tonight. we thank them. we thank you for being here with us. while wishing you a and happy holiday weekend. good night from new york. reflecting on 50 years at nbc news gave me a chance to read the stories and the people who helped define us. we are where we are because of the individuals who came before us. many don't think they are remarkable at all. on the intrepid sea, air, and space museum, an aircraft carrier that saw action in world war ii, you can see the weapons of war. what you don't see are the thousands of people, the millions of people who answer the call who have small towns and farms and big cities to go thousand says of miles away to

fight the biggest war in the history of mankind and prevailed. they gave us the lives that we have today. i call them the greatest generation and i am proud to say that it is a label that endures. so watch with me now, a special rebroadcast of the greatest generation. >> you didn't ask somebody were you in the military. there were 15 million of us in the military and the answer was, wasn't everybody? >> some of my earlier memories are of men in uniform. my father worked at an army base and i saw soldiers on the way to war. i was 4 years old so to me the soldiers looked grown up. i realized later most of them were not men. not yet.

>> they were kids. think of them as a bunch of kids on a high school football field. that's how they went to war. it was a lot of fun for many of them. an escape from their families and an escape from church and an escape from school masters. they relished it. until they were killed or wounded. that helps explain a lot. it helps answer the question, why did they do it? they did it because they were kids. >> women played a crucial in winning world war ii, but the mensah the worst of it. they were the ones who killed and saw men killed. these are the scenes that play out in their mind to this day. >> i can remember things that happened on iowa jima like it

was yesterday. i can't remember a lot that happened yesterday. >> now they are in their 70s and 80s, scattered among us. they are part of the landscape of our live, familiar and ordinary this their daily routines. it's what they went through when they were young that we don't see. they have kept that to themselves. to their memory of another time of great uncertainty, danger, and sacrifice. fewer than seven million are still with us. we are losing them at the rate of 1,000 a day. now their children turning 50 are beginning to understand how they too were shaped by dad's war. >> you can assemble at random any dozen baby boomer kids from around the country and there would be remarkable similarities in their experience of their father. it really does reinforce for me

this notion that there is a style to generations. >> they are a group as clearly defined as any we have ever had. >> you guys look beautiful. look in the camera here. >> historians call them the gi generation. gi. government issued. citizens made into soldiers. they are also individuals and i have been meeting a lot of them. perhaps like your father, grandfather, and uncle who was in the war. perhaps like me, you wondered what made them the way they are. tonight some of them tell us their stories. the stories we haven't heard about events and choices that make them not merely an older generation. to me they are the greatest generation.

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to begin the understand the world war ii generation, i took a trip home. my idea of a hero could be summed up in two words. joe foss. the stuff of a young boy's dreams and from a difficult beginning on the prairie, he soared to the greatest heights. as a fighter pilot ace and

recipient of the congressional medal of honor, he lives in arizona and met me and took me to the farm where he was born. >> we lived in that one room. no heat in the rest of the house. there was a table and four chairs and we had the little kegs we sit on and the guests get the chairs. >> around here was the first time you saw an airplane? >> yes. they came across here and the pilot would wave at me. i thought gosh, would i like to get in that thing. >> joe was a natural in the skies with the air to air combat with the planes trying to shoot him down. he was shot down and he was rescued and returned to the fight. he went on to match the record of world war ones a. 26 planes shot down.

half were boys off the warm like joe. they knew how to hundred dollar and they knew never to give up. he was wounded in the morning and threw that afternoon. he got hit in the head and he hit the compartment and that splattered from his arm and his leg. the same day he had a heck of a time getting the oxygen mask on. one of my boys, the bullet went in by the knee and came out by his crotch. we cut the bullet out and days he was back flying. >> they were tougher than tough. >> they were, but the thing behind it all was their dedication to our god and country. ♪ ♪

>> after the war he never went back to farming. he became an executive and a writer and a hunter. ♪ ♪ more than his resume, it is joe's spirit and iron will to achieve that makes him the quint essential gi. a leader of men first tested and forever shaped by combat. >> in those young men i think of them every day of my life. those that didn't make it. half of us didn't make it. >> do you remember specific names? >> i sure do. casey branden, greg lesh, right down the line.

