From touching anecdotes to courageous feats, this episode offers a rare glimpse into the lives of those who have donned the military uniform in service of our nation. Don Whipple’s tales of growing up during the Depression era, his transformative boot camp experiences, and gripping war stories from the battle of Iwo Jima highlight the resilience and sacrifice inherent to military service. Listen in to gain insight on not only the historical significance but also the personal impact of these narratives.
SPEAKER 03 :
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and our other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you, and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Munson.
SPEAKER 10 :
Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. And just it’s such an honor to bring these stories to you. This show precipitated from a trip that I took in 2016 that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France, in celebration of the 72nd landing of the Allies to get a toehold on the European continent and start to push America. Hitler and the Nazis out of Western Europe and ultimately to defeat. Return back stateside, realizing that each of these stories are important. They’re each unique and decided that we wanted to start to tell them, to archive them, to have them. And it has really been a joy of my heart to get to do this. In studio with me is a friend of mine, and that is Paula Sarles. I met her at Cooper’s Troopers, which is a group of Marines that meet up in North Denver. And Paula Sarles is a Vietnam-era Marine veteran. And Paula, it’s great to have you here. Thanks. It’s wonderful to be here. And women Marines, there’s not a whole lot of them, is there?
SPEAKER 09 :
No, there isn’t. And there were even fewer in Vietnam. Okay. And why did you decide to get into the Marines? Well, I had a recruiter that I worked with at Kmart when I was a teenager, and he convinced me it was a good thing to do, that I would get an education. And you did. Yeah, I got an education in more ways than one. For sure. And you’re also a Gold Star wife. Yes. Tell us a little bit about that. Well, Gold Star wives are war widows, and… Women who are widowed because their husband died as a result of a wound or something that happened to him during the war. And my husband died from Agent Orange in 2009, so I became a Gold Star wife and joined the association, or… the organization and helped host the 2013 convention here.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, you are very active because you have a real heart for the American idea, America. But there is a Marine Memorial that is out here in Golden that you’ve been doing a lot of work with or work on. Paula, tell us about that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, this memorial was built in 1977. It’s the only… United States Marine Corps Memorial, west of the Mississippi, dedicated by a commandant. And Lou Wilson was the commandant at that time. And this memorial is really near and dear to a lot of Marines across the country. And we wanted to remodel it to make it spectacular because when it was first built, it was really the only thing you saw on the hill there going in and out of Denver. in golden and so we got an architect that volunteered his time his company allowed him to work with us and they’ve been really supportive matrix design and then We’ve been working on getting the money to redo it, and it’s going to be spectacular when we’re done.
SPEAKER 10 :
And you’re raising money, and you started something right around Christmastime. Tell our listeners about that.
SPEAKER 09 :
This is a build-a-brick project, and it was originally… created to raise money for maintenance for the memorial. But with COVID, we had to change things a bit. So we decided to start selling the bricks earlier. And we’ve sold bricks across the country. And right now we’re in 12 states that people have bought bricks. So I guess the word’s getting out. Yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I think that that’s really exciting. You have, what, 30,000 or 60,000 to sell. But you start with one brick and you just build on that. Well, congratulations on that. How can people get more information if they would like to? And it’s not just Marines.
SPEAKER 09 :
You have a walkway that will be all branches of service. Right, because the Marines don’t do it alone. We wanted to honor everybody that serves. And so we have the walk of service. That is going to have an all-services monument on it and a gold star feature of some kind. Great. How can people get more information or buy a brick? They can go to usmcmemorialfoundation.org, and it’ll have a flyover view of the site. Remodel Design, and it tells about it, and then the brick purchase is on that page, too. Okay. And we have a Facebook page with the same title.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, and that’s usmcmemorialfoundation.org, right? Right. usmcmemorialfoundation.org. Okay. Well, our show today, Paula Sarles, we’ve got something, again, very special. And Cooper’s Troopers has six Iwo Jima Marine veterans that attend. And I’ve had the great honor to interview all of them, but we thought, let’s go back and redo that. And so we’re going to be talking with Don Whipple, just a young Marine. He was at Iwo Jima, and I think people will really enjoy this story. Oh, yeah, he has a wonderful story. And on the line with us is Don Whipple. He is a Marine veteran. He was at Iwo Jima and fought in World War II. Don Whipple, welcome to the show. Thank you. And tell us a little bit about you, Don. Where did you grow up?
