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Join Kim Munson in this heartfelt episode of America’s Veteran Stories as she sits down with Roger Mangan to discuss the incredible life of his stepfather, Louis Mangan. A WWII veteran, Louis’s journey from Northern Africa to the Rhine River is filled with brave encounters and a deep commitment to his fellow soldiers. Roger vividly recounts his stepfather’s journey, sharing personal stories of courage, family bonds, and the lasting impact that one man can have on the lives of many.
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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.
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And welcome to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. The show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France, for the 72nd anniversary of the World War II D-Day landings, which liberated Europe. Return stateside realizing that we need to know these stories. We need to record them, broadcast them, and archive them. Hence, America’s Veterans Stories. And I’m pleased to have in studio with me Roger Mangan, who is a great sponsor of the Kim Munson Show. He is a state farm… This has been in business. It’ll soon be 49 years, you think? 49 and a half, July 1st. 49 and a half, July 1st, yes. Oh, my gosh. I’ve been saying 48 years, but 49 and a half. It’s pretty remarkable. And it’s really because you and your team strive for excellence as you are serving your clients. And what you’ve done with this career is truly amazing, Roger Mangan.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you very much, Kim. You know, it’s amazing to me when I think about when clients come into the office. I had a client yesterday who’s been with me for 30 years and she had several life insurance policies and everything. We had to check beneficiaries. We had to make sure her payments were correct. And it took about an hour and a half. But I think the service we provide is unusual in that we really focus on somebody who needs help at the time as opposed to just writing a policy and forgetting them. It’s really… Up to the insured to put some pressure on your agent because your agent has a lot of policies. And if you just ignore contact with your insurance agent, sometimes things slip by. And, really, I would just admonish people to take time, give a call, and say, hey, how does my portfolio look? My home, my car, my umbrella, my life insurance? Bring me up to date, please. Wow, that would be a great call if I got that from a client. And I would be honored to respond. engage in that kind of conversation.
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Well, and if someone’s not a client of yours now, they can give you a call and make an appointment. It’s complimentary to be able to go over their insurance coverage. And you’re always helping people as new clients, yes?
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Yes, yes. And I had one of your clients call me. I need to get back with her. And she was very grateful that she was able to talk to me somehow people have the feeling they only have to talk to team members but if you ever want to talk to me you tell my team members i really want to speak directly with roger and i was trying to help her but she was a little over 65 so i couldn’t put her into something that really would have helped her with her business on the disability side So, but I’m just tickled pink when my clients call me and ask to talk to me directly. And yes, we do pick up a lot of wisdom over 49, almost 50 years. So not bragging, but at the same time. A lot of stuff is in this head, okay?
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I know that there is. If people want to make that complimentary appointment, what is that best phone number?
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You know, please call us at 303-795-8855, and we can help you anywhere in Colorado or Arizona, okay?
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Okay. So let’s get over here to our subject, and that is your stepfather. Louis Mangan, and he served in World War II. So tell us a little bit about Louis.
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Louis, my stepfather, adopted me and my other two brothers when we were, I was 11, my other brother was 13, and then the younger one, Jimmy, was nine. And he married my mother two years after the divorce. They knew each other in junior high school. Lou went his way, never got married. When he married my mother, he was 33. And it’s interesting, my parents, biological parents, were married 16 years and were divorced at age 33, I believe. So they got married when they were 16 and 17 years old back in the day. But the marriage didn’t work out, and Gene and Lou started dating. And then when they got married, the question came up, what do we do with the three boys? And my dad, Lou, said, I’d like to adopt them. So before my name was Mangan, it was Scolio, a good Sicilian name. And my dad gave us up for adoption, and Lou was the… pillar of our youth and our early teenage years. I had a rough life with my biological father. He was just not focused on raising a family. Lou was honored to be a father. He had children with my mother after they got married, two children. But anyway, Lou was… He was a mechanical engineer. He loved us, treated us like his own children. Never thought of him as a stepfather. So ultimately, five children then.
