From Battlefields to Football Fields: How a Rivalry Shaped America’s Legacy #128

Today we call a returning veteran on a football team. A guy who played last year in 1946, a returning veteran was a guy who had been at the Battle of the Bulge or at Iwo Jima.

That's right.

So Notre dame had maybe 54 of those guys on its roster. But in that 1946 game, you had four Heisman Trophy winners. Four. Blanchard, Davis, Leon Hart, and Johnny Lujak.

Wow.

I think never again will you have four Heisman Trophies trophy winners in a game.

No, you never, never will. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the home front. This is Jeff Duden, and today I have Richard Cassioppi on, and I'm very excited about having a conversation with Richard. We've been bantering here for a little bit already, and I said, well, we better just hit the button and record. Welcome, Richard.

Well, thank you so much for having me, Jeff.

Yeah, 100%. Richard is the author of Black Knights and Fighting Irish. It was a book about the rivalry between army and Notre Dame and a whole bunch of stuff that was very time timely back right after World War II. He's also a retired lieutenant colonel in the infantry, having served two tours in Vietnam War, which was 64 and 66, that I learned earlier today doing my research. And his military experience gives him a unique perspective on leadership, resilience and tradition. Qualities that run deep in the stories of these two iconic football programs. Rich, welcome. Welcome to on the Home Front.

Well, I'm excited to tell you about the Giants and the. The country during the last time. I think that we were totally united and we're all focused on one event and that was winning World War II.

Yeah. It's interesting how things have changed, isn't it?

Oh, it is. The more I read about it, the sadder I get about how great our country was and how united we were to accomplish a goal that was very important.

What role do you think fear played into that as you were living during that time? The news was delayed. It was. It was. Hollywood produced video reels. It was what you saw on the COVID of the newspaper. But. And I don't know how else you got news back from what was going on over in Europe, but, like, how did you. What was. What was the sentiment? And what role did fear play into how people responded to serve in World War II?

Well, surprisingly, Jeff, I don't think fear played a very big role. I think the desire to defeat the enemy because we were. We were snookered by. By the Japanese in World War II, and that got the entire country angry. And so you had, you had we had a population of 130 million back then, 15 million of them were serving, mostly men serving in the armed forces, mostly overseas. And I forgot from all my reading and from my discussion with folks that really remember that period, it was all about, we're America, we have been attacked unfairly, these are evil people, and we got a job to do and we're going to do it and they're going to be sorry that they picked on us.

Yeah, what an amazing connection that is. So 15 million people serving out of 130 million in World War II. People going willingly, people enlisting, people just lining up to go over there to work abroad and to work at home to support the war effort. Today we're about 425,000 people, I believe, in the military. And out of 339 million, maybe that number is not exactly correct. I did see. Maybe it was the recruiting number, but it's not, I don't know that it's much more than that, but there is definitely a smaller, much smaller percentage of people that are serving today.

You're right, and you're right about the enthusiasm to get into the war. Matter of fact, if you, if you didn't get into the war, if you didn't enlist, if you weren't in uniform and you happened to be on a bus, maybe home on leave, and you were in civilian clothes, women would come up to you and say, why aren't you serving? So it was, it was, it was more than a duty. It was a more, it was a call to save the country. And everybody was in on it. And so, you know, you take that 130 million, that's 65 million men, and then you boil that down to 18 to 29 year olds, which was the key area that we were looking at. You had about at least one out of two, maybe more of the 18 year olds or the people in that range that were serving. And of course, the impact when you take, when you take all those people and send them overseas, the impact on college football, which was the source of my book, the centerpiece of my book, the impact on college campuses was enormous because that was the pool which they were pulling their freshmen from. And all of those folks maybe got to serve a semester and then got called up or they went and enlisted. But the, the, the desire to serve was more than just, I'm afraid of getting drafted. It was an obligation that they felt and the country encouraged them to feel about going, getting the job done and coming home and, and restoring everyone's lives.

Now, you were born in 1939. Where did you grow up?

Newark, New Jersey. And my early.

Sorry to hear that.

Yeah. And then. And then we moved to the suburbs. West Orange, New Jersey. And so I was six years old when the war ended. Jeff. But I remember walking down my street when everyone who had a. Someone in the service would have a white flag with a blue star in it in their window for every son or daughter that they might have. So some windows had five and six of those flags. And when that blue star changed to gold, you knew that someone had been killed. So it was very. It was very apparent and very clear to everyone that they. There was enormous sacrifice going on by families throughout the country.

What kind of child were you, and what types of things did you do?

Well, I thank God that I was so fortunate to grow up in the 50s. Even in Newark, you know, there was no Little League. There was very little organizer. It was very little that adults thought that they needed to provide for us. We just kind of went out and did our thing. I was telling some of the guys I play golf with that. I said, you guys, remember when we take a baseball, because we couldn't afford very much, we'd get a baseball, somebody get a new baseball for Christmas or their birthday, and we'd hit that thing around until it was falling apart. Then we'd take electrical tape and tape it up and use it until the tape all fell apart, and then there was nothing but mush in the middle of it.