i could name them all. ♪ ♪ >> it's not unusual that he remembers them 60 years later. those bonds are incredibly strong. >> they always told us from the time we went to boot camp, don't get close to any of your buddies. he may not be here tomorrow. you try not to do it, but still those are your buddies. >> his buddies are at the local american legion post in indianapolis. when he turned 18 and the war was under way, he knew he would be drafted. like a lot of other teenagers, he didn't wait. he enlisted so he could choose his branch of service. he chose the marines, he said, because he heard they were

tough. he thought of himself as a tough guy. until he got to the south pacific. >> my last campaign was iwojima. that was a square scary one. there wasn't a time i was there until the day i got off. i didn't know a western scared so long. i wasn't alone. and especially at night. they tried to come right through your area. they could catch you off guard and kill you. we were getting all kinds of

shell fire and everything. i was talking with a guy next to me on the beach. all of a sudden he didn't answer. i looked over and he was dead. didn't even grunt when the shell hit him. it came that close to getting me too. it took its toll. when i got back, my mother said you looked like you aged 10 years. i probably did. i felt like i aged maybe 40 years. i went from a kid to an adult practically overnight. that's what the marines does for you. >> i think i was very emotionally unhinged. maybe five years after the war. i would burst into tears. has he been drinking too much? it would be a conjecture. i didn't know what it was like.

in any way. >> he has written about what it was like. a college professor at the university of pennsylvania and wrote books about both world wars and he was able to talk about his own combat experience as an infantry lieutenant in europe. >> tell me about march 15th, 1945. >> we're got up very early and i knew we were in for it when the tooks appeared. the company tooks had been 100 miles back for a long time. on this occasion they had brought up their stoves on the dark and cooked a hot breakfast for the first time. everybody appreciated that and while recognizing this was going to be a bad scene. we were being prepared for deep

unhappiness. there was an immense crash in the tree above us. a shell hit there and spatted the fragments downwards, killing my sergeant immediately. he gave an involuntary grown and i was hit in the back and the leg. >> what does the word hero mean to you? >> if somebody who survives the whole experience without being ruined by it. they were shot to the leg at the moment he never mentioned it and said i have been hit or anything

like that. somebody like that who does something admirable. >> 53 years later, it still touches a deep cord. >> absolutely. >> many gis came home with the idea they were spared so they could do something else with their lives. johnny holmes volunteers at a catholic church school on chicago's southside. >> hi, kathy. >> even before he retired from his job as a heavy equipment operator for the city, he started doing construction and maintenance work for the school and the church wouldn't be able to afford. on the job, holmes uses many different talents. >> we will work hard selling cakes and cookies. i make black walnut cookie and

it's fantastic. i cook a sweet potato pipe that makes you slap your mama. >> he was not interested in being a cook in the army. he wanted to be on the front. he volunteered for what became one of the most famous units in the war. the 761st tank battalion. because the services were so segregated in world war ii, this was all back, the first black unit allowed into combat. once in combat, they killed germans and 183 continuous days of heavy fighting. for young johnny holmes, the victories never erased the losses. >> you see the kids your age. you see their helmet dented.

to lay their kicking like a rabbit. that's one hell of a notion. young kids lay there and holler for their mother. i saw that. i saw it several times. for every person that i killed over there during the war, for every person, i have made it better for somebody else. i did make myself a promise. if he let me get out safely from this, i will be a better man. i did. i think he kind of heart me. >> gis teach us what we already

know. how combat and seeing others killed is a brutal way to spend your youth. that experience can haunt them years later. as we will see, we are only now coming to fully appreciate that as the war changed them. they came home and changed us. instead of allergy pills. it delivers a gentle mist experience to help block six key inflammatory substances. most allergy pills only block one. new flonase sensimist changes everything. even if you're trying your best.be a daily struggle, along with diet and exercise, once-daily toujeo® may help you control your blood sugar. get into a daily groove. ♪ let's groove tonight. ♪ share the spice of life. ♪ baby, slice it right. from the makers of lantus®, ♪ we're gonna groove tonight. toujeo® provides blood sugar-lowering activity for 24 hours and beyond,