SPEAKER 04 :
I grew up on a large ranch and farm in western Kansas. I was in a large family with… And we all had a job, and it was a delightful place to grow up. We had more fun growing up than you could ever imagine.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I’m a western Kansas girl, so I know exactly what you’re talking about, Don. Where are you from? I’m from Goodland.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, Goodland. Good. Well, I came from Beeler. That’s going down on 96th Highway, just east of Dighton.
SPEAKER 10 :
And I agree with you. It is a great place to grow up, and I do love it there. Tell us about how you got into the Marines, and what year was that?
SPEAKER 1 :
1943.
SPEAKER 04 :
As I mentioned, I was in a large family. I speak in a lot of high schools, and I always give a little background, and I tell them that I’m from a large family, and somebody always says, how large? And I’d say, well, there was four girls, and each girl had nine brothers. And they’d say, 36? And I’d say, no, you’re math. They all had the same brothers. But it was two families together. My mother’s husband was killed in World War I, and they had one son, and My father’s wife died with the flu in World War I and they had five children and we went to this country grade school and they needed a teacher out there and my mom was looking for a job to put food on the table and you have a place to live and the county superintendent suggested she apply for a job out in this little country school. My dad was on the school board and they got acquainted and things began to move along and they sooner or later married and then they together had seven children. And I was in the seven children.
SPEAKER 10 :
You know, Don, you and I have talked many times. I never knew those stories. I did not realize that. That is remarkable. So continue on.
SPEAKER 04 :
That was a fun thing growing up with that big a family. And we were right in the middle of the Depression and We just didn’t have any money. And farmers were going broke and moving to California or somewhere else to get a job or something. And so they, we didn’t have any money much. And my brother and I, we would break wild horses for the other old ranchers to deal with them. work with their cattle and horses, riding horses, and we would bring them to ride for these other old ranchers who didn’t want to get bucked off of these young horses. And that was our spending money. My dad said, you guys are the ones getting bucked off. You get to keep this money. And that’s the money we went to go out on a date with or a movie or something like that. We were kind of the last of the old American cowboys. We had cattle drives and a whole shebang.
SPEAKER 10 :
Wow. Okay, well, where were you then when you heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed? Do you remember that?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, I was in high school at that time, and I was down to my grandmother’s place, my father’s mother, and… I had one uncle that he worked for the railroad and he never got laid off or anything and he was a little bit more better off than most of those farmers and so he just bought a brand new car and that car had a radio in it and we were out looking at that car and somebody turned the radio on and that’s when they announced that Pearl Harbor had just been bombed. I didn’t know where Pearl Harbor was before that but From that time on, my life began to be directed in that direction. So that’s where I was at with my grandmother’s place.
SPEAKER 10 :
So a couple of years later is when you joined the Marines. How old were you when you joined the Marines?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I was really only 16 because I graduated. My birthday is in August, the last day of August. So I was able to start the school an extra bit early. Because of that, I could still get into the September starting in school. So I graduated when I was 16. And the day after I graduated, I caught a train to Denver to Marine Corps Recruiting Station and enlisted in the Marine Corps. And then I came back home and they… I had to get my parents to sign the sheets and all the stuff. So to give me, I had my permission to join. And I worked during harvest that year. In September, I mean, last of August, I got a letter from the Marine Corps with some train tickets to report to the to the boot camp in San Diego. And I left there and actually wound up at about the 23rd of September to really wind up in the middle of San Diego and became a Marine. And life was pretty different.
SPEAKER 10 :
And it’s just remarkable to me, Paula Sarles, that here are these young kids, 16 years old, becomes a Marine and goes to boot camp. And boot camp was, would you say it was tough?
SPEAKER 04 :
It was tough. I knew it was going to be tough. I had studied up on every flyer I could get on the Marine Corps and everything. And I knew and I’d always heard it was tough. It was tough going. When we got there, we landed in San Diego, and there was a bunch of Marines getting ready to ship out, and they were in front of the depot, train depot in Los Angeles. It was a great big lawn. It used to be there. I don’t know if it’s still there. It was in front of the depot, and these Marines were laying around out there with their rifles stacked up and kind of like… in little pyramids together and they were all over the place and these guys were just kind of sprawled out laying around and they saw me waiting there I got there in the afternoon the train didn’t leave there the late evening or late afternoon and so I had quite a bit of time there and got to talking to them they’d say where are you going I said I’m going to San Diego they’d say to the Marine Corps Depot and I said yes Recruit Depot and I said yes and you’ll be sorry oh my gosh where you’d go that’s what they would say that’s the essence for me and close there on the base and we were marching around here and there getting our uniforms and to the quartermasters and all that stuff and Some Marines would be walking around out there yelling, you’ll be sorry. That was what we heard almost every five minutes. Oh, my gosh.
