Preserving WWII Voices Through a Rifle and a Promise

7-27-2025 America’s Last WWII Veterans, Told Through an M1 Garand- Andrew Biggio Discusses.mp3
Transcript generated by Transcript LOL
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Announcer
00:12 – 00:34
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and our other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s veteran stories with Kim Monson.

Announcer
00:34 – 00:43
These stories will touch your heart, inspire you, and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Monson.

Kim Monson
00:48 – 01:08
And welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is americasveteranstories.com. And the show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France for the 72nd anniversary of the D-Day landings in World War II.

Kim Monson
01:09 – 01:32
and returns stateside realizing that each of these stories are unique, they’re important, they should be recorded and heard and broadcast and archived. So hence, America’s Veterans Stories. I am excited to have on the line with me, Andrew Biggio. He has written a book, The Rifle, combat stories from America’s last World War II veterans, told through an M1 Garand.

Kim Monson
01:32 – 01:33
Andrew, welcome to the show.

Andrew Biggio
01:34 – 01:35
Thanks for having me, Kim.

Kim Monson
01:36 – 01:54
And I am not quite sure who recommended your book and to connect with you. I think it was a World War II veteran, but I’m really excited about this and to hear what you put together. But let’s start with you. Tell us a little bit about you, Andrew Biggio.

Andrew Biggio
01:56 – 02:33
Sure, I was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts and have always had a deep appreciation for veterans, even as a kid. My favorite part of parades and ceremonies and veterans day was actually seeing the veterans, especially the World War II veterans. It was just something about them that I was starstruck about what they did for us as a country. Both of my grandfather’s brothers, my grandfather on my mom’s side and my grandfather on my father’s side each lost a brother in World War II.

Andrew Biggio
02:33 – 02:56
I grew up learning about sacrifice pretty young. And I was named after my grandfather’s brother who was killed in World War II, Andrew Bidio. The first Andrew Bidio was killed in action. And when I didn’t complete my own service in the Marines and I served in Iraq and Afghanistan, I started to ask myself, I wonder what happened to that first Andrew Bidio that didn’t happen to me.

Andrew Biggio
02:56 – 03:39
And the investigation process started on When did you start this journey then, Andrew? It was a couple years after that I started my regular life as a civilian that I started to ask myself about the price of war and I think I want to say in 2015 I really started to dig deep into World War II history and what happened to PFC and Rubigio in Italy.

Kim Monson
03:41 – 03:56
And 2015, so you were a little ahead of me on your journey as far as starting to search out and appreciate World War II veterans. And by that time, they’re in their 90s, correct, Andrew?

Andrew Biggio
03:57 – 04:03
Oh, yeah. Yeah. At the time I started interviewing World War II veterans, the youngest one was about 92 at that time.

Kim Monson
04:06 – 04:16
So your very first interview, well, let’s go back. So your, let’s see, it was your grandfather’s brother. So it would be a great uncle. Is that right?

Kim Monson
04:16 – 04:20
Andrew Biggio, who, who died? What year? What? What happened?

Kim Monson
04:20 – 04:21
Set that up for us.

Andrew Biggio
04:23 – 04:51
Sure, so P.H.C. Andrew Biggio was born in 1925. He was in the high school class of 1944, which was really the majority of the 18-year-olds that fought in World War II, that high school class. The government allowed the class of 1944 to basically graduate half a year, so that a lot of the kids in high school at that time left at Christmas break, especially if they were drafted or if they joined the military, that’s where they went.

Andrew Biggio
04:52 – 05:16
and uh… he went over to italy was served in italy about three or four months before he was killed uh… north of florence in an area called the gothic line this is one of hitler’s most defense uh… strategic defenses across you know the italian peninsula trenches, spider holes, pill boxes, machine gun nests, artillery.

Andrew Biggio
05:16 – 06:14
And we had while the fighting in France and Holland and in Germany was progressing, we still left basically several divisions in Italy in order to keep 30,000 German troops in Italy from reinforcing the Russian front or reinforcing the Normandy front. And these guys were really just, these guys in Italy really experienced this kind of Vietnam War type style fighting muddy hills, suicide missions going up hills just to really keep those 30,000 German troops, those 30 German divisions in in Italy. I started reading Andrew Biggio’s letters he wrote home before he was killed and it was really just sad for a 19 year old kid to be writing home to his mom and begging for her to send him a gold cross he could wear around his neck before he has to go back up this specific hill again.

Andrew Biggio
06:15 – 06:44
I think about our nation’s youth today. Will they ever know what it’s like to write home to their mom, knowing that letter’s probably not going to get there for about three weeks to a month, and ask for a gold cross to wear around your neck? And we need the kid that died for our freedom, and we’ve got to keep this awareness alive. After reading his letter, I was on a mission to interview as many World War II veterans as possible to educate the youth that maybe our high schools aren’t doing.

