In this episode of Retirement Unpacked, join Al Smith as he delves into the essential financial tasks to consider before the end of the year. He emphasizes the need to act quickly on Required Minimum Distributions and potential IRA conversions to avoid last-minute rushes in December. Additionally, Al shares details about an upcoming event focused on essential tax strategies for retirement, aiming to equip listeners with the right tools to reinforce their financial futures.
Welcome, and thank you for tuning in to another program of Retirement Unpacked, where I try to provide information that you’re going to find either useful or entertaining, or maybe even a little bit of both. We’re nearing the end of the year, and I had an entire program about things that you need to do before the end of the year, and I won’t reiterate all of that. I will, however, remind you, if you are taking RMDs, that needs to be done before the end of the year. If that’s something you need helpful with, you can reach me at my office at 303-744-1128. Also, If you have been thinking in terms of converting part of your traditional IRA to Roth, that also needs to be done before the end of the year. And most of the financial companies, places like Fidelity, Edward Jones, Charles Schwab, places like that, they get extremely busy the last few weeks in December. So don’t wait forever. The last 10 days of the year to get these things taken care of. They could get taken care of at that time, but you’d be on hold and at the mercy of companies who are getting literally millions of phone calls at that time. So those are things you want to take care of while it’s still November. No question. I’m going to be having an event on the 10th of January. It’s going to be a really good event at Arapahoe Community College, and the event will be titled Essential Tax Strategies for Retirement. It will be at Arapahoe Community College at 10 a.m. I will provide you the room number at a later date. It will last till 1130. It’s about 90 minutes, and there’s no charge. Again, Essential Tax Strategies for Retirement, January 10th at Arapahoe Community College. If you would like to attend, you could contact me at my office, 303-744-1128. I’m going to talk a little bit about a story about someone who was born well over 100 years ago. The man’s name was Alvin. I don’t know if he went by Al. Al is the name I use. My full name is Alan. He was born in December 13th of 1887 in a small town called Pall Mall, just like the old cigarettes, Pall Mall, Tennessee. He was the third of 11 children. And their community in this small town in Tennessee, Pall Mall, was so small they didn’t have a lot of stores or things of that nature. They grew their own food and they made their own clothing. Alvin attended school for, excuse me, only nine months. and he was also very religious. His father died in 1911, and as a result, when he was a very young man, he had to learn to do logging, he worked on the railroad, he fished, and he also ended up getting in bar fights, and he had some run-ins with the law, so to speak. until he attended a revival and joined the Church of Christ in Christian Union, it’s called. The full name of the church is the Church of Christ in Christian Union. And that church kind of changed his life. The church was very much against war. It was against cussing, dancing, and even modern literature. Alvin taught Sunday school there. He was an elder in the church, and he was also a hymn leader. And this was about the time, this was 1917 or somewhere around that time, and there was a draft. And he was obligated, of course, to register for the draft. And he registered as what is called a conscientious objector. And folks like that were either not included in the draft, or if they were drafted, they often got jobs like a medic or something like that. And in the government’s evaluation, of his declaring as a conscientious objector, they didn’t recognize the Church of Christ in Christian Union because it had very few members and it was only in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio. Alvin was drafted in 1917, and he was in the 328th Infantry Regiment in the 82nd Infantry Regiment. Division. His battalion commander, ironically, was a biblical scholar. And in spite of Al’s being a conscientious objector, his battalion commander said it is not against the Bible to do things of the nature of war. And he made a reference to Luke 36. And Luke 36 has a quote, “‘He that hath no sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one.'” And Al was sort of convinced that there is a place for war, not that it’s important for people to make war or anything like that, but it’s important to defend freedom. And that’s kind of what he believed. And not long after that, after he was drafted, about September 26, there was a line in France. This is in World War I. And it was a big, big event called the Meuse slash Argonne Offensive. That term Argonne was used also in World War II. A lot of fighting took place there. 