1 00:00:00,141 --> 00:00:02,051 On Dec. 7, 1941 2 00:00:02,051 --> 00:00:04,928 Japan, like its infamous axis partners 3 00:00:04,928 --> 00:00:07,660 struck first and declared war afterwards. 4 00:00:07,660 --> 00:00:12,769 Costly to our Navy was the loss of war vessels, airplanes and equipment 5 00:00:12,769 --> 00:00:14,867 but more costly to Japan was the 6 00:00:14,867 --> 00:00:16,698 effectiveness of its foul attack 7 00:00:16,698 --> 00:00:18,504 in immediately unifying America 8 00:00:18,504 --> 00:00:21,245 in its determination to fight and win the war 9 00:00:21,245 --> 00:00:22,623 thrust uppon it, 10 00:00:22,623 --> 00:00:24,752 and to win the peace that will follow. 11 00:00:30,812 --> 00:00:32,880 Think about this. 12 00:00:32,993 --> 00:00:36,874 World War II veterans and their families, 13 00:00:36,874 --> 00:00:38,749 their spouses, 14 00:00:38,749 --> 00:00:40,930 they lived through the Depression. 15 00:00:40,930 --> 00:00:43,763 they did all them things to prepare us 16 00:00:43,763 --> 00:00:45,470 for whatever we became. 17 00:00:46,460 --> 00:00:51,508 Their sacrifices are so unknown and so untold 18 00:00:51,508 --> 00:00:54,057 because of what type of people they are. 19 00:00:54,967 --> 00:00:58,098 The pride of a nation 20 00:00:58,783 --> 00:01:03,698 rests in the souls of those World War II veterans. 21 00:01:16,169 --> 00:01:20,656 When the war hit, everybody, everybody, 22 00:01:20,656 --> 00:01:23,801 got involved, according to my mother and my father. 23 00:01:23,802 --> 00:01:24,986 they didn't miss a beat. 24 00:01:24,986 --> 00:01:27,522 If you couldn't go into the military itself, 25 00:01:27,522 --> 00:01:28,580 you found a way. 26 00:01:28,580 --> 00:01:29,630 You bought war bonds 27 00:01:29,633 --> 00:01:31,736 or you worked in a factory 28 00:01:31,736 --> 00:01:33,578 or you did anything you could 29 00:01:33,578 --> 00:01:34,860 to help the cause. 30 00:01:34,860 --> 00:01:39,086 Without a fail, everybody that could do anything did something. 31 00:01:50,397 --> 00:01:51,879 Everybody who volunteered, 32 00:01:51,879 --> 00:01:54,864 everybody who was conscripted or drafted, 33 00:01:54,864 --> 00:01:56,048 everybody who served 34 00:01:56,048 --> 00:01:57,964 gave up personal freedoms. 35 00:01:58,391 --> 00:02:00,679 What they were fighting against was 36 00:02:00,679 --> 00:02:02,949 just so abhorrent that 37 00:02:02,950 --> 00:02:06,438 they could not just stand on the sidelines 38 00:02:06,438 --> 00:02:09,258 and let it pass. 39 00:02:09,699 --> 00:02:11,564 It was either kill or be killed 40 00:02:11,564 --> 00:02:14,063 and the fact that our country was at war 41 00:02:14,063 --> 00:02:16,463 I kind of had to just suck it up 42 00:02:16,463 --> 00:02:19,110 and drive on and be an engineer-gunner 43 00:02:19,110 --> 00:02:20,391 on a bomber. 44 00:02:20,897 --> 00:02:24,815 Mom did amazing things as a nurse in the 45 00:02:24,815 --> 00:02:25,967 U.S. Army Nurse Corps 46 00:02:25,967 --> 00:02:28,265 following Omar Bradley across Europe 47 00:02:28,265 --> 00:02:29,133 and into Normandy, she was at 48 00:02:29,133 --> 00:02:30,647 Battle of the Buldge. 