I graduated from the eighth grade, I entered the Salvatorian Seminary in Saint Naisy in Wisconsin to become a Catholic priest, and I was there for a couple of years before World War two start. It was a Sunday and I was coming home, I mean it was after a Mass and breakfast, and I
was going to the gym to shoot the pool down in the basement. And there I was going down the steps and we had speakers throughout the gym, and an announcement came over the loudspeakers saying that Pearl Harbor has been bombed. And at that time I knew I'd be leaving the joining trying to get into the Navy aviation program. Why in the Navy, because they took you at
seventeen, the Air Force was eighteen. So anyway, I was not accepted because I had some eye problems, so that I waited the until I turned eighteen, which was only about four months later, and I took the competitive exam for aviation cadet program in the Army Air Corps and I was accepted, and on the thirtieth of November nineteen forty two, I was swarned as an aviation cadet and started on a life of aviation. Where did you train,
and how easily did it come to you? Well, it came fairly easy, but actually I had a lot of minutia ground schools and stuff like that before I really started a flying trading. But it was about three months three four months after I elisted and I started by flying trading. I started at Douglas, Georgia flying PT seventies Steerman's biplane cloth and open cockpit, and I
soloed in six hours, which was pretty good. And then I really took the fly and I loved I had one of the best I think one of the best instructors of the were on, the real old guy about forty I was eighteen, and he taught me tremendous about that things that probably saved my life several times in my future and combat. So how soon did you had overseas? From Primary? I went to AIX and fluid another aircraft BT thirteen
and then advance at Napier Field Dufa in Alabama. I was an advance and we blew the T six Texan and I graduated there on the fifteenth of April of nineteen forty four and was checked out P forties and P forties for a while, and then in October of nineteen forty four, I received ors to
go to England and I went to we landed. We traveled by boat ill de Frosts, in fact a luxury later that was transferred to have preferred it into a troop ship, and there were I think thousands of us that we were packed really, but we didn't have to go with the convoy because it
could out out run the sub. So anyway, I landed in Scotland and I think it's about the fifth or six o'clock of November nineteen forty four, and then was chipped down to Kingscliff near Peterborough, which is about ninety miles north of London, to the twentieth Fighter Group fifty fifth Fighter Squadron flying P
fifty one. So I've never seen a P fifty one before, so I checked out the P fifty one B and then flew C Milele and D Midl got about a little over fifteen hours of five time, and then started flying combat. Flew my first combat mission on the twelfth and December of nineteen forty four. How much of an upgrade was that P fifty one, Well, it was considerably, you know, more advanced than the P forty of course more horsepower, more moverability, real faster clives and a lot of a mother
thing. But the basic aircraft of flying it was very similar. Had the torque that the the Pea party in and uh, all you know all the characteristics of a signal engine or inline engine and that's sort of so it came easy for me. I had no problem with it. And it was exciting and exhilarating. This got out of my first mission and started flying. That was well, that's what I was there for. Tell me about that first mission and how it compared to what you expect. Well, it was.