Kim Monson
06:46 – 07:01
Boy, that’s, uh, you know, I’m just thinking of him writing that letter. You said it’s going to be three or four weeks before it gets there. And I know that there were questions. Will I still be alive when she gets this letter?

Kim Monson
07:01 – 07:02
I mean, I

Andrew Biggio
07:02 – 07:02
think

Kim Monson
07:02 – 07:05
that had to go through there through his mind. Yes.

Andrew Biggio
07:05 – 07:26
Right. Which he wasn’t. Which is sad because that letter was written on September 12th and he was killed on the 17th. So by the time, you know, by the time, um, my great grandmother got that letter, um, it was too late and she was forever changed.

Andrew Biggio
07:26 – 07:56
My, my grandfather said she never even put up a Christmas tree after that. And, um, you know, it was something about her, her oldest boy not being there that just devastated this woman. And, And I can’t think about how many more boys just like him wrote those same exact letters. And now that the World War II generation is fading so fast, I decided a last ditch effort to deliver one of the best books out there.

Andrew Biggio
07:56 – 08:43
And that was, how could I, how could my book, how could I be different than any other World War II researcher, any other world, millions of World War II books already written? And that was, And tell us about the M1 rifle. Yeah, the M1 Grand was the standard rifle of that time. That was pretty much what everyone was issued during basic training and what almost every infantryman was issued in World War II.

Andrew Biggio
08:43 – 09:12
So if there was one piece of equipment, one device that these guys had to eat with, sleep with, and go to war with, that one instrument that would bring the war back to them, it was that M1 rifle. That’s what you survived with. And I purchased a 1945 M1 rifle to have because I knew it was something that my great-uncle possessed, what he had before he was killed. And I started to knock on these guys’ doors and put it in their hands again just to see their reactions, see their memories.

Andrew Biggio
09:12 – 09:14
The rifle really acted like a microphone.

Kim Monson
09:16 – 09:23
What would you say the first interview that you did when you did this, Andrew? Tell us about that.

Andrew Biggio
09:25 – 09:46
The first gentleman who I realized this was going to be an excellent idea, his name is Joe Drago, and Joe at that time was on the younger side. He was 92. He had fought in the Battle of Okinawa and he was a Marine like me. Joe was pretty much bound to his recliner.

Andrew Biggio
09:46 – 10:06
You know, his legs were very skinny. They had atrophied from, you know, just old age and not getting around and exercising. Typical, typical elderly status. And when I put that rifle in his hands, I mean, he raised it immediately to his shoulder and aiming and he’s waving it around, smiling ear to ear and he kept telling me all about the Battle of Okinawa.

Andrew Biggio
10:07 – 10:28
And he was a Marine, he was an infantryman. So for him to put that, it just seemed so right, so fitting for him to raise that to his shoulder at his age and be able to hold that rifle up like it was nothing. I saw an 18-year-old boy again. And so I just hit record on my iPhone and started, we talked about the Battle of Okinawa for like four hours.

Andrew Biggio
10:29 – 11:03
is a When he signed his name on my rifle, because I asked him to sign my rifle, I looked down at that signature and I said, I need to collect as many signatures on this rifle as possible. And I tell you, I never felt more in a race against time before.

Kim Monson
11:06 – 11:33
And you mentioned something about how do I live a successful life after combat. And Andrew, in this journey that I’ve been on, I have come to understand that nobody can understand combat unless they’ve gone through it. And that there is this bond between our warriors that have gone through combat. Your thoughts?

Andrew Biggio
11:37 – 11:52
Yeah, you know, a lot of people came up to me and said, hey, you know, I never heard this guy’s story before, or this guy denied me interviews. How did you get to talk to him? How did you get to interview him? And being a veteran, bonding from veteran to veteran, that helped me a lot.

Andrew Biggio
11:54 – 12:25
That helped a lot with basically relating to these guys allowing them to let me in their house and yeah there was a warrior ethos it was a warrior status from veteran to veteran that I got to share with these guys and it was very helpful to to be a veteran and to belong with them and to the point where like I realized after meeting 300 of them a good portion of them had never returned to the battlefield they served on. They never cared to. They refused to.

Andrew Biggio
12:26 – 12:33
Even their family members who offered to take them in the 80s and in the 70s, they didn’t want to. And here I am in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, asking them to go back with me and they are agreeing to.

Kim Monson
12:41 – 13:05
It’s really remarkable. I recall I had, there was a gentleman out here in Colorado that had been at Battle of the Bulge and I had tried to get the interview with him and I had called and he said I’m not having a great day and I just don’t feel like it and I always want to honor that. And then I talked to a mutual friend, and this was several months later, and said, hey, have you interviewed this guy?

Kim Monson
13:05 – 13:15
And I said, he won’t give me an interview. And I want to honor that. And my friend said, well, let me give him a call. And I did eventually get that interview.

Kim Monson
13:15 – 13:29
But it’s something very delicate, particularly for me, because I’m not a veteran. I’m not a combat veteran, that I think it’s a little bit more delicate for me than maybe you. What do you think, Andrew?