proven blood sugar control all day and all night, and significant a1c reduction. toujeo® is used to control high blood sugar in adults with diabetes. it contains 3 times as much insulin in 1 milliliter as standard insulin. don't use toujeo® to treat diabetic ketoacidosis, during episodes of low blood sugar or if you're allergic to insulin. get medical help right away if you have a serious allergic reaction such as body rash or trouble breathing. don't reuse needles or share insulin pens. the most common side effect is low blood sugar, which can be life threatening. it may cause shaking, sweating, fast heartbeat, and blurred vision. check your blood sugar levels daily. injection site reactions may occur. don't change your dose of insulin without talking to your doctor. tell your doctor about all your medicines and medical conditions. check insulin label each time you inject. taking tzds with insulins, like toujeo®, may cause heart failure that can lead to death. find your rhythm and keep on grooving. ♪ let's groove tonight. ask your doctor about toujeo®.

♪ share the spice of life.

>> be it proclaimed that this day shall also be known as and declared robert e. bush day in appreciation for the life he lived among us and the honor he shared with us. >> bob bush has two son and a daughter. they grew up with a hero in the house. he received the highest honor, the congestiressional medal of honor. when they were kids, they saw the medal in the box in the den, but like a few million other children of gis, susan, rick,

and mick bush are learning to appreciate how much of their father's behavior towards them was formed by the war experiences he kept to himself. >> probably don't remember anything relates to the war until i was 12 or 13. i don't remember my first recollection of realizing he had a glass eye. it wasn't until i was in my early teens. >> when bob bush was a teenager, he was-ing his medal of honor from harry truman in the ceremonies on the white house lawn. bush was 18. the age that most kids are graduating from high school. only a few months earlier, bush was a marine medic on the island of okinawa. in the midst of a japanese attacks, he was treat and revived a wounded lieutenant. >> then the japanese threw hand

grenades down. i my arm up like this and that took the concussion and shaved my heard, but it took out this eye and hit me hard. >> push picked up the rifle and charged the enemy position. killing a number of japanese soldiers. >> it didn't mean anything to me. i never laid awake at night. they were the enemy and they were coming after me and that preservation of is a big det deterrent to how you feel drive-by shooting somebody. it didn't bother me and when i left there was more of them on the ground than there was me. that seems to be the way you grade that game. who gets the most points wins.

>> they were the winners and the celebrations could have gone on for months, but they didn't. most gis were not looking to be called heroes. they were wanting to apply what they learned in battle to the new task of building their lives. bob bush for one was in a hurr tow make up for lost time. he married his sweetheart wanda spooner and went to work in their hometown in washington. he started at a lumber yard and within years owned the business. over two decades, he and his family developed bayview lumber based in olympia, washington. returning gis like bob bush laid the foundation for what would be called the american dream. a wife, kids, the latest appliances, a home of your. the gi bill of generous government benefits helped them buy the homes they were building. it paid for college educations

and helped them start businesses. new is in. new suburbs and new cars and highways to get there. building the country was the easy part, gis would discover. passing on to the children that took values that won the war. that would take all the effort a war hero could muster. he wanted hiss to be in the business, but didn't want to make it too easy for them. each son paid his father for a lumber and hardware store. the older son, mick, knew he would follow this his father's footsteps. >> don't break these before you get home. just kidding. >> his younger son rick tried other things before he bought from his father, a store of his. bush said he is officially retired, but he maintains a home office and just can't stop expanding the business. although both boys adopted their dad's line of work, they have

not been as enthusiastic about total immergz in the business. for father, bob, the gi, building the business half of the war was a mission without war. for thes, wo son, work provided means to work well. >> what a difference. not bad. >> maybe if you put the one into the batch plant to start with and move. >> keep your nose in line with the ball. >> the family said bob rarely took time off for recreation or travel. but he always found time for his other family. fellow gis who won the congressional medal of honor. he a 2e7bded a reunion in saratoga spring, new york. >> it is living to be able to get together with fellow

veterans and enjoy each other. we were just like brothers. >> bob, if you could change anything right now based on all that you have seen and been through, what is it you would change? >> i think the discipline among the young people even within my home. i could see this lack of and ability to understand hard times. i overprovided. i missed the boat there. >> when you look at how successful your children have been and how well they lived, even late at night you say i hope they can afford all this. >> right. >> robert says that occasionally. i am scared to see them go to the score and so is mary.