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Yes, five children. Okay. But before he married your mother, he fought in World War II. So tell us about that.
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Yeah, interesting. He was a mechanical engineer and…
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Pearl Harbor.
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Thank you. When Pearl Harbor occurred, he was… Keep in mind, he was the only boy in a family of eight. There were seven sisters. So for him to go as the lone son of his father and mother was a tough decision. But he enlisted… Yes, he enlisted when he was 24 years old. So in boot camp, he was the old man among the 18, 19-year-olds. And he was in the Army, foot soldier, infantry, along with ordnance and maintenance. Interestingly enough, when he left for Europe… He left on a cruise ship out of New York, headed down to South America and then across to Africa, where the Allies invaded northern Africa, French north Africa. And I’m not sure how much history we want to get into, but the Germans occupied a good part of north Africa and trying to tie up the Suez Canal to keep oil flowing or not flowing to the Allies or flowing to themselves. So he landed near Morocco. And from northern Africa, his outfit went to Sicily, then Italy, then Corsica, then southern France. And by the time he got to the Rhine River, which would have been two and a half years later, the war was over. When the war was over, he ended up going abroad. into Dachau and it was one of the first groups to go in there and see the prisoners that had been many of them being exterminated and at Dachau there wasn’t much extermination compared to other camps but I’ll tell you a side story a little later about a trip we made to recount or retrace his battle steps. When he was like 72 years old, we went… I invited him to go to Europe to revisit where he had fought. And he said, yeah, I’d love to do that because he had some good memories, some bad memories. So we made that trip and… What year was that you did that? That would have been about 1989. He would have been 73, and I was in my mid-50s. And we flew into Rome. We rented a car, drove down to southern Italy. We did not go to Sicily, of course. We didn’t go to Africa, but we got to Anzio and we got to Salerno, both cities. beach heads for the Allies invading Italy in 1942. So it was a interesting trip. When we got to Anzio, we were looking for the beach. There was no beach, like in America. This is a resort town, and condos were built right out to the ocean or to the sand. So you couldn’t see anything of a battlefield, and there were no monuments. Of course, you never build a monument if you lose a war. The Italians lost the war, so there was nothing commemorating anything at Anzio. Salerno was basically the same thing. And one of the stories he told me when he was at… anzio the germans pinned down the allies the general can’t remember his name didn’t uh they took the beachhead but they didn’t move inland he was waiting to make sure that he could secure the beachhead the germans had a chance to counter attack and they pinned them down on the beach for a long time and many thousands of americans were lost in that battle the um One of the things he told me, and this isn’t something most Americans would think about, that Americans would do, but there was a German sniper that had pinned down the troops on the shore and killed several of them right in front of my dad. picking them off one at a time. And then finally the sniper surrendered when they brought in the tank. And when the German snipers started walking toward the tank, the machine gunner, opened up on this sniper and said, you know, your end is here. Kind of sad to think about, but that’s war.
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Well, and the other thing, so Roger, I’ve always been very interested in history, but it wasn’t until I went to Normandy, in 2016 and started to really understand these battles. So many of the guys with the battle at Normandy, they were young guys. They had not really seen battle. As you’re talking about your stepfather, Louis Mengen. So he’s in two and a half years. He’s in Northern Africa and then he’s in all of these battles going through Italy all the way up. And I got interested in doing this. I think I maybe interviewed one guy that was at INSEO. So this is all somewhat new information for our listeners to think about those earlier battles and what that meant. Two and a half years that he was out there on the battlefield.
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Yeah, when you think about it, I know he told me that, you know, you start with a platoon. In a platoon, there’s about 40 to 42 troops. And… He and one other guy from Africa to the border of the Swiss border, just before they were going to enter into Germany and cross the Rhine, there were only he and one other guy left in that platoon. All the others had been either wounded or killed. So he was a very, very lucky guy. And, uh, And there was a time that he jumped in a trench because a shell was coming in. And some guy jumped on top of him. And for some strange reason, my dad survived. The guy on top actually died from the impact of the blast. And normally it’s the other way around. The guy that’s closest to the ground is the one that gets the shock waves and dies. So he was a very, very lucky man.