It was fairly uh what we call a milk run. We were escorting several hundred bombers to targets and I think it was in the cloned area and uh we had a lot of some heavy flag but no enemy action and there nothing you know, significant, It was one of the board in't significant. I flew forty nine missions and uh there were quite a few really exciting ones. And how did you deal with the flack? The flat was was lethal to the bombers, but we were maneuvering around and you know, we knew where
the batteries were. We could see where the batteries are fine, But the hardest part was seeing the bombers. They had to be straight level and zill maneuver if they understand their formations, and uh, you know, flack buddies being blown up, and it's see aircraft going down and parachutes in the air and that sort of stuff. And then uh, actually the you know, to get tribute to the the barber crews. Uh, they were the bravest of the brave in the air. They I never saw them the turf of
a target. They would be always on even when we were hit pipe fighters, they'd keeped their formations and onto the target. And I remember that I was seeing them. I just was hoping I could sustain that sort of bravery in byfly. Now on these flights, were you in communication with the bombers, how did the no well, the echelon, you know of chain of command, the group commanders. You'd like our group, the twentieth Fighter Group, we had three squadrons. We'd put up three squadron you would have a
group leader that led all three squadrons. Then you'd have squadron leaders, which would be about twelve forty sixteen eighteen aircraft and that would be a squadron leader, and then you had the flights, and then each flight was four aircraft, and then you would have a flight leader for that and the group in the Sometimes the squadron commanders depending upon the missions, would be in contact with the bombers. But in the control authority, you know, all we were
We just flew the mission and did our job there. But if there was any coordination or anything that would come down from the fight and you were talking about, you know, missions where there are two thousand bombers and a thousand fighters in the air all at the same time and escorse and then being hit by two three hundred enemy fighters and it was just mayhem. It's just confusion
all over the place. But it was exhilarating. I had a couple of really it's a neat instances, neat occasions when I was met enemy fighters and
really exhilarating experience. Now, I was nineteen when I arrived SAT to fly, and I turned twenty in late November, and so I was twenty years old, and you know, twenty year old kid with a two thousand horsepower engined and six fifty camelberbersikas, three in each week and you know, and you you know, you know you're the best, and so you don't I anyway, he didn't, don't worry about it was almost the other guy that's going to get it with b. That's retired US Air Force Colonel Joe Peterburgs,
a veteran of World War Two, Korea and Vietnam. In our next segment, well here, Colonel Peterburgs describe how he shot down one of the greatest German aces of World War Two and how he was shot down and taken prisoner on the very same day. But right after the break, he tells us all about his first mission in late nineteen forty four, as he took the skies as a P fifty one pilot escorting bomber groups through intense fire from
the ground and the air. That's next, I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles sixty Seconds of Service. This sixty Seconds of Service is presented by T Mobile. T Mobile offers exclusive discounts for veteran and military families and are proud supporters of the National Defense Network. Visit t mobile dot com to learn more about how they support our military community. The Green Bay Wisconsinnarios about to get its own veterans village to help local veterans get back on their feet.
The project has been in the works for two years, and it's expected to get the go ahead this week. The Brown County Board will vote to approve the land for the homes Wednesday night. The idea came to Gail Nor, a US Navy veteran herself, after she visited the Veteran Tiny Home Village in Racine. Nor worked at the Brown County Veteran Services Office for six years and would get calls from veterans every day who were about to lose their homes or
couldn't find an affordable place to live. She said. With a degree in substance abuse counseling and having also worked as a councilor in a veterans shelter, she understood the struggles veterans face. For more great veteran stories, just go to National Defense Network dot com. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in this edition is retired US Air Force Colonel Joe Peterburgs. In just a few minutes, we'll hear all about is very eventful. Forty
ninth and final mission. But first Colonel Peterburgs tells us what it was like to fly into combat for the very first time. Well, it was a large mission. It was I think it was something like fifteen hundred bobbers and about nine hundred fighters and we were going to put targets in the Magnaburg Berlin area. And we were right about the Magnaburg area. Will we were hit by first a couple hundred one on nines and the German tactics when the the
one O Nines and they came in from altitude. The one nines would come in and hit and run and you know, do whatever they could and their their past to get a bomber, and then uh, they keep going and then they had this would draw our fighters to chase them, and then uh, they had the one the one nineties. Uh, after the first attack by the one O nines, the one nineties would come down and then chew up the bombers. That was their concept. But our group in particular,
