he was in the battle of tarawa, we lost 3,000, 4,000 men. it was horrible.ast forward 10 years later, i meet this extraordinary gentleman. i said, did you see eddie albert at tarawa. he said, absolutely, i remember seeing him. he was dragging marines out of the bay. i said, leon, that was 615 years ago, how do you remember that? >> he said, it's not something you forget. >> leon told me his story and what he was doing, and the documentary they were working on. i saw the film, and i said, yeah, i'll be happy to help out, i really like -- i appreciate people with passion. and have a lot of respect for my elders. and i was glad to help leon out. >> did you know about tarawa? >> not at all. i mean, my dad was in wwii but he was in the army and he was in europe. i knew there was a lot of hellish battles in the pacific, but i didn't not know any specifics, really. >> my former father-in-law, he fought in iwo and all of those, he wouldn't talk about it. why do you think? >> it's pretty difficult to allow yourself to remember all of the terrible things that happened

i was glad to help leon out. >> did you know about tarawa? >> not at all. my dad was in wwii but in the army and in europe. i knew there was a lot of hellish battles in the pacific, but i did not know any specifics really. >> larry: my former father-in-law fought in tarawa, a lot of those battles, but he wouldn't talk about it. why, leon? every time i would ask him, he wouldn't talk about it. >>> it's pretty difficult for you to allow yourself to remember all the terrible things that happen. ive do want to say this before we get too far along. i want to have your viewers know how lucky we are to have ed harris be the narrator of this film, to lend his good name to an important film. >> larry: no kidding. >> with his good name, i'm convinced that many more people would have seen this film and have known about what we've been trying to do. >> larry: there is this wonderful memorial in washington now finally, the world war ii veterans, they deserved it for a long time, long time coming. we'll show you a clip from this. leon cooper returned there last year. her