Andrew Biggio
13:31 – 13:55
Yeah, I think being a veteran definitely gave me some leeway and a little bit of advantage. I do think so. I know a lot of people have had success interviewing veterans, but I certainly thought it did because like I said I had people come up to me saying hey this guy never allowed me an interview or how’d you get into this guy’s house or how did you even find this particular person.

Andrew Biggio
13:56 – 14:00
It’s being wrapped in the veteran’s community that connected me to them.

Kim Monson
14:01 – 14:20
That’s most definitely true. So, hey, Andrew Biggio, this is such a fascinating book, The Rifle, combat stories from America’s last World War II veterans told through an M1 Garand. We’re going to go to break. Before we do that, though, a nonprofit that you know I love is the USMC Memorial Foundation.

Kim Monson
14:20 – 14:46
and they are raising money for the remodel of the Marine Memorial out at 6th and Colfax. And Paula Sarles is the president of the USMC Memorial Foundation. She is a Marine veteran as well as a Vietnam veteran Gold Star wife and she and her team are dedicated on making this happen. www.usmcmemorialfoundation.org www.usmcmemorialfoundation.org www.usmcmemorialfoundation.org

Speaker 9
14:54 – 15:23
REMAX Realtor Karen Levine helps bring to life the individual stories of our servicemen and women. With her sponsorship of America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson, Karen honors the sacrifices of our military and is grateful for our freedom. As a member of the National Association of Realtors Board of Directors, Karen works to protect private property rights for all of us. Karen has a heart for our active duty military and veterans and is honored to help you buy or sell your home.

Speaker 9
15:23 – 15:26
Call Karen Levine at 303-877-7516 to help you navigate buying or selling your home. That’s 303-877-7516.

Speaker 4
15:36 – 15:55
All of Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of the Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmunson.com. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.

Kim Monson
16:07 – 16:17
And welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is americasveteranstories.com. Thrilled and honored to have on the line with me, Andrew Biggio.

Kim Monson
16:17 – 16:48
He is the author of The Rifle. And this is an M1 Garand, which most of our World War II veterans, military carried during World War II. And He took this book you took this to or you see me you took this rifle to over 300 World War two veterans, correct? yeah, and What other stories do you want to tell us about because each story is unique?

Kim Monson
16:48 – 16:52
It’s different And so what do you remember about some of these stories? I?

Andrew Biggio
16:54 – 17:21
I chose 19 of the best stories I heard in the book. who could remember so much in their age. And so, I mean, they all had incredible stories. So don’t, you know, um, but the guys that were most articulate in their later ages, you know, one person that always pops in my head is a gentleman by the name of Clarence Cormier.

Andrew Biggio
17:22 – 18:14
And Clarence served with the 106th division. And The 106th Division was one of the most heavily devastated divisions that served during the Battle of the Bulge in which roughly 70,000 of their soldiers had to surrender. It was one of the biggest surrenders since the American Civil War. Clarence on his second day of combat had to surrender and he was put in a train boxcar to a train by the Germans and was being transported into Germany to a prison camp when American fighter planes saw this train German train so of course the American pilots opened

Andrew Biggio
18:14 – 18:42
fire on it but little did they know they were shooting their own prisoners of war and Clarence described this whole situation to me in tears. And to see a 95-year-old man cry in front of me, it just changed my life. It really taught me about the ups and downs, up close and personal, of the Second World War. And as he’s explaining, trying to break out of this boxcar, and throwing their bodies on the ground to form the letters P.O.W.

Andrew Biggio
18:42 – 19:00
so that flight attendants in the sky could see that these men were prisoners of war and to stop shooting. He told stories in the book about the survival in the prison camp in the battle of the Bulge. It’s something every American should read.

Kim Monson
19:02 – 19:18
So you’re saying that Clarence and others were able to get out of the boxcar and then they laid together to form the words POW. Was that successful and the Americans realizing that they needed to stop firing on this German train?

Andrew Biggio
19:19 – 19:36
It was as the plane started to dive in on them again they saw and they pulled up and they bailed up and the pilot waved to the men with his kerchief and Clarence just told me that story crying that the plane was so low that he should have been able to reach up and touch it.

Kim Monson
19:38 – 19:53
Wow, and just think about that though. Also, Andrew, this American pilot to be that low is pretty remarkable also. Right. Okay.

Kim Monson
19:53 – 19:56
And so tell us about another story.

Andrew Biggio
19:56 – 20:37
Sure. You know, in the Pacific theater, I like to always talk about my friend gunnery sergeant bernie virgin from the second marine division and bernie um came home after one became a new york state trooper and police officer and i always found it amazing that he was able to you know that ptsd is not an excuse and not a reason to pass someone over to be a first responder or to be a police officer or a fireman because our greatest generation came home and they became Police officers and so on. And just because someone saw combat doesn’t mean that you’re about to be passed over for a job.

