77 years ago american

soldiers who had been fighting their way across europe liberated the war-torn continent and freed some of the few holocaust victims. still alive among those

survivors were my parents. between the two of them. they had endured ghettos. concentration camps forced labor camps and auschwitz it's a miracle they survived a miracle made possible in part. by the remarkable efforts of our honorees tonight. the ritchie boys this year marks the 80th anniversary of their creation. in 1942 as my parents were engulfed in the crucible of the german assault against the -- and theirs and many other families were being slaughtered. a secret military intelligence training center was established in maryland.

just 75 miles from where we are tonight. it's hard to imagine the war without the soldiers who trained there and became the ritual known as the richie boys. they played many roles. photo analysts psychological warfare experts interrogators and fighters they even as day as you meant her david rubinstein earlier, they even accompanied general eisenhower to the ordruff camp, which at that time was a sub-camp of book and walled. eisenhower went their deliberately so he could witness first hand nazi crimes crimes. he found so hard to grasp that. he predicted what we have experienced in recent years. holocaust denial we are all

profoundly indebted. to the richie boys for me it's a personal matter. but for our nation and the world it is a universal matter. of hope resilience and freedom it is now. my pleasure to read this letter from president biden it is it is my honor and this comes from the white house on his stationary. it is my honor to join the united states holocaust memorial museum in recognizing the extraordinary valor of the ritchie boys. a special military intelligence unit whose members contributed to turning the tide of history.

and help save democracy and humanity during world war two. many of the richie boys were jewish refugees. escaped persecution and nazi germany and enlisted to serve in the united states armed forces to help america and our allies. win the war? many lost family members and loved ones to unspeakable horrors of the holocaust. and turned unfathomable pain into purpose by returning to the lands from which they were forced to flee to fight for our nation and to fight and defeat the access powers. the ritchie boys used their keen intellect. and understanding of the german language and culture. to gather enemy intelligence and

conduct critical espionage on the front lines in europe our nation and our world are forever indebted. to the richie boys and we remain inspired. by their unmatched bravery resilience patriotism and strength the the award the richie boys are receiving is named after the late elie wiesel my dear friend. he and my father are the two people who most awakened my consciousness to the evils of the holocaust and the obligation we have as a as a consequence to never forget. in honor of the richie boys, may we all carry forth the lessons of the last centuries most heinous crime?

the shower and may we recommit ourselves every day? to bearing witness and to upholding dignity justice and democracy for future generations in america and around the world. we will never forget our moral obligation to freedom. and the sacrifices the richie boys made to protect it. may god bless you all and may god protect all those who continue to serve our great nation. signed joseph biden now let's hear from some of those heroes. what was it like for you

leaving? not the germany escaping as a -- in the next time you go back to your it is to fight those guys like i was just soldier doing my job and said we good any concern that i was going back to a country albums was very attached to i had a war to fight and i did it. this is guy stern 80 years ago. he's among the last. surviving richie boys a group of young men many men in german -- who played an outside role in helping the allies win world war 2. they took their name from the place. they trained camp richie, maryland as a secret american military intelligence center during the war. starting in 1942 more than 11,000 soldiers went through the rigorous training. what was the army's first centralized school for intelligence? morph after germany surrender

the rich boys took on the difficult tasks of identifying and tracking down to criminals. did you enjoy hunting nazis? did it give you any satisfaction could be a great deal of science. enjoy his first twice specifically car fires. our father was 49 years old. my mother was forty apparently left everything here. all right with the united states barriers and you were able to confront the people that had caused us the strong. yes. i found proud of the richie boys. it was wonderful to be part of them. i was proud to be in the american army and we were able to do what we had to do. i don't. care heroes for you, but the opportunity to help fight and

win the war with him. wonderful way i can look anybody straight in the eye and i said, i think i've earned the right to be an american and that's what that's what it did for me. tonight we are joined in this presentation of the museum's highest honor. the ellie wasell award to the ritchie boys by general mark millie chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the principal military advisor to the president. over his distinguished 40-year career general millie has led our forces all over the world defending our nation and its ideals. general milley, we know how very

busy you are at this time of crisis. and are deeply honored you are with us. welcome. please take your seats. don't stand for me. you've got another group. you're gonna be standing for the real heroes tonight. you know one of the guys i saw out here. i don't know if you know it name is arnold mayor. you're gonna be standing for him in just a second. he's one of my professors at princeton back in the day. professor european history, give me a b minus. i always thought it should have been a hey, look at good evening. thanks everyone for the

