All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
And now, your host for today's program, Dale Throneberry.
Welcome to Veterans Radio.
My name is Dale Throneberry, CW2-type helicopter pilot in the United States Army in 1969.
Welcome to today's program.
We're going to be going back in time again, back to June 23rd, 2007, when my partner,
Gary Lilly and I had the opportunity to interview a gentleman named Gary Toyne.
And Gary talked about his book, The Quiet Hero.
And it's a great story.
And then we talk a little bit about where have our heroes all gone?
Where have they kind of disappeared?
We don't hear that much about them anymore.
And I think you'll find this interview really enlightening.
It's kind of timely too when you think about it, because we really don't hear that much
about military heroes any longer.
We don't even really know how to define military heroes, or heroes in general.
So I want you to sit back and really enjoy this interview.
It's great hearing Gary's voice again.
For those of you that follow Veterans Radio, Gary was one of our founders.
And unfortunately, we lost him.
Well before we get into the program, I want to thank our sponsors because we can't do
Veterans Radio without their support and without your help even.
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So you can just go to veteransradio.org, click on the donate button, and we would appreciate
every nickel, dime, and dollar that you could spare.
This is our 20th year for those of you that are just listening in for the first time,
and all you want to do if you want to find about any of our programs, just go back to
our website, veteransradio.org, and just click on our archives, and you're going to see 20
years worth of programming.
I think you'll really enjoy some of those stories we have.
It's been kind of a really interesting adventure for me to go back and look at the topics that
we have covered over the last 20 years.
Really pretty interesting.
So anyway, we won't waste any more time.
Let's get right into this interview with Gary Lilly and Gary Toyne.
Here we go.
Anyway, today's program first aired on June 23rd of 2007, and it's really a two-parter.
First we will be talking with author Gary Toyne, as I mentioned about his book, The Quiet
Hero.
And it's a great untold story of George Whalen at the Battle of Forima Jima.
Then Gary will be talking to Gary Lilly, that is.
He'll be talking with Gary Toyne in the second half of our program on the topic of where
have our heroes gone?
Kind of an interesting question, don't you think?
Well, think about it.
Who are today's heroes?
What is a hero, or how do you define heroism?
I don't know.
So maybe you could help us out with that.
Anyway, so let's get to the first part of Gary's interview with author Gary Toyne from
June 23rd, 2007.
Good morning, America.
I'm your host Gary Lilly.
Here with you on Veterans Radio and my co-host Dale Throneberry.
Good morning.
Former helicopter pilot, and over there on the board Ken Rogie.
Ken Rogie waves hello.
I'm sorry, I hit the wrong button.
Today's show is going to be a really good one, Dale.
Really an untold story of a hero on Iwo Jima, Medal of Honor recipient, even his wife didn't
know about it for years after they were married.
Just never spoke of it.
The quiet hero.
I think it's a really fascinating story, and what we're going to be talking about later
on in the program is what makes a hero.
What has happened to the American hero that we all grew up with many, many years ago,
and how are we going to get this generation to understand the importance?
Our heroes alive and well in America.
They're alive.
I know that, but they're not getting a lot of good press right now.
We're going to find out from our guest Gary W. Toin more about that subject.
With us is Gary W. Toin, who is the author of The Quiet Hero, the untold Medal of Honor
story of George E. Whalen.
George E. Whalen was a Navy corpsman slash pharmacist mate in the Battle of Iwo Jima,
awarded the Medal of Honor to Navy Crosses.
Mr. Toin, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Thank you for having me.
I see that you are a professor of radio and media.
I guess we're going to get our final grade after this interview.
Yeah, the tests are easy though.
Good.
We'll let you carry it.
Tell us about this corpsman, George Whalen.
What did he do?
Well, he's an amazing guy.
Obviously, I have a bit of a propensity towards him and a little bias admittedly, but I make
it the claim and I'm always wanting to underscore this for the fact that I respect all Medal
of Honor recipients, especially because they are true American heroes.
We can get into defining the word hero, but I think if there ever was a hero, it's a Medal
of Honor recipient.
But George is an interesting person simply because he can represent so many veterans.
In particular, I think if you ask any Medal of Honor recipient, they'll say, I'm not
a hero.
That's universal, they'll all say that.
But they'll say, this medal I wear around my neck is really as a proxy for every other
veteran.
Well, George is unique in that when he first joined military service as a civilian, he
was actually working as in the capacity of an enlisted man working as a crew chief at
Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah, actually supervising five other people and just fixing
planes and they were actually preparing them to send off to Russia for the Second World
War in Russia and getting the Russian troops geared up.
Worked on planes and then all of a sudden he says, you know, I'm tired of this and he
went and wanted to join the military and join the Air Force.
The other Air Corps at the time, they wouldn't let him.
They says, we're all filled up.