Andrew Biggio
20:39 – 20:56
And he was an inspiration to us because he survived one of the largest bomb dive charges. Or two, on Triton. Almost 2000 Japanese soldiers with their backs against the ocean. Little ammo and no ammo.

Andrew Biggio
20:56 – 21:10
Sword, daggers, bayonets. They charged the marine and army lines. And Bernie survived that. Survived that through hand-to-hand combat.

Andrew Biggio
21:10 – 21:50
Which was pretty gruesome. And I think his story, which is Absolutely true. Every time I’ve interviewed him on it, every detail I’ve seen, the records show he was there during the bonsai charge, and I’ve used that for some other guys who may think that, some other veterans who may think that their experiences were horrible and gruesome. Well, here’s a guy who’s able to live a successful life, have a family, have a career, go to college, own a home, and the way he processed it, his tricks of the trade of living with PTSD, I’ve put in a book so that people, whether they’re veterans or

Andrew Biggio
21:50 – 22:01
not, that survive any kind of trauma, they can see that they can live up until they’re about 90, 99 years old. And he just lost Bernie Lutzen actually about two weeks ago. He passed away.

Kim Monson
22:05 – 22:20
Regarding PTSD, it was not called PTSD back then. Sometimes, what, shell shock, a variety of different things. Did you see any kind of a theme regarding what is now called PTSD?

Andrew Biggio
22:23 – 23:01
Yeah, back then they called it combat fatigue or shell shock, as you said. And, you know, a common theme was, I mean, generally, in US My grandpa didn’t, the British generation didn’t, that’s just false. They did. They just did a better job of covering it up.

Speaker 6
23:01 – 23:01
They

Andrew Biggio
23:02 – 23:20
didn’t have non-profits constantly on commercials on television promoting PTSD or veteran suicide or things like that. But all that existed. I met World War II veterans who told me they cut their wrists. I met World War II veterans who were alcoholics and became sober after so many years that it took them to almost lose their family.

Andrew Biggio
23:22 – 23:22
Um,

Kim Monson
23:47 – 23:58
What I have also learned, though, is it’s important for combat veterans to be able to speak with other combat veterans, that there’s something that’s very healing in doing so, Andrew.

Andrew Biggio
23:58 – 24:15
Yeah, there is. And to me, even to me, it was therapeutic to meet with all these men and women that I used to meet inside the rifle. And that’s why I did it for at least five years. I traveled the country, coast to coast.

Andrew Biggio
24:16 – 24:25
border to border meeting these men and women because they were an inspiration. They were heroes and that was my therapy. That’s what I

Kim Monson
24:26 – 25:08
did. And one other thing that somebody’s mentioned because you kind of alluded to a comparison of PTSD for World War II veterans to PTSD from our current conflicts is that After World War II, when guys came home, they typically had a several week boat ride. And so they could talk, there was something healing about talking with other combat veterans there. And then here, you can be in a war theater, Yeah.

Andrew Biggio
25:29 – 25:58
Yeah, you can click your heels and be back in the United States in just a few hours from a combat zone. Definitely different than sitting on a boat and decompressing. You know, we actually had PTSD bases and clinics back in World War II. I met several veterans who had to go through a PTSD Basically, of course, at Lake Placid, New York.

Andrew Biggio
25:58 – 26:20
And these guys were ex-prisoners of war. Some of them had just cracked up after being in war for so long, and they went to it. But not every veteran went to it, which I found interesting. And there was a ton of, you know, a ton of cracks in the system back then for guys just to go right home as well.

Andrew Biggio
26:20 – 26:54
But the other good thing is sometimes PTSD doesn’t affect you right away. You can come home and get on with your life and then after stress builds up with family and stress builds up with a career that finally you can’t hold it in anymore and now the problem that you were able to bury and keep yourself distracted with now resurfaced because of all the other stresses of life. So it might be three, four, five years, ten years after, then you start to develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress because you just can’t keep it buried anymore.

Andrew Biggio
26:54 – 27:05
So there’s all different types. Some guys come home right away and experience things. Other guys come out later. So it all just depends how your human psyche is developed.

Andrew Biggio
27:06 – 27:24
and the longevity, your PTSD is never going to go away. It’s how you’re able to manage it for the rest of your life. All these World War II veterans, you made me a promise in that life, your bad memories, your feelings, your emotions, it’s all about longevity because they’re not going to go away. The war changes you.

Kim Monson
27:27 – 27:50
And yeah, it definitely does. Let’s do one more story before we go to break. And of course, we don’t want to give all the stories away, because I think that this is really a book that everyone should have on their bookshelf, the rifle combat stories from America’s last World War II veterans, told through an M1 Garand. So what is another story that you’d like to share with our listeners?

Andrew Biggio
27:51 – 28:17
Sure. I always tell this unknown story of, well not unknown, but it’s not widely known. And that’s about Japanese Americans, Japanese Americans who fought in the war. And a lot of them were recruited from internment camps that we had set up in the US because the US government was unsure of Japanese American loyalty.

