All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
And now, your host for today's program, Dale Throneberry.
And welcome to Veterans Radio.
My name is Dale Throneberry, CW2 Type Helicopter Pilot in Vietnam, 1969.
Welcome to our program.
We're going to be talking about some really interesting things, I think, today.
I've got an author on for a book that's titled, Hodenay Nemo.
And it's Charles Lachman.
And it's a story of the capture of a U-boat during World War II that nobody knew about.
So this is kind of our opening salvo to say about the story and the history of this amazing
adventure, I think.
Also have a segment later on in the program where we're going to be talking with the Wounded
Warrior Project about how companies can partner up with nonprofits and make their communities
better.
So I want you to make sure that you tune in and listen to that whole thing there.
Before we get into the story, of course, I have to thank our sponsors because we can't
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Now, on to the show, as they say.
So joining me on Zoom is the author of the book titled, Code Name Nemo, as Charles Lachman.
Charles Lachman is the author of four previous books, What Steps in the Snow, The Last Lincoln,
A Secret Life, and a Crime Novel in the Name of the Law.
He is also the executive producer of the nationally syndicated news magazine Inside Edition.
He's appeared on CNN, MSNBC, History Channel, Lifetime, C-SPAN, all types of things.
He lives in New York City.
I just want to read one quick review of the book.
And this is, I thought, was interesting.
Says Charles Lachman weaves the incredible story of the capture by American forces of
a German U-boat and its secrets during World War II, an operation which allowed Allied
forces to shock the German Navy, richly detailed with undeniable suspense and action.
Code Name Nemo is destined for the nonfiction bestseller list.
Bill O'Reilly, number one New York Times bestselling author.
I thought that was a pretty good review.
So joining me right now on Veterans Radio is Charles Lachman.
Charles, welcome to the program.
Thank you, Dave, for having me, really appreciate it.
Well, it certainly is my pleasure.
And as we were talking earlier, I mentioned I received this as a not-for-sale, advanced
review copy a couple of months ago.
And I said, oh, I don't know if I want to read this.
Oh, I picked it up and that was it.
I was done.
I had to read the whole thing straight through.
And mainly when I got to the end, I found out that this is about a U-boat 505.
And for those of you in the Midwestern United States, you've probably been to Chicago to
the Science and Industry Museum.
And at the Science and Industry Museum is this actual submarine.
And when I got to the end, that's where it came from.
Oh, my gosh.
So it's a great story.
So Charles, tell me, how did you get involved in writing this story?
Well, I had a similar experience to what you just described.
I went to Chicago with my wife.
Our daughter had just moved there and she was a little lonely.
So we spent, flew out there for Thanksgiving.
And her boyfriend at the time wanted to keep the parents entertained and happy and created
this whole like her for us.
And he took us to the Museum of Science and Industry and was all worked up about this exhibit.
You've got to see this Nazi U-boat exhibit.
It's amazing.
I was very intrigued by the whole idea of it.
I had never heard of U-505 before, frankly.
We went to the museum and we go down four sub-basements to this amazing hall.
It's enormous.
You walk in there and there in front of you is a Nazi U-boat from World War II.
And my first thought was, how the heck did it end up in Chicago?
Second thought, how the heck did they capture it?
And then I turned to my wife.
My third thought was, this is a book.
And that's how it all started.
And I went on this really remarkable adventure of research and writing that culminated in
codename Nemo being published.
Well, just for our audience's sake, can you give us a little quick little background of
the effectiveness of the U-boats during World War II?
Well, it was a critical component of the Battle of the Atlantic.
And a lot of people really don't know too much about the Battle of the Atlantic.
But what it did is it pitted U-boats and other warships of the German Navy against the Royal
Navy of the UK and the US Navy and allied merchant shipping.
And the main target of the Germans was to search and destroy merchant ships that were
coming from North America and mostly going to the United Kingdom and also to the Soviet
Union.
And the goal of the Germans was to strangle the British into submission to cut off their
supply of food and war material and ammunition.
Remember Britain is an island nation without much natural resources.
So convoys were developed, these fleets of merchant ships that were carrying these goods
and they were shielded by American and British warships that protected them as they crossed
the Atlantic.