SPEAKER 10 :
Don Whipple, we’re going to go to break. This is Kim Munson with America’s Veterans Stories. In studio with me is Marine veteran Paula Sarles on the line, is World War II Marine veteran Don Whipple. Before we go to break, though, I want to give a shout-out to one of my great partners, and that is Hooters Restaurants, located… Right here in the Front Range. They have five locations. They have all kinds of specials. So be sure and check that out. Wednesday is Wings Day. And if you buy 20 wings, you get 10 for free. And that’s not good on delivery, but it’s good on everything else. Go to HootersColorado.com for more information. That’s HootersColorado.com. We’ll be right back with Paula Sarles and Don Whipple.
SPEAKER 06 :
RE-MAX REALTOR® Karen Levine helps bring to life the individual stories of our servicemen and women. With her sponsorship of America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson, Karen honors the sacrifices of our military and is grateful for our freedom. As a member of the National Association of REALTORS® Board of Directors, Karen works to protect private property rights for all of us. Karen has a heart for our active duty military and veterans and is honored to help you buy or sell your home. Call Karen Levine at 303-877-7516 to help you navigate buying or selling your home. That’s 303-877-7516.
SPEAKER 05 :
All of Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Munson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmunson.com. That’s kimmunson, M-O-N-S-O-N, dot com.
SPEAKER 09 :
Ah, ah, ah.
SPEAKER 10 :
Welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That’s AmericasVeteranStories.com. In studio with me is Paula Sarles. She is a Vietnam-era Marine veteran and doing some great work regarding the Marine Memorial out here in Golden.
SPEAKER 09 :
And how can people help you out on that, Paula? They can go to USMCMemorialFoundation.org and donate or buy a brick. And what you’re doing is remodeling this Marine Memorial out here, which is the, is it the only? It’s the only United States Marine Corps Memorial dedicated by a commandant west of the Mississippi. Okay, well. That’s a mouthful.
SPEAKER 10 :
It is. It certainly is. And on the line with us is a good friend of yours, and that is Don Whipple. He is a World War II veteran, and he fought at Iwo Jima, and we were just talking about boot camp when we went to break. Don Whipple, boot camp, anything else you want to tell us about that? Oh, that was an experience, all right.
SPEAKER 04 :
I kind of went in there as a… Green farm boy from Kansas, rancher from Kansas. I’d never seen a stoplight before. I’d never seen the ocean, none of that stuff. And it was also, it was a continual month starting of things I’d never been involved before with in my life.
SPEAKER 10 :
When did you complete boot camp then, Don?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I… After boot camp, it was 12 weeks, I think, so in boot camp. So it must have been about, well, it was in November because we were assigned to communications and I was in radio telephone school. And we were assigned this duty because every, In every class that got out of boot camp for school, we had to be having the students serve the other guys in the communications classes. So it must have been right around November I got out. I can’t remember the exact time.
SPEAKER 10 :
And that would have been November of 1943 then, right? That’s right. Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
Because I was there during Christmas. I remember Christmas Eve, serving in boot camp, and that old Miss Sergeant, he was a drunken skunk. He just had no mercy on anybody. And so he would have us working. That’s through to 12 o’clock and sitting there on the floor in the water underneath those big old brass cooking kettles and polishing them up. And then that’s where I was on Christmas Eve. I had a friend and he stuck his head in there and he was standing there laughing like a maniac. He was a Mexican boy that I went to school with and played basketball with. We were good friends. And he was They were hanging overtime that he had been assigned to officer’s training school and getting ready to go to Quantico, Virginia. And so he was just kind of floating around there and he was coming in that night, stuck his head in and saw me sitting there on that thing polishing up that big old brass or copper cooking pot, I don’t know what they call them, but there’s about four inches of water in that little circle there where it was parked and to get in there to get a polishing that I had to get clear in there in the water to polish it up. And he was sitting there laughing at me.