But if you want to work on planes, go join the Navy.
They've got planes.
He says, okay.
Went and volunteered for the draft, became a corpsman.
I wasn't too happy about that, but didn't want to empty bedpans and so he ended up
volunteering for combat duty with the Marine Corps.
And after Iwo Jima and the Medal of Honor and so forth, he came back and actually just
kind of hid a little bit, but he wanted to find a way to hide from all the acclaims.
So he joined the Army and served a distinguished career at the Army.
So he actually served all four branches of the military and after he retired, he actually
spent 14 years with the Veterans Administration.
He's still alive, isn't he?
He's still alive.
Alive and kicking.
Yeah.
And you did the interviews yourself, pretty amazing gentlemen.
I mean, from the standpoint of the humbleness and assuming he's a quiet person.
Very much so.
You know, I had chosen actually another title for the book, but the family said, you know,
if you really want a real title for my dad, let's say the quiet hero because he is.
He just has, what's amazing, I'll give you a little background on the story.
He received the Medal of Honor, we can talk about a little bit how we, how we received
it, but what's amazing is that he came home from shaking hands with President Truman and
after he was in a rehab hospital for several months and finally came home.
You know, everybody wanted him for parades and things like that.
He says, enough of this.
He threw the medal in a closet.
Didn't even know where it was.
He actually just kind of threw it in there and he just hid.
He just kind of went, you know, anonymous.
He was having a lot of nightmares.
I understand reading in the book and one can understand why.
And let's talk about that, the things that he did that brought on those nightmares.
Tell us about the landing on Iwo Jima.
Well he was born and raised in Utah and you can imagine a lot of Mormons out there and
he was not one of them and never was really raised a religious person and didn't, just
didn't have that belief.
They were about a day out of landing on Iwo Jima and he says that was the first time he
ever prayed.
And he says, God, if you're up there, I need help because I don't know if I can do my job.
That was his biggest fear is that he wouldn't be able to do his job.
He was, uh...
A common fear of combat, people.
He wasn't afraid of dying and I sincerely, I've talked with him many times and actually
his comrades many times.
Dying was not the biggest fear.
The biggest fear was letting down your buddy and doing something stupid where you didn't
do enough so that somebody gets hurt or killed.
And so he said a little prayer and he says after that I was really pretty much calm and
then he was part of the Fifth Marine Division, 26th, 226th.
And he was part of the, I think they landed about 10 a.m., 10, 30, part of the, I think
the third or fourth wave.
The battle was already raging and based on the radio reports coming back, everyone thought
that we were just cleaning clack up there.
Yep.
And the first wave was pretty much quiet.
They were wondering where is everybody.
I think if you've seen the movie Flags of our Fathers, you kind of get that sense that
everything was kind of on hold.
But General Tadamichi Kurobayashi was a brilliant man, probably one of the most brilliant tacticians
I think of the war and just simply waited for many of them to get on land and so they
really had no retreat and then all hell broke loose.
And that's when George arrived, basically when all hell was breaking loose.
We're more or less pinned down on the beach and we're at not for some brave NCOs and some
others force them up on land and into a better position where they protect themselves and
just moved ahead.
I've talked to people that have been awarded the Silver Star and the Army Cross, Navy Cross,
whatever they are, the Stingless Service Medal.
The one between the Silver Star and the Medal of Honor, I really never talked to a Medal
of Honor recipient about what he did.
But everybody that I've ever talked to, there's been a couple of times when I've listened
to the stories where my hair stood on end on my arms and the nape of my neck.
But what these guys have always said is, you know, look, somebody just happened to see
me do what I did.
Everybody was doing the same thing.
There are the stories of bravery you're sounding out there.
It's just that somebody has to get singled out, it seems like.
And the people that saw him do it have to be alive.
You're absolutely right.
You've done your research well and that is so true.
I can't tell you how many Medal of Honor recipients that never were simply because nobody was
there to see it and acts of bravery similar in magnitude and in valor, but just didn't
meet the criteria.
George's unit actually was a Fox company, Second Battalion, 26th Marines, actually had
two Medal of Honor recipients.
So of a group of 250 men, they had two Medal of Honor recipients and a third that probably
should have received it, but the paperwork was messed up for some reason and probably
others.
Which happened quite a bit.
They also had four Navy crosses and four Silver Stars and probably countless Bronze
Stars.
And 100% Purple Hearts, is that right?
Actually, yes.
100% Purple Hearts.
They actually had over 100% casually rate what you consider their replacements that were
in there.
It was amazing.
You know, amazingly, anybody could walk away from that, but I think out of their entire
company of the original that landed on the island, only five walked off without injury
and one of them was their CO Frank Caldwell.
We're talking to author Gary Toyn, who was also a professor of radio and media.
And we're going to be talking later about the heroes of today.