Andrew Biggio
28:19 – 29:09
Japan. and they went on to be one of the most heavily decorated infantry regiments of all time and that was a 442nd regimental combat team and I interviewed a veteran by the name of Lawson Sakai and Lawson was three purple hearts three bronze stars and his fighting through Italy was one of the bravest stories I’ve ever heard and his infantry regiment was also sent into the Vosges mountains in France to rescue a lost battalion of the 36th division that were completely cut off and surrounded and they lost 200 men doing so.

Kim Monson
29:14 – 29:25
Fascinating. I had not heard of that. Let’s go to break. I’m talking with Andrew Biggio regarding his book, The Rifle, and you can buy that at Amazon.

Kim Monson
29:25 – 29:33
It has Kindle, audio, hardcover, the whole thing there. Again, that is The Rifle by Andrew Biggio. We’re going to go to break. We’ll be right back.

Speaker 7
29:34 – 30:06
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Speaker 7
30:07 – 30:19
Purchase the book at MarineDougChamberlain.com. That’s MarineDoug, C-H-A-M-B-E-R-L-A-I-N dot com, so that you gain perspective on this time in our history.

Kim Monson
30:32 – 30:41
And welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is americasveteranstories.com. Thrilled and honored to have on the line with me, Andrew Biggio.

Kim Monson
30:41 – 31:16
He is the author of The Rifle. And before we went to break, Andrew, you mentioned that there were Americans, Japanese Americans, that were put into Did they call them internment camps? But then actually there was a division that of Japanese Americans that fought valiantly in Italy. And there were a number of Germans, in fact, my heritage is German, living in America, where Germans also rounded up and put into these camps.

Andrew Biggio
31:19 – 31:42
Yes, so German-Americans, no. They were not put in internment camps. Japanese-Americans, however, were. And, you know, German-Americans obviously had been widespread throughout the nation and had been immigrating to the United States far longer than Japanese-Americans who had major populations in California and Hawaii.

Andrew Biggio
31:43 – 32:10
And so, no, the Japanese-Americans uh… before in internment camps and uh… they weren’t concentration camps as people think of uh… what hitler set up for the jews over in europe but they were just living quarters and so people found out where their legions would be, where their loyalty would be and i think a lot of that was proven um…

Andrew Biggio
32:10 – 32:47
during the development of the 100th battalion and the 442nd regimental combat team Um, when basically General Mark Clark in Italy said, send me more Japanese Americans because they were such good fighters. They were such, and they hold that their association and their veteran groups to this day are so proud of that, that they have leagues and associations and remembrance every year about the 442nd. And there’s still plenty of survivors left from that division who I got to meet at their reunion in Las Vegas. So, um, Yeah, they weren’t.

Andrew Biggio
32:47 – 33:02
In the United States we kept German and Italian POW camps where they came back to the United States and we used them for working around the United States for those rebuilding highways, cutting down trees, so on and so forth.

Kim Monson
33:04 – 33:10
Okay, well let’s change gears just a little bit and what about women in World War II?

Andrew Biggio
33:12 – 33:51
Yeah, you know, the whole point of the rifle and collecting signatures on this rifle was to, I wanted to represent the whole war. I wanted to show what black Americans did in World War II, what Native Americans did, what cooks did, what pilots did, what bombardiers did, and of course what women did. And on the rifle itself I have women that were physical therapists in the army, women that were occupational therapists, you know, women that were nurses that helped veterans learn how to walk again after losing their legs using prosthetics. I have nurses, nurses who were stationed in England.

Andrew Biggio
33:52 – 34:26
Nurses who were stationed in New Guinea taking care of the traumatically wounded veterans. How awesome it was for these veterans to see a woman taking care of them over in these battlefields went a long way. And of course I had women that were stenographers, typewriters, you know, writing letters home to tell families that their son is missing in action, a kill in action, and all this stuff. So what would you say is one of the most memorable stories that you can recall in talking with women that were part of the greatest generation?

Andrew Biggio
34:40 – 35:03
Oh man, I have a few of them. I have women that were like Rosie the Riveter types. I had, but I really think the women over in New Guinea, so you take a woman, an American woman who could have stayed home, did whatever, but she volunteers to be an occupational therapist and is sent to the island of New Guinea, you know, total jungle. and these guys are coming to her with these grave injuries.

Andrew Biggio
35:03 – 35:23
Young boys, 19 years old, 20 years old, being told they’re never going to be able to walk again or they’ve lost a limb. You know, very devastating news for a 19 year old kid. And here’s this woman fitting them for a prosthetic leg, teaching them how to walk on prosthetic, giving them hope that they can live a normal life. And to me, that was just such a powerful thing.

Andrew Biggio
35:23 – 35:37
I don’t think a lot of people realize about women in World War II. They just think women stayed home and supported the war effort when a lot of them, in fact, go overseas. I got to meet a lot of them. The oldest woman on the rifle is 105 years old.