opportunity to speak tonight for me. this is very humbling. and and i appreciate. the introductory remarks yes, there's a lot of things going on, but there's always time to never forget. and and i'm very very humbled to have an opportunity to say a few words tonight. i know that an event like this takes a lot of time and effort on the part of folks who put it together. so let me just recognize alan holt and shelley along with the ambassador stu. eisenstadt. thank you so much for your leadership and mary and a lori and martin and sarah the whole team that put this together tonight, very very important. very important that we never forget. thank you so much for what you do every single day to keep us remembering that which we should never forget. and i also want to just take another moment to thank yet again ambassador. markova.

ambassador of ukraine if there was ever a reason to never forget tonight. is that night an ambassador? thank you for being here blessing us with your presence. we present. the levzel award the museum's highest honor at this time of year because it follows the days of remembrance of the victims of the holocaust a week of solemn commemoration reflection that just concluded yesterday. and this year this week in fact 28th and 29th. of april a pair of days that carry immense historical significance on those two days in 1945. american soldiers united states army liberated the dacao concentration camp i first.

became aware of the holocaust as a young man in high school, really when i first read elite results book night and i read the diary of anne frank. although i'm not jewish. i couldn't believe what i was reading. and it struck me. and then later in college i ran into a professor. not arnold, but neil rubenstein who was the provost of students? and he taught me yet again. about the holocaust a few years ago i was serving in bosnia and had an opportunity in my area of operations. to have the town of cybernetia another holocaust but i also had the opportunity to visit dacao. and visiting dacao was unbelievable. it was a spiritual awakening of

the kind. that is very rare. as the chief of staff of the army. and as the chairman of the joint chiefs, i've made many trips to israel. and i can tell you of the commitment of the idf to never forget and i had the privilege to visit poland many times and went to the warsaw ghetto uprising museum. another opportunity to never forget and bearing personal witness to these places in history. is what made president carter's words? in 1980 the year, i was commissioned 43 years ago. all the more profound when he said out of our memory. of our memory of the holocaust we must forge. unshakable oath with all civilized people that never again. will the world stand silent? never again will the world fail to act.

in time to prevent the terrible crime. of genocide we must all harness the outrage of our own memories to stamp out oppression. wherever it exists, we must understand that human rights and human dignity or indivisible and yet today. here we are. 2022 and we are witness in ukraine. we are observing the ghastly savage reminder. of the worst of human history and we yet again learning the lesson. that aggression left unanswered. only emboldens the aggressor so we as a nation, we as a country, we as a people. the entire world must stand firm. with the people of ukraine against all the crimes. that are being committed yet again on their soil. and to the ambassador and to the

people of ukraine everyone in this room proudly says, slava, ukraine. elevuzal like so many others endured the horror of the holocaust surviving both ostrich and bookenwald losing his mother his father and one of his sisters. and in his famous book night. it is a testament the human spirit. the human resilience the will to survive and it bears witness to crimes on a scale and scope that. defies human understanding ellie became a professor as you all know and the prolific author of 57 books in a nobel. peace prize laureate and of course the founding chairman of this museum is in tribute to the timeless spirit and perseverance

that this award is recognizing the extraordinary efforts of individuals who through the power of example have advanced the holocaust museum's vision the lessons of the holocaust must be learned and lived this award also celebrates the character in the courage that we find an individual actions to confront hate. promote human dignity and banished genocide from the human experience and fittingly inscribed in the back of this award of the words of ellie. one person of integrity can make a difference. and in this room tonight we have so many who have made a difference through their integrity. differences that reverberate throughout history and that's exactly what the richie boys would do. in world war two looking back we can see now that they arrived just in time to turn the tide. for the allies earlier in the war is the 60 minutes film said

the united states army recognized the significance weakness of our battlefield intelligence. and the best way to glean information whether from civilians are prisons of war would be in their native language. so we the army searched for the soldiers who could speak the european languages german italian and french, especially we needed fluency with the subtly of slang and the nuance of accent. and we would also need to know the culture intimately. there's only a native would ever know. and recruits were chosen for their high iq. and their complete knowledge of the culture and the language almost 80 years ago. between july 1942 and september 1945 and i'll correct the 60 minutes. it's almost 20,000 soldiers trained at camp ritchie. a military intelligence training center. not far from here in the blue ridge mountains of maryland.