And then the U-boats were extraordinarily effective in blowing up a whole bunch of these merchant
ships.
And there's a quote that starts off my book from Winston Churchill who would say, after
the war, that the only thing that really frightened him during the war was the U-boat peril.
He was more anxious about U-boats and the Battle of the Atlantic than he had been about
the Battle of Brittany.
Well, that makes a lot of sense.
I mean, when I was growing up, I'm from New Jersey originally.
And so, you know, all along the Jersey Shore, they would talk about, you know, that these
submarines were out there.
And I mean, obviously, I don't remember that part of it, not quite that old.
But the when I was reading your book and you were talking about these U-boats hanging
out just outside the harbors of New York and Charleston and, you know, up and down the
East Coast of America.
And as soon as these merchant ships would get out there, they became targets.
Yeah, totally.
In fact, Kay Pateris back in the 1940s was called Hurricane Junction, sorry, a U-boat
junction, because all these hundreds of merchant ships were being blown up by the U-boats.
Total number of ships that were destroyed by U-boats during the war were about 3,000.
And the U-boats worked in coordinated wolf packs.
So when one U-boat would sight a convoy, it would report the sightings to U-boat headquarters
and the other U-boats would move in.
And so instead of facing like a single submarine, the convoys were attacked by up to a half
dozen or so U-boats attacking simultaneously.
Wow.
That'd be a little bit frightening.
The interesting way that you put the book together is that you put it in a kind of a
first person thing.
How did you get these dialogues and so forth?
How were you able to put those together?
Well, the book is written in the present tense, which I thought added a lot of drama and enhanced
the reading experience.
And all the dialogue is nothing is made up.
All the dialogue is actually recounted by the members of the Rating Party that sees
the U-505.
And it's based on their personal recollections.
And also Captain Gallery, who led the mission and conceived the idea of seizing a U-boat
on the high seas, that battle was actually recorded by the Navy.
So all the dialogue and back and forth that went on between the USS Guadalcanal and the
various destroyer escorts is actually as it happened.
Well, I know we have a lot of Navy listeners.
And this was a learning experience for maybe in from the Army.
And that a battle group consisted of an aircraft carrier and four or five destroyers.
Right.
It was Task Force 22.3.
And it consisted of the USS Guadalcanal, it was called a baby flat top, which is it wasn't
quite the majestic aircraft carriers like the Enterprise.
At the Enterprise, right.
It was about half the size, about 500 feet in length.
And the whole idea was to build these ships on the cheap and in mass production.
It's basically taking the concept of the Ford Motor Company and bringing it into a wartime
or production.
And then the Guadalcanal was surrounded by five destroyer escorts.
And they were they had two goals.
One was to seek out search and destroy Nazi U-boats.
And the other one was to perform a protective screen so that the Guadalcanal would be protected
by by any U-boat wolf packs because the Navy did not want to lose a a a a a a a aircraft
carrier.
No, it's not good.
No, that wouldn't be good.
We're talking with Charles Lachman here is the author of the book, Code Name Nemo.
And it's about the capture of U-boat U-boat 505.
And the thing that I found so interesting about the book was that you wrote it from
both sides of the story.
And so in addition to hearing all of the Navy's, you know, the sailors and so forth
in their dialogues and what they're trying to do.
But you also gave us a little background on what the Germans were up to.
And that I thought was really interesting from the standpoint of if you could describe
for our audience a little bit the life of a submarine.
Sure.
Well, life was pretty tough for any U-boat sailor.
It meant serving three months at sea.
And the living conditions were horrendous.
You really have to love serving on a submarine to really appreciate it.
The food was okay.
It took a lot of, it was challenging to store the U-boat with enough food to last for three
months at sea in this very limited amount of space.
I tell this one story where usually the beginning of the voyage was filled with, the food served
was mainly eggs.
They stored about 2,000 eggs, which had to be consumed in the first two weeks or so
of the cruise before they started rotting.
And all the meat was canned.
And the smell was filled with thousands of pounds of potatoes, the food, the meat, and
milk was all powdered in total, 12 tons of food in this limited storage space.