49 00:02:32,320 --> 00:02:35,479 We were a 750-bed hospital 50 00:02:35,479 --> 00:02:37,562 TENT hospital 51 00:02:37,562 --> 00:02:39,972 which is kind of a crazy number. 52 00:02:39,972 --> 00:02:41,905 By that time, I had been giving 53 00:02:41,905 --> 00:02:43,606 anesthesia for a long time 54 00:02:43,606 --> 00:02:54,040 becuase when you're running two 12-hour shifts, 10 tables, there have to be 55 00:02:54,040 --> 00:02:55,591 people giving anesthesia. 56 00:02:56,039 --> 00:02:58,137 We went on for months 57 00:02:58,137 --> 00:03:00,390 busy, constantly busy 58 00:03:00,390 --> 00:03:02,855 but you have to get to it! 59 00:03:04,617 --> 00:03:06,137 I shed a lot of tears 60 00:03:06,745 --> 00:03:10,639 and I felt like I'd seen about every corner of the human body. 61 00:03:11,701 --> 00:03:16,075 I'm getting a little teary just thinking about it, all these years later. 62 00:03:20,343 --> 00:03:21,842 It's hard work. 63 00:03:23,253 --> 00:03:25,331 Happy to do it! 64 00:03:27,289 --> 00:03:29,354 Saying I had a chance to. 65 00:03:30,954 --> 00:03:34,565 A good society is able to face schemes 66 00:03:34,565 --> 00:03:38,200 of world domination and foreign revolutions alike 67 00:03:38,200 --> 00:03:39,176 without fear. 68 00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:42,175 Freedom means the supremacy of 69 00:03:42,175 --> 00:03:44,072 human rights everywhere. 70 00:03:44,702 --> 00:03:47,157 That is no vision of a distant millenium 71 00:03:48,087 --> 00:03:51,066 It is a definite basis for a kind of world 72 00:03:51,066 --> 00:03:54,906 attainable in our own time and generation. 73 00:03:55,983 --> 00:03:59,523 General Eisenhower informs me that 74 00:03:59,523 --> 00:04:01,900 the forces of Germany have surrendered 75 00:04:01,900 --> 00:04:04,276 to the United Nations. 76 00:04:04,525 --> 00:04:06,261 Tom Brokaw's the one that coined 77 00:04:06,261 --> 00:04:07,511 "Greatest Generation." 78 00:04:07,511 --> 00:04:11,875 They paved the way for everything that we have now. 79 00:04:11,875 --> 00:04:15,394 But you bring that concept in front of someone from that generation 80 00:04:15,394 --> 00:04:17,024 and they're puzzled; they don't know 81 00:04:17,024 --> 00:04:18,123 what you're talking about. 82 00:04:18,123 --> 00:04:23,581 I don't quite go along with the "Greatest Generation" stuff. 83 00:04:23,581 --> 00:04:26,254 It's a fancy name. 84 00:04:27,023 --> 00:04:30,694 Anybody, faced with exactly what we were faced with 85 00:04:30,694 --> 00:04:34,265 I think would have reacted the same way 86 00:04:34,265 --> 00:04:36,238 because they're human beings. 87 00:04:37,480 --> 00:04:40,470 Just lost my dad, still got my mom. 88 00:04:40,470 --> 00:04:42,137 There's not many left anymore. 89 00:04:48,774 --> 00:04:51,689 It takes generation after generation 90 00:04:51,689 --> 00:04:53,173 building on the one before 91 00:04:53,173 --> 00:04:55,366 to make it a better place. 92 00:04:55,366 --> 00:04:58,818 But what kind of a legacy do you want to leave? 93 00:04:58,818 --> 00:05:02,068 What kind of things are going to be learned because you're here 94 00:05:02,068 --> 00:05:05,929 that't going to make it greater from here on out? 95 00:05:06,350 --> 00:05:07,612 You can do it too.