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Was he injured at any time during these battles? No, he had no injuries that I am aware of. Wow. Yeah, amazing. That is really remarkable. I’m talking with Roger Mangan about his stepfather, Louis Mangan, who served in World War II, started in Northern Africa in battles for two and a half years, one can only imagine. And I did want to mention the USMC Memorial Foundation, which is located, well, the memorial is located right here in Golden, Colorado. And, guys, during this next week, I would really recommend that you make a contribution in honor of our military, those that have given their lives, been willing to give their lives for our liberty. And, of course, the story of Louis Mangan is rather remarkable. So we will go to break. We’ll be right back.
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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.
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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.
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Welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. And Hooters Restaurants has been a great sponsor of both the Kim Munson Show and America’s Veterans Stories for many years. They have five locations, Loveland, Aurora, Lone Tree, Westminster, and Colorado Springs. Great specials for lunch and happy hour Monday through Friday. Be sure and check that out. in studio with me is roger mangan he is the uh a state farm agent has been in business it’ll 49 and a half years which is pretty remarkable and roger we’re talking about your stepfather lewis mangan who was in battles for two and a half years in world war ii amazing yeah very lucky guy he uh certainly saw a lot of his comrades uh lose their life and
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Just totally lost. Let me tell you a story about something he shared. And this is a continuation of the trip that we made, he and I made back to Italy when he was 72 and I was in my mid-50s. We’d flown to Rome, rented a car, went down to Anzio, went to Salerno. And then after that, his outfit went back up toward Rome. It was divided. Some of them went to the Battle of Monte Cassino And others went to refit and reorganize behind, hiding behind the island of Corsica because they were going to invade southern France. And I think they called that invasion Operation Ando. the purpose of which was to divide the German army. So in June of 1944, they invaded Normandy. So to split up the German forces, about three months later, they invaded southern France. And that was the only time I saw him cry. And I said, what’s going on, Dad? Anyway, he said, on this beach… This is in southern France? Southern France. And, you know, you’ve heard of Saint-Tropez. If you have ever been in France, it’s a resort, beautiful resort, wealthy resort town. And so he was on the beach in that area. And they landed, and the Germans didn’t have much control of the air, but there was enough where a dive bomber came in, and the bomb was dropped and skidded across the sand on the beach. The sand dune at the end of the beach blew up. And at that time, there were American troops around, and they were buried alive in the sand. And that’s when he cried. He couldn’t. He had such terrible memories of that event. And even though that battle was not anything like Normandy, and by the way, Normandy being a very, very pivotal battle, we lost about 4,500 troops in that invasion. A lot of people think, wow, it was the biggest invasion, lots of loss of life. But I think if you read the history of World War II, The battles, there was a small amount of deaths compared to other battles that were fought. So another battle we’ve all heard about is the Battle of the Bulge, which was Germany’s last effort to crush the Allied advance in Europe. In that battle, there were over 20,000 Americans killed. that died compared to Normandy where there were 4,000 to 5,000 that died. So in terms of scope and the number of people involved who died, it’s amazing. And you think about World War II, we’re talking about 20, 30 years. 60 million people that died, depending on how you want to count people. But when you put civilians in there, there were a lot of, the first war war civilians were targets because they were part of the effort, the home front effort to keep the war going. And I know the Russians lost something like 19 million people in World War II. Millions. And the Japanese, of course, we as Americans, I think our casualties or our losses were in the $500,000 range. So everybody paid their fair share, certainly, in World War II.