But, yeah, I had a football like that. Know, our stuff had to last. So I, I. One of my favorite footballs, the laces wore out on it, so I used a shoelace and to lace it back up and then. And to. And I use that football. I wish I still had that ball. But, yeah, I mean, you got. You had to get mileage out of things. You couldn't just go to the store and buy. And buy a new one.

Yeah, exactly. Well, and there was no Little League. So we. I remember my. My buds and I went to a field when I moved in West Orange, where there was open fields, and we just carved out a baseball field. I mean, we just made one. Rake the stones out of it. But it was a great time to grow up in America. America was. We were dominant in the world. We were noble because we had gone over and defeated the evil Japanese and the evil Germans, the Nazis. And we didn't do it for. To get any expansion of our land or anything. We did it for noble causes. And so we were very proud that our military was Very strong. The people in the country supported the military. And so it was really a great time to grow up. And Jeff, I'd add that if you go back prior to just about when I was born, we endured the Great Depression from 1929 to about 1939, when Roosevelt decided we were going to be the arsenal of democracy. And we kind of rekindled our own industry, which had been dormant for 10 years. And about the time that people could have faith again in the American economy and start to get jobs and have a little spending money as opposed to worrying about whether they were going to be able to feed their family or not. About the time when we were coming out and there was just a little, just a little sense of happiness over the horizon. We got sucked into World War II. So we had really 16 years from 1939 to 1945, which was first grinding poverty, followed by very tragic stories and heroic stories, though, about losses that the country endured.

Well, the greatest generation and great sacrifices made by everybody. Alignment, Alignment on values. Patriotism at an all time high. It must have been just an incredible time to be alive.

Yes. Yeah.

Now you ultimately found your way to West Point. I did and got into the Army. How did that happen? And how old were you?

Well, I started, remember this era of crew cuts and penny loafers and pride in the country and pride in our military accomplishments. So When I was 14, I was a Boy Scout and our scout leader put us all on a bus and we drove up to West Point. I didn't know anything about West Point and I was not a very intense young man. You know, I was just at 14, just interested in playing baseball or doing whatever I was doing. But when I stepped off that bus on the campus of West Point, something came over me and I just said to myself, this is what I have to do. I know this is where I belong. And so I devoted all of my energy and reading and everything I could find out about West Point, memorized some of the silly things that you have to know when you're a plebe, and devoted all my activities to understanding West Point and trying to get in. And so finally, when I was a senior in high school, I applied and my congressman was crooked. And he told my father that for $4,000 he'd give me the appointment. My father was a tough old Italian guy and he told that congressman, you know what you can do with your appointment. So I didn't get in that year, but I had a friend who, who showed me another route, whose dad was in the National Guard. I went into the National Guard, and I got an appointment through the National Guard in my second year. And I was very fortunate. When I look back at the route that I had to take in order to get into West Point, it was a remarkable route. Clearly, the hand of God was guiding me and. And I was able to get in. There were only 20, 400 cadets, men back then in 1958, when I get in. So my class entered in July 1st of 1958 with 800 men. And within six weeks, or six weeks later, after what we had was called Beast Barracks, a very difficult period, we lost 200. We're down to 600. And it was a very intimidating place because, you know, that was the place that was. That trained Lee and Grant and Patton and Eisenhower and MacArthur. Matter of fact, when I later, in my later years did recruiting for the admissions office for young men and women that were interested in going to West Point, West Point sent me a poster with the pictures of Grant, Lee and Eisenhower and MacArthur. And the picture had their. Or the poster had their picture. And it said, much of the history we teach at West Point was made by the people we taught at West Point. And that was so true. So for me, it was overwhelming to be on that campus. I'm the grandson of immigrants. My grandparents came from Italy, my grandmother from France. And so I was really intimidated. I didn't. I never thought when I first went there that I was going to survive. I thought to myself, well, if I last a semester, that'd be great, that I'd be able to tell people I was at West Point Point for a semester. And an amusing story, Jeff. When I first got there, with this really feeling of intimidation and insecurity, I was a very small and thin guy, weighed about 120 pounds then. And this guy that looked like he had stepped off a poster. A handsome cadet upperclassman, brilliantly shined shoes, crisply sharped, starched white trousers. He was as handsome as could be. And he came up to me and he whispered in my ear. Now, when they wanted to be real cruel, they whispered. They didn't yell. And he whispered in my ear, and he said, Mr. Cassiope, I don't know how you got here, but I'm going to make it my business to see that you don't stay. And I thought to myself, oh, my God, how does he know I've only been here two hours? I know I don't.

Hey, at least he knew your name.