And I don't want to get too graphic about it, but the facilities were, shall we say,
wanting.
They had two heads on the ship, but they were also used for storage.
So you did the best you could.
You had a bucket.
And when the ship had surfaced, you did what you took care of business that way.
But the smell was something that you had to really experience, not to appreciate.
I would think not, how many people were on the submarine?
There were between 50 and 60, depending on the particular cruise.
And just can you give us an idea of how big the German submarines were, like 200 feet?
It was at the bottom, not 200 feet.
This was very limited.
The ideal submariner was short because you didn't want his head to bop against the top
of the submarine.
And the cot where you slept was called hot racking.
It meant that it was in use 24 or 7.
So when you got some shut eye and then it came your turn to go on duty, you jumped out
of your cotton and another sailor hopped in and took your place during his down shift.
But morale was high despite the conditions, but really it depended on who your captain
was.
Some captains, U-505 in particular, had three captains.
The first one was admired by his men.
The third captain was also a respected commander.
But the second captain was loathed by his own men.
He was a terrible leader and they just despised him.
Yeah, they had a lot of issues with that particular captain.
And I'm trying to paint this picture a little bit of what life on a submarine was like.
So how long could they stay submerged?
It's interesting.
They could stay submerged for about 24 hours max.
And the reason for that is that when they were submerged, they ran on electrical power,
these giant batteries.
And those batteries would run out after about 24 hours and the U-boat would have to surface.
And the batteries would be recharged.
And while the recharging process took place, the ship was run on diesel fuel.
And that made them vulnerable to the Allied forces.
Once they were submerged, they were invisible, except by obviously by radar that was developed
later in the war.
But once they surfaced, that's when they became prey for both US and British Navy vessels
and aircraft that they tried to surface usually at night when it became more challenging to
spot them.
Oh, man.
That's kind of a scary thing there.
We're thinking about that because the war in the Atlantic, we're not that familiar with
the naval war in the Atlantic as much as we were with the naval war in the Pacific.
And I don't think that many of us were aware that all of this was going on at the Subsearchers.
I remember one of my friend's dad's was in the Navy and he was on a, I can't remember
what kind of ship it was, but they were out looking for submarines his entire tour.
And you never knew where these guys were coming from.
As you pointed out, I mean, they're underwater and the only thing that sticks up is the periscope.
And the next thing you know, they're blowing somebody up.
And in addition, the Germans were pretty sophisticated with their weapons.
And they came up with a torpedo that was an acoustic.
Is that what it was called an acoustic torpedo?
Right.
That was one of the great successes of the Capture of View 505.
At the time, the Germans, and we know that how skilled they are at technology, had invented
the acoustic torpedo, which basically listened to the sound made by surface propellers and
zeroed in on that and were very effective in weapons of war.
And the Allies were very concerned about it.
When you 505 was captured, they found about, I believe the numbers, 21 acoustic torpedoes
on board.
And they're able to figure out how to counteract the German technology with that discovery.
The sailors were, US sailors, they called them torpedoes with ears.
They were just absolutely, there was one scene in the book where a sailor is on board the
US S. Pillsbury and he sees a torpedo coming at him.
And fortunately, the torpedo missed.
And then he turns around and lo and behold, that same torpedo has turned around and continued
its pursuit of the Pillsbury.
Fortunately, it had expelled its entire fuel supply and conked out before it hit the Pillsbury.
But it shows you how really menacing these weapons were.
Well, let's talk a little bit about the adventure on the high seas and finding 505.
I mean, this was a really just an incredible coordinated effort to actually find the 505.
Because as you mentioned, they spend most of their days underwater and yet the Navy
was able to locate them.
Could you go into that a little bit for us?
Sure.
Well, Captain Dan Gallery, the leader of the Task Force 22.3 had conceived of the idea
of capturing a German U-boat on the high seas back in 1942.
And it just kept simmering in his head.
And it took him a couple of years to kind of formulate the plan.
And then in March of 1944, he set out from Norfolk with the USS Guadalcanal and five
destroyer escorts.