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And every one of those lives, Roger Mangan, somebody loved them. That was somebody’s husband or father or brother or son on both sides of the battle. War is a terrible thing. Absolutely. I wanted to go back to Operation Anvil because I focused a lot on Normandy because that’s where I went in 2016. But there was this invasion in southern France, and I’ve had listeners that reach out and say, hey, this was an invasion in southern France. It doesn’t get much attention. And they did change the name from, it was initially, it was Operation Anvil, and it was changed to Operation Dragoon. And it was on the southern side of France. Normandy was on the north. And the fact that your stepfather was in that battle, and…
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such memories there did he have what you would call these days ptsd no like most world war ii vets he never ever talked about it it was just something that was part of that culture at that time. He might have had it, but it was never manifested in front of us, the boys. I think he talked to my wife more than he talked to us. When there were cooking in the kitchen, once in a while he would He would have a flashback and kind of describe things that went on. Which brings me to an interesting and very, very sad commentary. When the Germans, in the SS, who were in southern France, okay, so the Vichy government, which was very… A pro-Nazi government set up by the Nazis. In France, right? In southern France, yeah. In northern France, the Germans occupied. But in southern France, they created a Vichy government run by the French and under the control of the Germans. So as they were heading out of southern France up to Normandy to support the German troops, the German SS, the Wassen SS, were very handpicked, very cruel people. they wanted to teach a lesson to the French in terms of not organizing any resistance. So there’s a town in southern France called Oradour-sur-Glen. O-R-A-D-O-U-R. Oradour-sur-Glen. That was a town of about 600 people, and the major general… Named Lammerding, L-A-M-M-E-R-D-I-N-G, Lammerding. And this is a German? German, yeah, Nazi. He had 200 troops. He encircled this town of Oradour-sur-Glen and lined up all the men in the town square, separated them into two or three different groups, barns or houses and they machine gunned them down. They just killed them. It was certainly a war crime. They took the women and the children and they put the women and the children in the church, closed all the doors and burned them alive. This town today is a national memorial. If you ever go to France, you should go here. Because when you go into the town, everything has been kept as it was when that happened in 1942. So, excuse me. In 1944, probably. 1944, excuse me, yeah. So Normandy had occurred. The Germans were now divided between the Russian front, the southern front, and Normandy, okay. So the German SS wanted to teach anybody in the resistance a lesson and literally killed women and children, burning them alive in this church. So when you go to this town, It’s like going back in time. Nothing was changed. All the houses, all the cars from that era were there. It’s like going into a museum and thinking how atrocious can a human being be against another. And there was one survivor, I think a young person from that church, to recount the stories. But there was no survivors except this one person.
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Well, and that’s amazing that there was one survivor to that. I had not heard that, Roger Mangan. And it is, we look at this, I think, sometimes, and we think of this cruelty. And how could this happen? And… I think one of the ways that it can happen is if we start to look at people as members of groups instead of the beautiful individuals that they are that are created by God. Because then if you put people into groups and start to then define that group as an enemy… Then I think people can do atrocious things to individuals because they look at them as a member of a group instead of the beautiful individual that they are.
SPEAKER 05 :
Very well stated, Kim. I think I would agree with that 100%. I was looking up some numbers. Let me refresh these numbers for you so you can understand the import of this atrocity that happened in Oradours or Glen. There were 240 women and 205 children that were put in that church. So the Germans threw hand grenades into the church. They torched the church. And there were actually seven survivors. And the survivors… survived because they were under a body that was on top of them. The Germans came in afterwards to make sure everybody was dead. So it was a lesson that really backfired on them because The French resistance was steeled by this atrocious act.
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Well, and the fact that there were survivors that could tell the story of what happened. And again, you’ve got to stand against people that are pushing tyranny. I know… That even in this battle of ideas that we’re involved in today, Roger Manget, there are those that are saying, hey, if I just keep my head down, if I don’t make any waves with whatever is happening out there, then it’s going to be okay. That’s not the case. Because those that are bullies, those that are pushing tyranny, if you don’t stand up against them, they just become emboldened.