there's no chasing, you know, now there through there none. You stay with the bombers and you protect the bombers. And that's what we did. And it was just we I mean we were getting lots of losses. We could see the bombers and the wings floating down and the parachutes to the air, and I was more concerned about hitting something in the air some to breathe
in another fire. Anyway, the way things happened, I came, I saw one one ninety, and we come and head on and I could see his twenty millimeters cannon blinking around his nose, and my fifty were going there and I got saw a few hits on his wing, and then we passed about fifty feet apart. I went under him. He went over me and my flight leader. He was chasing the one ninety, but he couldn't fire at him because I was coming to He could have hit me. So as
soon as I passed under him. He's active, and so he got so and that was and that's one of the one of the missions, the first mission that I really saw how bad the bombers were taking it and came to the conclusion that they were there previous to the Brave. Now, did you develop a certain strategy when you did engage with the enemy or was it mainly reacting so the trading trading treaty, you just reacted to the fifty one part
of your body you think about the aircraft and two that you know. And the thing about the aircraft was, of course the large part of the of the major part was a pilot. You know, a good pilot, experienced pilot in a less capable aircraft could out do an unexperienced pilot in a advance. More so it was the pilot. The trading we got, our training was superior than the Romans was at the stage of the war that I was
in, because there were different stages. Of course, I came in late, although becoming in late and reduced the casualties of the thirteen guys I came over with we had all were casualties except one, and there were three of us that were POW's shot down at POWs and then the other nine were KIA. So even at that stage of the war, so it was it was still battle, but no comparison to what the losses were at the beginning of
the war. Our entrance at the war, the bombers were being slaughtered mainly because they didn't get they didn't have any aircraft that could bring them to the target, escorting to the target, and that and then the German bollots. They were really experienced of all these years of actual warfare starting with Spain even you know, all right, well, let's you mentioned that you were a
prisoner of war, so let's move to that forty ninth mission. We're talking April tenth, nineteen forty five, which is obviously not that far before the end of the right. You obviously didn't know that then, So explain what was happening that day and what happened Well, I like to lead up to that that I flew on the thirty first of March, the thirty thirty first of March, per second, third, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth of April every day and had I was in missions
that were engaged by one of my cousins in the Luftwaffe. At least four of the missions we were in the same air space at the same time. And then come ten April and we were on our heavy force of about twelve hundred bombers were bombing was scheduled the bomb Magdeburg, Botchdam, Berlin, uh and Oranienburg, and we all were one big group until we got just outside of Magdeburg, and then the bombers split off to their particular targets. Our
particular target, the one is you that we were escorting. The first division of the UH of the bombs bombers was four hundred, four hundred and fifty bombers that we had some nice two hundred some odd fighters Escortium and our group had I think it was about seventy of our fighters were Escortium. So uh, everything was normal, you know, flak and stuff like that, until we got to the target and the release were almost simultaneously releasing their load.
And then I saw a and I was flying the high cover about five thousand feet above the barbers, and I saw a gaggle of I mean two six two's turbojets. I hit the formation, I latched on eyeballs onto one two sixty two, and it just blew up the seventeen and it was coming in
after another one. And I, of course, as soon as I saw him, I rolled over and started down at him with thotals wide open, and I came into his six o'clock position, and just as he blew up his second B seventeen and I got some hits in his left wing, I saw some fire smoke, and he rolled over and started down to the deck. Well, I followed him and U and he disappeared into some clouds. Well I wasn't going to follow him into the clouds and h So I've broke
off the chase. And as looked over and I saw this airfield just loaded with aircraft, and I thought, well, what's better than that? So I just went in the model of the fire pilot is you know, one pass hall ass when you straight into air deromel. I made about probably four too many. I made about five passes and I blew up four the first four passes, I blew up four fighters on the ground and then started a
hangar on fire. And that's coming around for my last pass, and I latched on to a f W two hundred, which is a Condor big four engine part of Hitler's fleet of you know, transport type of aircraft. As I was coming in at I felt the thud. Then that just as I blew them as start my pull up, and I felt another thun and I
saw some oil coming over my windscreen. And so I made it up to ten thousand feet and I called the group commander and I said, you know, I was hit And I didn't know whether I was going to go east or west. I was making it by mine, and I explained a situation, told them where the airpeel was. Then the group went after it, and they eventually destroyed fifty some odd aircraft and had airdrome. But anyway,
I decided to go west. We were breathed ahead of time that the Allied forces were be fighting in Magdeburg, and it was about ninety miles from where I was, just outside of Berlin, and so I decided to head towards Magdeburg. Well, I got within probably thirty forty miles, and I was down to one thousand feet and I knew I wasn't going to make it, so I was getting ready to bail out and unhooked. And then as just as I unhooked, I looked over at three o'clock position in the one ninety