And he brought his commanding officers together in the ready room of the Guadalcanal just
before they sailed out.
And he filled them in for the first time on this mission, which was not just to hunt and
kill U-boats, but also to capture one.
And they looked at him as if he was nuts.
I mean, he describes Gallery, men to seeing one of the captains or commanders of the destroyer
escort kind of swirling his finger on the side of his head as if the sky is crazy.
But he ordered the destroyer escorts to find volunteers.
I'm going to focus on the Pillsbury because that's the one that ended up actually sending
its men over to the U-505.
The Pillsbury commanding officer picked a Lieutenant J.G. named Albert David to lead
the raiding party.
And David went around the vessel and signed up nine volunteers.
And they really didn't take him seriously.
They were young guys.
They were full of vitality.
And they figured, okay, let's give it a shot.
They really didn't think that this would be in any way successfully pulled off.
They just didn't think it was at all possible.
And it was a very, but they trained for a number of weeks.
And finally on June 4th, 1944, U-505 was spotted.
They had picked up its presence via radar and also some Navy intelligence had given
them a good sense of where in the vicinity this U-boat was.
And then Captain Gallery sent a couple of fighter planes into the air.
And sure enough, they could see the U-boat below the surface off the west coast of Africa.
And the day was, the water was extraordinarily clear on that particular day, lucky for the
Allies.
And per Gallery's instructions, they opened fire.
And the whole idea was not to destroy, to blow up the U-boat.
The idea was to damage it just enough so that it would force the U-boat Captain to surface
and surrender.
And it involved a tremendous amount of skill and also a tremendous amount of fortuitous,
good luck for this to happen.
And sure enough, the U-boat was pounded by small arms fire from both the fighter planes
in the air and also the various U.S. vessels.
And it damaged the rudder of the U-boat and it forced the U-boat to surface.
And that's when Gallery ordered the nine volunteers to pursue the U-boat.
So these nine sailors climbed it to a whale boat and they zipped across the ocean.
It was about 3,000 yards away.
And they proceeded to board the U-boat just as the German sailors were abandoning ship.
Well, I mean, that's that.
Again, you're in a submarine, where are you going to go?
And the thing is all broken.
It's spinning around more or less out in the middle of the ocean.
And in the book, you mentioned that one of the Germans came up onto the conning tower
and looked out and they were surrounded.
And so they decided they got to get off the boat.
We need to take a real quick break here.
And we're going to play our Medal of Honor for today's program.
And when we come back, let's talk about the importance of this 505.
What was the big deal?
Why did we have to capture a German submarine?
So you're listening to Veterans Radio.
We'll be right back after this.
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 3,500 recipients of our nation's highest award.
This is one of them.
On June 4, 1944, Navy Lieutenant Alfred David led a boarding party aboard a captured German
U-boat.
Details after this.
If you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans Appeals, contact Legal Help for
Veterans at 1-800-693-4800.
They're experts in handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
Their number again, 1-800-693-4800.
David was attached to the USS Pillsbury during the capture of an enemy German submarine off
French West Africa on 4 June 1944.
Taking a vigorous part in this skillfully coordinated attack on the German U-boat 505,
Lieutenant Alfred David boldly led a party from the Pillsbury and boarding hostile submarine
as it circled erratically at five or six knots on the surface.
Fully aware that the U-boat might momentarily sink or be blown up by exploding demolition
or in scuttling charges, he braved the additional danger of enemy gunfire.
To plunge through the conning tower hatch and with his small party exerted every effort
to keep the ship afloat and gathered all the German code books and the infamous Ignidmug
machine.
His mission was to make the U-505 sea-worthy for the long tow across the Atlantic to a
U.S. port.
By his valiant service during the first successful boarding and capture of an enemy man of war
on the high seas by the U.S. Navy since 1815, Lieutenant David contributed materially to
the effectiveness of our Battle of the Atlantic and upheld the highest traditions of the United
States Naval Service.
Lieutenant David's Medal of Honor was awarded posthumously and is located at the Museum
of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois, along with a refurbished German U-boat 505.
The Medal of Honor series is a production of Veterans Radio.