1.2 million Americans were involved in this offensive. This started September 26th. By November 11th, there were 26,000 Americans killed 95,000 wounded. France lost 70,000 soldiers. Germany lost 28,000. So this was, you know, World War I was extremely, extremely bloody, and if you’ve ever read or done anything and researched World War I, there was what was called trench warfare. Some days and weeks, either side ended up… getting very little advantage because when anyone poked their head out of a foxhole, they’d be shot. And the Germans held these machine gun nests, and they had these positions near what was numbered as Hill 223. And Alvin’s unit was, you know, told to attack these German positions, but there was a problem. The map that they were given was in French, so they ended up in a place where they weren’t necessarily wanting to be. It was behind German enemy lines. And there were only a small number of Americans. The machine gun nest initially killed nine Americans, including Alvin’s closest friend and also a sergeant who was leading this group. And as a result, Al or Alvin, as he was called, had to take command. And so he took this machine gun nest by surprise. The machine gun killed nine people. But he ended up taking this machine gun nest in spite of the fact he. 25 of the Germans were killed, nine by Alvin himself. He, as a very young man, was a really good shot in Tennessee, and this served him well in the military. So after they had advanced and taken this machine gun nest, Alvin told his other troops to guard the… They had taken prisoner, the Germans, while he went out to take on the remaining machine gun nests by himself. And when he advanced on one of these machine gun nests, First Lieutenant Paul Juergen Vollmer said, who was in charge of one of these machine gun nests. He was the German. He was in the 1st Battalion, 120th Landwehr Infantry. He tried to swing around his machine gun to kill Alvin, but he was unable to, so he pulled out his handgun, his pistol, and completely emptied it. He missed every shot. At that point, this lieutenant surrendered, He also surrendered 132 men. And as a result, the Americans were able to reach their objective, which was called the Decoville Road, and that ended up being an enormous accomplishment. And he was… recommended by a general for a medal, the general spoke to him and said, I heard you captured the whole German army. And Alvin said, no, I only captured 132. He was promoted to sergeant. At this time, he was only a corporal. And he received what’s called the Distinguished Service Cross, And after the war ended, there is a journalist named George Petullo. He worked for the Saturday Evening Post, and he had heard this story of Alvin, and he went to the actual battlefields. He went to France, and he researched it. As a result, the Saturday Evening Post published a story on April 26, 1919. And once this story was published, Alvin’s Distinguished Service Cross was elevated to the Medal of Honor. All total, Alvin got 50 different medals, some from the United States, some from other countries because of his tremendous, tremendous bravery. When the war was over, which was Armistice Day. We’ll talk a little bit about that in a few minutes. He returned to the United States, and many offers were made for him to promote various products, and he declined all of those offers. Instead, what he did is he gave talks. He was not a renowned speaker, but after these events, he was paid to speak. And the money that he was paid, he used to build a Bible school and to build a road. and the small city or village or whatever you want to call it in Tennessee called Pall Mall did not have a road going to at that time. Right now, the road is called the Alvin C. York Memorial Highway. You’ve just heard the story of Sergeant York, and he did not become a sergeant until after he had did these tremendous harrowing tasks that achieved him the Congressional Medal of Honor. We’re going to talk a little bit more about Veterans Day and a few other things that I believe are important right after the break.