SPEAKER 10 :
Don Whipple, I think young people today might say, well, why did you have to do that? But there is, in these tasks like this, there is discipline and striving for excellence and stick-to-it-ness. And even something like that, it was training you to become a Marine and preparing you for what was coming ahead.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, I… I worked with teenagers all my adult life up until later years here at an organization called Youth for Christ. And so I had a real heart for teenagers and I always had good opportunity to share and get along with them. So I started working here with kids coming back from the Middle East couple years ago when they had a volunteer Marine Corps and Army and all that was all volunteer and a lot of those kids were just 16 and they enlisted and when their time was up they had during those earlier days in that war in Afghanistan and Iraq and that area they had a They had an order that they couldn’t fire at the enemy until the enemy fired at them. And these poor guys would stand there and have their rifles out there and that telescope on their rifle and they could see these guys have their rifles right at them, they thought. And they could take him down, but about that time they’d see their buddy next to them fall over dead and It just broke these guys up. To see one of your own guys fall is the most heartbreaking thing in the world. So when these kids came home, they were just spit. They were committing suicide right and left. So I started working with these kids to help them know the Lord. And I became a follower of Jesus in the Marine Corps. And I began meeting up with these kids, and I had the time of my life with those kids. They were just like junior high school students, and it was just amazing. I would say, how you doing, Maureen? And they’d say, not very good. And I said, I talked to them a little while, and finally I’d say, how you doing with your journey with Jesus? They all had the same story almost. Yes, my heart went out to those kids and they were so broken. And they would say, well, I’ve sinned so much God could never forgive me. And I said, oh, he’s a big God. Let’s sit down a little bit. And I told them how that I became a follower of Jesus in the Marine Corps. And I would take some verses in the Bible and talk to them and I would ask them, like, I would take a verse, say, like, Romans 3.23, it says, All have sinned. And I said, Does that include you at all? They’d say, Yes. I’d say, Okay, see, you’re not a lone ranger. God’s a pretty good big God. All have sinned. That’s everybody. And I’d say, Does that include you? They’d say, Yes. And I’d just take different words out like that. I was in a first-class meeting with all of them. I’d say, did that include you? And finally, by the end of our conversation, I would flip over to, I was usually running short on time, and I’d flip over to the last book in the Bible, and there is a verse there in Revelation that said, this is Jesus talking to the old apostle John from heaven. And the old apostle John’s in prison because of his refusal to deny his face and say Caesar is Lord rather than Jesus is Lord and they put him on this island out there and this is Jesus talking to him and in that verse there it says behold I stand at the door and knock and if any man hears my voice and opens that door I will come in to them and we’ll become one and I said Does that include you? Does that include anyone? Are you included in that? And he said, yes. And so I said, okay. God’s big enough to handle all of our sin. And he paid for it all. And Jesus was hanging on the cross. He cried out, it’s finished. And he was able to, because the wages of sin is death, and he gave his own son to die in our place because he didn’t have anything. He was the only one that had ever just said, listen, when God did that, he played it for once and for all, I said, paid for it in full. And so finally I’d say to this boy, any reason why you wouldn’t want to just open that door and ask Jesus to come into your heart and take your sin? And they’d say, I want to right now. It was just a time in my life that was fantastic. these kids would follow me around and they were living out there in the suburbs of Denver many of them and they’d usually get an apartment that was too big for them and they’d come home and the bottom had fallen out of their day and they were so having such a tough time trying to get their life together after that experience there in the Middle East and they’d commit suicide. Oh, that was a killer for me. Go ahead. I would try to get involved in churches. The ladies in these churches, the widow ladies, they would know about this. That they were just young guys. And they’d take and put their arm around them and hug them and Give them just what they needed, and that was so great. Those kids that stand there got embarrassed. I said this one kid one day, I’m having a hard time figuring out what’s going on when I look at your face, when those dear ladies were hugging you and All that, and I didn’t know whether you were saying, help me, or you were saying, tell him not to quit.
SPEAKER 10 :
Rescue me or hug me more, huh, Don Whipple? That’s right. Well, and this has been, as you mentioned, part of your life’s work, Don Whipple. You’ve been a pastor, correct? Were you also a pastor?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, I was. I was a pastor then. And he was a missionary to Costa Rica, too. And I went out as a missionary to Southeast Asia and was out there working in Indonesia and Thailand and then that horn all around there. We had Cambodia and Malaya and all those areas. And I was working with Youth for Christ International as a missionary with them. Okay. And I had some thrilling times there. I got kidnapped by the communists and They were going to take me out in the jungle and hold me for ransom, and God just miraculously delivered me and got me out of that mess.