Andrew Biggio
35:37 – 35:44
She was a nurse in England and was helping so many veterans recover after the Battle of the Bulge. She

Kim Monson
35:44 – 35:54
passed away last year. Oh boy, what did I learn from her?

Andrew Biggio
36:18 – 36:46
She really, I mean, at 105 years old, she’s still wearing her army dress uniform. I learned a lot about her, about pride. You know, even for her age at 105, you know, a lot of women, a lot of people, a lot of people that age would just stay in their home or stay in their nursing home and She made sure to the very last of her days at 105 years old that not a piece of lint or thread came off her uniform.

Andrew Biggio
36:47 – 36:59
Her hair was down. She took pride in herself and to never give up and to never let herself go. And to me, that just was like, I want to be like that. I want to be like that in my 70s, my 80s.

Andrew Biggio
36:59 – 37:05
I definitely won’t be 105 years old, but she, a lot of self-care and self-pride is what she taught me.

Kim Monson
37:07 – 37:12
and tell us another story about a woman that you interviewed.

Andrew Biggio
37:15 – 37:49
Let’s see, you know, I think stenographers of World War II were a huge part. There was just so much news and so much people waiting at home. There was no Facebook, people weren’t making phone calls, there wasn’t email. I mean, people, these mothers, these family members, they stood by the door, they watched the posting of the Western Union people come and deliver these letters, and they were just dying to know what the status was of their son or husband or father in World War II that

Andrew Biggio
37:50 – 37:54
had been captured, is he missing in action? Is he killed in action? Is he wounded? How wounded is he?

Andrew Biggio
37:54 – 38:16
Where is he now? Where’s my son now? And these stenographers, these typists, these women typists were writing thousands of letters a day. I met a stenographer from the 1st Marine Division, Ms. Millie Cox.

Andrew Biggio
38:17 – 38:27
She’s still alive. She’s probably 98 now, living in Massachusetts. She probably wears her Marine Corps uniform on Veterans Day and Memorial Day. We’re still in touch.

Andrew Biggio
38:29 – 38:34
Considering she was a typer, she’s still typing Facebook messages to

Kim Monson
38:35 – 38:48
me in 2023. Wow, that is remarkable. As you have interviewed, you said you’ve interviewed over 300 World War II veterans, correct? Yep.

Kim Monson
38:49 – 38:54
What would you say, is there a major theme regarding these men and women?

Andrew Biggio
38:59 – 39:15
You know, the major theme I saw was they just didn’t stop. Even when they retired from one job, they picked up another job and they just stayed busy. And I feel like that’s really what gave them their longevity. That’s what really kept their mind off the negative, off the war, was just staying busy.

Andrew Biggio
39:15 – 39:26
I met some people who didn’t start running marathons until they were in their 60s. I met people who retired from three different jobs, people who just stayed active. And that was really the key to success.

Kim Monson
39:29 – 39:36
And in the staying active, I think also the mental component of staying active mentally is important, Andrew. I

Andrew Biggio
39:38 – 39:44
think so, too. Yeah, that’s really what I learned from all of them. That’s what I plan to do.

Kim Monson
39:45 – 39:56
So let’s talk a little bit more about Andrew Biggio, a private first class. What did you find out about him? What more about him can we share with people?

Andrew Biggio
39:59 – 40:31
Yeah, so I eventually did find survivors that were on that hill, that were in that battle with Andrew, and it was just such a horrible fight. These Americans had to go up these hills to You know, routed Germans out of Italy, and it looked like the Germans had taken chainsaws to all the trees on the hill. There was just nowhere to hide, nowhere to duck down, nowhere to do anything, and they were being forced to go up it. It was like a suicide mission.

Andrew Biggio
40:31 – 41:17
So, like, we saw a lot of what was in Italy, a lot of mutiny, a lot of refusal of orders, and that’s just stuff that’s not really in movies and stuff like that because it’s not glamorous. And these survivors, these These veterans in Italy explained all this to me. Being over in Italy in September and October while they’re getting newspapers and headlines that the war is advancing through France and Holland and Belgium and they’re still in Italy and it was just a lot of lack of motivation and the fact that they had to go up So in essence they were there holding the line to keep these Germans busy so that those Germans would not be reinforcements over in Normandy, is that correct?

Andrew Biggio
41:17 – 41:18
That’s right.

Kim Monson
41:37 – 41:48
I guess that would be really difficult. Do you think that they knew that at the time? Or do you think that they thought that they were trying to take those lines? What do you think?

Andrew Biggio
41:49 – 42:07
Oh, they definitely knew that at the time because in Andrew’s letters home, he was saying, dear mom, the Russians are going to win this war. And I heard about the invasion over in France. And so they knew. They were very much in in tune to what was going on.

Kim Monson
42:08 – 42:10
And when did he go into the army?

Andrew Biggio
42:11 – 42:19
He joined the 34th Infantry Division in May of 1944, and he was killed in action in September of 1944. And of course, in June of 1944 was D-Day, so he was writing to his mother about that in letters.