Where are they?
But right now we're talking about Gary, not Gary, we're talking about George Whalen,
who received the Medal of Honor.
Tell us about some of the things that he did that caused him to be awarded.
The first day or two, they really, they were receiving a lot of fire, but not really on
the attack.
Is that true of his company?
Pretty much they were held in reserve, but didn't mean that, you know, that was kind
of a joke among many of them, reserve meant what?
You know, they were still taking significant fire and many injuries, even if they were
in reserve.
Well, the bigger rounds were hitting in the rear while the machine guns and mortars were
working over the front lines.
You know, and exactly, but the other point to remember is that, you know, Iwo Jima was
just a mass of caves and tunnels and interconnecting, you know, tunnels between various points.
And once the unit had figured that they had secured an area, well, behold, there would
be, you know, a Japanese would crawl underneath the line and shoot from behind.
Fifteen miles of tunnels you wrote.
Exactly.
And it was, you know, they're just, there's really, it was such a difficult challenge and
they were truly unprepared for it, but as far as what George did, what really happened,
it was kind of a series of events.
You know, on one occasion he was seeing a fellow platoon had taken a direct hit with
mortar fire and so there's about 14 Marines, there's actually 14 Marines that are lying
out in this open field, a little bit of gunfire overhead, but mostly an open field.
And George, one of the men in that platoon was his best friend, Eddie Mungaris, and he
knew that with the calls for corpsmen that weren't being answered that obviously his
best friend must be hurt.
So he leaves his unit, he goes over and one by one grabs a wounded Marine, treats him,
drags him into a shell hole.
He does this again and again and he runs out to another one who has an amputated leg, puts
a turnigun on it, gives him a shot of morphing, drags him back.
In the span of about a half hour, 40 minutes, he does this 14 times.
One of these men happens to be his best friend, Eddie Mungaris, who has a chest wound and
frankly he looks at it, he had a choice to make and this is kind of the character of
the man, he had a choice to make.
His best friend, does he try to save him, does he spend more time trying to save him or does
he do what he has to do and get him back and treat others and that's what he did.
He did his best for his friend, treated him as best he could, got him back, got him evacuated
but went back out and got more and saved more men.
That was just one act.
Other acts include carrying men twice his size to safety, just going out in front of
the line of fire.
Just amazing acts that you look at.
You interviewed some of the people from his company and he didn't realize it but they
were watching him in awe and inspired by what he was doing out there in that field but an
acre size, an acre is 203 feet by 203 feet, I mean real estate.
That small of an area of 14 Marines and the entire time mortar rounds were coming down
on it, sometimes hitting, so heavy sometimes hitting two at a time, is that correct?
That's right.
He was out there on his own with those wounded Marines.
And actually it's amazing he didn't get hit and everyone knew that was watching him were
certain that they were targeting him but they couldn't get him for whatever reason.
And his mind was only on the Marines and he was certainly aware of the incoming fire but
his mind was solely on those wounded Marines.
Really elsewhere in fact he only realized that once he had dragged that last man back
he jumped into a shell hole and then it dawned on him, what did I just do?
What?
And he just put his hands over his face and just shook.
He says he shook for about five minutes.
He just could not believe what he did and in some respects kind of kicking himself for
putting himself in that position but it was just an automatic thing.
He did what he thought was right.
A lot of times you do something dumb and you think what was I thinking?
Well acts like that you do without thinking.
You do with training and you do with what's inside your guts.
Isn't that what they say about training, right?
Right.
I've heard of time and again from the combat vets when instincts and training take over
and they find themselves doing things they were trained to do and kind of while they're
fighting a battle they're thinking in the back of their mind and amazement of what they're
doing and not thinking about it.
Just happening.
Now that was not the only thing that he did that he also was awarded two Navy crosses.
Was it two Navy crosses?
Two Navy crosses that were ended up, they converted the two Navy crosses into the Medal of Honor.
Okay, tell us about some of the other things that he did.
Well the other thing that was pretty amazing is the fact that he was out one by one kind
of treating people.
He was injured on several occasions.
On one occasion he took a hand grenade to the face and with a soft volcanic sand ended
up, you know, most of the blast went beyond it but he still cut a significant amount of
shell fractures in his fragments in his eye and his face had swollen up and he bandaged
himself and he went down to get some more supplies and the CO more or less ordered him
to go back to an aid station to be evacuated.
He grabbed the supplies and just ran away.
Right, he refused the order to go to the rear and get treated.
He resupplied and went back up to the front and at one point he found himself near a pit,
a tunnel with a Japanese soldier jumping up and throwing a grenade every now and then
and he was, well he had a 45 but he knew that wouldn't do the trick.
Tell us what happened then.
