Tucson Veterans WWII Featured in 10 Good Men

The story of 10 Good Men came from a dilemma we had. We wanted to get some sort of production done that included multiple veterans within it. That way we could share it with as many as we possibly could while these guys are still with us. We got an opportunity to interview our first veteran from World War II and it went great. It was awesome, fantastic. Video was extremely well I appreciate the VA so much because they're keeping me alive. They're keeping me alive. They've done everything on me. They've done everything and everybody is so polite out there. There was a tremendous explosion in the bomb bay and my compartment was next to the bomb bay and I did something to the door, blew it open or knocked it out, I don't know. But flames came and they hit me and the concussion picked me up, threw me up against the side of the plane and I laid there I don't know how long, broke my shoulder, broke my nose, it burnt my face and when I got enough sense in my head, I got up again, went back to the machine gun it just started firing again but I started falling asleep real fast. We were flying at 25,000 feet and I hadn't had oxygen since I was knocked down. My oxygen mask was on the floor. I didn't have oxygen so before too long, I fell. Just before I fell asleep, I saw the voluntary gunner Chuck Lewis extending his arm to help me out. He threw me out when I was unconscious. He threw me out when I was unconscious and I don't know how long I fell. In my unconscious form, some way or another, I don't know how I opened my parachute. There were four combat squatters in the 390th bomb group and so I went in there and the operations officer was Major Pennebaker. I told him my name and he said, oh your crew was shot down and I guess I turned pale when he said that and he said you better sit down. He went over to a footlocker. I sat down on one of the bunks and he got a tin cup and a bottle of bourbon, poured a little slug and said you better have this and then he said something I'll never forget. I do not want you to go back over to that hut tonight. You spend the night here. I have an extra month. Wow. I could just envision me going back over to that hut. Me with the 11 empty beds. All those people had been shot down while I was gone. My crew was one of them and my crew was shot down on their first mission on the 16th of December 1943. At that time we did not know whether they were dead or prisoner. Another one of the big themes of the film is the word remember. That's probably more than anything else is our goal from this film is to remember.