was coming after me. So I was able to turn into him. My aircraft was burning on the right side. I was able to turn into him as he fired and he missed. And by that time I was down to five hundred feet, and I said I could tooad to bail out. I'd better bully this thing in look the places, and I'm thinking of course, this is all milliseconds going on in your mind, you know, and all your treating and everything you know guiding you. And I said, hell,
I'm going to kill myself. I unstrapped. I was going to bail out and found a feat so unstrapped and I don't have time to strap up again and do atlantic. So I had to go over the side. I could go on to the right side because it's burning, and that's side. Just go because it'll the chork will throw you away from the air aircraft. So I go on on the left side and I hit the tail with my knee and I have about three about three three fifty feet what I bailed out,
hit my knee and then pull the rip cord to shoot open. I s fog once it hit the ground hard. So that was it. And I get up and I said, I got to find out what. As I get up and I look around, it as just as farm land, you know, nothing no buildings, nothing, no trees, nothing. There's a group of civilians, about fifteen civilians coming after me, and oh they're about
twenty yards away. And I hear a noise behind me, and I look around and as most prophty sounded in a motorcycle and he pulls up alongside me and he pulls out a fire just a couple of shots in the air and holds the civilians off. He says I'm his prisoner, and that was it. And then some muckymucks from the town, the burgermister, the chief of police and stuff. They come out and they've talked to the sergeant and want
they want to question me, to target me. So they bring me to town some kind of official buildings and I'm in the They're they're getting really ticked off at me. The chief of police wants to shoot me around the spot, and there's all arguing going on between the lost office sargeant and the crowds gathering outside, you know, ready to do me in. So he says, let's go then, So he takes me in, puts me onto the motorcycle and we go and bird there was a big u bas at berg.
So we go there and I put in a local lock up and I'm questioned for some gestop will come in and they questioned me for about four five hours. Nothing yellow physical or they just intense catch questioning. And then I'm there for two couple of nights and each night the RIF is bombing airs. I'm in this bomb shelter for the old the stuf. It looked very good for
me. That's retired US Air Force Colonel Joe Peterburgs, a veteran of World War two, Korea and Vietnam. In the next segment, we'll hear Colonel Peterburgs talk about being sent to a German prison camp and how he ended up fighting alongside the Russians before the war was over and decades later a very unlikely but amazing reunion. That's next. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas our guest this edition is retired US Air Force Colonel Joe Peterbergs. We now conclude the World War II portion of his story with a fascinating account of how Peterburgs went from German prisoner of war to fighting alongside the Russians before the war ended and much later a very unlikely reunion. Anyway, the next day they shoot me off to Stolling eleven, which was a British pow cab. It was on our trade ride.
I think from burg and I get there in the most ninety nine percent of the Brits had left, you know. They were evacue in front of the Alone trush to give a further into Germany. But there's still about one hundred hobbies there and they were scheduled for the next morning to start to march back toward Berlin. So they put me in with that group, and so we're
on the march. It was just pandemonium. It was Bearmark armies going east and retreating, and then others going west trying to reinforce the Western Front, and motorcycles going up, and then thousands of refugees going east and west depending upon their nationalities and stuff, and the motorcycles going up and down the road trying to get some kind of order. And then the top of all off, we get strafed a couple of times by firefighters. Of course they don't
know they see the arby vehicles there and stuff. But anyway, family made it to Stall like three to look in Baldy and there I'm there for about probably five six days and security was completely relax, you know, and I just paidas clean one under the fence at night and started towards Berlin and he got about five six miles away from the camp and I hear this rumbling and I was walking along a ditch and hear this rumbling. I see it. I see it's a Russian tank, and go out and wave down in some
way. I can't have a dull idea. We communicated, but this Russian lieutenant and I were able to communicate, and he tells you to hop on, and so he was. They were going to Wittenberg. Their target was Wittenberg on the ELB, and so I hopped on the tanks with them, and it fought with them until through Jitterbug and then up through to Wittenberg on the ELP. Did you still have your uniform on or did you just say American? American? Well, I could speak a little German. I know
he could speak some German, so that that helped a little bit. And I'm sure that he probably do some English and uh. And then of course the old side language almost comes to the handy too, And it was obvious I was an American, so based by flight shooting stuff. Yeah, what was it like, essentially serving with a different countries? Millitary, Well, it was just we were just a bunch of guys. You know, going around zone, fight down the line, and they were a wild bunch.