Well he was trying to get up to treat a wounded Marine but he couldn't because of this, the
Japanese soldier was coming out of this little spider trap or tunnel and throwing a grenade
and retreating back into the tunnel and so he snuck around it.
He's still trying to get to this Marine and he can't so he snuck around and actually looked
down about 15 feet into this little hole and he conceded him coming out.
He said he was close enough to use his 45 but he didn't know if he'd hit it or not
so he didn't have any hand grenades so he called down to another so he threw me up
some grenades and they threw him up a grenade and he takes the pin out but it won't budge.
It's been bent down for safety and so he, in the middle of this battle with gunfire and
everything, he takes his K-bar out, straightens the pin out, pulls the pin and waits a few
seconds and then just drops it and as soon as he drops it the Japanese popped out and
was eliminated and then George was able to crawl back up and treat that what it means
to actually save that guy because of that incident.
So again another...
The columnist had to roll over on his back to do that with the machine gun bullets flying
over his head.
We're talking to Gary W. Toyn, author of The Quiet Hero, the untold Medal of Honor story
of George Whalen.
We've got about 50 seconds left before we go to a break.
Gary, tell us what are your conclusion, your thoughts with George Whalen?
Well, I think everybody should just know the stories of our American heroes, whether it's
George Whalen or anyone of the 111 that are remaining.
Actually it's 110.
These are the average age of these Medal of Honor recipients is 73 and we're going to
be losing them soon.
So I would suggest get your hands on these stories, find out about them because we won't
have them for long.
You're listening to Veterans Radio and we're coming up to a break now.
We'll talk about American heroes and we'll be right back.
Okay, we're back here on Veterans Radio here at WAAM, Talk Radio 1600.
That's Gary Lilly and he was talking to the author of The Quiet Hero.
And so if you want to get a copy of this book, which I think you might want to, you can go
onto our website, click on the cover and it'll take you right to Amazon and you can get this
book.
When we come back after the news break at the bottom of the hour, we're going to be talking
still with Gary Lilly and Gary Toyn about where are American heroes today and maybe we can
figure out a way that we can get more recognition for our heroes.
I'm not sure how much time have I got there.
How much time have I got?
I'm sorry.
Two minutes?
Okay.
All right.
So let me talk about what we're doing.
You heard both Gary's talking about Medal of Honor recipients and so what, as you know
here on Veterans Radio, we're really excited about having a local Medal of Honor recipient
in Charlie Kettles and we're going to be talking with Chuck and another Medal of Honor recipient
from Michigan in two weeks here on Veterans Radio Live.
So I'm hoping to get in a couple of other Medal of Honor recipients on the air to talk
about their experiences and what it is like and just let the American public know who
these people are.
Not just all the World War II Medal of Honor recipients because as Gary pointed out, they
are passing away at a rapid pace.
In fact, I think there's only 71 Medal of Honor recipients still alive today.
But we've got a project that we're working on and we're going to be promoting Medal
of Honor recipients all across the country.
So if you have a neighbor who happened to be one, let us know where they are.
We're going to be trying to track them all down and do a little story about each one
of them, the Medal of Honor recipients.
As you know here on Veterans Radio, we do a little Medal of Honor segment every week
that we can and it's just a kind of a rereading of their citation.
And as you read those, you just cannot believe that these people actually were able to put
their own fears and everything aside and be able to save their fellow human beings.
Next to the news, as I said, we're going to be coming back with a Medal of Honor segment
and then I'll reintroduce the second half of our program for today.
And that's what we're going to be talking about, what is it that makes a hero and how
do we get to that point.
So we're going to be taking a break in a moment because I can see that the music is going
to be coming up here shortly.
And you're listening to Veterans Radio, so listen to the news, come on back and the interview
will continue.
Thanks very much.
Let's get into Veterans Radio.
Okay, we're back here on Veterans Radio and we're going to be talking and continuing
our conversation with a self-proclaimed hero expert and author Gary Toyn as you, if you
were listening to part one of our program, he's the author of a book entitled The Quiet
Hero which is about the Medal of Honor story of George Wallen at Emojima.
It's a fascinating story, so I encourage you to grab that book if you can.
And we're going to come back and talking with Gary Toyn along with Gary Lillian myself.
And we're going to be looking at some questions upon her and maybe you might want to think
about these as well is, you know, does the media reject America's war heroes?
Do we hear as much about them as we should or what we did at one point?
Why don't our school children know enough about America's war heroes?
And why aren't we hearing more about the heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Now this program was recorded in 2007 and I think that some of that has changed since
then.
So we're going to go back and find out with the interview exactly what was going on.
So I'm going to turn the interview back over to Gary Lillian and Gary Toyn.
And we're back on Veterans Radio.
We're speaking to Gary W. Toyn who is the author of The Quiet Hero, the Untold Medal
of Honor story of George E. Wallen.