We're back here on Veterans Radio and we are talking with Charles Lachman, who is the
author of a book titled Code Name Nemo.
It's about the capture of a German U-boat in the Atlantic Ocean back in June of 1944,
just before D-Day.
Charles, I wanted to know, I guess, you know, what was the big attraction?
Why did we want to capture this boat and how did we, I mean, we already talked a little
bit about how we went about it, but what did, what information did they gather after they
captured it?
Right.
First, I just want to say how delighted I was to hear that you cite the Medal of Honor
citation that Lieutenant David got.
He was the only Navy sailor in the Battle of the Atlantic to receive a Medal of Honor.
And he's really a forgotten American hero.
It's so sad to think that he survived this extraordinarily dangerous mission.
He led the boarding party and then at the end of the war, he was going to be given the
Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony.
And about two weeks before, he suffered a whittlemaker, a fatal heart attack.
So I was delighted that Kodenay Nemo brought his story back to a new generation of Americans.
But in answer to your question, Dale, the capture of U-505 was of enormous significance
to the World War II efforts to beat the Nazis.
And what it did was it resulted in the capture of the current cipher codes for the German
U-boat fleet in the Atlantic for the last two weeks of June 1944.
So that meant that the Allies could, the Codebreakers could read U-boat messages in real time as
fast as the Germans received them.
And it freed up an estimated 13,000 hours of precious decoding computer time in those
all-important weeks that followed the D-Day invasion.
I think the idea, can you tell me about the Enigma machine?
I got confused myself on that one.
Well, the Enigma machine, if anyone has seen that terrific British movie, The Imitation
Game, you know a little bit about the Enigma machine, basically it was a cipher device
that was used to protect military communications.
It looked like a typewriter and it had keys that you type with.
And if you looked at it, you think it was just a typewriter.
But each time you hit a key, a light would go on.
And if you opened it up on the back, it was a kind of a spaghetti of a wires and four
electromechanical road is.
And what it did was it scrambled the letters of the alphabet into pure gibberish.
And there were millions and millions of potential combinations and the Germans considered it
to be foolproof that no one could break the code.
Of course, they didn't count on a brilliant British professor named Alan Turing to create
this computer that was able to crack the code in 1942.
But the significance of U505 was, as I pointed out, that you still needed, through Turing's
computer, you needed all that computer time.
U505, the net result was that they were able to read it in real time.
I think that's part of the cool thing.
The coolest thing about the book is that we get to hear these characters on both sides
and talking about what they are doing.
So I'm really encouraging people to take the opportunity to buy the book, Code Name Nemo,
so that you can hear about these things.
Because the Germans are talking about their devotion to Nazism and to Hitler and so forth.
But they're going home on leaves and they're seeing their homes are destroyed, relationships
and all kinds of things.
And you have the Americans on the other side talking sports and all kinds of typical American
intellectual dialogue.
But I just found that part to be extremely interesting.
And I thought it was, you know, the other thing was, and I guess we can finish this
out with, the Germans didn't know that we captured this thing.
That's right.
It was absolutely essential that it be kept a secret from the German high command.
They assumed that U-505 had been lost at sea, either through an accident or by the work
of the US or British navies.
And the reason that it had to be kept secret is that there was a real concern that if the
Germans had found out that U-505 had been captured intact and all its men were, except
for one, were still alive, that they would realize that their code books and the enigma
machine had been compromised.
So what happened was an extraordinary effort to keep it secret.
Every man on that task force, 22.3, was ordered to sign an oath and it swore them to secrecy
until the end of the war.
And the penalty of execution, that's how seriously it was taken.
And then one of the most fascinating parts of the story to me was that the German POWs,
all 59 of them, were sent to a POW camp in Louisiana.
Their families back home in Germany all assumed that they were dead.
But it was only after the Germans surrendered in 1945 did they learn that they were still
alive.
This was actually in violation of the Geneva Convention and the International Red Cross.
You're supposed to tell, inform the other side that you've captured their men, that
they're POWs, but this was considered to be so serious that the Americans decided that
for the sake of victory, they had to keep the existence of the German POWs a secret.