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You know, it reminds me of a lot of things. One is the rule of law. You know, we have laws in this country that were formulated by our representatives in Congress. And those laws were, we put a lot of thought and effort into those laws, going back to the time of our independence to today, in the last four years, five years, ten years. Whatever these laws are, we have to obey the law. If you don’t agree with the laws, then you need to change the laws through our system of shared governance as opposed to violence, you know, burning things down. It just behooves me that people, if you don’t get your way, then you’re going to pout and burn and pillage and do everything else because you’re upset with an election or you’re concerned about it think it’s time for us to say hey we’ll take a look at your side of the equation but while we’re doing that or your side of the argument uh while we’re doing that we need to say okay we have a system a process to address this so let’s use that system and by the way we’re the only country on the face of the planet that has given its citizens the power to make change and um Any place you go, you can go to China, you can go to North Korea, you can go… I remember the first time I went to Spain as a young man. Spain was a beautiful country. Found out a lot of things about… This was my first European trip in 1977. And loved the people. Everything seemed so quaint. It was like history had stopped. Some of these places haven’t changed in hundreds of years. And got back to the United States. And for some reason, I thought, am I so lucky to live here? Where opportunity and progressiveness, where we are always trying to improve what we’re doing. We have a mantra in this country that no other country really possesses on a grand scale. Every country has its own. little circle of very progressive, dynamic, and intellectual people who are trying to move society into the future, keep up with what’s going on. But in this country, it’s almost the opposite. It goes so fast, we wish it would slow down because it can overwhelm us. But going back to my first trip to Europe, coming back to the United States, I was ready to kiss the ground. I didn’t quite do it, but it was, thank God I live in the United States.
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Well, it is an amazing country, and we’re going to continue the discussion about Roger Mangan’s stepfather, who served two and a half years, all those battles coming up from northern Africa all the way up to the Rhine River. What an amazing story. And we get to listen to this because of our sponsors.
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God bless America.
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And welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. And do check out the website for the Center for American Values. That is AmericanValuesCenter.org. The center is located in Pueblo, which Pueblo is known as the home of heroes because there are four Medal of Honor recipients that grew up there. One of those Medal of Honor recipients is Drew Dix, who is a co-founder of the Center for American Values, and he’s got a great podcast series, which is Words from the Silo. And you can check all that out by going to AmericanValueCenter.org, AmericanValueCenter.org. And in studio with me is Roger Mangan. We’re talking about his stepfather, Louis Mangan, who fought in World War II two and a half years. He didn’t have any leave to come home during that two and a half years, did he?
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, no. Not at all. No, no, not at all. That’s for sure. It’s interesting. One of the things, so he started in Africa, was involved in the invasion of Sicily, then Italy, at Anzio, and Salerno, and then part of his unit went up to Monte Cassino, and ultimately in France. And as the war ended, he was in France. He was in a small town called L’Anne-le-Saunier. which is a small village near the Swiss border on the way to the Rhine. And in that little town, His company, his group, was stopped there for two weeks. And usually they never stopped anywhere for two weeks. So during that two-week period, he got to meet some of the French citizens of that little town and became very attached to them. There were three couples, three married couples, and they were winemakers and winegrowers. So in my dad’s wallet, he had a label of wine. And on the back of that label, he wrote the address of this house. And he used to show that to me from time to time. It didn’t mean much to me at the time. But when we made our trip back to Europe together… when he was 72 years old, he had that label and he wanted to search out this town and these people. Well, we went to the town, we asked if these folks still lived in the same house, and of course in the United States the answer would be no, but these people, 37 years later, still live in the same house. So we knocked on the door, And lo and behold, the resident was a French man my age, actually, in his 50s. His name was Roger, which is Roger in French. And I’m Roger, so we chit-chatted a bit. And I explained to him as best in my French that I could. This is my dad. He spent some time with your family and a couple other families when he was