to preserve the secrecy of this new center. they were given orders to report to a new camp, but not told where they were going. and was that camp richie that soldiers hone their skills and would eventually use in their intelligence gathering in europe. among the more than 11,000 graduates of the camp. more rigorous training than ever before were 2,000 members. of that unit there was survivors and escapes of nazi, germany. these native speakers learn the intricacies of psychological warfare propaganda advanced interrogation espionage interception of enemy communications and other combat skills. tough training prepared them for the battles ahead. and many of them entered europe on d-day the sixth of june 1944 others. followed over time and shortly after reaching the continent they supported their units by

pursuing their special and unique tasks. they were not just intellectuals. they were not just smart. they quickly prove themselves. to be incredible combat operators the richie boys were responsible for the majority. of combat intelligence gathered on the western front by the united states army and declassified reports indicate that over 60% of all intelligence that was used by our army. was produced whether richie boys they were able to feed the allies invaluable information just one example is the advanced warning of the german. offensive in the battle of the bulge was made possible by the richie boys. and it's important to remember that. for those soldiers among them who had fled the nazis when they dawned the cloth of our nation and placed their boots on the european soil. it was not an arrival. to a faraway land they were in fact.

going back to their place of birth. where they were raised and many had family members as you just witnessed who'd already been murdered by the nazis. some lived in the hell of that uncertainty. you do not yet know if mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters had made it out of europe. to fight against hitler and serve as sold. it's for the allied cause is personal and on the front lines from the beaches of normandy onwards the richie boys interrogated german prisoners defectors and civilians. and some of the most important prisoners of war were interrogated but these young men. and they were interrogated. an installation known as po box 1142 right here at fort hunt, virginia. these soldiers scholars meticulously collected information both tactical and strategic. and they're incredible gathering

of intelligence about troop size and movements orders of battle in the inner workings. of the nazi regime they drafted leaflets produced radio broadcasts and published german newspapers. they traveled with trucks equipped with amplifiers and loudspeakers and went to the front lines under heavy fire. to try to persuade the germans to surrender. they were in paris. even before the liberation serving undercover a special agents with the counterintelligence corps and posing as nazi officers. and they did this all. great risk to themselves you can only imagine. what the germans would have done had they captured a richie boy. the richie boys were also among those who liberated the concentration camps from dock out of buchenwald and many others. they bore personal witness. to the horror of the holocaust

with the war over many continued to serve. working in the denotification programs and participating as interrogators are translators at the nuremberg trials. so many of them had lost their own families. their homes their history and their heritage completely obliterated, but still they fought still they served. in the years that followed they became leaders in science and humanities. professors at an ivy league college ambassadors and leading figures in the cia and other parts of our government. the richie boys are a great representation. of the greatest generation and they fought for an idea you know we in uniform we swear an oath. we don't swear an oath to a country. there's 190 countries in the united nations. but we the united states

military. we're the only military swears in oath to an idea. an idea that's embodied in our constitution we don't swear an oath to king or queen we don't swear enough to a tyrant or dictator or would be dictator. we swear an oath to a document. to the constitution of the united states of america and then that is an idea. and idea that the richie boys were willing to die for the idea that is america. that was the idea for which my parents fought in world war two my mother. in the medical corps the navy and my father with the fourth marine division. hitting the beach iwo jima and saipan and tinian and kwajalein well my uncle hit the beach at normandy. every soldier who trained at camp ritchie was just like them. just like my mother and father. every single one of them fought

for this idea and we fight for the idea that as american as you just saw in the film the idea is extraordinarily powerful every single one of us in uniform holds the idea close to our heart. and we too. are willing to die. to lose an arm a leg be separated from our families sacrifice. to suffer immensely so why? like all ideas that are worthwhile. this is a very powerful idea. and it's an idea that is despised. hated but the nazis an idea that was hated by the brown shirts. was hated by the imperial japanese and the communists. was hated by isis an al-qaeda al-shabaab and the taliban. in fact, it's hated by all dictators and tyrants of all types and times. they all hate this idea.