>> when it comes to as attitude about money and work, bob is no different from millions of others. they grew up in the great depression, a decade of great economic despair on the land like a plague. members of bush's generation watched parents struggle for the bare necessities. that marked them as strong low as the war experience that followed. it is understandable that bob bush and other gis vowed a better life for their own children. it is difficult for the children to understand why their parents act as if it could all go away. >> mick and i worked in the plant where we were shoveling and not so much that we had to. he owned the business and wanted to teach us the value of that

four-letter word. >> if i put my kids in the situation he put us in, he would be in jail. you can't start kids working when they are 12 or 13 years old. >> do you think because of what he went through in formative years on okinawa and building this business, he was tougher than he needed to be and his standard was so high for himself he made it tough on you? >> i think that's true and it was a mission for him to put food on the table and roof over our read. >> in the early days of the business, you were working seven days a week and figured they could do better it they worked eight days a week. they had one 24-hour cycle. >> they did, yes. >> can you imagine working eight days a week? >> i can't. >> love you guys. >> bye, mom. >> i don't want to wake up and i

guess i retired and spent time with my family. >> that was a great get together. >> he was a real challenge. this guy is a real challenge. >> when do we work? that's a reverse. he did it. they came home with the same determination that i had and they built the country and understand the success and failures of war and when you have been there, there is not too much, too many surprises that will shake you up.

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this is the hour's top stories is. president trump just arriving at base andrews after the first presidential trip abroad. he declined whether to say whether the u.s. will stay in

the paris accord. he wrote that he will decide next week. a federal judge tossed out claim that is a lack of security concerning hillary clinton's e-mails led to the deaths of two u.s. diplomats in the benghazi attacks. for now back to the greatest generation. >> they have been affected by a huge event. that's the depression and the world war that marked them in ways that established attitudes and through their whole lifetime. it affected how they raised their kids and so we have been affected by that as well. >> frank and his older brother

grew up in omaha with a war hero for a father. kilmer lives in the arizona retirement community sun city west where he led a campaign to create a boulevard of flags. his town is nicknamed flag city. that has a lot of meaning for him because he was held by the germ knows until a tank battalion carrying american flags rliberated his prison cam. >> tell me about what you remember. >> i remember it almost as if it was yesterday. the nazi flag swa stick is was lowered and an american flag was raised. i think of it most every time i drive up and down our boulevard of flags in sun city west. >> this is a long way from a german prisoner of war camp, lloyd. >> it's a long way.

>> lloyd met and married ruth after his first wife died a few years ago. ruth encouraged him to write and talk about his history. she decorated their home with his mementos. he grew up in a struggling farm town and finished high school in the great depression and no real job prospects, enlisted in the army air corps where his life changed fast. >> year from where i stepped food, i was flying four inch bombers. the need was there. it had to be done. >> he became part of the eighth air force flying for england deep into germany. it was one of the riskiest jobs in the war. loyal kilmer volunteered for it. on the 16th mission, his b 24 was crippled by anti-aircraft

fire. >> we were hit in a ferocious way. one engine was operating. i said to my engineer, transfer me more gas to number 24 and he never replied. lieutenant, there anticipate no more gas. we were going to pick out a place and put her down. that's what we did. the germans were prepared for us and had a contingent of soldiers out and dogs as well. >> the germans captured kilmer and his crew. he ended up on a determiningous and gruelling trip to 7 a near munich. was grossly overcrowded and