SPEAKER 10 :
You know what, Don Whipple, let’s go to break. I think that we want to hear that story, and then we certainly want to get to your World War II experience as well. But we’re going to go to break. This is Kim Munson with America’s Veterans Stories. In studio with me is Marine veteran Paulo Sarles. On the line is World War II Marine veteran Don Whipple. We’re going to go to break. When we come back, we want to hear the story about your service when you were a missionary youth for Christ and that you were kidnapped and held for ransom. So stay tuned. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 02 :
In these tumultuous times, it is necessary that we each have a freedom library to know and understand our history. Bury Him! A Memoir of the Vietnam War by Captain Doug Chamberlain is a must for your personal library. In this honest and gripping memoir, Captain Chamberlain recounts the chilling events that took place during his command of a company of young Marines at the height of the Vietnam War. Chamberlain painfully recalls the unspeakable order He and his Marines were forced to obey, and the cover-up which followed. Purchase the book at marinedougchamberlain.com. That’s marinedougchamberlain.com so that you gain perspective on this time in our history.
SPEAKER 03 :
God bless America Land that I love
SPEAKER 10 :
Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out my website. That’s AmericasVeteranStories.com. And in studio with me is Paula Sarle. She is a Vietnam-era Marine veteran, and she has a lot of life’s work. But one of the things that you’re working on right now, Paula, is this Marine Memorial, the remodeling of the Marine Memorial out here in Golden. Tell us just quickly a little bit about that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I’m really honored to be leading the charge to remodel this memorial. It has a lot of meaning to people across the country that have been there. And there are even ashes spread on the ground there. So it’s kind of hallowed ground to a lot of us. And we want to make this as spectacular as it should be. And Bo Bowers started the memorial in 1976. Well, actually, 75, when they started raising money and stuff. So it’s… It’s iconic, and we want to make it even more spectacular for people that drive by that they’ll see it and know that it’s Marines and those that serve with us. And so people can buy a brick. They can go to, I have it. USMCMemorialFoundation.org.
SPEAKER 10 :
And after you hear this, continue to hear this story of Don Whipple, people could just go and donate and help with this as well. So on the line with us is World War II veteran Don Whipple. And we’re going to get to his experience in just a moment. But you said when you were a missionary for Youth for Christ and you were in Southeast Asia that you were kidnapped by the communists. Tell us about that, Don. Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I was in… Indonesia and Jakarta one day and I met an old man an old Chinese guy and the Chinese young people were so closely associated with the family that they never got in any trouble but during the Japanese occupation these kids were treated so badly that they really become resentful and they begin to form in gangs with something like the M13 gang is what they kind of wound up into and they were fierce and This old man was looking for somebody that had worked with teenagers, and he’d been asking all the missionaries if they’d worked with any teenagers, and he asked me one day if I had, and so I’d been working with Youth for Christ for several years, and he’d forgotten my name. He didn’t write it down, and so he was asking a Southern Baptist missionary after. They had anybody in their mission that worked for teenagers, and he was telling them why and so forth. And that old man said, no, but I know a guy out here somewhere. I don’t know how to get a hold of him, but I know he worked with an organization, Youth for Christ. And that old man said, yeah, that’s the man. He wrote Youth for Christ International Letter, this Southern Baptist did. He got the whole address of Youth for Christ in Chicago. And he wrote him a letter and asked if they had somebody out here and how they could get a hold of him. So they just sent the letter on the man. This old man had just scribbled on the back of an envelope to write this letter. And he had his name and address and phone number. And so I gave him a call from Singapore there into Jakarta. and talked to him on the phone. He said, when are you coming to Singapore, I mean to Jakarta next time? I said, I plan to be there in about two weeks. He said, would you give me a call and we can get together maybe when you get your hotel and get settled? So when I got down there, when I got in this hotel, Jakarta was just, it was a, most discouraging spot I’d ever been in in my life. It was just kind of the slush part of the world. And this new hotel was new, and they had a nice place there. And I got in my room, and after I got in my room, I went down to the foyer of the hotel. Dictator of… oh my mind plays tricks on indonesia the dictator of the country he had had a bunch of soldiers in a ballroom they’re talking to him and i was standing there by the door and he was talking to me he dismissed the meeting and they came out and sacarno was his name and president sacarno was a real dictator there and tied in with russia and him and his wife and Some of his aides, they started out. In fact, he brushed right against me as I was standing there. So