Yeah, but then he left me and walked down a couple of men to my New classmates. And I heard him say, same thing. Mr. Smith, I don't know how you got here, but I'm going to make it my business to see you stay. So it dawned on me. Oh, I get it. This is a game. I'm good at games. And so I persevered, and it was just a wonderful experience.

I want to talk a little bit about your experience there, but then also how that led into you getting to Vietnam.

Okay. So I spent my four years there, and then when I graduated, back when I was there, you had to choose one of the five combat arms, artillery, armor, infantry, signal Corps and engineers. And now you can choose any number of. You can choose Finance corps or military intelligence. But back then, you had to be in the. In the combat arms. So I chose being a small guy, trying to prove that I was tough. I chose the infantry and. And went to the infantry officers basic course in Fort Benning, followed by Ranger school, which was very, very difficult for me, more difficult for me than Vietnam was. And. And then I went to airborne school, where I learned how to jump out of airplanes. And from there, then I had a hardship tour. I had to go to Hawaii for three years.

Okay, sounds horrible.

It was the golden days of my life, Jeff. It was just.

I bet it was.

Oh, God, it was so good. My wife and I lived on the North Shore. I was making $350 a month. Our rent was 150, but it was great. We trained in the mountains of Hawaii, but we were the strategic reserve for the Pacific region. So we could barely hear. Not much. This is 1963. When I got there, we could barely hear the drumbeats of war over the horizon in Vietnam. Remember, the French had been kicked out 1954. So this was nine years later, 1964. The army had a program in which they wanted infantry officers and infantry enlisted men to come over and man the door of the new Huey helicopter, to be door gunners. So, being an astute young lieutenant, I was sure the war was going to end at any day. And so I volunteered. I missed my guest by eight years, right. But I took. I felt, as a professional soldier. I had to test my mettle in war. And so I went over for a short two or three months. I took 28 enlisted men, and we were door gunners on helicopters. There were no American troops, only 15,000Americans, mostly support people or special Forces and helicopter crews. And so we went over there and supported the Vietnamese. And in 1964, they were awful soldiers. And it became clear to me, even as unsophisticated a young officer as I was, it was clear to me that they just were not very committed and not very well trained or not very well led and that the other Vietnamese, the bad guys, were in fact, pretty committed and pretty well led. So when I came home from that tour, I was really discouraged. You know, I really had grown up on, on how World War II unfolded and how everyone was grateful for our effort. I didn't see any of that in Vietnam. I came home very discouraged. But a year later, as the war heated up and America needed more troops in Vietnam, my whole division, the 25th infantry division out of Hawaii was sent to Vietnam. And I went back for 11 months more on the Cambodian border.

Okay, so your first tour was. Was three months and then your second tour was 11 months and in country?

Yes.

Okay. What were you doing on the second tour?

I was. For the first eight months I was on my battalion staff. I was the S3 air. I was responsible for all of the air support, helicopter and Air Force support for my infantry battalion there on the Cambodian border. Our job was to prevent the North Vietnamese who were coming down through Laos and Cambodia on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Our job was to prevent them from cutting the country in two, which was their intention. So we established ambushes and blocking areas. Now, interestingly, I don't know if you saw that the, the movie we were soldiers once with Mel Gibson, but that's. That battle was fought right where my unit went. That was fought two months before I got there. So the bad guys had taken a pretty good licking, but so had we. So for the first about six months of my tour there, it was relatively quiet, but just small patrols and ambushes. And the bad guys were licking their wounds. They were right across the board the border, not far from where we were when they felt up to it. They came across and we couldn't chase them, nor could we fire at them once they got across the border. But my job was to provide, to coordinate all the air assets. And then the last three or four months I was a headquarters company commander and I had under me our reconnaissance platoon and our mortar, heavy mortar platoon as well as all the administrative folks.

Got it. And where was your wife during this time? Did she stay in Hawaii?

No, she went back home to New Jersey.

Okay.

Because we, my second daughter, we had a two year old when I left and then we had a second baby who was born about three weeks before I left the second time. So she went home with her new baby and my oldest daughter and lived with her parents for a year. Her. Her sister had also married an army officer who went to Pennsylvania Military College. So. And he was in the same unit, so we both went to Vietnam together. So the two sisters went back home and lived with her parents.

Yeah. And when you came home, the sentiment was. Had not turned entirely negative here towards the war, even though I would imagine your reaction that you received was more neutral than positive, like around World War II. But pretty shortly after you got back from your second tour, the opposition to that war certainly swelled up in the country.

Exactly. You have it exactly right, Jeff. And of course, the North Vietnamese knew that. That the same strategy they used against the French, that when the civilian population turned on the French army, then it was an untenable situation. There's a very interesting story that I love that, where a guy, as the country turned on the military. 68, 69, a soldier came home, and he was in the San Francisco airport in his uniform, and some woman came up and got in his face and started screaming at him, saying, how could you do that? How could you go over there and do that to those poor people? Why would you go. And he said to her, he looked her in the eye and he said, well, you sent me. I thought you knew. And that's exactly the right answer. It was the elected government of the United States says, hey, folks, this is in America's best and natural or national interest. Go do this, and if you're a soldier, you go do it. You don't have a choice to say, you know, I'm not liking this one so much. Call me when you get another one.