SPEAKER 01 :
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Welcome to the second half of Retirement Unpacked. Again, thank you for tuning in. We were talking about what I believe is the really interesting story of Sergeant York. And if you’d like to learn a little bit more about that, there’s lots of information on the Internet. There is also a movie called And the movie was the biggest box seller of 1941 called Sergeant York. And Gary Cooper had the lead in that movie. I still remember seeing the movie, and it portrayed Sergeant York. as kind of a backwoods Tennessean, which he was, but he was a tremendously good shot, as was evidenced by his ability to take on those machine gun nests in World War I. But one of the reasons I wanted to talk about that is we have a great debt for all of our veterans, all of those who have served for many, many years. And many have given their lives, which is why we also celebrate Memorial Day. But how did this all come about? You might be wondering, is Veterans Day just a day when Veterans might get a free lunch somewhere, something like that. That’s not the case at all. Veterans Day started off as something called Armistice Day. And Armistice Day is November 11th, 1919. What’s unusual about that is Armistice Day began on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. which there’s a lot of irony in that. Any one of you who are a numeral files that like the irony of numbers and how they all kind of work together, it was called Armistice Day. President at that time was Woodrow Wilson, and he proclaimed that day to honor those who had served. It became a legal holiday in 1938. And it wasn’t until 1954 that they changed the name of it from Armistice Day, which was celebrating the end of World War I, to Veterans Day. And the purpose of that is to honor all veterans. veterans, not just veterans of World War I. And in 1954, there were a lot of veterans from both World War II and World War I. One of the things that’s done every year, and you may see it on TV, and I’m sure we’ll be seeing, you know, President Trump do it. I know All the presidents have done it in the past. And that is placing a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier. And that happens at Arlington National Cemetery. Now, what’s interesting is before 1921, the tombs of the unknown they were not buried or honored at arlington national cemetery they were in one of two places in westminster abbey in England or in the Arc de Triomphe de Paris. It wasn’t until 1921 that they honored the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and it’s common that there be a big floral wreath there and so forth but we clearly set aside this day to honor veterans and this entire week is something I think we should honor veterans and earlier in the show we talked about Sergeant York who is sort of the epitome of veteran bravery the epitome of how soldiers can you know what they can overcome with the bravery that they have clearly shown. And I think in our country, we are truly blessed to have all the many people who volunteer because we’ve had an all-volunteer army for a significant number of years. I believe, I don’t recall the precise date, but I believe shortly after Vietnam, The draft was abolished, and now our military, all our military, is a completely volunteer military. Also, this year there is a new branch of military called Space Force. And I don’t have any specific information on that. I haven’t prepared information on Space Force. But with the amazing technology that’s going on with satellites and space travel and things of that nature, I think it is common sense for us to have a Space Force as well as the Army, the Navy. The Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the Coast Guard, I think having a Space Force in addition to those branches of the military makes a lot of sense. And if you’re not a veteran or you don’t have one in your families and in your family, take someone out to breakfast, out to lunch. Thank him or her for their service. Because right now there are veterans who are struggling, who are homeless. There are some who are suffering PTSD and so forth. I know I see advertised a lot, T2T, tunnel cancer. to towers that is something that helps veterans as well as firefighters from 9-11 and it helps those who families of those who have lost a loved one either a veteran or a first responder, there are things that you can do out there to help veterans organizations. But if you know someone, just thank him or her for their service. Because it is an all-volunteer military that we have right now, and so it means someone has to make an actual decision. I want to serve our country, whether it’s… You know, going into a war kind of situation, some of those who were highly trained, Navy SEALs, things of this nature, to people who are extremely important in areas of technology. And I have a client whose son is a Navy SEAL, and he has about two years before he retires. And I foolishly had the conversation with his mother asking her, well, has he had any deployments? And she told me, well, I never hear about them until after they have taken place. And I thought to myself, well, I can’t imagine a Navy SEAL saying to his mother, hey, Mom, guess where we’re going on our next expedition. I don’t think that’s a likely conversation. in any event we have a great deal of thanks for those who have served and i think that transition from armistice day honoring the end of world war one to veterans day is a reason we have something all to celebrate and celebrate and not only celebrate but to to commemorate And I think it’s extremely important. We have, I don’t know the precise number, but I believe it’s in the millions. And they, you know, put their lives out there. The Coast Guard, for example, is not talked about very much. But the training that Coast Guard people go through is, in order to have the skills to rescue people out on the ocean and so forth, that’s tremendous. That’s something we all can be very, very proud of. So I think this week, put your arm around a veteran. Buy them a cup of coffee. Buy her lunch. Express your… gratitude for the sacrifice they have made. If you’re an employer and you have the opportunity to hire that vet, you can be reasonably certain that that person has been trained and will have a sense of discipline that would not be available outside of our military. Well, hey, listen, thank you for listening to another program of Retirement Unpacked. I hope you enjoyed it. Again, let’s thank the Lord for our country, for the veterans who have protected our country. an interest in having a conversation with me call 303-744-1128 and if you’d like to hear more about the tax event coming up january 10th give my office a call god bless you thank you for listening and hopefully you’ll be here next week
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But are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents.