I guess I was pronouncing it incorrectly in the first half.
Now Gary, where have all the heroes gone in America?
Well that's a good question.
You know, part of the research that I'm doing on another book is about heroism and I happened
to set up my Google Alerts so that I could kind of track what was happening with heroism
in this country.
And you know, I'm amazed.
There's I think an act of heroism at least one or two happening every day.
And this is real person putting themselves at risk to save someone else.
And that's an amazing thing to me.
I never really realized it.
I think part of the problem comes in the use of the word.
I think we have a video game called Guitar Hero which I don't know if a Guitar Hero
and George Wallen are much on the same plane.
Not a play unless they use it.
I think it gives you some idea about the overuse of the word.
Right.
You're going to say not unless they use it to attack a terrorist.
Yeah.
You're right.
It's the dumbing down or the it's not overuse.
It's beyond that on the word hero.
What about metal boner recipients in Iraq, Afghanistan?
Have we had any?
We have, you know, and it's interesting.
It's a troubling thing.
And I think you touched on it a little bit about the inability or if it's unwillingness,
I'm not willing to charge them that of unwillingness but quite yet.
But it's getting pretty close.
I don't understand why the Pentagon is so hesitant to award the Medal of Honor.
We've got Jason Dunham, for example, who did earn the Medal of Honor.
But frankly, that's about it.
There's another one.
The name escapes me off the top of my head.
But it just doesn't seem for an engagement where we've been involved for, you know,
as long as we have, where our Medal of Honor recipients, they're out there.
They're doing heroic things.
But there seems to be some political decision involved in this.
And you know, you may know, have a little better feel for it than I do, but it just
doesn't quite seem fair.
I was just told the other recipient's name was Smith.
I don't know the background on him.
But there's the media doing enough to publicize or to, you know, put out what our people are
doing on the good side.
We hear about every charge that's ever made about them.
What about the good, the heroic things?
Are we hearing enough about them?
You know, that's an interesting, interesting story.
You know, I'm often hesitant to make criticisms about media bias.
But in this particular case, it was just such a glaring circumstance that I had to write
them a letter.
But there was a case in Jason Jenom's case, for example, where the New York Times did
not mention it.
Did not mention that he received the Medal of Honor.
He actually went to the White House.
Does the New York Times have a White House correspondent?
I believe they do.
Do they have a Washington, D.C. staff?
I believe they do.
They did not say one word about Jason Jenom receiving the Medal of Honor.
Follow that up about two months later and near the front page of the New York Times is
a story about a Cuban officer who was killed trying to protect an airline or a flight going
to somewhere in Cuba.
And the guy hijacked the plane and wanted to go to the United States, and he was killed
in the process.
And there's this big write-up about this Cuban officer receiving their equivalent of
the Medal of Honor.
It was just a stunning picture to me about what is going on in this country and why our
veterans are getting such short shrift from the media.
They simply, I don't think it's a matter of not wanting to or not caring about it.
I think they hate them.
I think that's what it's risen to.
It's just a level of hatred for the military, as Bill Clinton said.
He loathed the military, but I just can't see any other reason as to why they would
ignore something so monumental as the posthumous awarding of the Medal of Honor.
I've said many, many, many times that this nation honors everybody else's heroes except
its own, or everybody else's warriors except its own.
Do you think that it's deep-seated in our education industry that we have people that
are teaching too much against the goodness of the United States?
I have to temper some of my views because...
You don't have to on this show.
I haven't been in the schools and I don't know for sure, but I have four kids and where
I live, they just simply didn't get it.
They don't hear these stories.
They don't hear the stories of the Jason Dunham's or the George Wallam's or anything like that.
There is this systemic problem about admitting that their country is powerful.
I think that part of the problem is there's some self-hatred of the U.S. that we're so
prepared for.
It's just politically correct to trash the United States.
They trash the veterans that protect it, they give them the freedoms that allow them to
speak so freely as they do.
It's rather ironic.
I was visiting friends in Chicago.
It was about two years ago.
The people of retired gentlemen, University of Michigan graduate, retired attorney, brought
up the point, we don't have heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan, not like in World War II.
I said, you do.
We do have them.
We've got some unbelievably brave people, but you just don't read about them in the
media.
He said, oh, I refuse to believe that.
But you do agree with that.
I absolutely do.
I'll give you an example.
George Wallin and I went to Washington last October and part of the thing that what George
wanted to do was simply give copy of his books to returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan
and made the arrangements.
They treated George wonderfully, as you can imagine.
We would walk into a room of an amputee on every occasion.
These young men had lost limbs mostly to an IED, but they see George Wallin with the
Medal of Honor come in.
One particular man had forgotten that his legs were blown off and tried to stand up
to salute George.
These men here and actually women had put themselves in such grave danger yet to a man, every person
that we spoke to, they said, I want to get back.