Yeah, certainly with the conflicts that we've been in over the last couple of decades, I think the. The rationale for our involvement has become more cloudy. It's become more complicated. I mean, World War II was. I mean, that was easy. You know, we. We saw what was going on. We tried to stay out of it. The Japanese attacked Pearl harbor, and like, okay, well, they're. They're coming, and we can't sit back, and we have to get involved now. Places like Vietnam, the Middle east, heavily debated on whether whether or not we should be in places like that, which I think is. You know, we're. General Tata, Tony Breeder. General Tony Date, as a. Tate, is a friend of mine. He's on our board at our company. He led all of our forces In Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, the Joint Forces. He was a West Point graduate as well, 28 years in the Army. And, you know, he was on the podcast, and he shared the Patriotism is down in the country from somewhere up in the mid 70% down to into the 20% right now. So even if we need to go somewhere, there is quite a PR campaign that needs to happen to get people on board with our involvement in conflicts around the world, certainly ones that are known now. You know, we all know that we're operating in, I think we're operating in 129 different countries in one capacity or another. So there's things that we do that, you know, don't really get talked about and probably wouldn't be effective if we did. But yeah, it's a, it's a much more complicated theater out there. We're sitting here with what's going on in Israel and now we've got Iran and Israel and Palestine and it's just a, it's a complex hundreds if not thousands a year old situation that people are trying to deal with. And we are diametrically people have strong different opinions on how and when we should get involved.

And of course the base which we had during World War II is totally eroded, which is when we used to teach young boys and girls about how great America was and that what we had, no one else had and it was worth fighting for. We used to teach that at a very early age when, when those young minds of mush are really are really open to ideas like that. And, and so when you don't, when you start to talk only about the bad things that our country has done or you take slavery. Slavery was an awful stain on, on America. But guess what? Nobody forced us to end it. We on our own elected to fight a war in which 750,000Americans were killed in order to end that terrible thing that we had in the country. But when we focus on the bad things and not on how great America is and all the noble deeds that we did and the sacrifices that our citizens made, we used to do that when we were young and we'd even sing the Marine Core hymn and the Air Force song in, in music class. I remember it was. We really believed that America was, was great and worth making sacrifices for. There's a great book out. Well, you may have read it, Jeff, called the Long Gray Line, which is about the class of 1966 at West Point, written by Rick Atkinson, who is a just a wonderful author. And it's in addition to tracing their experiences in Vietnam, it really is a testimony and a narrative on how the country shifted from when those young men, they entered in 1962, the summer I left, they graduated in 66, they pretty much went right to the war. By the time they came home in 67 and 68, the country had turned. So when they entered, it was penny loafers and crew cuts. When they came home, it was long hair and spitting. And those poor guys didn't know how the country had eroded around them.

Yeah, I mean, you can't really blame people today based on the education system that we have. I mean, we're, I mean, I think you hit on it. Right? It's what, what did we learn when we were growing up and what were we taught? And we tend to indoctrinate ourself with the principles, the values and beliefs that we're taught when we're young. And the education system certainly has changed its focus about what it's focusing on, how it incorporates American history and American values into the education process and people taking advantage of the opportunities. I mean, there are more. This is, I mean, I work with a lot of international people, Aussies and, you know, every people from all over the world. And they, I said, why are you here? And it's because this is the greatest opportunity. You know, there's, we only have, you know, 20 or 30 million people in Australia, and it's a great country, you said, but the opportunity here with 339 million people is great. And the opportunity to do anything that you want to do, to go anywhere in the country without borders, I mean, it's just the freedom that we have here is amazing. And, and yet you still get people protesting about things, but they've got a Starbucks in their left hand and they got an iPhone in their right hand, and, you know, they're, they're going home to a great place to live, but yet they're talking about how bad this country is. So, you know, not a popular, you know, I don't care if it's a popular statement or not. I mean, I just, you got to play the ball from where it lies. If you, you know, you know, companies or countries can fall in upon themselves when they become indifferent to the values that created them.

Yep.