I went on several patrols with them, and the one, the sergeant that was in charge of the patrol, he we get into this really nice complex, apart complex, and it was building a square and then in inside of that square was sort of a green area, you know, park, and uh so we go in and uh oh, he's really getting pissed off, you know. We go up and then we get into one of the rooms and he says it get out, tells the rest of us to just get out. And how he goes into the center of the room with his purple
gun, stands there laughing and shooting and destroying everything in the apartment. And I'm thinking, well, what have I gotting myself into now? But anyway, we get to Windenberg on the Alb and then I get the American patrol comes across the Elb to meet with the Russian American patrolled. The It was a little reluctance from the Russians to release me, and you know, Potstam was going on at the time, and intensions were getting high, and I don't know if it was you know, anyway, this is this is the
American sergeant had saw me in the background. This could tell I was an American but by flight suits, and there was some discussion going on between he and the lieutenant. Anyway, they released me to him, and then I went on some patrols with them and before where we got back to their headquarters at Holly, and then I spent the day or two with them, and
I took off and said, I'm going to see you. And I was walking towards the west, and after several miles I've come across the seat forty seven parked in the field picking up a bunch of political prisoners, you know. They were striped and emaciated, and they said, where you go and these to Paris. It's better than that, you know. So I hop a ride with them and get back to Paris. And then I get stopped, I get stabbed, and the laoist and know all that sort of stuff
I could do you to form and I'm under control. So my wandering days are over well, Colonel. Unfortunately we're almost out of time, but we have to conclude with the aftermath of the story we talked about on your forty ninth mission, where you were you had shot down on a German fighter and then you had to bail out, interrogated, sent to a prison camp,
and eventually spending time with the Russians. Many decades later, you find out that there was somebody who was studying what happened that day, and somehow you and the other pilot, the German pilot got reunited decades later explained how that
happened. Yeah, Well, there was a German youth of about thirteen years old, a Verder Dietrich, who was hiding in the ditch watching the air battle go on over Berg, Germany, in the bag the Berg area, and and he saw this P fifty one pilot being at low altitude and being hit by this FW one to ninety being attacked by the one ninety. He saw the one ninety miss and he saw this pilot bail out and was picked. And he was a part of the crowd that was hanging around, you
know, the house after the war. Berg is in East Germany, and of course until the wall came down and they joined the West, you know, they could do anything as far as World War two, it's concerned the Germans. And then after reunifications, the television stations in that area decided to start doing specials on recovery of World War two aircraft, and so Werler goes to the station and he said, hey, I saw this aircraft bail out and I know exactly where it is and all that sort of stuff. And
they said, okay, we'll make a special. So they went and got their big backos and their big magnets and stuff like that. They found the aircraft that they excavated it, and it was deep, it was about ten feet and anyway they excavated it. And then he says he's going to find the pilot of that aircraft. So it takes some a little over a year to find out or get the lead to me, and I get a letter out of the blue in nineteen ninety seven, I think it was he started
that. This project was about nineteen ninety six when he recovered it. Late ninety ninety five, early nineteen ninety six when they recovered the aircraft. So he had the whole year trying to find it, a lot of false leads and then he finally got one that was a good lead, and he got my name, and so he wrote me this letter and he explains everything, and I said, well, yeah, that's where I landed. That's what happened. You know, sounds I can buy aircraft, and it was me
and so uh and he we don't. He doesn't have a computer, so it's held snail mail. So it's you know, ten days to get another there, ten days to get the back. So this is going on for a month or so. And and then I get a call from Germany. It's the producer of the TV station. They say, we want to make a follow on documentary about, you know, recovering the the PI pilot and that sort of stuff. Well, my wife had had a stroke and I
wasn't about to leave. They wanted me to come to Germany, so they said, okay, if we come over there, I said yeah, So they came over. So they get over there, and of course, uh Burner thinks that I'm part of the Magdeburg raid. And he has no idea about you know, oriany and Burg and shooting its yet down and stuff like that. And so I the story of what happened to me, and he said, what do you When they lived, they spent about four or five