here during World War II. And he said, well, five of the six have passed away. However, my mother is still here, lives in the third floor. It was like a fourth floor, four floor apartment unit. So. And she came down, and they were speaking to each other as best they could. It was all French and all English. And my dad, when he walked into this first floor, said, you know, behind that door right there is a garden shaft, and it’s really an air shaft. Because in Europe, when they’re building buildings like that, they have to get air flowing through. On the fourth floor, you want to have some fresh air, right? So this big air shaft, which is really a garden, he opened the door, and lo and behold, he remembered there was a garden, still a garden there. And I was amazed, you know, 31 years later, he can still remember this particular floor plan and how the house was laid out. Anyway, the survivor was Roger’s mother, and she came down. And I keep telling my wife, and this lady, you knew that in her day she was a beauty. She had beautiful flowing hair, great complexion, just wonderful features, and she was so kind. And she was so grateful to see my dad because one of the things that happened when he was there during those two weeks. They befriended him, they became good friends, and he took out his little label bottle, his wine label, and showed them the wine label and how he cherished it all these years, and he kept it. So we made that return journey. Anyway, he was standing with one of the people that had passed away on a corner, in the uh i can’t remember this fella’s name but he said i can’t believe it i can’t believe it and what he couldn’t believe is all the li uh ordinance that was coming down the street truck after truck tank after tank all of them going to the german border to the rhine which was another 40 miles up the road ready to invade Germany. And it was like, I felt so prideful that this guy was so impressed with our ability to bring all of this equipment in to free France from the German invaders. And this guy was so thankful to my father. And they got to be good friends. And then, of course, they passed away, and my dad was still alive, so he got to meet the survivor of this group of three families. And it was breathtaking, actually. We had lunch with him that day on the third floor. It was a young girl there who was learning English, and so we were able to get some good conversation going with her translating abilities.
SPEAKER 07 :
Roger Mangan, there is something remarkable about Americans. And when I was in Normandy, there was a story of one of the… Well, the guys that we were with, one of them, 101st Airborne, jumped in behind enemy lines. Two of them were on Higgins boats. One was a ramp operator. The other was a pilot on a Higgins boat, which first wave of Omaha Beach, which is known as Bloody Omaha. And then one of the guys was in the Army Air Corps bombing on June 6, 1944. But one of the guys… Ultimately, that we traveled with was from Holland. And there were 26 of us in the group. And we were at the Fields of Lafayette. I’ve told this story before, but I think that it’s important because it connects a dot here about Americans. And at the Fields of Lafayette, they have a big paratrooper base. jump in honor of D-Day. And so because we were with the vets, we were like we were with Elvis because the people of Normandy revere these veterans. And so we’re at the… At the fields of Lafayette, there’s a big viewing stand, and Ralph, the guy from Holland, comes over, and he says, Kim, there is a German World War II vet that’s here. He wants to talk to our guys. And he said, I was on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, and when the Allies were coming onto the beach, and there had been a firefight all day. What’s amazing is by the end of that day, we did have a toehold in Normandy. lots of casualties lots of loss of life but he said that it was later on in the day and there was a young american gi that came up on the the beach and i took out my carbine and i pointed it at him and i shot and i hit him in the gut and he went down on his and he took his helmet off went down on his knees fell face first turned over made the sign of the cross and he died and And he said, that changed my life. He said, up until that time, all I ever knew was Hitler, that Hitler was God. And here was this young man. who was across an ocean, away from the people that he loved, putting his life on the line for people that he didn’t know so that they could live freely. He said, it changed my life. He said, I deserted. I ultimately was captured, was sent to Siberia, sent out on missions that I should not have survived. But here I am all these years later wanting to let you know that that one action by that GI changed my life. So when you’re talking about your stepfather and him standing there with this man on the street in France with all of these ordnance going through, all of these men that are moving forward to go to the boundary there, the border between Switzerland and Germany, all of these men from the cities, towns, the villages, the farms, Of America, they put their lives on the line. It’s a remarkable thing to think about, I think, Roger Mangan.