And it's, you know, I just, I, I, you know, wherever you fall on lots of these different issues, I mean, I still strongly believe in independent, you know, individual accountability, not watching other people work, you know, paying attention to your own, your own production, paying attention to your own business, working, working on yourself, being capable, independent and contributing, being a servant when it's, when it's required. You know, we have an obligation to do well by ourselves and then also to do well by our Communities and to help people in our community. And I'm looking at that in western North Carolina right now. I mean, you know, we, you know, whether it's true or not, you know, the government was slower to respond. And I have a personal view of that because I spent 25 years responding to disasters and watching how the government moved in. Fema, food, water, housing, temporary housing, all of this kind of stuff. And, you know, very slow to react up to western North Carolina with these people. So we're working with Samaritan's Purse, Franklin Graham, he was on the podcast last week and there. And just. But it's, it's been private throughout history, prior to the government becoming so big and then taking a bigger role, which is great to deliver help when help's needed and to allocate resources there, but it's always been private citizens and communities, neighbors helping neighbors, making sure that people are safe, making sure that everybody eats. And I mean, you grew up in a time when that's what it was. And it was, I mean, basically it was decided that, you know, these are the, these are the things that we have to. We have to win and these are the things that matter and everybody's got to pitch in and you might have to have some personal sacrifice, but it was for the greater good. And I don't know what it would take for us to reach some sort of alignment on, you know, how we all need to work together as a country to make sure that we maintain the standards so that we can help where it's needed, when it's needed.

It's going to take a calamity, I'm afraid, Jeff, where we got to take people back to, instead of just accepting that these things are their rights and they're God given and nobody needs to do anything to sacrifice for them. But, you know, your focus on values was really the impetus for me to explore the similarities between Notre Dame and West Point, because exactly what we're both talking about here is that they, they encourage their students to do more than just think about how they can feather their own nest or build their own careers. So you have West Point, whose motto is Duty, Honor, country, and you have Notre Dame, whose motto is God, country, and Notre Dame. And they inspire their students from the very beginning to focus on serving as opposed to receiving. And the similarities between those schools, especially in the crucible of World War II, which really highlighted that against the backdrop where the entire country did that. But the graduates, those two institutions really had something in common as they, they sacrificed so much, and many of them gave up, you know, gave up their futures because they were, they were, they wanted to serve something bigger than themselves. So it was a great period and there are some, and there are some vestiges of those days in these institutions which still beckon their students to serve a cause greater than themselves.

Talk to me about your time at West Point as it related to the football program, because obviously you've wrote this great book, Black Knights Fighting Irish, talking about lots of different things, you know, the greatest game ever played, Knute Rockne, All American. All of these types of things are in there. But like, you must have gotten either involved or aligned or what was it about the football program? And how did, how did you, did you get so involved in that aspect of your life at West Point?

Well, it actually didn't happen at West Point, Jeff. It happened when I joined IBM after I got out of the army. And IBM sent me, in its infinite wisdom, sent me to South Bend, Indiana. Okay, if you're.

My, my truck broke down there once. I spent the night at the house. It's as close as I got.

Oh, well, IBM sent me there. I belonged to a group up, a marketing group in Binghamton, New York. And when it was broken up, folks, we were sent all over the country. Some guys got Las Vegas, another got Los Angeles. One guy got Dallas, one guy got Atlanta. I got South Bend, Indiana. And I've, you know, when you're from the East Coast, I don't know if you know this, when you're from the east coast, you think that's flyover country. You know, I had no idea. I wasn't sure. Yeah, I wasn't sure the Indians had been brought under control yet. So they moved me out to South Bend, Indiana. I live four miles from the Notre Dame campus. And in 1985, I got there in 76. In 1985, army came to town to play Notre Dame. And the, the local Junior League of Women's nonprofit group decided it would be great to reconstruct the 1940 World Premiere Premiere of the movie Knute Rockne All American with Ronald Reagan and, and a number of great people. Rudy Valli was there for that, that world premiere. The president's son was there. And, and so they.

Oh, is Bob Hope there?

I don't believe Bob Hope was there. It's 1940. Bob Hope might not even have been. He may have been there, but I don't know.

I was hoping we would somehow get to talk about Bob Hope today, but I guess not.

Well, I don't know enough about it. But he may have been there was.

That win one for the Gipper movie?

That was that one for the Gipper. And it had, okay, so many falsehoods in it, Jeff, but it was great entertainment. And, and it also had, you know, the, the storyline of Notre Dame, which was really fairly accurate, but so many myths in it, which we can go into if we have time. But, but. So they wanted to reconstruct this. Now, remember, 1940 was the high point of Hollywood fame and fortune, and they had the world premiere, not in Hollywood, they had it in South Bend, Indiana. They ran the movie in three theaters simultaneously, and it was a big deal. So in 1985, the locals wanted to reconstruct that Army's coming to Town. So they appointed me as the army representative, and I called General Westmoreland, asked him if he wanted to come. He was gracious enough to come because it turned out that he and Father Joyce, who was the second in command at Notre Dame, grew up in the same town in South Carolina. And as a matter of fact, before Father Joyce was a priest, he dated Westmoreland's sister. So they knew each other. And so he was. He came to town. I called Blanchard and Davis. I don't know if your listeners know about Doc Blanchard and Glen Davis, the probably the most potent and best college backfield ever. And I'm going to say, far into the future, they were unbelievable. Mr. Outside and Mr. Inside.