Yeah, I mean, the German families didn't know that their loved ones had survived until
late in the war, like 1946 almost seemed like what I remember reading in the book.
I think you mentioned when we were talking earlier about the many of the Germans, you
know, the, let me back up and clarify this.
So many of the American Navy guys and so forth would have their reunions and they would have
their reunions in Chicago because somehow Chicago managed to get the 505 on display
there.
And that's all covered in the book.
And we don't have to go through that.
And many times many of the Germans, submariners from the 505 would come to those reunions.
And that's where you found the travel, you know, just a trove of information.
Yes.
One of the things that made me want to write the book is that I want to write about American
heroes.
And these sailors were just kids when the war started and they were humble, humble people.
Bear in mind they had the greatest war story that's imaginable that they could tell.
But when they came back to their families after the war in their hometowns, all they
wanted to do was start their lives, raise families, get good paying jobs and forget about the
war.
I tell one story where an American sailor who was on the boarding party, he was actually
the, they call them flags.
He never told his kids about his role in capturing U505.
And one day his eldest son came home from college and his mother said, I want to show
you something.
And she went into the bedroom and opened the drawer in the night table.
And inside a box that she opened up was the silver star that he had been awarded for his
role in U505.
And the kid had no idea about that.
But just to get back to your question, they, as years went on, they made a point of visiting
Chicago for these big 10th anniversary, 20th anniversary unions.
And lo and behold, a lot of times the Germans who they captured also came.
Just as U505 was so critical in the lives of the Americans who were participating in
the raiding party, so it was for the German crew members.
And they came back, some actually moved to Chicago because they wanted to be near U505.
Can you believe that?
So look, after the war, Germany became our allies and they still are.
And you know what they say, yesterday's enemy is tomorrow's friend.
So that's where that stood.
Well, I think it's a great story, Charles.
And I really encourage our listeners to go out and get this book titled, Code Name Nemo.
And it's the hunt for the Nazi U-Boat and the elusive enigma machine.
Great dialogue, great stories, some really interesting characters in there.
And I want to congratulate you on writing just a wonderful book.
Thank you so much.
Very much appreciated.
Okay, so let me know when you write another one.
I'd love to have you back on the program.
You got it.
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you very much.
All right.
That was Charles Lachman.
The book is Code Name Nemo.
Go out and get this book.
I think you're going to find it really interesting.
Something that you should know more about.
We're going to go right now to a little interview that we did earlier in the week with where
did it go?
Where did it go?
My notes are all over the place.
Here.
Okay.
There it is.
All right.
This is from the Wounded Warrior Project.
And they had the National Nonprofit Day was just the other day.
And so the Wounded Warrior Project put out an interview about how they are sharing information
with companies and how they can partner with nonprofits for making communities better.
So we're going to run this right now.
So Derek, here we go.
Here we are here on Veterans Radio and we have a really great opportunity today.
We're talking with representatives from the Wounded Warrior Foundation.
And they're going to be talking to us today about the upcoming National Nonprofit Day,
which is going to be on Saturday the 17th.
And the Wounded Warriors work with many corporations in helping with fundraising for the community,
of course.
The Wounded Warriors are designed to help veterans mostly from the post 9-11 generation
of veterans.
But of course it's all across the country and they're doing really great things.
So joining me real quickly today, we've got, and I'm hoping I'm going to mess these names
up too badly, but I've got Brea Todd from the Wounded Warrior Project.
I've got Brian Tucker from CSX and I've got Olivia Parker from Parker's Kitchen.
Is that correct?
So I'll start off with Brea.
Tell us about the programs and services that are offered to veterans through the Wounded
Warrior Project.
So Wounded Warrior Project offers free programs and services to warriors and their family
members.
And those programs focus in areas such as mental and brain health, financial health and wellness,
connection events, advocacy efforts, as well as physical health and wellness.
And we serve warriors in their communities and we meet them where they are in their recovery
journey.
And how are we doing this corporate partners thing?
Where did you come up with this?
Yes, so we've been really fortunate to work with corporate partners such as CSX and Parker's
Kitchen for a number of years.