I believe in the mission.
The mission is going to be successful regardless of what you hear.
We were walking in rooms at random.
We weren't trying to be at anyone.
These young men, I think we talk about the greatest generation.
Believe me, I have such great admiration for our World War II vets, but I'll tell you,
these young men are no less heroic and no less dedicated to their mission than those
of World War II.
I am just, we walked out of there, we were hoping to go in and inspire these young men
and just say thank you.
We walked out of there so uplifted and so optimistic thinking, man, we've got some great young
men out there, our country's in great hands.
Gary, this is Dale Throneberry.
I just had a question for you.
Do you think that that has to do with the lack of involvement by the majority of our population?
During World War II, we had all the war bond drives and they would bring out the Medal
of Honor recipients and the Emojima Flag Waivers and all these other things to raise the funds
to do that.
Pretty much everybody in the country was involved with what's going on in Iraq right
now, unfortunately.
We've got less than 1% of the population that's doing all the fighting for us.
I think you raised an excellent point.
It's been said that a religion can't really achieve much unless it requires some sacrifice
of its members or people.
In fact, that's really the case.
You really can't get people involved in your cause.
You can't get people involved in this cause unless they're asked to do something or sacrifice
for it.
It's just too easy.
We simply have been, we've just got it too good.
I can't agree with you more, Dale.
It just makes absolute perfect sense.
When you talk about people in World War II having to give up sugar and butter and tires
and shoes, my grandmother went without shoes for five years because she wasn't able to
get them because of the rationing.
You can't help but be involved in the cause when you're having to make sacrifices.
We're talking to Gary Toyn, author of The Quiet Hero, the untold Medal of Honor story
of George Whalen.
Where your vision quest seems to be to bring about the awareness of heroes, we've got
a minute left.
Tell us about some other heroes that you've run across and then we'll come back to it
after the break.
My point is simply trying to get as many people involved.
Like I said, the Jason Dunlums, there are so many instances where heroic acts have been
dutifully and duly noted but simply have lacked recognition.
Part of what I'm working on is a book called American Heroism, Untold Stories of Heroism
You've Never Heard.
That's part of my efforts here in trying to get people involved and trying to recognize
heroism.
It happens a lot, but frankly, the type of heroism we're talking about, military heroism, is
really still quite rare.
When we come back from the break, we're going to ask our listeners to tell us stories that
they have about heroes and buy email.
And we're talking to Gary Toyn.
We'll be right back.
The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in combat, given a member of the Armed
Forces of the United States.
There have been over 3,400 recipients of the nation's highest award.
This is one of them.
Sergeant First Class Paul Smith gave his life to protect his troops.
If you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans' Appeals, contact legal help for
veterans at 1-800-693-4800.
Soon, Iraqi soldiers, numbering perhaps 100, opened fire on Smith's position.
Smith was accompanied by 16 men.
Smith called for a Bradley, a tank-like vehicle with a rapid-fire cannon.
It arrived and opened up on the Iraqis.
The enemy could not advance so long as the Bradley was in position, but then, in a move
that baffled and angered Smith's men, the Bradley laughed.
Smith's men, some of whom were wounded, were suddenly vulnerable.
Smith could have justifiably ordered his men to withdraw.
Smith rejected that option, thinking that abandoning the courtyard would jeopardize
about 100 GIs outside, including medics at an aid station.
He manned a.50 caliber machine gun atop an abandoned armored personnel carrier and fought
off the Iraqis, going through several boxes of ammunition.
As the battle wound down, Smith was hit in the head.
He died before he could be evacuated from the scene.
The Medal of Honor series is a production of Veterans Radio.
A message from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
And we're back on Veterans with author Gary W. Toyne.
Gary, I assume you're interested in learning more about heroes that have not come to the
light.
How could people contact you to say, hey, here's something you ought to write about, or
some person you ought to write about?
I appreciate that.
Let me just clarify a point that I was saying before.
i think the fact that we have uh... military heroism
happen all the time fact that is recognized as rare that was my point
uh... you know do you think in contact me at my publisher that the email address
is info i nfo
at american legacy media dot com
uh... or they can go to the website the quiet hero dot com
and uh... submit information submit uh...
uh... uh... information there about their hero i'm i'm looking for people
uh... kind of it uh...
you know an easy criteria it's it's quite straightforward somebody who has
but they're like a danger for uh...
uh... to save someone else's life
uh... and after that point this is kind of sticky part
has not really thought recognition or has tried to use their heroism
for some personal gain
uh... often we find that that happens uh... not often but uh...
that's really what we're looking for people that are other are more or
less quiet heroes
after a eleven we heard a lot about the uh... firemen
that going up into the towers and how many of them died and the policemen over
in new york
uh... and uh... we don't know that type type of heroes and what i want to do is
i want to speak with them so
i i i'm not really looking for posthumous
people have passed away i'm really i want to speak with them because uh...