and yet incredibly powerful. strikes fear in their hearts and like all great ideas. it's simple. that's an idea that we in uniform will never turn our back on. no matter what no matter what the cost. and so what is this idea? the idea that is america. and all it is it says that you and i no matter who you are. doesn't matter if you're male or female. doesn't matter if you're gay or straight or something in between. doesn't matter if you're black or white or asian or indian or whatever the color of your skin is? none of that matters doesn't matter what your country of origin is. doesn't matter what your last name is. doesn't matter if you're catholic or protestant. muslim or -- or -- not to believe at all. doesn't matter. doesn't matter if you're rich

you're poor. famous a common what matters? is that we are all every single one of us. an american and what matters is under these colors of red white and blue? in the eyes of the law. every single american is born under the grace of god to be free and equal. and you're going to be treated fairly. in life liberty and the pursuit of your happiness and you're going to rise or fall? based on your knowledge your skills your attributes your talent your perseverance. and you're going to be judged. by the content of the character not your religion or your color of your skin. that's the fundamental organizing principle of this idea. that is america. this idea survives. because of the butcher's bill paid in blood by the richie boys and the greatest generation who fought for our freedom. the memory of the holocaust

should never receive from our consciousness. the lessons of world war two transcend time and space and here tonight. at this dinner we must always remember. and we must reaffirm our commitment. to the cause of freedom from tyranny. to always fight against crimes against humanity we must always remember that even in the darkness of despair and hate the light of hope and humanity will always prevail. the fire of freedom will always burn it will burn for all time. and we must always be willing to fight and sacrifice. to ensure that the daylight of decency and freedom is not turn into the eternal night. of death and dictatorship never again to the nazis never again to the fascists. never again to the show. let freedom ring and remember a

single person of integrity and make a difference. thank you, and may god bless all of you.

so let's started do you mind if i sit no. okay now there is i'm just afraid i'll fall off the front of this. welcome to the panel of presidential descent that's here. and we're delighted to have the panelists. i'll introduce them a minute. and i think the way we'll handle

this is we'll take a few minutes and you what he or she wants to tell about anything, that's their. and then so it's going to be very loosey goosey. and then when we've all had our word, we'll have an interchange amongst ourselves and with you all. so just have a conversation as we go on a couple of housekeeping things to begin with this weekend for those of you that don't know is the society of presidential descendants first biannual, gathering as call it. this is a new society, presidential descendants. there was no thing before till i created it. it and we have a partnership with long island university who takes care of much of us. we really appreciate the tremendous amount of work they've done. and some sign of it is this roosevelt right here, which if you haven't had a c bit to see you haven't see it yet do walk around it. you'll each go who are staying for dinner? we'll go to a different dining

room and the way that'll work is, we'll have a cocktail reception in front of the house and then everybody will go to their dining area and. then as dinner finishes it will all come back in here where. doris kearns goodwin will receive the first ever biennial presidential historian award of the society. and then she will give a what i think is going to be a fascinating talk on presidents use leisure time. the thought theme of the weekend has been things you don't and we mostly focused on tr because that's the site for this particular one. but she's going to focus on all not all but her collect her, whoever she wants among the presidents, the whole theme of the weekend has been what you don't know about the president, particular presidents there is in the room door are silent auction and even those of you who are not to dinner feel free

to bid everybody bed. and if you're not coming to dinner you better bid hi as a start because that's the only way you'll get the item people do. and afterwards, if you're not to dinner, there's a staff in there. tell them you know how to reach you. if you win they'll they'll take care of that. so and as go on here, if you have any questions fine let me know. so let me see. is there any other housekeeping i forgotten? anything you've done for who? with restrooms? oh, they are. they're there. a whole bunch of restrooms down there. feel to really go out and aid. and i've already thanked elihu which is, you know extraordinary what they've done in this house i'll tell you, four months ago i came here it was a work site. there was nothing i mean, you know, strip basically back to the walls. it's the e.f. hutton, the house and. the place was a total mess in two months ago. you know, dr. klein, the president, the university was

right back there was. do you want to say anything to this group now? okay. assured me it going to be fine. and i'm thinking to myself. no, no. and look at it. i mean, it's just unbelief of about 9/10 of the work. not quite as done in the last 10 minutes. i mean, you know, like all projects things had to be done at the last minute. it is spectacular and it's going to be a lot more spectacular. and this is going to be a destination in the long island for all kinds of people here. i mean, this is it's not a replica of the white house. it's white house themed and we see providing a major resource, first of all, to all kinds, you know, schools and the like here on long island and other groups will be hosting, you. people can come and give parties here and get married here, you know, whatever. so the roosevelt school, the newly created roosevelt school here, which a degree granting