And there's many ways in which a corporate partner can work with us, ranging from engaging
their employees to sponsorships.
You'll hear later about how they engage with our programs specifically and also how they
engage their customer base.
So we work with a corporate partner in a way that makes sense to them and they help us
further our mission and really amplify our efforts.
Well, I know it's really hard.
As a small nonprofit, sales, you know, working with corporations has always helped us out
greatly.
You know, once they find out what the mission is, it seems like everybody's, oh, this is
a great way to help veterans.
And you know, just the corporate name is always helpful, I think.
Isn't it for you?
Absolutely.
When a trusted brand such as CSX or Parker's Kitchen aligns with our brand and you see
their name next to Wounded Boyer Project, I think it just goes a long way and it really
instills faith and trust, as you mentioned, within the customers, within warriors in the
community that maybe aren't familiar with Wounded Boyer Project and also with the employees
of those organizations as they get behind the efforts to support us.
Right.
It really helps with that credibility that, you know, people, sometimes people are a little
cynical out there, but you know, when you get a brand name that says, you know, the
Wounded Warrior Project is a great organization, that's really going to be helpful.
So let me kind of shift over here to Brian.
And Brian is the vice president of stakeholder engagement and sustainability with CSX.
So Brian, how did you get involved with the Wounded Warrior Project and what is it that's
helping CSX?
Well at CSX we like to think that service is really part of our DNA.
Every day the 23,000 railroaders of CSX, the men and women of our company are hard at work,
serving America's economy, keeping goods and moving across the country.
But service us really runs even deeper than that.
People are surprised to know that about one in five of our employees is actually a veteran.
And you know, to recognize this, we've taken this commitment to serving those who serve
by partnering with organizations like the Wounded Warrior Project to provide support
and resources to America's heroes, the veterans who've served this country so selflessly.
Well, I know, and how are you utilizing this program with the Wounded Warrior Project?
Well, we engage with the Wounded Warrior Project in a number of ways.
And what's so great about our partnership and what's so great about the Wounded Warrior
Project itself is that they've grown with us.
We've grown our partnership over the years to do a number of things.
But one of the things that we're really excited about is the Warriors to Work program, specifically
the drone certification program that we have with the Wounded Warrior Project.
We all know that the veterans often struggle with that transition from service life to
civilian life.
And through the drone certification program, we're able to ease that transition by providing
them on the job training with our experts, our equipment, and help actually get them
certified drone as drone pilots through this program, which will help them get employment
either with CSX or another company, and also help them even start their own companies,
which we've actually seen.
So we've trained over 50 Warriors over the years that we've done this program, and it's
just been wildly successful in something that we hope grows even more.
Well, I think it's just terrific what you're doing to help these veterans with their transition.
The amazing skills that they learn while they're in the service, many companies don't want
to deal with that transitional part of their, you know, when they get out and the skills
that they're bringing with them.
And it sounds like CSX is doing a great job.
Thank you for doing that.
Well, thank you.
Veterans make the best railroaders, as a fact.
Well, they do know how to follow orders, that's for sure.
So next up is, I've got Olivia Parker, and she's a communications outreach manager for
Parker's Kitchen.
So first of all, Olivia, tell us what Parker's Kitchen is, and then tell us how you got involved
with Wounded Warriors.
Yeah, so Parker's Kitchen, we have 90 stores across Georgia, South Carolina, in Florida,
where convenient store chain, family owned and run, you know, with being a big business
across a pretty vast footprint, we really think we have a duty to give back in big ways
to our communities that we're in, and the heroes pillar, which is where our partnership
with Wounded Warrior Project came from.
You know, we really wanted to focus on finding the right partner.
And it took us a lot of, you know, looking.
And finally, we started our partnership in March of this year.
Our first kind of step to action with Wounded Warrior Project was doing a roundup campaign.
So our customers were able to round up their transactions to the nearest dollar to give
back to the Wounded Warrior Project.
And then our foundation is matching 25% of all customer donations.
So I'm thrilled to say that in the first four months, we have been able to donate over $300,000
to Wounded Warrior Project, which will be going back to help empower the lives of veterans
and their families within our footprint across Georgia, South Carolina and Florida.