days in the Colorado Springs. I was living in Colorado Springs at the time. And he said, when he left, he said I'm going to find that jetpot and so he goes back. And then about a month later I get a letter from him and said, eureka, I found him as Walter Shook two hundred and six confirmed aerial victories, one of the top German Asius nights cross with Palms and H. I said, oh, yeah, I really did. I thought, well, maybe fifty to fifty of the fog
of war and all that sort of stuff. It's just so I looked at that at that and that went out for and then I got a leather letter. No, I got an email because he had computer from a a gentleman from Iranianberg who was studying that particular raid and he was looking for anybody that was on that raid. And I answered, I said, yeah, I
was on that raid. And so then the association and all this sort of came came about and UH and then that went on for a couple of years, and then in two thousand, I think it was two thousand and two, Christer Bergs from a prolific writer of UH the air war in Europe, the World War Two. He wrote me and he said that he had just said that he was doing the Walter's uh Walter Shuk's biography. And then he said that I under said that he wrote down a sort of after action report
of what happened on your mission. He said, I said, yeah, I said, he said, what you buy, said it to me as I I emailed it to him, and then about three days later I get a he says, one hundred percent super of your shot. You had, the one that shut down Walter Shuck. I said, how can you be one hundred percent sure? Everything he's He said, everything in your stories matched to the second you know everything that happened. I said, well, still
you know? He said, yes it is. He says, because Walter shook as the only the Germans that shot down to B seventeens in a row on the same mission at Orienburgh, and that you saw both of those Achilles. He says, in fact, he shot down four during that time because he had shot down to be seventeens in another box before he went over to
your box. So so, and then Walter in his books he devotes the chapter to me shooting him down, and he knows I've shot him down, and I know I shot him down, and that's all that counts so that's that's it. And then we then in two thousand and five at Vista, California, Walter had a buddy, Kurt Schultchi, who migrated to the US and the fifties, and he was visiting him as well as a Canadian artist had drawn a depiction of be shooting down Walter and there's big siding plan.
They wanted me to go, Well, I have just lost my wife. I really wasn't capable of doing anything. And my granddaughter Sabritish, she kind of she talked anyway, she talked me into coming out and I finally agreed and I came out there and we met at Pistol, California, with Walter on the first time in person on the eighteenth of May of two thousand and five, and he became close friends from that day on and we spent until
his passing in twenty fifteen. We spent many, many happy hours of discusing and he became part of my family, and my great granddaughter's little tots at the time called him Papa Walter. What does it mean to you? I'm sure you're glad that you know he survived now since he became good friends, but how proud are you about the fact that you forced down one of the best German It was both Walter and I who we had explained it this way, he said, Walter hit his job. His job was to protect his
homeland from the bombers. Now I understand that at my job was to protect the bombers from him. And we both did our jobs and that was it. You know, there was no animosity between the pilots and this stuff. He was he had a job to do and I had a job to do. And just like I got a an email one time is said, a guy was wondering about kills. How do you know you killed the pilot and stuff? How do you count the kills and stuff? I said, you
don't count. A kill doesn't mean you killed the pilot. A kill means you destroyed another aircraft. That's the kill. Is the aircraft, not the pilot, because there would be that very many because the many many of them that were shot down that were killed, the pilot survived by bailing out and
surviving. That's retired US Air Force Colonel Joe Peterbers, a veteran of World War Two, Korea and Vietnam. In our next edition, Colonel Peterburgs shares his stories of service from Korea and Vietnam as part of a military career spanning more than thirty six years. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American Veteranscenter
dot org. You can also follow the American Veterans Center on Facebook and on Twitter We're at AVC update. Subscribe to the American Veterans Center YouTube channel for full oral histories and special features, and of course, please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening, and please join us next time for Veterans Chronicles