operation just getting into going, which will be on public policy and international affairs. we are focused both as society presidential descendants and the roosevelt school on training of all on training the next group of leaders of our country and various ways and in providing a forum for all kinds of thought leaders in the country to come here and wrestle with the issues. of course, this country has no issues now, right? there's nothing to worry about. and two of the major sort initiatives of the society of presidential descendants, other than just meeting other year, one is civic education. one of the real problems we in this country is we've completely to educate our citizen you hear all the time about my rights. my rights, who has not told them that you don't get rights without responsibilities. and you know, that seems to have completely disappeared. so we want to be part of a national effort to recreate

civics education at all levels at all levels. and first step we took was to create a national day, which is on october 27th, not because that's teacher's birthday, which is. but that's coincidental it's the date of the first publication of the first federalist paper back. and so 1789, i think was in any case. so civics education, we think, is really important. and so, for example, coming to this presidential descendants, we have some high level government elected officials and others who are trying to interest in this. and the other thing is presidential studies we want to encourage presidential studies. our first effort at this was to create bi annual president hall leadership book award, which we held last october in in new york. the the book winner was a great by ted widmer called lincoln on the verge from the time when he

was elected the time when he was inaugurated which is only a period of a few weeks and how dangerous it it's a terrific book for showing us today that this is not the first time we've faced major constitutional crises. and that was an excellent thing. and every year we'll do that. it was a substantial award we gave $10,000 to the winner, which puts us in the in the top and the runners got something so anyway that's what we're all about but let's get to what we're doing now so i to start with just introducing everybody and raise your hand sarah sarah garfield berry yeah. you might guess that garfield means something there and she's a garfield next is james earl carter. where are you, james? you are. he's the only member here i think. who's in the white house. and so he may have. a few things to say about that. george here on my right, as you

might guess, is a cleveland ulysses grant deeds. now, wonder who he is and richard gadiel, who is the oldest, whose ancestor is the earliest of presidents get of that trouble. get out of that trouble is monroe all the way back to monroe and monroe actually is featured our morning talks of the monroe doctrine and i'm tweed roosevelt should have started i suppose with me i'm tweed i'm a great grandson. theodore roosevelt. i'm you know the what do i call the chairman of the school and a professor at nyu and? just delighted about it. elihu i won't go on about it's just a fabulous school it is being turned from an almost dead private small private here on long island and they had the

good fortune. i don't want to sound like i'm sort really groveling here too much, but anyway, we had the good fortune of having kim kline. dr. klein appointed president. and what she's done is i mean, the thing i'm most impressed about, of course, is that roosevelt school, there are only 31 veterinarian schools in the country and she got the 32nd and they're places like north dakota, a big animal state that has no and an excellent university, has no school who really a fabulous achievement and that's just one of many things they've been doing here. all right. enough of that. i'm going to start i'm just going to go round the room here. so why don't we start with? you okay? sounds good. thank you. tweed. what if i'd known that about the veterinary school when i brought my cats down, they. they they need their shots. it's really good to be here in tweed. thank you so much for all that you've done in getting the society put together and certainly i echo his thanks to

too island university for the amazing job that they've done. i am george cleveland. i live in tamworth, new hampshire. it's the the foothills of the white mountains. and i'm grover cleveland's grandson. a lot of people have a little difficulty and raise an eyebrow. when i say that. but it it's really easy to explain, because how can somebody so young have a a grandfather who was born in 1837. the answer is simple it's sex and math grover born in 1837 he married my in the white house in 1886 she was 21. he was pushing 50. my was born in 1897 he met married my mother 1943 when she was teaching his children from his first marriage. the resulting being i have two nephews that are older than i am so we really stretched it out about as far you can i believe there are i'm not positive on

this, but i think there are only three living grandchildren of century or 19th century. excuse me, president and that's myself, my sister. and believe it or not, harrison tyler, who's the grandson president john tyler, who was president i think it was 1841. so born in 1798, 89, yeah. so it tells you something about the water in washington. i think it's is what that really comes. comes to grover was just briefly grover was really kind of the last of what you might call the what called the log cabin presidents, where came from literally very nothing he was born in caldwell, new jersey, right across the river. caldwell, second most famous resident, first being, of course, tony soprano. and he was born his father was a presbyterian minister. ministers we didn't have megachurches then. they did not make a lot of money. and he followed them out to fayetteville when when teddy roosevelt was running around in the woods and capturing animals