Well, I don't know about my current listeners, but I think I'm going to be exploring a new audience with this podcast. I'm going to be relevant to a whole new segment today.

I hope so, because it's such a rich period in our. In our history. But anyhow, I called both of those guys. I never got to talk to them. Their wives said, no, they don't want to come. But I did call Arnold Tucker, who was the quarterback on that team, who was a terrific athlete, matter of fact, won the Sullivan Award, which is the award to the best student athlete in the country. Back then, he was. He was. He was overshadowed by Blanchard and Davis, but he was a terrific guy. He came. And so we, we had that big commemoration of the movie. And I had. That night, my wife and I hosted a party and a guy by the name of Roland Kelly, who was a local announcer, TV announcer there came. He had been a student at the 1946 game, a freshman, and Creighton Miller came, who was a 1943 Notre Dame all American, and they brought a silent video, a VHS video of the 1946 game. There was no sound to it, but Arnold Tucker and Creighton Miller and this Roland Kelly talked about it play by play. And it was magic. It was an hour of magic in which you could hear a pin drop as these guys took us through Blanchard's favorite, the famous try to break away and how Johnny Lujak tackled him. And it was a remarkable thing. Well, I kind of lodged that in the back of my brain. And as time went on, it just kind of marinated in my brain about what I need to learn more about that. And I did more and more reading. The more I got into it, the more I thought, this is unbelievable. Not only the football game, because interestingly, Jeff, today we call a returning veteran on a football team a guy who played last year in 1946, a returning veteran was a guy who had been at the Battle of the Bulge or at Iwo Jima.

That's right.

So Notre dame had maybe 54 of those guys on its roster. Army shortened its program from four years to three years. But if you went into, if you went to West Point in 1942, you didn't get involved in the war till 1945. So when the corps of cadets came down to Yankee stadium for that 1946 game, when they got off the train in the Bronx, the crowd jeered them and called them draft dodgers because they had spent the war years on the Hudson there at West Point. And the Notre Dame guys had been at the war. An army which had a significant recruiting advantage because of that in 1944 and 1945, had beaten the Notre Dame Folks 1070 in those two years, which was so out of, out of bounds for what it had been for its entire history of the series. Most of those games were, were decided by a field goal or a touchdown. All of a sudden you had two years when all of the Notre Dame players were at war. And army had this, this really significant advantage in recruiting, ran over top of them. So the Notre Dame students were chanting, 56 and 48, this is the year we retaliate. And they. There was revenge on everybody's heart to even the score. And the game finished at 00. Disappointment to the whole world, but it was a hard fought game. So no overtime, no overtime back then.00. And everybody went home, went home brokenhearted because. And both army and Notre Dame at that point were ranked number one and two. They continued on the. In the rest of the season, both undefeated. Army had been national champs 44 and 45. But the sportscasters awarded the championship to Notre Dame in 1946, because Navy really fought army very tough in their last game. So Notre Dame became national champs in 46. Both coaches, Blake and Leahy from Notre Dame and Blake from army were coaches of the year. But in that 1946 game you had four Heisman Trophy winners. Four. Blanchard, Davis, Leon Hart and Johnny Lujak. When was the last time? I think never again will you have four Heisman Trophies trophy winners in a game.

No, you never, never will. Did they play both ways?

Oh, yeah, they did. And that's how Johnny Lujak was the one that saved the touchdown. Blanchard finally broke loose, was running down the sideline and Lu Jack came across the field and tackled him to save the touchdown. And an interesting story the guy told you about, the quarterback for army was Arnold Tucker and he played defense. He intercepted three passes from Johnny Lujak. After the game, coach Lee Leahy said to Johnny Lujak, very seriously, John, how is it that you threw three interceptions to Arnold Tucker? And lucj, who was really a fun loving guy, said, well, it's this way, coach. He was the only guy I could find open I interviewed book. He was a terrific. What a terrific gentleman he was.

Oh, I love it. So when did you start writing the book?

I started probably maybe five years ago, Jeff, and it took me about three years because I'd get into it a little bit, do some more research, then set it aside. And I don't know how you did with your book, but I'm not one of those guys that says I'm going to write from eight to three every day. I wasn't able to do that. So I like to read a little bit, have the stuff kind of marinate in my brain and then come back out and, and do that. So I started probably five years ago, finished it about two years ago. One day I woke up and said, you know, enough is enough. And I decided just to pull it together and finish it.

Well, it is a meaty book. It's got incredible stories in it. It's exceptionally well written and it's a highly recommend for people that are interested in. There's military stuff, there's football stuff. And the connections and parallels that you draw in here are just. It's really, really well done. I just really want to compliment you on it.