i want to find out how they dealt with it i want to
all i want to talk to them about
uh... what they went through and what they've gone through and and what to
kind of yet
that's come up since then so that's really what i'm looking for but if you
give any of your listeners have got any
military or non-military doesn't matter i want to hear about it
uh...
it there's there's quite a bit of it out there but you know there's
and the good stories are there's
there's people that just to simply in in your community or
or somewhere that it just not been told and and we i want to hear about it
uh... this is this is dale again i'm mike my comment i guess would be is that
with a many of the iraq returning iraq afghanistan veterans is it's almost too
soon for them to
uh... open up
it's it seems like we were in doing our program and talking to the world war two
and up to the vietnam veterans taken them
thirty sixty years before they're willing to tell their stories
and with the iraqi people sometimes it is just a little bit too soon for them
that's a real good point but you know what i have found though
is that people who have seen it in other people
they're willing to come forward
uh... probably obviously much more
uh... uh... less hesitant than than the people actually involved in the
heroism but
but uh...
i'm hoping i agree with you one percent that you know there's certain
amount of time in healing has to take place through time
uh... i'm hoping though that uh... that
some some people will
will understand that
you know we need to tell the story the stories need to be out there people need
to know
the character
of our military people
we've we've always you know we've always said that these are ordinary people who
do extraordinary things
and uh... that that that to me is what a hero is
somebody who steps forward and doesn't even think about
the consequences for themselves because it's ingrained in their character matter
character you're absolutely right it
you you talk you touched on something that i was going to bring up
i have found in trying to get vietnam veterans to teach uh... talk to school
kids
you have to persuade them to do it so if somebody out there knows of a hero
they ought to contact you and tell you about it so that you can make the contact
yourself or join in with trying to get the person to uh... talk about what they
did
yes
and what i'm trying to do is just simply trying
a lot of these
you know you know women are frankly not
not ready to talk like you said but
i want to know who they are
uh... my project not going to happen in in you know six months i want to know
who they are
and frankly this is a long-term project that over time will probably evolve
so let me know who they are now uh... it it's important to get these get get
to know these people and get them on record so that we can track them and
and frankly they said it's a matter of character we want to see how they deal
with it how they deal with uh...
not only the heroism but obviously the memories that that are haunting them
that it's it's
it being here with so multifaceted you know i don't personally understand but i
kind of sympathize with george
when you're dealing with
with having to deal with nightmare senior best friend blown apart
being uh...
all of these horrific things
and then on top of that being called a hero for doing something that you think
is just your job
and the uh...
that you get they get defensive about it
what uh... one of the things that i have seen uh... experienced not for myself
but the people that got to the talk about it is it's healing for them it's
so therapeutic
and and they come to realize afterwards that it is
they'll uh...
we have a doctor in our vietnam veterans of america
chapter
uh... worked on uh...
over in the uh... vietnam
some one time was a six and a half day
stretch of operating on terribly wounded troops
and he talked about it at pioneer high school
uh... here in an arbor for the first time
and said it would really bothered him afterwards
he'll do it again because of it it was good
well i think that if you were
if we're not telling our stories somebody else is going to tell him for
us and i'm gonna mess them up
and it's so we got it
you know we got to get him down someplace but you know you you're a
excellent point uh... george wallin for example
uh... with interviewed by james bradley
and so george is gone more work six years not telling a story to anyone for
much the same reasons we discussed
james bradley comes out the interview george for his book flag for father
and he tells him about his dad who is you know john bradley who died and uh...
didn't tell anyone and you know how john
founded out in a trunk when he's going to his father's things after he died
it was that interview that was really the catalyst for george to say you know
what
i better tell my story and i better tell him the way i'd
no it's to be true so it doesn't get blown out of proportion
you know it's interesting how those types of interviews of those types of
events are cathartic for many of these young men
you know they've never talked about or they've talked about it in such you
know bits and pieces they've never really put it together it is cathartic it
is therapeutic it has
uh... great healing powers and being able to talk about it and say you know
what i survived and i'm okay
you know the uh... interesting thing i've
observed about vietnam veterans is
anytime you ask him about it
it always starts off with i was only those three words i was only
and so
one of the reasons i think that people
don't talk about their heroism is because they think i was only i saw
guys do things that were much more heroic than what i did
well and i think there's obviously
in addition to that some
uh... some real
character things going on here saying you know i don't want to bring attention
to myself i don't want to
you know if i say this you know what is my buddy gonna think when he did the
same thing
i understand that and you know i don't want to put anybody in a position to
say
look you know i'm here to make you a you know to put you in a book to make you
all famous everything that's not my point
uh... i think there's a uh... a bigger a bigger picture here i want people to
come forward to say look
uh... here
here's uh... the type of character of
people that i served with
and
you know what
there's a there's a lot of it is a lot more of it that's being portrayed
and uh...