and trying to figure out what they were and learning. grover unloading long boats that came in to fayetteville, new york, off the erie canal and delivering them throughout the neighborhood all, all year long. and at one point, he said he said, okay, i'm out to cleveland, ohio, where your relatives is. long, long distance relatives found that that town he was stopped there by one of my uncles who said, why don't you stay here and work the farm, which he did. one thing led to another and he became sheriff of erie county and talked about things you don't know, this one doesn't usually show up on jeopardy, but grover is the only president that ever executed two people. he hanged two people when he was sheriff of erie county. he also made a of saying it was a very unpleasant task. the reason why he pulled lever was because he did not feel it. usually a deputy did it. he did not. a subordinate should have to do the work. so that's why he went and did

that, he had a he had a be a meteoric rise to it mildly became of buffalo governor of new york and then was nominated to be president. and it's it's a it's a really kind of get a kick out of the fact that now new york state has its second governor from buffalo. so i feel it feels little odd. it feels good about that grover of course was the jeopardy fans will know it he is the only non-conservative active president and he was one of the presidents that won the popular vote and lost the electoral vote. and there's a lot of he and president since we are at the roosevelt school, had a lot of interaction together and was interesting because we've got two people from two parties. but those guys, they were to work together. although i have a feeling that grover really frustrated teddy roosevelt an awful lot grover was a pretty progressive reformer not progressive as theodore roosevelt i think that got got mr. roosevelt's nose out

of joint said it should be doing more should be doing more but we have a wonderful letter that is in the back, a box and some relative basement. right now. it is a letter from president roosevelt to grover early in his term, grover had written saying, i've got this guy who is a really great doctor and really ought to be that you know, the surgeon and president roosevelt back and saying it would be my pleasure to appoint your friend as his surgeon general whatever the official term was right there. so they had a lot of interaction together. and i think there was a great deal of respect for each other, too. so it's and i guess the thing that's most important i find because grover cleveland is kind of an unknown president, nobody knows a lot about him except for those of you have thousand dollar bills in your pocket. you know that, that's where he is. and, you know, when i talk to kids in middle school, that's the thing that impresses them. absolutely the most. except i do not have $1,000 bill to show them. but one of the things that's so

important about any about anything to do with history is not just lectures to people. it's vibrational history. and one of the things the society is able to provide on civics day and all long is they get a real live president. descendant can go into a school and and answer and the middle schoolers, i find, are always the ones that ask them the most. you know, they don't ask questions about the tariff and they, you know, they don't ask questions about union issues. how much money did he make? you know what, kind of what were your pet's names and? you know, these are very important things, but it makes history a little more alive and. maybe that is going to fire interest in history. a more than just the fact they have to memorize all the presidents. you see some alphabetical thing i could not do all the presidents in order myself right now. so that gives you an idea but that's kind of a c of the whole thing also important to note, of

course, is that grover cleveland does have a rest area named after him and the new jersey turnpike. and for for a while it might small tiny town in new hampshire where i live was a good friend of mine tony halsey i guess of his grandfather was two people in a town of 2000 people in new hampshire who had rest areas on the new jersey turnpike after them. so, you know, we we we rest on that quite frequently. i think to me, that sort of about does it for or for what i've got at the moment. move on then to richard. great. here we are. it's it's fantastic to be here. thank you all for for coming tonight and tweet. thank you for this. and kim thank you for everything you've done for the university to. so my name is richard gasol and i've born in baltimore and we've been from there for many, many generations. and i'm glad to be up here today to get to know sort of the beauty of long island. i'm at home, i've got my wife, catherine, got two daughters, 23 and 21 that are off of college and just out of college.