Thank you. Can I tell you one astounding story here? Okay, Guy, the guy by the name of Montanelli who was played in the 1937 Notre Dame team and they were playing USC at Notre Dame. Montanelli takes the kickoff, runs it back to the six yard line, the Score is seven. Seven. He takes it back to six yard line. They give him the ball again. He scores from six yards out, and Notre Dame goes on to win the game. Late in the game, Machinelli then graduates. In 1938, the draft he knows is over the horizon. He decides he better join up before he gets drafted because he wants to see the exotic Far East. And he chooses the Philippines as his place of duty. Not a good choice. In 1940, he goes over there, gets captured by the Japanese on the Bataan death march. A Japanese soldier comes up to him, points his bayonet at his throat and utters some, some grunts or something and in effect says, I want your ring. Points at his ring, his Notre Dame ring. And Tonelli said, I'm not going to give it to him. And his buddies say, hey, he's going to kill you. He'll kill you. Give him the ring. So he gives him the ring. A Japanese officer who is standing a little distance away comes over and says in perfect English to Mats Tanelli, did one of my men just take something from you? And Tenelli says, yeah, he took my college ring. The Japanese soldier goes back, slaps the Japanese soldier, gets the ring and hands it to Tonelli and says, hide this because somebody else will try and take it from you. And he says to him, I went to usc. I know what you did in that game.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. Remarkable. Wow. Tonelli hid the ring for the rest of his as. As he was a prisoner for four more years, or almost four more years, and then tried to find the Japanese officer. Never could, obviously. Was I guessing he was killed.

Wow, That's a, that's a. That is a rare story of compassion coming out of the South Pacific there.

Exactly. You're exactly right.

That's not the way those stories usually go.

Yep.

So what kind of message? If people get the book, and I highly recommend it, what message do you hope that people take away from it?

Well, I really hope that they, they get a sense of what the country went through and how upbeat and positive our citizens were in the face of awful tragedy, in the face of grinding poverty, but always with the, with the sense of positiveness that, hey, wait a second, we're Americans, we can do this no matter what it is we can do. I mean, we were on our heels early in the war, from Pearl harbor, late in 41, we were really on our heels till 43. Now we look back and say, oh, yeah, we, we were going to win that sucker, but it was a near run thing in 42, and until late 43, we didn't start our first offensive action after World War, after Pearl harbor until August of 42. So it took us nine months to mount an offensive in Guadalcanal. And that one was really a close thing. And then In November of 42, we invade north Africa. But it took us a long time to get our act together. But for me, reading about the can do attitude and the sense of positiveness of all aspects of our society, not just the military, but the folks who were making all the tanks and the planes and were working overtime and sacrificing where you couldn't buy meat and eggs and milk, you were involved in the war, that stuff was going to the soldiers. You had ration books, so maybe you could get meat once or twice a month. But after having gone through so much sensing the attitude of the population, it just is something that makes me sad and happy at the same time.

Yeah, understood. It's a perspective that I think has been lost on us. And people would do well to think about sacrifice. And you know, it's, it's so funny because when people talk about depression or people talk about lack of fulfillment, it's because people are over consumptive. You can never fill a hole in your heart or in your gut with consuming things because then you just need to buy more things and buy more things. And it's common to practice for people to understand that fulfillment comes through the work. Fulfillment comes through progress. Fulfillment comes through accomplishing hard things, doing things for other people. And when people get towards the end of their life, they're never going to care about that car that they had or this that they had. It's going to be the, the, the things that they accomplished that were hard and the people that they met along the way and all of those stories. And it's just, and we're just, we're so consumptive now. And it's just we're such a, it's. We're such a me first and everybody else is wrong society. And it's exactly opposite to, to the time that you grew up in and the things that you share in this book. Now you shared with me that you're 86 years old.

Yes.

Which means that you started writing this book at 81.

Yes.

What opportunities has the book brought you to do podcasts like this or to do events or book signings or travel? What's been the coolest thing about it for you?

Well, first let me go back and say that you made a very perceptive point about fulfillment. And if your listeners got nothing else out of it, I hope that they understand that doing things for others and getting that sense of fulfillment that you accomplished something. I remember Barbara Bush's comment about she never met anyone on their deathbed that said he wished they had spent more time at the office.

That's right.

So that was such a perceptive point. And gratified to be with you and share that thought. Thank you, Richard. The great thing about this, I get to meet guys like you. That's one thing about writing a book this late in my life, although I wrote two before this one. But just getting to meet you and hopefully having the message that I deliver kind of reach some folks that I might not otherwise be able to reach. That's number one. Number two, I got to go to a book signing up at Notre Dame. That was really fun. That was during a football game. So I sat in the bookstore, right in the entrance to the bookstore. Must have been 40,000 people passed by my desk and the T shirt table was right opposite me. So they must have sold 40,000 T shirts. But just being there and being part of that, about that great. The enthusiasm that all of those sports events at Notre Dame generate, that was good. And then hearing from some of my, my old buds that say complimentary things like, I didn't know you were so literate. So that just, it's, it's, it's just great. You know, for me, it was, it was the journey. It is the journey and, and not the destination. I, you know, I, yeah, sure, I wish it were a, a bestseller. I wish my other two books, which were fiction, could become movies, but the journey was in itself terrific.