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, it sure is. I mean, you frame it so well. You know, when we left this small little town in France, we were heading toward the Swiss border, the German-Swiss border. And my dad was involved in the liberation of Dachau. So when we got to the border, I said to my dad, do you want to go to Dachau? He said, no, thank you. 31 years later, he still remembered the smell. The bodies piled up like cordwood on the railroad cars. I’m sorry, I get very emotional about this. And so we headed toward Heidelberg and ended up, Then going to Normandy… So we covered a lot of ground, and he was never involved in Normandy, but he wanted to see it. Was he involved in Battle of the Bulge at all? No, no.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Yeah. He was down still then probably to the south.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, they crossed the Rhine, eventually crossed the Rhine and got into Dachau, and it was, you know, there’s a side story. This is not involving my dad, but there’s a very famous story He was a major at the time. He actually was a war hero. He was an attorney here in Denver who passed away probably 10 years ago. But he was part of the Thunderbird group out of Oklahoma and Colorado, the National Guard. And he… He got a lot of battlefield commissions. He started as a lieutenant captain, the major, and he was involved in a lot of battles. And usually, you know, you get some R&R. He had been involved in I don’t know how many battles, got very little R&R. So he was in Dachau, and when they went into, there’s a, There’s a gate between the town and the concentration camp, and Steele rods and steel fences uh it says on top in german to work is to live okay so when you’re a prisoner you go in there you get assigned different jobs and so forth but you don’t know you’re you’re in a concentration camp where you may your life may end but in that concentration camp daco back in the time we were there it was very um not me and my dad, a different trip, but I don’t want to confuse you, but we didn’t go to Dachau, but this guy I’m talking about, this major, he was involved in the liberation of Dachau, and when he got through the gate, there were a bunch of German SS that lined up against the wall, put their hands up, and this guy went around the corner, and then he heard gunfire, and his outfit, actually, killed these German SS that were actually guarding these Jewish prisoners in this camp. But in this camp, it wasn’t just Jewish. It was Catholic. Anybody who opposed Nazism or Hitler, they had their own barracks, like for the Catholics, for the Jews, for the various, mostly Jewish prisoners. But anyway, he… He was, when he went around the corner, and again, this is not my dad’s story, but please listen to it because it’s very telling. He went around the corner, heard the gunfire, ran back, and that event had occurred. And in the meantime, through another gate at Dachau came a general who had the press corps with him and was looking for some kind of notoriety. This… came up to this major and said, hey, what’s going on here? And he says, I’m here to relieve you of your command, Major. And the major says, sorry, I have orders to secure this camp, and I cannot relinquish my orders to you. And the German or the American general said, you better do it or you’re going to get court-martialed in this case. I wish I could remember his name because he’s a hero in my mind. He took out his .45. He says, you see this? I don’t want to use it on you, but I have orders, and I am not going to relinquish this camp to you. So he says, well, you’re going to get court-martialed. The guy got court-martialed. And as the story goes, he lived in Denver until he died 10 or so years ago. Anyway, he got court-martialed, and in the court-martial tribunal, there was a general sitting there listening to the story. And this general happened to be Patton. And Patton said to this major, you were involved with me in Africa and Sicily, and you did a great job for me, and I really appreciate everything you did. Case dismissed. So… That’s a real story, and I don’t know if you know about the school, what’s the Catholic school? Regis? Yeah, Regis University up on Federal and 57th. They had a program. Every year, it was American war stories. And you could actually attend that as a student. And if you were a vet, you could go in there and sit and listen to it, the stories that were told. And all the wars that were in, from Korea to Vietnam to any first World War guys, 10 years ago, still alive, were telling their stories. World War II, certainly. But it ends up where you can go to this class, get credit, and these young people up in front of the class in this big lecture room with seats going up higher and back. You had all the vets in back and you had all the students in front. What an amazing, amazing program that was. I don’t know if it’s still going on, but if it is, it’s certainly worth attending. And did this gentleman tell his story? Yes, he told his story.
SPEAKER 07 :
Wow. Oh, gosh. Amazing story. Absolutely fascinating. And we have one more segment with Roger Mangan regarding his stepfather, Louis Mangan, and his fighting in World War II. We will be right back.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
From the mountains to the prairies to the oceans wide with fire.
SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. I’m talking with Roger Mangan, State Farm Insurance agent, has been in business taking care of his family and his clients and giving back to the community for 49 1⁄2 years. And that phone number if people want a complimentary appointment with Roger or a member of his team is 303-795-8855. Roger, we’re talking about your stepfather, Louis Mangan. And he was in those battles in northern Africa, went up through Italy, the invasion of southern France, the liberation of Dachau. And ordinary Americans can do extraordinary things. And he sounds like an extraordinary man to me. You got up to Normandy. You’re just about done with your trip. How long were you gone?
SPEAKER 05 :
We were gone about three weeks. A three-week trip. It’s interesting when you think about going as a soldier versus going as a tourist. I really hear, was this a place that I fought battles and everything looked so peaceful and so quaint? But at the tail end of our trip, yes, we did go up to Normandy. He wanted to see it because he was involved in the war, but never got close to Normandy. So we took a train from Paris to the Norman coast and traveled. He rented a car, went over to the battle site, and it was interesting to him. If you go to the cemeteries around Normandy, and there are several of them, not just the big national cemetery, he was struck by the German cemeteries, which were fantastic. also there, and they were so different. The American cemeteries had white crosses, a very brilliant sun hit them, and it just lit up the crosses. The German cemeteries were all carved in granite, and they were very… Very depressing, to be honest with you. And so we visited all the sites around Normandy. And one of the things that happened at night, we went to a hotel. And walking through the lobby of a hotel, probably around 7 o’clock at night, we overheard some people at a bar. And it happened to be the 50th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy. So a lot of people showed up. And we were not even aware of the date.
SPEAKER 07 :
I wonder if it was probably the 55th, if it was 1989, I bet.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, okay, one of those anniversaries. So thank you. A big one. The 55th. So while we were there, we went to the room, kind of got organized, came back to the bar, and there was a… Someone from the Netherlands, a German, and also an Englishman. And the Englishman was a great storyteller, and he was telling the story about where they invaded on the Norman beaches. They certainly met a lot of resistance, but not as much as the Americans did at that time. juneau beach or in omaha yeah omaha beach so uh and it was 45 years i just did the math okay thank you thank you very much yeah okay i need that help the um anyway the the man from holland or the netherlands had he was a collector and he had a cigarette pack and in world war ii the cigarette packs were very thin there were three cigarettes in a pack opened them up passed it around everybody took a puff including me and i’m not a smoker so we we commemorated the event. The Englishman told some pretty ugly stories about his captain and his sergeant getting gunned down by a German half-track that came through down the hedgerows. And the hedgerows in Normandy are like eight to ten feet high or dirt is pushed aside and it actually surrounds the field and they would actually the german or the french farmers would would till that land but the the hedgerows were covered with trees and everything else you can it was very difficult to fight a battle so this half track came over these hedgerows and saw this english column coming down between the hedgerows and And he told a story of his sergeant that he loved and his captain were killed in that incident. So it was really interesting hearing firsthand some of the battles that were face-to-face with the enemy and not just something out of a history book.
SPEAKER 07 :
It really is amazing to bring this history alive. That’s why we do the show. And what’s your final thought? We’ve got a minute left, Roger Mangan, regarding this great story about your stepfather, Louis Mangan.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, Louis Mangan changed my life for sure. He was a rock-solid man. Never talked about the war, as most veterans never did. It was nothing to brag about or to tell stories about because it was so tragic. But because of him, I became who I am today. He was the bedrock of my life from age 11 through age 17 when I went away to college. But just that short period of six years, seven years, he made a big difference in my life, gave us stability, gave us love. And he gave us a lot of pride. We knew that he was such a fundamental part of a lot of people’s lives.
SPEAKER 07 :
And again, this is the story of Louis Mangan. And Roger, I really appreciate you sharing his story. I’m going to think about this really for a long time, about this young 24-year-old. He was the old guy at that particular point in time. So again, Roger Mangan, thank you so much for all that you do, for your support of our shows. We really definitely do appreciate it. And as we listen to these stories, you can find them at AmericasVeteranStories.com, we realize that indeed we do stand on the shoulders of giants. So my friends, God bless you, and God bless America.
SPEAKER 04 :
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 02 :
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.