anyway, I went over and called this number I had, and this old man said, you call a taxi and give him this address. I did that. Gave him the address, and the taxi driver said, why do you want to go there? That’s a terrible place in town. The communists are just taking over down there. So he said, I don’t even go down there myself anymore. And I said, well, I’d sure like to go. And he said, I don’t think you’ll ever make it out if you do. So I finally talked him into the notion of taking me down there. And I got down there, and I went down that lone street in the dark, and God was just there with me. I said, Lord, I know that you said that that you can’t remember the verse, let me now. But it says, the angel of the Lord encamps around about those who fear him and delivers them. And I believe you will deliver me. And so I walked down that street. There was clanging and clinging as the wind was blowing. The dogs were chasing cats. And they had tents backed up against this very poverty stricken place. They had tin and glass and boards stacked up against their houses. And the cats would run under those and the dogs would chase them. It was just a continuous bunch of crashes going on. I finally got to the door of the address and an old Chinese man was sitting at the door. I said to him, he said, what do you want? Kind of in broken English. I said, I want to see Mr. So-and-so. I can’t remember his name right now, but He kind of grilled me for a while, wanted to know why I wanted to save and this and that. So he finally reached down to a little cardboard box by the side of his chair and said, pulled out a little slip of paper and said, he’s not here, he’s at this address. So at the six different houses, he got the same answer every time, and every time the taxi driver says, this is the worst area in the other one, I don’t want to take you at all. I tell you, you’ll never get out of here. So I finally got to the sixth one. I got to the door and a little Chinese lady came to the door. She said to me, could I help you? In a sweet voice. And I said, I want to see Mr. So-and-so. And she said, he’ll be right with you. This old Chinese man came in and apologized to me for getting me in that dangerous part of town and getting shagged down all around. He was such a neat old man. I fell in love with him and him. And he began to tell me, he said, I have to move every night because the communists are out after all my assets and then they’re out to kill me and my wife. And we can’t stay in the same place. It’s two nights in a row and I have to move every night. And that’s why I had to send you all around to these other places. And because I didn’t want anybody else to know where I was at. So anyway, that’s… He said, I’ll be by tomorrow morning and I’d like to have you. And I have a new Mercedes Benz. And he said, what I’ve done is I’ve put all my money and resources and every asset I had into cash. And I took the cash and bought Mercedes Benz cars with it. And I put these Mercedes Benz cars and friends that I can trust in Jakarta. And if I need money, I just… call these men and tell them to take that car down to the Mercedes Benz and sell it and they’ll give you the money for it so he was just using the Mercedes Benz for a bank and he said I’ll be by to have a driver tomorrow morning be by at 8 o’clock by your hotel to pick you up and I want you to drive around the entire perimeter of the island of Java here and I’ve got a place for you to stay and they’ll feed you and put you up at It used to be an underground church. It’s a widow lady who owns it, but everybody in those towns, these bigger cities, knows where this place is at. And they all have a group of people that they’ve contacted that have never worked with young people to be there, and they want you to maybe make plans with them on how you can maybe have some way of getting a way of getting a thing formed where you can get some of these young Chinese gangsters together and went him to the Lord and helped get him straightened out. So we were driving. I had heard every night on the news that the communists were out in Malaya, and I was up in Malaya at nights a lot working with teenagers. I would come down to 11 o’clock sometimes in that jungle when it was dark, and Every turn, I’d wonder if I was going to see a communist Chinese guy step out there in his orange jumpsuit and have a submachine gun to motor me over. I had a little road wagon, and I’d always drive with the lights on then because little animals were running out of the jungle to the beach to get the crabs and stuff like that. And I think they were really wild pigs. I don’t know, but… I probably hit one of them. I was afraid I’d knock the whole front end out of my car, and I’d be stuck out there with those guys, and I’d be in that for sure. But anyway, I never saw anybody in Malaya, but I went to Java, and one morning after we got up and had breakfast and took out life, We rounded a curve, and there this Chinese man walked out of the jungle with his submachine gun and his orange jumpsuit. Guard motion was over, and he walked up to the car and pointed right at me. I was in the back seat, and I had an interpreter in the front seat and the passenger seat and the driver. They were in the knees, but he never paid attention to them. He just had his eye on me because I was an American, and he figured he’d get more money than Americans did. He said, out of the car, in broken English. The interpreter said, why do you want him out of the car? And he said, well, there’s