i'm very proud to be the fifth great grandson of monroe. when i was six or seven, my parents told me this. my dad told me this. my grandmother me this. and i thought fifth grade, fifth president, fifth grade grandson. so i could always it. so it was it was easy to remember and remember when i read my grandmother's name one day. her name was elizabeth courtney monroe, emory gartrell. she was named after the lady after her third great grandmother and took this pretty seriously. and an early age. you said, richard, that's something you need to be a good steward of this. you need to be a good ancestor, learn about your family, about your ancestry and the importance of your lineage. but don't it doesn't make you any different any better than anybody else. but just utilize that. and i've that with my daughters. it's been great learning of taking pride in the history our country and i've learned so much about so great people and i think we can make a difference when it comes to civics. and it's so in that i just the broad brush of james monroe that

there's my favorite book about him is called monroe the forgotten founding father. and i was in the car today with someone she oh, isn't he the forgotten founding father. and i said, well, yes, yes he is, but but for the five first presidents were from virginia and there really was the virginia dynasty. but he's, you know, much more overshadowed by the three. and that's okay. but he just had a different style. but one thing that if you're going to leave here tonight with a little fun facts are things. and i've got a bunch of them is that he started service to this country in 1776 and it ended in 1825. he held the most titles and the most positions of any president. he had a 50 year run and and he was a secretary of state, secretary of war he's a president. he was ambassador to england. france and and and there's so many stories, him and his friendships with napoleon when he was in france and in lafayette, he a 50 year friendship and relationship lafayette and and you know the whole fabric of this country when he started we were getting our our tails kicked in new york

city when he first went up as a lieutenant working with george washington and then certainly the battle of trenton, a big turning point for things. and he was involved that. and then once again, you go 50 years later and he's 68 years old or 67 leaving the presidency and really going from an infancy of a of a country that was an idea. just a thought to handing off of sort of a growing world power to the rest of the country. that's a lot. and 50 years and i just think we have a hard time kind of putting that perspective right now. but it's something i'm proud of. and if i get another chance, i've got some sort of fun little i don't want to get into the dates and in the history books stuff but there's some great sort of rich fabric stories of kind of his life and and then also just another thing get into is about how, you know, it was painful. it was tough, life was tough. and it you didn't go into politics for the money or for the glory. you did it because you cared and when you want to do a revolution, it ended one of three ways. you won. that's a good story. or you lost and you died trying. or you lost and you got shot

because you know you're an insurrectionist so two of the three were bad and one was good. and luckily, you know, he was on the winning side and i think we're all on the winning side. so once again, it's great to be here. so i'll pass it over to you. ulysses. thanks, richard. well, it's hard to follow you, but because you have your facts all in line and i've been listening to the lectures. morning, i kept thinking, oh, i need to say this this afternoon, but i hadn't to because i was going to say what tweed told me to say. i mean, generally speaking, not specifically, but but so i'm to do both quickly. is that so? ulysses grant deetz my mother was julia grant married? john new yorker. her father was ulysses s grant the third who went to west point father was frederick dent grant, who went to west point. his father was ulysses s grant. so it's a line of descent. i was the last of 41. great, great, great grandchildren born to ulysses

and julia grant and i was the last one and i got the name. i'm the only ulysses in my generation. and that was instrumental in shaping my life, although i wasn't paying attention to it because being a descendant of u.s. grant meant nothing to me much until i decided to my first name. i grew up as dietz, and in syracuse, york, where my family had a factory with name dates on it and huge letters. that's who i was. i was a deetz boy, but my mother was julia grant. her friends knew that and she told me that grandfather u.s. grant, third never talked to me about it ever, because i was the youngest grandchild and he didn't know what to say to me. he an old man. it was all past. and in the fifties, sixties, it was not good to be descended from u.s. grant. he was an embarrassment. people make fun of him when they learned what my name was so i was a teenager. i went to phillips exeter academy, which is where u.s. grant junior went, who shares? my birthday. coincidentally, i feel there's

some karma there. and then going away from syracuse, going to new hampshire to go to school, i decided going to be ulysses now. so i changed hugh grant deeds to ulysses. deeds. and i've been ulysses ever since, and that's when i started to pay attention. i was offered in a history class. i didn't like history. i learned to like history in my. i avoided history in college. i took it in graduate school. but in high school i learned to hate it because it one teacher and the regents and i was offered and we and we had to write a history about a major political figure of the 19th century and. i chose not ulysses s grant because that was difficult and embarrassing, but i chose my other political ancestor, who i'll get to in my next part of this was elihu root, who was teddy roosevelt secretary of state. and that's a nice segway. i realized, because i wrote and it was the most boring book that