I'm stunned.
I'm listening, $300,000 in a quarter.
That is truly awesome.
What a great opportunity for Wounded Warrior Project and of course for the people that
they helped too.
But what a great way to promote Parker's Kitchen.
So I mean, I'm in Michigan, so I'm not that familiar, unfortunately, with your organization.
But I hope that many more people should pick up on this.
Yeah, definitely.
I think, you know, I think our customers are always kind of looking and customers just
around the country are looking to big brands like ourselves to really figure out, you know,
who are the right people to really volunteer and give back to.
And we just really want to help, you know, get our customers ingrained in giving and
kind of having this camaraderie approach.
And, you know, us as the brand really making sure that we have a good duty of spreading
awareness on who Wounded Warrior Project is and helping people realize exactly all of
the programs that they offer and how they, you know, really help rehabilitate the lives
of service members, you know, when they do come back.
I think it's just an amazing mission and there's so many great organizations out there.
But, you know, the success of our campaign is just a testament to the organization Wounded
Warrior Project.
People really want to get involved and give back because they are just that great and
they do so much for local veterans and their families.
Well, I think that's that's the kind of the great idea.
So I'm going to come back up to you, Brianna.
So how would, if I were a corporate, which I'm not, but if I were a corporation owner,
how would I get involved with the Wounded Warrior Project?
Sure.
It's a really easy step.
Just go to WoundedWoyearProject.org and you'll find an area called Ways to Give.
And whether you're a company or an individual looking to help support the mission, right
there you'll find a way to connect with us.
And I would say that's the same for warriors and family members as well.
They can find all of our programs and services listed there in ways that they can engage
with us.
Well, it's, it sounds like, I mean, it's an additionally great project that you are
doing to, you know, spread the word that, you know, so many people are not aware that
veterans have some issues sometimes when they're transitioning out of the military into civilian
life.
And the Wounded Warrior has been around for quite a while now.
And a reputation is great.
And I really encourage our audience to go to the Wounded Warrior's Project and find
out how you can become involved, not only on the corporate level, but on the individual
level.
And of course, there's so many services there that are available to the veteran and their
families.
So I would really encourage people to go to Wounded Warrior Project to see how you can
help each other and maybe they'll be able to help you too.
Is there anything else that any of you would like to add?
I would just echo that sentiment.
I mean, we've partnered with the Wounded Warrior Project now for over six years and they're
a tremendous, tremendous partner.
They're doing great work in the community addressing so many needs of people who are
very deserving.
Okay.
Olivia, last word.
Yeah.
I just, I want to encourage people to get out there and give back.
Sometimes you feel like you need to give in a monetary form.
There's so many ways to volunteer through this organization as well.
So just taking that first step is probably the best thing to do.
And I really encourage everybody to look more into the Wounded Warrior Project.
Yeah, check it out.
Brea, last word from you.
I think as we're coming up on National Nonprofit Day, it's really an opportunity for individual
individuals, companies, and everyone to take a look at what they're currently doing and
if there is an opportunity or an area of interest in which they can step forward and help make
a difference.
There's a lot of people out there with a lot of needs.
And I know that there's many people that are willing to step up.
And so I would just encourage everyone to do that, especially as we walk into National
Nonprofit Day.
Okay.
Thank you all very much for joining us here on Veterans Radio and helping us to spread
the word for you for the Wounded Warrior Project and our corporate giving plans.
So thank you very much.
I look forward to talking to all of you at some time again in the future.
And we're back here live on Veterans Radio coming up on the end of another program.
And I have to remind you to save the date.
Save the date.
September 22nd is our third annual radio on the river.
And this is our fundraiser.
And I encourage you to come on out for that to find out more information.
Just go to our website, veteransradio.org, down near the bottom of that front page.
There's a really nice river view.
And all you got to do is click on that and all the information is there for you.
We're also, you know, we've got a couple of guests there.
Number one is going to be Doug Bready.
We got to go.
So today's God Bless America is Martina McBride.
Until next week, this is Dale Throneberry.
All of us here at Veterans Radio, you are dismissed.
Thank you.