Kim Monson
42:34 – 42:50
Let’s go to break. I’m talking with Andrew Biggio about his book The Rifle, which is absolutely fascinating. He interviewed over 300 World War II veterans and highlights 19 stories in his book. And so we’re going to go to break.

Kim Monson
42:50 – 43:06
Before we do that, though, Hooters Restaurants is another great sponsor of the show. And they have five locations. That’s Loveland, Aurora, Westminster, Lone Tree, and Colorado Springs. They have all kinds of specials for both happy hour and lunchtime, Monday through Friday.

Kim Monson
43:07 – 43:22
And how they became sponsors of the show, it’s a really interesting story about freedom and free markets and capitalism. and you can find that at my website at KimMonson.com. So we’re going to go to break. When we come back, we will continue the interview with Andrew Biggio regarding his book, The Rifle.

Speaker 8
43:24 – 43:50
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43:50 – 43:56
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Speaker 1
44:04 – 44:20
You’d like to get in touch with one of the sponsors of the Kim Monson Show, but you can’t remember their phone contact or website information. Find a full list of advertising partners on Kim’s website, KimMonson.com. That’s Kim, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.

Kim Monson
44:28 – 44:41
And welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is americasveteranstories.com. And be sure and just watch what we’re doing with all this because it’s super interesting stories.

Kim Monson
44:41 – 44:59
I’m thrilled to have on the line with me Andrew Biggio. He is the author of The Rifle. and you interviewed over 300 World War II veterans in order to write this book and have shared a few stories. What’s another story that you think people would like to know more about?

Kim Monson
44:59 – 44:59
You

Andrew Biggio
44:59 – 45:48
know, I got to spend a lot of time with America’s last Medal of Honor recipient of the Second World War and that was Herschel Woody Williams. He was the last living Medal of Honor recipient to be awarded our nation’s highest medal by President Truman on the White House lawn in 1945. And he earned the Congressional Medal of Honor as a flamethrower operator on the island of Iwo Jima in 1945. He just had the weight of the world on his shoulders and had been involved in the Medal of Honor Society since there were Spanish-American veterans alive and Medal of Honor recipients.

Andrew Biggio
45:49 – 46:08
And I just thought he was so historic. This was a guy who could have given up life as soon as he came home, gotten beers bought for him for free for the rest of his life, and just lived off being a Medal of Honor recipient. And today, he’s dedicated his entire life to veterans, veterans’ causes. He worked for the Veterans Affairs for 32 years.

Andrew Biggio
46:08 – 46:35
He’s put up monuments, everything, just raised awareness for those veterans. And he always told me that the medal He didn’t wear the medal for himself, but he wore it for those who couldn’t wear it, meaning those who never came home. And Woody Williams was born and bred in West Virginia, and that’s where he passed away. And I got to see him at his funeral.

Andrew Biggio
46:36 – 46:53
He, as the last Medal of Honor recipient, he lied. in the capital rotunda in our nation’s capital and to see his casket in there was uh that’s it’ll be forever historic and i don’t think a lot of people in this country knew that the last medal of honor recipient in world war ii passed away

Kim Monson
46:55 – 47:46
think a lot of people don’t understand. And when I first got in, started this journey, Medal of Honor recipients are, are not That’s correct. What more can you tell us about that battle? And being a flamethrower, for people that don’t understand what that was, I mean, it’s super dangerous.

Kim Monson
47:46 – 47:50
Explain to our listeners what that entailed exactly.

Andrew Biggio
47:52 – 48:32
Yeah, a Medal of Honor, well, excuse me, a flamethrower operator at that time was, you know, a demolitionist. They were responsible for taking out pillboxes, entrenched enemies, and fortifications, right? So if you can’t get in there, you can’t get a grenade in there, you can’t send men in there, the way to take out a fortification or a bunker was with flame, was with a flamethrower. And that flame would suck all the oxygen Out of a fortification of an entrenched enemy who wouldn’t surrender and of course that was the whole Japanese Soldiers mo they never surrendered they stood in trench and they would Commit suicide in order to take out any American.

Andrew Biggio
48:32 – 48:49
So those flamethrowers were a huge part of winning the fight in the Pacific theater and Woody himself is accredited for taking out nearly seven pillboxes on the island of Iwo Jima to earn him that medal.

Kim Monson
48:51 – 48:59
And what was a flamethrower exactly? So you actually obviously have fuel. So what did it look like exactly?

Andrew Biggio
48:59 – 49:45
They had to carry a canister on their back. So they carried a backpack, a metal backpack with fuel. and a long hose would go from the tank to a hose which would shoot the fuel that had a primer and had a lit top to it so it was constantly just spraying gasoline fuel and sometimes jet fuel onto their enemies and into their enemy positions so this was a very dangerous device to carry because if the enemy bullet had hit it on their back it could explode and killed the operator.

Kim Monson
49:46 – 49:52
And you said that it was this all in one particular battle where he took out seven pillboxes?