disease ridden and brutal. >> they gave us stuff they called soup and we had black bread and we had this what we could gather from red cross parcels. i weighed less than 100 pounds when i was liberated from prison camp. >> what did you come to hate that huh to eat in prison that you can't eat anymore? >> we don't have cabbage served at our house or turnips. foods of that sort. >> here's grape nuts. is that what you like now? >> yes, i'd like that. >> ruth kilmer met lloyd when he was in his 70s, but her late husband was also a prisoner of war. ruth was familiar with the

effects prison camp could have many years later. >> you have to buy two. >> ruth understand lloyd's need never to be hungry or cold or in crowded rooms or awakened suddenly from a nap. she understood there were times he didn't want to talk. she understood that better than perhaps than hiss did when they were growing up. >> he did not communicate very much with us. that's something that the research has shown is that ex-pows have a lot of trouble communicating one on one and doing close bonding relationships. he was always kind of a distant figure. he wouldn't just throw his arm around you and say let's do such and such. we would do something, but it was a mission. >> it was a father's job to go out and get a job and provide for his family. and it was the wife's job to raise the children.

and take care of the house. so i filled in around the edges. i drove the car and took them on vacations. >> loyal carlisle kilmer. administration and instruction. >> loyal kilmer jr. is a high school principal who finished his ph.d. at the university of nebraska. there was a time during lloyd jr.'s teen year when is lloyd senior thought the boy needed military discipline. >> even today parents say if you don't shape up, we ending you to prep cool. it's usually an idle threat. this was not a threat with my folks. get with it or you are going. that's what happened. off to sul ver miculver militari went. my brother got to go in the

school year. a little more intensive. >> frank was very much of a free spirit. he dlropped out of college afte three semesters and went to california. he's a plumber in california in san francisco. >> i certainly didn't set out to be a plumber, but i found that i have mechanical aptitude and the problem solving is very satis satisfying to me. >> here installs and services high end equipment at health clubs, for example, and at expensive homes. although frank has explained to his father he is making good money as a plumber, he senses that lloyd senior does not approve. >> my father is not an intro

expe expectative person. i suspect whenever family relations or friends say how is frankie doing he would just say he's out in california trying to find himself. in terms of understanding or being interested in my decision to be a practicing buddhist, it never happened. i lived in a monastery for about four years and it really probably made him physically ill to imagine that i was doing something so bizarre and socially unacceptable. i think overall to be brutally honest, i have been a major disappointment to him. >> from the point of when i was commissioned and i got those silver wings, a kid from stuartville, minnesota with no

college education, at that point i felt i had capabilities and i could do anything i wanted to do. i was very confident i could do it. >> my biggest struggle when i was an adolescent was to try to find something worth doing and to apply myself to that was appropriate. i think for that generation, a huge task was held up for them. and it was scary. it took them away from families and their lives were at risk. i think most say they were never the same afterwards. but to fight the good fight for a young man is a very attractive calling. it's a clear road to a virtuous activity. in our day and age is a lot harder to find.

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>> you think it will happen to

everybody else, but not your husband, no. >> just when you think world war ii still affects only the actual combat veterans, you meet someone like jeanette norton in the minneapolis suburb in minnesota. ♪ when jeanette's boyfriend was drafted into the arm in 1944, they decided to marry before he shipped out. they had four months together as man and wife. then before camille left, they found out jeanette was expecting. their son was born when he was training to be a paratrooper. >> he said i am on my way overseas and we are not getting a chance to come home. tears welled up in my eyes and i said you won't get to see our

boy. he said i wish i could be there with you and he called him bobby. i wish i could be with you and boby and hold him and just be there with you. when bob was about 17 months old, a rap came at the door and it was the western union man. when i opened it up, i thought it was going to say wounded or missing, but when it said we regret to inform you your husband was killed in action, oh, boy. it seemed like the world just fell down. >> in time, jeanette learned what happened on camille's last day. he and his men had been trying to hold a bridge against german tanks. >> there was this big -- it's called an 88 self propelled millimeter gun. they trained it on these men, my

husband and his buddies from 500 yards. they let it go. that was it. he died instantly. but he died a hero. they presented that silver star to me. the other wife was standing beside me. the other widow and the parents of another soldier. that was a very sad, sad day. and then when the war was over, everybody was honking horns and yelling and hollering, which they should. i couldn't. i couldn't really join in. my heart wasn't in it. i couldn't rejoice.