i used as my resource and i still have it, but i would totally write a school paper on u.s. grant. now and that's another story which maybe we can talk about more. but i just the roosevelt thing, i'm really very and sort of i keep reminding myself how deeply involved teddy roosevelt was with my family in a number of different. so mckinley the president teddy roosevelt is the vice secretary of war is elihu root. frederick grant is living in washington living in new york. his father has died. he's gone back into the army. he knows teddy roosevelt because they were on the police commission. they helped clean up new york's police department. and fred had out of the army to help his father and then to nurse his father and help him his memoirs when he died, help him through the bankruptcy which was a humiliation, fred goes back into the army. and i'm sure that between l'heureux to secretary of war and teddy roosevelt as bellicose

vice president they helped get made a general mckinley made him a general he wrote to mrs. grant and i still have that letter saying, oh, i have a secret. i'm making your son, a general. and then he got to puerto rico for the spanish-american and then to the philippines. so his career around and what does he do is he goes to his friend teddy roosevelt when he becomes president, says, my son is just about to graduate from west point because mckinley, using a deathbed letter from u.s. grant, made my grandfather go to west point in 1899, and then he gets out of west point with douglas macarthur. by the way, they were classmates. and fred says to teddy roosevelt, you give my son a job with, you in the white house? and he did. and my grandfather went to work in the white house in 1904, where he met elihu daughter edith, who was my grandmother. and so i've always thought and of course, that changed my

family's dynamic. i mean, for a brief, glittering moment, there was, a political dynasty there, it faded very fast, by the way. so that was sort of the consciousness i bring to this, because washington, everybody in my family going back to washington, julia grant is a widow with grant's opened in new york city, went back to washington, d.c., frederick dent grant when his he died, his wife went back to washington, d.c. everybody went back to washington, dc my grandfather kept going back. i've never lived in washington. so i somehow got cheated out of all that because i was the youngest grandchild. and i'll just leave you with that and you can all wallow. my pity. thank you. hi my name is sarah garfield. bury. i live in central mass outside of worcester. i work in investment, but recently in.

for eight years now i've been selectman in a very tiny town, probably smallest in the state where i have started. pay a lot of attention to what running some kind of a government all about and how hard it is. so i'm the great, great granddaughter of james abraham garfield, who we all know was assassinated by a mad frenchman charles uto, who pursued trying to get any kind of ambassadorship, i think primarily to france within with daily visits to the white house when garfield was in the white house. but most of what my family, i'm the oldest of six knew about garfield growing up this vast collection of books that told us what temperature was every wood what his body temperature was every day he was dying there were there were descriptions of mausoleums and draw drawings of the mausoleums. but what i really grew up with, i have to credit my father with, which was the values that

garfield. garfield never wanted to be president. my favorite book that really turned me on to what he was about was destiny of the republic, which to me was a page turner and an emotional book and. i, like you, came to loving history much later in life, and this place has certainly solidified that. so i just want to say i'm a very new member of this society. it's made me look backwards and see where the values of work and thinking others first, which is really what garfield to me was about. certainly my dad was about where it's come from. i can certainly say it came from the integrity and the generations. i was fortunate enough to have known or heard of growing up. my father knew president garfield as as his great grandfather. i did not know him. he was known as a bum. that and i really couldn't tell you without going back and

looking at up what his real first name was when was little? my dad ran school and left, led the morning prayers of which there were essentially only two his children were not particularly religious. the two prayers that dominated our house, which to me come from president garfield were teach us to choose the hard right against the easy wrong and to give us clean hands. of course, we'd all sit and look at prayers, looking at our hands. but that wasn't really what it was about. and you mean garfield embodied all of this to us as i learned it. history, governing so hard. it consumes your personal. if you care about the responsibility that you take on. garfield was very charismatic and grew into all the roles had with grace. i think. he was 18 years in the in in congress before he was asked to become president. but it was on multiple ballots that he got elected because no

one could agree on the candidates that were running for. people just sat in a room and cast ballots at that point and. it went on and on. well, he did not seek office. he accepted what was thrust upon him. after many of those ballots. and in those days there was many lies and false that pervaded the election as there are today. he survived them all it was. he was steadfast in his anti-slavery positions. he knew on election his first quite quiet life that he knew in ohio was gone for the rest of his life because he was elected to that position he would have mostly survived wounds had his doctors not been on such ego trips about which which procedure or what technique was going to help him the most. there's a new term. there's a new meaning to me for blissed out because the doctor that kept thinking that he could cure his infection by jamming