it just needs to be told it need our you know our our heritage needs
to preserve these stories
uh... you know
you know that working for us to
to be involved in in leaving a legacy like this for for children grandchildren
as you said earlier you don't need to tell your story it will come out in the
telling
when you're telling about other people that you served with
that's right the things that you this is to honor others
it's not just not to draw attention is that to brag there's no bragging in here
uh... these people don't brag
it's the honor the people that they served with recognize them
uh... we're list we're talking author gary w toying
on veterans radio
you're working on large uh... uh... long-term project you said gary
it's your vision quest to find the uh... heroes what is the end
uh... product going to be
well actually there's several it's kind of a multi book process uh...
i'm working with uh... but in the mother in the dog stoner uh... pebble
colorado who's uh...
kind of the middle of honor expert uh... we were actually trying to compile a
book of all the metal of honor recipient dfc at the service cross
service middle
uh... recipients and uh...
and silver star recipients which is a huge process but over the long haul we're
trying to create an encyclopedia
of american military heroism
uh... it's never before been done before but certainly it's a lot of work
so it's a long-term process but
uh... where uh... in that process a companion book is
there these unsung heroes are people that don't really
didn't receive a lot of recognition or maybe did you know whatever happens but
we're that's that's kind of that whole process we're trying to document
american military heroism and also along with that
uh... you know regular civilian heroism as well so it's a huge project that's
going to take many years to
to work on a complete and that's why i need veterans to kind of step forward
they look this is my buddy
this is what he did or
i know this guy who are you know whatever
i think that's really important we have talked with dug in the past on on veterans
radio and we've been talking about this we've also
uh... we will
uh... put your information up on our website of course and we're encouraged
people that to contact you
and also to participate in the veterans history project
which is being run through the library of congress trying to record all of these
stories and you don't have to be a hero
to record your story
uh... it's really important that all of you out there get these opportunities
to get these stories down because
you know your great-grandkids are going to be fascinated to find out what great
grandpa great-grandma did when they were in their twenties
absolutely
uh... i've got a i've got a web link that all sent to you i haven't got a handy
because i'm in washington in my office in utah
but uh... all email you a link so that you can put it on your website where they
just click on it and they could submit the story through uh... just a little
web web form
so uh... which would
you know they can do it anonymously or they can send me an email whatever they
want to do
okay we're looking forward to that and talking to gary w toying author and
historian
uh... author of the quiet hero of the untold medal of honor story of george
wellan we've also been talking about
uh... the american hero
where are they
they're out there we know that
they're just not being publicized and gary wants to hear the stories of the
american hero
and they could take a silly email me at info at american legacy media dot com
thank you very much and thank you for being with us gary
thank you gentlemen appreciate it
hope you enjoyed today's program was originally aired back in june of two
thousand and seven really great to hear gary lily's voice and a really
interesting conversation with gary toying and i want to
just update things for gary toying uh... the
think the email that that we gave during the program is uh... no longer
operable
so if you want to find out more about gary toying go to his website that's gary
toying to y and dot com
he's still writing he's still out there is still a great interview and i'm
hoping to have him on again next year
to talk more about
heroes you know when he was mentioning that he is working with uh... doug sterner
uh... was
written on hundreds and hundreds of book trying to
trying to gather all the information that he can about
you know metal of honor recipient silver stars everything along those lines and
so we're going to
have dug back on later on
this year as well
uh... at the end of each program recently i've been playing uh... you know
different versions of god bless america or america the beautiful and today we're
going to be going out on uh... a version from the grand old opera in this kind of
combination of both of those songs i think that both of these are very very
important
to uh...
you know the american psyche it you know what everything that's going on in the
world today
i just want to remind our audience what a great country that we do live in
you know and we will get past all of this turmoil and everything else that is
going on
once we seem to get our senses uh... you know back in order again
but i did i do i just want to remind everybody what a great place this is to
be to be
you know we want to be that beacon on the hill is is you know regan said the
rest of them
i want to pay attention to this song
pay attention to the words that really important
so until the next year i guess it will be until next year this is dale throneberry
from all of us here at veterans radio which you know a happy new year
and until then
you are dismissed
come
uh...
is
My home sweet home
God bless America
My home sweet home
Oh beautiful, oh spacious sky
Forever ways of lead
Oh purple mountain's mass
Above our fruity flame
America, America
God shed His grace on me
And crowned I could with brother
From sea to shining sea
And crowned I could with brother
From sea to shining sea
From the mountains to the prairies
To the oceans white with color
Oh God bless America
My home sweet home
God bless America
My home sweet home