an epidemic here with cholera and smallpox. So he’s got to get a vaccination. The interpreter said, well, he’s got his international health card with him, and he’s had all those shots up to date. And so he doesn’t need that anymore. The old Chinese guy just said, out of the car. Anyway, I get out of the car. So finally, the interpreter said to me, you better get out of the car because he’s getting kind of angry. And he got, I got out of the car and he ran that machine gun in my back and started waving and finally talking in Chinese and waving his hands. The interpreter said, he wants you to walk across the street here in that jungle trail. And I said, yeah, that’s what I thought he was saying, but I was trying to stem his He could. That’s what everybody wanted. So anyway, I started walking, and he had that thing in my back. So I got up there, it was about so many yards, and saw another guy standing beside a tree and a shelf that he’d built down on the tree. And on the shelf was another submachine gun and two syringes to give you shots. These were great big grease gun-sized syringes. We used to use them. because actually they’re horses and they’re big bulls. And they’d hold about a pint, I don’t know. And they had glass sleeves on them and inside there was, you could see the color of the stuff and so they grabbed, he kept playing with my arm with the machine gun until the button came loose and my sleeve on my shirt, he pulled it up and Made his machine gun down and put this one with a black liquid in it. It looked like used oil. Just black as tar. I used to see it on the farm. Oil in a glass bottle or something. And the way it slicks on the glass, it’s like nothing else I’ve ever seen. Anyway, that’s what this did. And I was sure it was used oil, but I have no idea to this day what it was. But he laid his machine gun down and grabbed that one with it. black stuff in it. I don’t know how many other people have been shot with that needle, but he rammed that in my arm and shoulder up there and pushed down the plunger and put the whole shebang in my arm and pulled it out and threw it out in the jungle. And as he reached for the other trench to give me another shot for the other smallpox is what it’s supposed to be. His face went into just muscles, just went into cramps. He began to yell frantically and wave and go, go, go. He wanted me out of there just to win. And I’ve been reading in the Bible about Elijah. And he was down in Jerusalem and the Moabites were down there at the gates of Jerusalem and they were going to burn the gates of Jerusalem and go and kill all the Jews and go eat. Elijah was down there and he called on Jehovah that he would send his armies from heaven and this man those Moabites just turned and ran because these heavenly troops were just so fierce looking that they just ran and saved Jerusalem that way and that’s what this guy did I was just reading about that, and that I said to the Lord, Lord, these guys have gotten me, and my hope is in you, and I just ask you to help me out. About that time, this guy just kept hollering and motioning for me to go. He was frantic, and so I just turned around and started walking on that jungle trail again. Walked back up in the car and was still sitting there. They didn’t know what was happening to me, but they thought they’d wait a little while. And they took me back to Jakarta and I went on back to Singapore. But I know I was in Vietnam a couple weeks later and there was a missionary there in Vietnam. I was staying in a Christian missionary alliance mission home and they said, we know how you got out of there. He said, we’ve seen these villages in the highlands up there in Vietnam surrounded by the Viet Cong and All of a sudden, they’d just make a break and run back in the jungle. The next day, they had asked some of the people that lived in the jungle, who that other army was that was around them. And they said, there was another army there. And they said, yes, there was. They were the first spoken army we’d ever seen. These missionaries had been working for years in Jakarta and in Indonesia. They said, God sent his forces, just like he did in the days of Elijah, his heavenly hosts. And it just straightens these guys to death. And that’s what God did for you. He sent his heavenly hosts. And I was thinking that was the case. And I felt a sense that something was there. I even kind of laughed to myself.
SPEAKER 10 :
Don Whipple, that is a story that I think that we really needed to hear. We’re going to go to break. This is Kim Munson. We’re talking with World War II veteran Don Whipple. Paula Sarles is in studio. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 07 :
If you’d like to explore what a reverse mortgage can do for you, call Lauren Levy at 303-880-8881. That’s 303-880-8881. Call now.
SPEAKER 08 :
You’d like to get in touch with one of the sponsors of The Kim Munson Show, but you can’t remember their phone contact or website information. Find a full list of advertising partners on Kim’s website, kimmunson.com. That’s Kim, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 03 :
From the mountains to the prairies,
SPEAKER 10 :
Welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. In the studio with me is Paula Saral. She is a Vietnam-era veteran, and she is raising money for the United States Marine Corps Memorial out here in Golden, Colorado. And how can people donate to help you?
SPEAKER 09 :
They can go to USMCMemorialFoundation.org, and there’s the Donate button or Buy a Brick.