Yeah. I'll tell you, people are always surprised that I even read a book, much less wrote one. If you, if you look at my reviews, most of them say this could have been a pamphlet. But, but, you know, there might be a thing, there might be a thing or two in there.

That goes back to your, your earlier comment, Jeff, because there are, I'll bet you in your. Amongst your listeners, at least half of them aspire to get their thoughts down on paper. And they're going to say to themselves, well, nobody will read it, nobody will want it. But it's really just doing something, trying to accomplish something, whether it gets the light of day or not. Even if it's like after you're gone and your kids say, oh, look at what we found in this box, what grandpa did. Yeah. So just, I think, just even making the attempt. And it's amazing when you do finally sit down and you put your butt in the chair. How stuff flows out that you didn't even know you had?

Yeah, it's interesting. One of the hardest things about writing a book is to call it finished and you know, and then to just know that at the end of the day you have to be satisfied with it, that it's going to serve a purpose and you've just got to call it done at some point. And because you can, there's always you. You know, when I had a, I had an editor and you know, she would tell me, jeff, you know, a book is not everything you know about everything. You know, keep it, keep it to the point, keep it to the topic, and if you've got more in, you just write a different book. But speaking of that, so do you have any projects that you're currently working on or any. Anything that you've got coming up in the future we can look forward to?

Oh, yeah, I, I'm really excited about. And I got to just put my butt in the chair and do it. I've started the, I'm doing the research, but as part of Black Knights and Fighting Irish, I discovered a guy by the name of Mo Dailey, who was a coach at Notre Dame, who also was in the Philippines captured with two of his classmates from the Class of 1927, captured by the Japanese and was on the Bataan death March and then shipped on those awful hell ships when the Japanese knew that we were getting close to liberating our own people, shipped them to Korea or Manchuria or Japan under horrible conditions. And not only were they horrible conditions, but the, the U.S. navy commanded the skies in 1944 when they were doing all the shipping. And so hardly anything moved without the US Navy knowing about it. And they sunk a lot of ships, some of which had POWs, these American POWs who had been subjected to awful treatment. And finally we're getting close to the war, but our own planes sunk those ships. And so my, my next book that I'm working on is a book called classmates about these three guys from the class of 27, 1927. Two of them died in captivity or were sunk by American planes, and one of them became a three star general. So it's just a story of bonding and companionship. And it's. At West Point, the word classmate has almost a reverent meaning because not only do we go through hard times together, I mean, just very difficult. It's a very difficult thing. Doesn't have a lot of distractions. At least it didn't when I was there. But then you go into the army and you serve with those same guys, and once again, under some difficult conditions. So classmates is a very reverent term for West Point graduates.

That sounds like it'd be a good movie.

I hope so.

Yeah.

I hope I last long enough to get it. You know, I'm not. I can't. I wish I was the kind of guy could go from eight to three writing, but I'm not that guy.

Hey, one. One day at a time, brother. That's all. That's all we got to do. Just take it one day at a time. But this has been amazing. I've enjoyed this conversation so much. I really appreciate you coming on today, and I think you've made an incredible contribution that more people should know about and explore. And I think the timeliness of your message is something that we really need today.

Well, and you're great. And that you would provide such a forum for people like me and understand some of the, you know, we don't need to talk about Beyonce or the. Or Taylor Swift, but there are some other. Some other issues that I think the country is thirsty for, and I'm grateful that you provide a forum for people to discuss those items.

Absolutely. I'm so glad that you were able to make it on today. And I've got one question for you. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be?

Just do it.

Just do it. All right. I think that's. I, you know, I think that would be a great logo for a company.

Yeah. I think they got it from me.

A great slogan.

Yeah. I mean, so often we are. We are bound by. And suppressed by our own insecurities about, oh, I can't, or nobody will like it, or. And it just. You just got to do it. And if it winds up in a box, so what, you know, it's a. It's a great exercise, and you'll feel better just for getting it out.

Yeah. People don't take enough risks. You know, very few things in life are fatal when you're. When you're. A soldier or you're a police officer, like, there are firemen, things like that. Like, things can be fatal. But, you know, most of the things that most of us choose to do or not to do are not fatal. It's just a. It's just a matter of energy and focus and meaning, you know, is. There is. Can you get meaning from the work that you do? I've certainly gotten a lot from your work. I've really enjoyed the podcast and really appreciate you being on with us today, Richard.

It was a pleasure for me. I enjoyed it very much. Jeff, thanks so much for the opportunity.

You are so welcome. This has been Richard Cacioppi, the author of Black Knights and Fighting Irish, and you have been here on the home front with Jeff Duden. Thanks everybody for listening.