Andrew Biggio
49:54 – 50:11
Yes, this is the Battle of Iwo Jima and he served with the 3rd Marine Division during World War II and he opened up a path for his whole battalion to continue to advance throughout the island. And that was one of the worst battles for the Marine Corps.

Kim Monson
50:13 – 50:47
Right. It is one of the most famous battles of the Marine Corps. And it was a long battle. My understanding, Andrew, is that our guys were told that because we had been bombing and attacking is a Yeah, we ended up losing about 8,000 Marines.

Kim Monson
51:07 – 51:35
And yes, so it was very, very, very devastating. But we won as well. And the reason that Iwo Jima was so important was for the airfields, because the Americans then were able to actually have bombers that could go over the Japanese mainland. When was this part of the Battle of Iwo Jima when Woody did this?

Kim Monson
51:36 – 51:38
Was it midway through or when was it?

Andrew Biggio
51:38 – 52:02
No, it was pretty early on. I believe February, late February he was accredited. I forget the exact dates, but it was pretty early on because he went on before he was even given the medal. He went all the way to the end of the battle and he was actually wounded himself and he took He was wounded by an immortifier toward the end of the battle.

Andrew Biggio
52:03 – 52:26
And, you know, a battle that was supposed to be about a week, as you said, ended up being about two months. And 8,000 Marines gave their life on that island, I think, before, sometime in March, when the island was declared secure. The whole 5th Marine Division was really created for taking Iwo Jima. The 5th Marine Division was brand new.

Andrew Biggio
52:26 – 52:42
The 3rd Marine Division had already fought in Guam. Woody’s first combat was in Guam first. And the 5th Marine Division was designed for Iwo Jima and they were never used again after that. That’s how bad and big the battle was for that airfield there.

Andrew Biggio
52:44 – 53:00
And Woody went back to Iwo Jima I think on the 70th anniversary. and brought his grandchildren back there and they don’t allow you to really explore too much or dig or nothing like that and they didn’t even provide coat porter johns for him so he told me he was never going to go back and visit it again.

Kim Monson
53:02 – 53:23
Yeah, and it’s not a place that civilians can go. It’s very difficult to visit that. We have just a few minutes left on this, and how would you say all these interviews changed you, Andrew Biggio?

Andrew Biggio
53:26 – 53:39
Wow. I just, I wanted to meet these guys my whole life. The stories and the people I read about in the movies I watched, I’ve been wanting to meet them my whole life. And one day I just got up and did it.

Andrew Biggio
53:40 – 53:57
I just went up and did it and they were everything to me. They were father figures, grandfather figures and war heroes to me. And they’ve taught me not just how to be a good veteran, but how to be a good dad. how to be a good husband and how to be a good member of society.

Andrew Biggio
53:57 – 54:02
And I hope that I’ve taken the best attributes from them and put it into my regular life.

Kim Monson
54:03 – 54:18
And taking those lessons, what would you say to young people in America today regarding where we are? What’s the advice that you would give to them after all of these interviews you’ve done?

Andrew Biggio
54:21 – 55:01
Well you know that that advice is just so in-depth but I think just please please please talk to your local World War II veteran before it’s too late and yes there are they may not be walking every corner of the street but you can find them at your local nursing home your local senior center and have a conversation with them before it’s too late because in five years they’re going to be gone and you know so many veterans get Attention but like you don’t even know who’s living next door to you that elderly person that you’ve always seen your whole life could be a World War II veteran I beg you to spend some time with them talk to them before it’s too late that way you can learn your own lessons

Kim Monson
55:02 – 55:33
Well, and I think one thing that I realized after my trip in 2016 is, as you mentioned, these are people that have been in our lives. I had three uncles that served in World War Two, and they all, well, let’s see, they passed on before I had the opportunity to get their interviews. And I stepped back and I thought, oh my gosh, as a kid, I had no idea Absolutely, absolutely. And I’ll never forget these men and women

Andrew Biggio
55:58 – 56:00
There will be nothing like it again in my life.

Kim Monson
56:02 – 56:26
Well, and we have a responsibility, I think, Andrew Biggio, to tell these stories. But we also have a duty to not squander what they put their lives on to protect. And so we have a real responsibility as our generation. And many times I say that we were made for this moment.

Kim Monson
56:26 – 56:29
And indeed, I do believe that. Your final thought, Andrew Biggio?

Andrew Biggio
56:31 – 56:46
Just thank you for having me on the show and you can buy the rifle on Amazon. The rifle, I’m on Instagram as The Rifle in Facebook and I’m going to continue as long as these men and women have oxygen in their lungs, I’m going to continue to tell their story.

Kim Monson
56:47 – 57:00
I love that. Andrew Biggio, thank you so much for sharing your story and your journey regarding the rifle and my friends indeed. We do stand on the shoulders of giants. So God bless you and God bless America.

Announcer
57:02 – 57:12
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.

Speaker 2
57:21 – 57:35
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ Management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.