>> a few years after the war she remarried but she and her husband decided that her son bob should keep the name as a way to honor their fallen gi. >> i started telling him as soon as he was old enough to know because i had pictures up of his dad and showed him the medals. not until he was about 14, that was when he said someday i'm going to go visit my father's grave. which he did in 1994. >> camille is buried in a cemetery in holland not far from where he was killed. the son he never knew made these home movies when he went there to see his father's grave. >> it was an awesome feeling to walk up to the marker. what struck me was -- what

struckwas, was that my dad was there. i have a son of my own. i have talked to him about what must have gone on in his head over there. that's the part that is scary to me. that's the part that would be difficult for anybody to understand is i think most of those guys there were just scared as hell. because they probably thought they were in hell most of the time. and i'm sure many people who fought there believe that one of the reasons we still have this country is because of them. and i believe that's true.

god knows what would have happened had we not defeated the enemy. >> i just knew we were going to win. i just knew it. i knew we were. i knew we had to and i knew we would. i just, i guess i had that blind faith or something. did not have a clue what it was going to cost. terrible price. a daily struggle,

even if you're trying your best. along with diet and exercise, once-daily toujeo® may help you control your blood sugar. get into a daily groove. ♪ let's groove tonight. ♪ share the spice of life. ♪ baby, slice it right. from the makers of lantus®, ♪ we're gonna groove tonight. toujeo® provides blood sugar-lowering activity for 24 hours and beyond, proven blood sugar control all day and all night, and significant a1c reduction. toujeo® is used to control high blood sugar in adults with diabetes. it contains 3 times as much insulin in 1 milliliter as standard insulin. don't use toujeo® to treat diabetic ketoacidosis, during episodes of low blood sugar or if you're allergic to insulin. get medical help right away if you have a serious allergic reaction such as body rash or trouble breathing. don't reuse needles or share insulin pens.

the most common side effect is low blood sugar, which can be life threatening. it may cause shaking, sweating, fast heartbeat, and blurred vision. check your blood sugar levels daily. injection site reactions may occur. don't change your dose of insulin without talking to your doctor. tell your doctor about all your medicines and medical conditions. check insulin label each time you inject. taking tzds with insulins, like toujeo®, may cause heart failure that can lead to death. find your rhythm and keep on grooving. ♪ let's groove tonight. ask your doctor about toujeo®. ♪ share the spice of life. brtry new flonase sensimists. allergy relief instead of allergy pills. it delivers a gentle mist experience to help block six key inflammatory substances. most allergy pills only block one. new flonase sensimist changes everything.

this was a familiar ritual when i was growing up on the south dakota prairie. the men in my community and in others would place flags at the grave sites of veterans on memorial day and veterans day. these veterans are hobbled by old age now. i come to understand their values and their spirits thmpt memories of what they did a half a century ago that still guide their lives. they wonder what will happen once they are gone. >> they as a group encountered a menace to their way of life and their values on a scale that we will never see in our lives and fought the good fight, made the sacrifice. ♪ >> every road that you drive on, every interstate that you are on, all the major companies, the

monuments in your community, everywhere you look there is this physical legacy that's left over. when they are all gone you will say this is one of the great american generations of our history and maybe one of the great generations of all time in western civilization. >> i thought today was a work day. >> i was lucky to get my dad. i'm lucky i'm here. many people aren't alive today because their prospective fathers were killed in the war. i don't want to let my parents down or myself down. i want to be able to pass on what they have given to us. >> i just have a lot more connection to him. i think i understand as best as i can what he went through. i respect him for what he did

and thank him for what he did and i'm going to be there for him when he needs me. ♪ for all of us at nbc news thank you for watching this special rebroadcast of the greatest generation.

due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. a cell search results in some heated words. >> later on we're going to fight. is that what you're saying? >> that's what we call a class a jack ass. >> and -- >> we found what we need already. >> the discovery of a gang manifesto. >> boss is the brother of a strong struggle. >> and an older man takes charge of a young man with a violent past. >> right now he's in my care.