SPEAKER 10 :
And as you are hearing the story of Don Whipple, World War II veteran, certainly be great to go over and contribute and help them out. Don Whipple, we only have a few minutes left in this show. And then we have just scheduled a part two for your interview, which will be great. But let’s talk about Iwo Jima. You were just a young kid. How old were you when you were landing on the shores of Iwo Jima? I was 17. 17 years old and a Marine. What wave were you in, Don Whipple? I went in the second wave. And what was it like when you went ashore?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I had a hard time realizing it was a real thing. So I had made so many landings, and we had trained so long for that. It was just amazing. We got up at 3 o’clock in the morning and got a big… holiday meal for breakfast and it was a Thanksgiving type menu of chicken and turkey and dressing and all of that greasy stuff and we ate that at 3 o’clock in the morning for breakfast and we went over to the side to this to get in this boat and take off. We had to the sea was kind of rough and We had to go out there and circle around and wait for a while. Rendezvous after we got loaded until everybody else that was in that wave got formed. Only seasick once in my life. And man, I just heaved all my breakfast. But it was just hard for me to realize this was a real thing. I just felt like we’d done so many trips like that. And it just seemed like another training trip and All of a sudden, it hit me that this is a real thing. And there was an airplane up above that sputtered a couple times. And that whole landing was so choreographed, it was just like a Broadway show. And it was amazing. The battleships had been there, peppering away on that island for hundreds of hours prior to this time. Those old battleships would light up like a torch. It looked like they were all afire when they’d have a broadside. And that thing would just be enveloped, and they’d have all four big old guns fired at the same time in flames. And in the dark, they would just light up the whole place. Then all of a sudden, 9 o’clock was HR. So we floated around out there to get our wave off. and then we started out towards the beach. All of a sudden, the battleships stopped about a minute before 9, and it was just, you could hear a pin drop, and the dive bombers began to come in. It was just choreographed so neat, and they began bombing the beach and dive bombing the beach, and fighter planes were in there strafing it, and that went on for just about maybe a minute, I don’t know what it was, but this plane, I heard it. I heard this plane. I looked up and I heard it sputter. A little Navy fighter plane. It was actually a lookout plane for the battleship to tell them where not to shoot and to shoot. And kind of an observer up there to tell them how they were doing and All of a sudden, that little airplane began to sputter, and he was just almost right over us. He was trying to get out of the way of all of our landing craft because he didn’t want to come down there, and I knew he’d probably been hit because it died out. A few seconds later, it did start up again. It went for just a little while, and then it began to sputter and died out for good, man. I looked up and I watched that thing and all of a sudden that nose began to dip down and the pilot, he was doing his best to get that thing out of the way of all of our boats. He knew he was going down. Being in communications, I got to hear that the aircraft carrier where he was at later broadcast and I got to hear it in the radio shack there on the that broadcast, and he was singing. I’m not, I can’t remember the song. He was singing a song, and I’m not having a wonderful day. And oh, it’s a very familiar little tune, and it just flopped out of my mind. And on the way over there, he had just gotten a card from his wife, a telegram from his wife. but she had just given birth to an eight-pound baby girl. Oh, my gosh. And I watched that plane, and it began to dip down and then begin to kind of whirl around and circle and dive down into the ocean. I watched it plunge into the ocean. And I thought, oh, what a sad thing, that little girl would never get to see her father. And he was killed. Oh, my gosh. That was kind of, and my first thought then was, because I was just so curious about all this stuff, I didn’t, i didn’t have any fear whatsoever i was just so like a teenager right right i just was so caught up in all of this stuff and finally it dawned on me this is for real these guys are out to kill us yeah and i remember saying that just right out loud man this is for real this isn’t training yeah and from then on i was just coming into every experience was I’m amazed that this is for real. They’re out to kill us.
SPEAKER 10 :
Don Whipple, you know what? I’m going to stop right there. We’re going to have this be a cliffhanger for our part two of our interview with you. We’re talking with Don Whipple, World War II veteran at the Battle of Iwo Jima, and that’s just a chilling story what you just shared. Talked about the sacrifice. My friends, we have to think about the sacrifice that the men and women, American men and women, have done to stand against tyranny and to stand for freedom and liberty. So, Don Whipple, we are going to keep this as a cliffhanger. We will be doing a Part 2 interview with this that will be broadcast on America’s Veterans Stories very soon. We’ll let our listeners know about that. Don Whipple, thank you so much for… for sharing all this with us yep okay and paula sarles it is so great to have you in studio as well and as we’ve just heard this story and this this young pilot who crashed did everything he could to not hurt our guys to get out of the way and he just had a baby girl it just i don’t know what to say about that paula it gives chills It truly does. And that is one of the reasons that we tell these stories, because each story is unique and it’s important. And I can’t wait to do part two with Don Whipple. And before we sign off, I want to share a quote with you. From Chester Nimitz, Sr., he was the Fleet Admiral of the United States Navy. He played a major role in the naval history of World War II as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Ocean Areas, commanding the Allied air, land, and sea forces during World War II. He was born in 1885 in Fredericksburg, Texas, and he died in 1966. And as he was watching what was going on on the beaches of Iwo Jima, he said this. Of the Marines at Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue. And my friends, we stand on the shoulders of giants. This is Kim Munson with America’s Veterans Story signing off. God bless you and God bless America.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
SPEAKER 01 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
